Глава 26

1–6. Glorification of the city of God. 7–12. Glorifying the ways of God, 13–19. which are aimed at the destruction of death and the establishment of eternal life among people. 20–21. The final words of the prophet. Isa.26:1–6. The victorious thoughts, which were heard first from afar (Is. 24:14, 16 et seq.), and then found an echo in Zion and among the nations coming to Zion (Is. 25 et seq.), have not yet ended. A new pious community of believers begins to sing a new song in the land of Judea, in which the ways of the Most High are glorified. This community has a strong city, to which only the righteous have access, while the wicked cities are all destroyed. Isa.26:1. In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; He gave salvation instead of wall and rampart. “In that day” – see Isaiah 2:11. "In the land of Judah." Although here, undoubtedly, we are talking about the future Church of Christ, which should embrace all humanity and spread throughout all lands, the prophet, as a member of the Old Testament Jewish Church, cannot imagine that the land of Judah would cease to be a place especially loved by God and especially protected by Him. "The City is Strong". The prophet, of course, is presented here first of all with Jerusalem. "Instead of a wall". The new city will not require particularly strong walls, for the Lord Himself will protect it from enemies. Isa.26:2. Open the gate; let a righteous people enter in, keeping the truth. “Truth” – perhaps more correctly: faithfulness (to the Lord). Isa.26:3. You keep him who is strong in spirit in perfect peace, for he trusts in You. Isa.26:4. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock: The prophet, turning either to God or to God's chosen community, expresses confidence that God is the only hope for man. Instead of the expression: “firm in spirit,” Nägelsbach suggests reading: “as a firm establishment.” The thought of the prophet, according to this interpreter, is that in the future city there should be various institutions and objects that serve to decorate the city and for the benefit of its inhabitants, and the most important institution will be peace, resting on a solid foundation or pedestal. The Lord Himself gives this strength to the foundation. Therefore, Nägelsbach translates the expression: “He trusts” as: “It (this world) is based on You.” Isa.26:5. He overthrew those who lived on high, the city that stood high; threw him down, threw him to the ground, threw him into the dust. Isa.26:6. Foot tramples him, the feet of the poor, the feet of the beggars. "Tramples on him". The prophet, as a man of the Old Testament, was no stranger to joy at the thought of the future defeat of the wicked. 26 Isaiah 26:7–12. The chosen community of saved righteous people expresses their constant trust in God, who prescribes His punishments to people with a corrective purpose. Unfortunately, the wicked did not understand this meaning of punishment and therefore they rightly suffer destruction. Isa.26:7. The path of the righteous is straight; You make the path of the righteous smooth. Isa.26:8. And in the way of Your judgments, O Lord, we trusted in You; Our soul yearned for Your name and the remembrance of You. “The path of the righteous is straight,” that is, the righteous goes to the goal along a straight, convenient and closest path. "You call". However, the Lord helps him in this. “On the path of Your judgments,” that is, in all the works of God, in all the terrible punishments that befell entire nations and individuals, the righteous saw for themselves support in their hopes for the final victory of good over evil. “To Your name and to the remembrance of You.” The righteous wanted the Lord to reveal His power so much that people would call Him by His real name (God Almighty and Savior) and so that the correct knowledge of Him would spread throughout the entire earth. Isa.26:9. With my soul I have longed for Thee at night, and with my spirit I will seek Thee within my being from early morning: for when Thy judgments are carried out on earth, then those who dwell in the world learn righteousness. “Soul... and spirit,” that is, with all your inner being. "I strived". The Prophet begins to speak in the singular to show that this desire is primarily characteristic of him personally. He experienced so many injustices on the part of people, and who, if not him, had to so often wish for the speedy appearance of God as the Judge of people! “Those who live in peace will learn the truth.” However, this desire of the prophet did not reflect anything like ordinary human vindictiveness. The prophet so ardently awaited the judgments