Song of victory
1 On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city,
he himself has set up
walls and fortifications to protect us.
2 Open the gates!
Let the righteous nation enter,
she who is firm in faithfulness.
3 You keep in perfect peace
the one of steadfast mind,
the one who trusts in you.
4 Trust in Yahweh forever,
for Yahweh is an everlasting Rock.
5 He brought down those who dwell on high,
he laid low the lofty city,
he razed it to the ground,
leveled it to the dust,
6 Now it is trampled
the poor and the lowly tread upon it.
Psalm of hope
7 Let the righteous walk in right eousness. You make smooth the path of the just,
8 and we only seek the way of your laws, O Yahweh.
Your name and your memory are the desire of our hearts.
9 My soul yearns for you in the night; for you my spirit keeps vigil.
When your judgments come to earth, the world’s inhabitants learn to be upright.
10 But when favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn to be just. He does evil in a land of righteousness and fails to see Yahweh’s majesty.
11 Yahweh, your hand is lifted up, but they fail to see that. Let them see your zeal for your people, that they may be put to shame. Let your enemies be burned in the fire of your anger.
12 Yahweh, please give us peace; for all that we accomplish is your work.
13 O Yahweh, our God, other lords besides you have ruled us, but it is your name alone that we honor.
14 They are now dead, never to rise again, for you have passed sentence on them. You have wiped out all remembrance of them.
15 You have enlarged the nation, O Yahweh; you have given glory to your name; you have widened the borders of the country.
16 For they sought you in distress, they cried out to you in the time of their punishment.
17 As a woman in travail moans and writhes in pain, so are we now in your presence.
18 We conceived, we had labor pains, but we gave birth to the wind. We have not brought salvation to the land; the inhabitants of a new world have not been born.
19 Your dead will live! Their corpses will rise! Awake and sing, you who lie in the dust!
Let your dew fall, O Lord, like a dew of light, and the earth will throw out her dead.
20 Come, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a moment until his wrath is over.
21 For look, Yahweh is coming out of his dwelling; he will punish the inhabitants of the earth for their sins. The earth will reveal the blood shed upon her and will not conceal her slain any longer.
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Comments Isaiah, Chapter 26
• 26.7 26:7-21: “psalm of hope” to which we draw attention.
This psalm of hope was written long after Isaiah. It exemplifies Jewish piety in the centuries after their return home, following the exile.
The people returned from exile, full of hope. The masters to whom they were subjected were perhaps foreigners, possibly their own kings before the exile (13-14). Now all has changed, now the community wants no other sovereign than God and counts only on the Law (8 and 16). They hoped for their liberation (v. 17). They believed that upon return, they would build a better world, but this apparently did not happen (v. 18), since the pagans remained in the Holy Land and continued to make the life of believers difficult (vv. 10-12). So the people pray to God for the time of their restoration. God, being just, will not only grant them the liberation of the living, but will raise up the innocent vic tims who trusted in him, so that they may also know God’s peace (vv. 19-21).