Isaiah 26:19 (LSB)

Passage

Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.

Nearby Context

Isaiah 26:17 As the woman with child draws near to the time to give birth, She writhes and cries out in her pangs of labor, Thus were we before You, O Yahweh.

Isaiah 26:18 We were with child, we writhed in labor; We gave birth, as it seems, only to wind. We could not accomplish salvation for the earth, And the inhabitants of the world were not born.

Isaiah 26:19 Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.

Isaiah 26:20 Come, my people, enter into your rooms And close your doors behind you; Hide for a little while Until indignation passes by.

Isaiah 26:21 For behold, Yahweh is about to come out from His place To visit the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth; And the earth will reveal her bloodshed And will no longer cover those of hers who were killed.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "Spirit", "dead", "live", "corpses", "rise", "dwell", "dust", and "awake". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "Spirit" and "dead", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 18's "We were with child we writhed in..." into verse 20's "Come my people enter into your rooms...", so "Spirit" and "dead" belong inside that flow. In Isaiah context, the local focus is the Holy One of Israel, judgment and restoration, the servant of the LORD, and Zion's hope.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "Spirit" and "dead" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.