of God because he hoped that once these judgments befell the earth, people would learn righteousness. Isa.26:10. If the wicked is pardoned, he will not learn righteousness; he will commit evil in the land of the righteous and will not look upon the greatness of the Lord. The prophet proves the truth of his views on the judgments of God from the negative side. If there is no judgment on wickedness, if the wicked is pardoned, then he will not change for the better and will continue to do evil, even while among the righteous, not paying attention to those facts in which the greatness of the Lord is clearly revealed to the righteous. Isa.26:11. Lord! Your hand was raised high, but they did not see it; Those who hate Your people will see and be ashamed; fire will devour your enemies. The prophet notices the approach of great events, but other people see nothing. It is this last circumstance that the prophet complains to the Lord. “Your hand,” he tells the Lord, “was raised to strike, but they don’t see it.” People, therefore, do not pay attention to signs (Matthew 24:37–39). But they will still have to admit their mistake when those events occur that were foretold by special signs from God, and this will bring them to shame. The fire of God's zeal - zeal for God's people - will consume these people who could see the danger, but did not want to see it. Isa.26:12. Lord! You give us peace; for You also arrange all our affairs for us. In contrast to the wicked, the pious eagerly await the day of God's judgment, as the day of their deliverance (Luke 21:28), as the day on which the Lord will give them complete peace or tranquility. “You arrange our affairs for us.” God was, according to the prophet, acting in the righteous as the beginning of all their thoughts, words and actions (Rom. 8 et seq.; Gal. 2:20). Isaiah 26:13–19. The prophet depicts people who are in the power of some alien force and cannot praise God, because for this they need to abide in God, to be closely united with God. These are the dead who, according to the generally accepted opinion, cannot return to life again, for God Himself destroyed them. This kingdom of death is spreading more and more. But even among the dead, the thirst for salvation has not completely extinguished: they seek the Lord and send their prayers to Him. Yes, in the kingdom of the dead there are noticeable efforts to return to life again - efforts as painful as the agony of a woman giving birth, but there are no results from these efforts. However, the hope of the dead is not in vain. At least the dead of the Lord will rise to life again under the influence of the miraculous Divine power. Isa.26:13. Lord our God! other rulers besides You have ruled over us; but through You only we glorify Your name. In the present form of existence, all people: both evil and good, are subject to the power of evil. They live under various sinful influences. The power of death and disease affects them especially hard. These are the other rulers that the prophet has in mind (cf. Rom. 8 et seq.). This is the meaning of the first half of the verse. In the second half, the prophet points out the abnormality of the above order of things. Every creature must glorify the name of its Creator (Ps. 18, 19, 103, etc.), and for this it is necessary that it be under the authority and service of its Lord and Creator, so that it dwells in Him. But this is impossible while she is in the power of another ruler, under the power of death (cf. Ps. 6:6). So, the prophet here introduces us to that region, which he further speaks about in more detail - to a region whose inhabitants serve not God, but another ruler, and cannot glorify the name of God. Isa.26:14. The dead will not live; the Rephaim will not rise, because You visited and destroyed them, and destroyed all memory of them. Isa.26:15. You have multiplied the people, Lord, you have multiplied the people, you have glorified yourself, you have expanded all the borders of the earth. "The dead will not come to life". The prophet expresses the general opinion of the Old Testament people that there is no deliverance from the bonds of death (Job.7 et seq.; Job.10:21; Job.16:22). “The Rephaim will not become wasps.” Those aggressors have become insignificant, powerless shadows (rephaim cf. Is.14:9; Proverbs 2:18; Proverbs 9:18; Job 26:5) can no longer rise to life - that’s what the ancient people said! 27 “Because You have visited... them.” That is, this is precisely why you visited them, etc. (the Hebrew word lachen has this meaning). The Prophet wants to say that this is precisely the purpose of death, so that those who have been subjected to it will