Context No. 3203 of 4322 · Isaiah
Context · Reflection
Isaiah 26:17-21: in context
17Just as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain and cries out in her pangs, so we have been before you, LORD. 18We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any deliverance on the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. 19Your dead shall live. Their dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast out the departed spirits. 20Come, my people, enter into your rooms, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself for a little moment, until the indignation is past. 21For, behold, the LORD comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also will disclose her blood, and will no longer cover her slain.
Israel confesses its own helplessness with a vivid image: like a woman in labor who cries out in her pangs, we have been before you, LORD; we were with child, we writhed in pain, but we gave birth only to wind. We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth. And then, against that emptiness, a stunning promise: your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise; awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust.
The passage moves from the futility of human striving to the hope of resurrection. Israel labored like a woman in childbirth and brought forth only wind; no deliverance came from their own effort. And then God speaks over their helplessness: your dead shall live, awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust. This is a bright resurrection hope in the Old Testament. Where human effort produces only wind, God promises to raise the dead. Our salvation, in the end, is not what we achieve but what God does, even to the point of raising the dead to life.
When my own striving produces only "wind," do I rest in the God who raises the dead and promises that those in the dust will awake and sing?
Sources
- Isaiah 26:19: "Your dead shall live. Their dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust."
- Isaiah 26:18: "We have not worked any deliverance on the earth."
- 1 Corinthians 15:20: "But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the first fruits of those who are asleep."