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26. A Song of Praise

¹ In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

   We have a strong city;
   God makes salvation
   its walls and ramparts.
² Open the gates
   that the righteous nation may enter,
   the nation that keeps faith.
³ You will keep in perfect peace
   those whose minds are steadfast,
   because they trust in you.
⁴ Trust in the LORD forever,
   for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.
⁵ He humbles those who dwell on high,
   he lays the lofty city low;
he levels it to the ground
   and casts it down to the dust.
⁶ Feet trample it down—
   the feet of the oppressed,
   the footsteps of the poor.

    ⁷ The path of the righteous is level;
   you, the Upright One, make the way of the righteous smooth.
⁸ Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, Or judgments
   we wait for you;
your name and renown
   are the desire of our hearts.
⁹ My soul yearns for you in the night;
   in the morning my spirit longs for you.
When your judgments come upon the earth,
   the people of the world learn righteousness.
¹⁰ But when grace is shown to the wicked,
   they do not learn righteousness;
even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil
   and do not regard the majesty of the LORD.
¹¹ LORD, your hand is lifted high,
   but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame;
   let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.

    ¹² LORD, you establish peace for us;
   all that we have accomplished you have done for us.
¹³ LORD our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us,
   but your name alone do we honor.
¹⁴ They are now dead, they live no more;
   their spirits do not rise.
You punished them and brought them to ruin;
   you wiped out all memory of them.
¹⁵ You have enlarged the nation, LORD;
   you have enlarged the nation.
You have gained glory for yourself;
   you have extended all the borders of the land.

    ¹⁶ LORD, they came to you in their distress;
   when you disciplined them,
   they could barely whisper a prayer. The meaning of the Hebrew for this clause is uncertain.
¹⁷ As a pregnant woman about to give birth
   writhes and cries out in her pain,
   so were we in your presence, LORD.
¹⁸ We were with child, we writhed in labor,
   but we gave birth to wind.
We have not brought salvation to the earth,
   and the people of the world have not come to life.

    ¹⁹ But your dead will live, LORD;
   their bodies will rise—
let those who dwell in the dust
   wake up and shout for joy—
your dew is like the dew of the morning;
   the earth will give birth to her dead.

    ²⁰ Go, my people, enter your rooms
   and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
   until his wrath has passed by.
²¹ See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling
   to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed on it;
   the earth will conceal its slain no longer.

14. The dead shall not live. ¹⁷³¹⁷³ {Bogus footnote} The Prophet again speaks of the unhappy end of the wicked, whose prosperity often agitates and vexes us, as we read in the Psalms of David. (Psalm 37:1, 73:3, 17.) That our eyes may not be dazzled by the present appearances of things, he foretells that their end will be very miserable. Others interpret this passage as relating to believers, who appear to die without any hope of a resurrection; but unquestionably he speaks of the reprobate, and this will be still more evident from an opposite statement which he makes at the nineteenth verse. There is a contrast between the resurrection of good men and wicked men, ¹⁷⁴¹⁷⁴ {Bogus footnote} between whom there would be little difference, were it not evident that the latter are sentenced to eternal death, and that the former will receive a blessed and everlasting life: and not only does eternal death await the wicked, but all the sufferings which they endure in this world are the commencement of everlasting destruction; for they cannot be soothed by any consolation, and they feel that God is their enemy.

The slain shall not rise again. ¹⁷⁵¹⁷⁵ {Bogus footnote} The word which we render slain is rendered by others giants; ¹⁷⁶¹⁷⁶ {Bogus footnote} but as in many passages of Scripture רפאים ¹⁷⁷¹⁷⁷ {Bogus footnote} (rĕphāīm) denotes slain, so also in this passage it will be more appropriate, for otherwise there would be no contrast. (Psalm 88:11; Proverbs 2:18; 9:18; 21:16.)

Therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them. This is added for the sake of explanation; for it assigns the reason why the reprobate perish without hope, namely, because it is the purpose of God to destroy them. In the wrath of God they have nothing to look for but death and ruin.