no longer have the opportunity to come to life again. This is why God destroyed all memory of them. “You... multiplied the people.” We are talking about the same power of death. Because no one from the kingdom of death could return to life, the inhabitants of this kingdom (the people) are multiplying and multiplying in number. Sheol accepts more and more new residents, without letting go of any of the previous ones. This multiplication of the inhabitants of the kingdom of the dead is at the same time the glorification of God (he glorified Himself), for here the judgment of God over man is fulfilled: “you are earth, and to earth you will return.” (Gen. 3:19), the power of the Lord and the insignificance of man are proven (cf. Is. 5:14 et seq.). Isa.26:16. Lord! in distress he sought You; poured out silent prayers when Your punishment befell him. Isa.26:17. As a pregnant woman, at the onset of labor, suffers and cries out from her pains, so we were before You, Lord. Isa.26:18. They were pregnant, they suffered, and they gave birth like wind; salvation was not brought to the earth, and the other inhabitants of the universe did not fall. But even in the kingdom of the dead there is still a search for life and hope for an uprising - it does not fade away. Likewise, the dead, in their distress, seek the Lord, the source of all life (he sought You, that is, the people spoken of in verse 15). “He poured out quiet prayers,” that is, he vaguely whispered or muttered something, since a dead person cannot have a real voice (cf. Is. 8:19). "Like a pregnant woman". This is the speech of the inhabitants of the underworld. They say here what exactly was the subject of their quiet prayers to God. It was they who were tormented by the thought of the impossibility of returning to life and complained to God about this. “We were pregnant, we suffered.” Here the prophet probably has in mind Psalm 17, v. 5 and 6 (Ps. 17:5–6). David in this psalm compares his suffering to the torment of hell. He does not say that he himself was already dead and went to Sheol, but he states that he was extremely close to death, that he was already entangled in its nets. And in this need, he turned to the Lord in prayer and received salvation. The prophet sees in this the liberation that David received from the torments of hell, the basis for his assurance that redemption from hell is possible and that its inhabitants do not lose hope of liberation from the bonds of death. This hope awakens impulses in the inhabitant of the kingdom of death, which he compares with the painful attempts of a mother in labor, which, however, remain ineffective among the dead, because they are based only on their own efforts, and what strength do the dead themselves have to bring their desires into reality? Yes, there is a so-called false pregnancy, when a woman has external signs of pregnancy, but, of course, she does not give birth to anything. In the same way, the dead, without close organic communication with the Lord, cannot rise to new life. “They did not bring salvation to the earth” - perhaps it would be more correct to translate: “they did not bring happiness to the earth.” The earth, deprived of its inhabitants, taken from it by death, is also depicted as suffering, grieving for them, and it could only be happy if the dead returned to life again. “And the rest of the inhabitants of the universe did not fall” – perhaps more correctly from Hebrew. “no (new) citizens of the world were born.” From the afterlife no one came into the world again (the Hebrew verb naphal, translated in the Synod translation as the word pali, can also mean to be born). 28 Isa.26:19. Your dead will live, your dead bodies will rise! Rise up and rejoice, you cast down in the dust: for Your dew is the dew of plants, and the earth will cast out the dead. “Your dead will live, your dead bodies will rise!” These words, at first glance, contradict the initial words of the 14th “the dead will not come to life,” but the prophet here speaks of those dead who belong to the Almighty, who stand near Him, to whom He Himself is close, in whom He dwells. The Prophet himself, perhaps, did not clearly understand the full importance of the revelation communicated to him, and only in the New Testament is it made clear who these dead who belong to the Lord are. These are those in whom Christ abides and who therefore must be resurrected, just as He Himself was resurrected (1 Cor. 15ff; 2 Cor. 1:22; 2 Cor. 5:5; John 6:54). It is necessary to note that the prophet expresses this thought not as a desire, but as a confidence, otherwise in this place there will be no contrast to the 17th and 