Isaiah 26

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¹In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “We have a strong city; God will appoint salvation for walls and bulwarks. ✦ ²Open the gates, That the righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in. ✦ ³You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. ✦ ⁴Trust in the Lord forever, For in YAH, the Lord, is everlasting strength. ✦ ⁵For He brings down those who dwell on high, The lofty city; He lays it low, He lays it low to the ground, He brings it down to the dust. ✦ ⁶The foot shall tread it down— The feet of the poor And the steps of the needy.” ✦ ⁷The way of the just is uprightness; O Most Upright, You weigh the path of the just. ✦ ⁸Yes, in the way of Your judgments, O Lord, we have waited for You; The desire of our soul is for Your name And for the remembrance of You. ✦ ⁹With my soul I have desired You in the night, Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early; For when Your judgments are in the earth, The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. ✦ ¹⁰Let grace be shown to the wicked, Yet he will not learn righteousness; In the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly, And will not behold the majesty of the Lord. ✦ ¹¹Lord, when Your hand is lifted up, they will not see. But they will see and be ashamed For their envy of people; Yes, the fire of Your enemies shall devour them. ✦ ¹²Lord, You will establish peace for us, For You have also done all our works in us. ✦ ¹³O Lord our God, masters besides You Have had dominion over us; But by You only we make mention of Your name. ✦ ¹⁴They are dead, they will not live; They are deceased, they will not rise. Therefore You have punished and destroyed them, And made all their memory to perish. ✦ ¹⁵You have increased the nation, O Lord, You have increased the nation; You are glorified; You have expanded all the borders of the land. ✦ ¹⁶Lord, in trouble they have visited You, They poured out a prayer when Your chastening was upon them. ✦ ¹⁷As a woman with child Is in pain and cries out in her pangs, When she draws near the time of her delivery, So have we been in Your sight, O Lord. ✦ ¹⁸We have been with child, we have been in pain; We have, as it were, brought forth wind; We have not accomplished any deliverance in the earth, Nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen. ✦ ¹⁹Your dead shall live; Together with my dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust; For your dew is like the dew of herbs, And the earth shall cast out the dead. ✦ ²⁰Come, my people, enter your chambers, And shut your doors behind you; Hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, Until the indignation is past. ✦ ²¹For behold, the Lord comes out of His place To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; The earth will also disclose her blood, And will no more cover her slain. ✦

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Where this chapter connects

Isa 60 ·7 Isa 25 ·5 Isa 2 ·5 Isa 51 ·5 Deut 32 ·5 Deut 4 ·4 Isa 12 ·4 Isa 32 ·4

Christ at the center

Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).

How Isaiah 26 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereVideoBibleProject — video overviews & word studiesBibleProject · 5–10 min · Free · evangelical
Free animated overviews of every book of the Bible, plus themes and Hebrew/Greek word studies — the best visual on-ramp to any book. (Biblical-theology, broadly evangelical, not distinctly Reformed.)
★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Seminary

★ Start hereCommentaryThe Book of Isaiah (NICOT)John N. Oswalt · Paid · evangelical
The standard evangelical commentary on Isaiah — thorough and devotionally warm.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Isaiah videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Isaiah 26YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Isaiah 26David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on IsaiahMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Isaiah 26Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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