Isaiah 26:19

19. But in strong contrast with the preceding despair, the cheering word comes.

Thy dead men shall live Civilly, nationally, dead in Babylon, is the primary meaning. The tone changes from sorrow over the long national subjection to exultant joy in view of a speedy return to a higher national and spiritual life in Zion.

My dead body The Lord is speaking. “Subjected Zion being ‘my dead body,’” that is, being the dead of Zion, shall arise, shall have a spiritual as well as a civil resurrection. Alexander thinks this phrase to be unauthorized.

For thy dew… herbs The Lord’s “dew,” such as he sends upon herbs to refresh and make them thrive. “Dew” is ever the emblem in Scripture of a divine quickening an animating figure as in the East, where rain falls seldom, copious dews largely supply the deficiency. See Hosea 14:5.

Earth shall cast out the dead “Cast out,” a rendering of שׂפיל , ( taphil,) is a strong way of saying, “The earth shall precipitate, as by a convulsive act; that is, bring to the surface the dead;” a meaning which the verb necessarily bears here, as most expositors, even the rationalistic, agree. Such language could scarcely be used, except in view of the doctrine of the resurrection, not unfamiliar at this time. The language is clearly figurative, and borrowed from this doctrine. It is applied here to the Church, as good as dead in Babylon, but soon to have resurrection life in Zion. Figures are formed, not from things unknown, but from things or ideas before conceived of and familiar. Because Moses said little of a future life, and urged motives to obedience upon the Israelites from sanctions drawn from this side of eternity, is certainly no proof that he knew nothing of the doctrine of a future life. He dealt with people whose obedience to the law should rest first upon the essential righteousness of the law itself, and upon the reality of a holy, all-powerful Sovereign immediately ruling them. In like manner other doctrines the resurrection of the dead especially were held from direct statement and revelation till it should be practically seasonable for such statements and revelation to be made. In favoured minds in minds inspired and commissioned to teach the world, as were Moses, Isaiah, and the like no doubt doctrines latest needed in the world’s history lay at least in a dim premonitory outline in connexion with the whole scheme of redemption; and this outline came out in marked clearness as fast as the world’s mind should comprehend and need it. Numerous are the hints in the Old Testament that Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Job, David, Isaiah, and other prophets, knew of future life with its rewards and punishments, and of the resurrection of the dead, long before Persian Zoroastrianism had existence, from which rationalists allege the resurrective idea originated. The air of familiarity with this idea in our prophet’s easy allusion to it in the expression and figures here in question, leaves, so far forth, little opportunity for cavil.