18th verses. Condamin adds the pronoun “them” to the expression “dead bodies,” according to the Targum and Pescito. “Arise and triumph, you cast down in the dust!” Here the prophet addresses words of consolation to those inconsolable dead, whose speech is given in verses 17 and 18. “For your dew” is an appeal to the Lord. On the morning of Resurrection, as usually happens on hot mornings in Palestine, dew will cover the ground. But it will be a new, miraculous, God's (your) dew! All these individual small shiny dewdrops will be nothing more than the resurrected light bodies of people, risen in a glorified form, which the earth that once swallowed them will give back. “Dew of plants” – possibly from Heb. more precisely: dew of lights (oroth) or light dew. 29 Isa.26:20. Go, my people, enter your chambers and lock your doors behind you, hide yourself for a moment until the anger passes; Isa.26:21. for behold, the Lord comes out of His dwelling to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will reveal the blood it has swallowed up and will no longer hide its slain. The earth will not only give up the bodies of godly people. It will also bring to light all the bloody crimes that are buried in its depths. This will coincide with the Day of Judgment. For a while, the community of the resurrected must hide, so that later, after its end, they can begin a new life. Here the prophet is already addressing the resurrected people. This, at least, can be argued on the basis of the Apocalypse, which distinguishes between the first and second resurrection. After the first resurrection (of the righteous), the release of Satan will take place, who will attack the city of God, and then the general resurrection (second) and the terrible final judgment will follow (Rev. 20). Where the righteous should take refuge during this time, in what chambers, the prophet does not explain. 30 The wrath that the prophet speaks of is obviously that terrible judgment that will fall on Satan and all the wicked (Rev. 20:9-15). “The earth will reveal the blood it has absorbed.” Here is a clear allusion to the blood of Abel, which the earth once drank with its lips (Gen. 4:11). The Apocalypse, in agreement with this prophecy, also says that the sea, death and hell will eventually give back their dead (Rev. 20:13). This verse gives the idea of ​​the resurrection of sinners, who, of course, must rise to life in order to be judged at the Last Judgment for their crimes and atrocities. Note. The Orthodox Church in verse 19 sees a prophecy about the resurrection of the dead, “Your Epiphany, O Christ, which mercifully came to us, Isaiah saw the light of the evening, and out of the morning you cried: the dead will rise again and those who are in the tombs will rise, and all earthly beings will rejoice.” This is how the church sings in the canon on Holy Saturday in the irmos of the 5th canto. It should be added that the 19th Art., like Art. The 9th 26th chapter of Isaiah is often taken to compile the irmos in the 5th song of the canons. In the Slavic translation of LXX and Isa. 26:6 - “And they will trample the feet of the meek and humble.” Note ed. The Slavic translation from the LXX says: “The dead cannot see their bellies, but the doctors will resurrect them: for this reason you brought them and you destroyed them, and you took away every man of their sex.” Note ed. The Slavic translation of verse 18 is perhaps much deeper and more symbolic: “For the sake of Thy fear, O Lord, we received in the womb and was sick, and gave birth to the spirit of Thy salvation, which He created on the earth: we will not fall, but all who live on the earth will fall.” Here it is possible to see a symbolic indication of both the immaculate conception and the earthly birth of the Messiah, who reveals the “spirit of salvation,” and the redemption by the sacrifice of the Messiah of all living. Note ed. In the Slavic translation, the idea of ​​resurrection is expressed more clearly and fully. So it is said that the dead will rise - in general, and not just the righteous - and those who are in the tombs or in the graves will rise. In addition, these dead are contrasted with those who will remain alive (those on earth) by the day of the Last Judgment. Likewise, the Apostle Paul distinguishes between those who have risen and those who will have to change without dying (1 Cor. 15:51). The Slavic translation says about this - “enter your church, shut your doors... Until the wrath of the Lord has passed” - a clear indication that only the one who ENTERS THE CHURCH, that is, the believer, can be saved from the wrath of God. Note ed. You might be interested in: