Isaiah 26:16 (WEB)

Passage

Yahweh, in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.

Nearby Context

Isaiah 26:14 The dead shall not live. The departed spirits shall not rise. Therefore you have visited and destroyed them, and caused all memory of them to perish.

Isaiah 26:15 You have increased the nation, O Yahweh. You have increased the nation! You are glorified! You have enlarged all the borders of the land.

Isaiah 26:16 Yahweh, in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.

Isaiah 26:17 Just 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, Yahweh.

Isaiah 26:18 We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "yahweh", "trouble", "visited", "poured", "prayer", and "chastening". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "yahweh" and "trouble", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 15's "You have increased the nation O Yahweh..." into verse 17's "Just as a woman with child who...", so "yahweh" and "trouble" 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 "yahweh" and "trouble" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.