Passage

Isaiah 26.19

"Your dead will live; their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, for your dew is as the dew of the dawn, and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits." (Isaiah 26:19, NASB95)

Synthesis

Isaiah 26:19 is one of the clearest Old Testament resurrection texts. Embedded in Isaiah's "little apocalypse" (chapters 24-27), it stands as the divine answer to the lament of vv. 17-18 where Judah confesses that her labor has produced nothing but wind, that she "cannot bring about deliverance on the earth." Yahweh's response shatters that despair: the dead themselves will live, the dust-dwellers will be summoned to wake and sing, and the earth itself will give birth to the rephaim, the shades in Sheol. The agricultural image is precise. "Your dew is as the dew of the dawn" pairs God's life-giving moisture with the morning that follows the night of death; what looks like permanent decomposition is instead a seedbed awaiting sunrise.

For apologetic engagement this verse is load-bearing in two debates. First, against the claim that resurrection is a late, Greek-influenced import into Second Temple Judaism and not native to the Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 26:19 stands with Daniel 12.2 and Job 19.25-27 as canonical evidence that bodily resurrection is a Hebrew-prophetic hope, not a Hellenistic graft. Second, against the claim that the New Testament resurrection of Jesus is a freshly-invented category with no Old Testament grounding, this verse and its kin show that the apostolic preaching of resurrection draws on a developed Hebrew expectation already in place by Isaiah's century.

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"17. Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain and crieth out in her pangs; so we have been before thee, O Jehovah. 18. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen."

"19. Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead."

"20. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. 21. For, behold, Jehovah cometh forth out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain." (Isaiah 26:17-21, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"17. Like as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain and cries out in her pangs; so we have been before you, Yahweh. 18. We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen."

"19. Your dead shall live. My dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast out the departed spirits."

"20. Come, my people, enter into your rooms, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself for a little moment, until the indignation is past. 21. For, behold, Yahweh comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also will disclose her blood, and will no longer cover her slain." (Isaiah 26:17-21, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"17. Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. 18. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen."

"19. Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead."

"20. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. 21. For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. ^{blood: Heb. bloods}" (Isaiah 26:17-21, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"17. When a pregnant woman cometh near to the birth, She is pained, she crieth in her pangs, So we have been from Thy face, O Jehovah. 18. We have conceived, we have been pained. We have brought forth as it were wind, Salvation we do not work in the earth, Nor do the inhabitants of the world fall."

"19. 'Thy dead live, My dead body they rise. Awake and sing, ye dwellers in the dust, For the dew of herbs [is] thy dew, And the land of Rephaim thou causest to fall."

"20. Come, My people, enter into thy inner chambers, And shut thy doors behind thee, Hide thyself shortly a moment till the indignation pass over. 21. For, lo, Jehovah is coming out of His place, To charge the iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth upon him, And revealed hath the earth her blood, Nor doth she cover any more her slain!'" (Isaiah 26:17-21, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: Isaiah son of Amoz (traditional unity), reporting Yahweh's direct discourse
Audience: Judah under threat from successive Assyrian and Babylonian powers; with eschatological reference to the people of God in all eras
Location: Jerusalem and Judah
Time period: Isaiah's ministry c. 740-680 BC; the "little apocalypse" likely composed within that span and extending in vision well beyond it

Theological reading

Patristic and Reformed exegesis read Isaiah 26:19 as a literal bodily resurrection promise, not a metaphor for national restoration. Tertullian (On the Resurrection of the Flesh 31) cites the verse as decisive proof that the resurrection hope is native to the Hebrew prophets. Jerome's Commentariorum in Isaiam takes "earth will give birth to the rephaim" as the soil rendering back the bodies committed to it - a verbatim anticipation of Christian resurrection theology. Calvin reads the verse with Daniel 12 and Ezekiel 37 as the OT triad on which Paul builds in 1 Corinthians 15.

The Hebrew terms tighten the case. Nebelati ("my dead bodies" / "my corpse") is concrete, physical; the same root that names the carcass of an animal. Yequmun ("they shall arise") is the standard verb for rising from a fallen position, used elsewhere of bodily action. Rephaim names the shades of the underworld, not abstract souls; Isaiah is saying that the very inhabitants of Sheol will be raised. The dew imagery is also concrete: in Israel's hill country, the morning dew was the agricultural condition that made grain germinate; God's "dew of dawn" is the eschatological condition that makes the dead rise. The Targum of Isaiah, the Talmud (b. Sanhedrin 90b), and the rabbinic tradition consistently appeal to this verse for the doctrine of bodily resurrection.

For apologetic engagement with skeptics, three moves follow. First, the resurrection-in-the-OT-or-not question is settled here in favor of the affirmative: bodily resurrection is a Hebrew prophetic category, not a Greek import. Second, Jesus' resurrection in the gospels operates within a prepared Jewish horizon; Isaiah 26:19, Daniel 12:2, and Job 19:25-27 are the framework within which the apostolic preaching makes sense. Third, the verse stands against any reading of Christian resurrection as Platonic immortality-of-the-soul; the Hebrew hope is for the body, the corpse, the dust-dwellers - and Christian resurrection inherits that physicalism.

Key words

mut (Strong's H4191). "To die"; here in its participial / nominal form (metim, "the dead"). The basic OT verb for death.
qum (Strong's H6965). "To rise" / "to stand up"; the standard verb for resurrection here and at Daniel 12.2.
rephaim (Strong's H7496). The shades of Sheol; not abstract souls but personalized inhabitants of the underworld whom God will summon out.
tal (Strong's H2919). "Dew"; the agricultural image of God's life-giving moisture, paired here with dawn and the seed-from-the-earth metaphor.

Theological themes

Bodily resurrection in the Old Testament. With Daniel 12:2 and Job 19:25-27, this verse establishes resurrection as a native Hebrew hope, not a late Greek import.
Earth as womb for the dead. The agricultural imagery (dew, dawn, the earth giving birth) treats decomposition not as terminal but as seedbed; the same image Paul develops in 1 Corinthians 15:35-44.
Divine reversal of human failure. Vv. 17-18 confess that Judah's labor produces "wind" and no deliverance; v. 19 answers with God-given resurrection. Salvation is from outside human capacity.
Apologetic anchor. The Hebrew prophets already expected what the apostles preached; the apostolic kerygma stands on Old Testament foundations.

Cross-references

Daniel 12.2, "many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake"; the closest OT parallel, often paired with Isaiah 26:19.
Job 19.25-27, "I know that my Redeemer lives... in my flesh I shall see God"; the third strand of the OT resurrection witness.
Ezekiel 37.1-14, the valley of dry bones; resurrection imagery with a national-restoration overlay but unmistakably bodily.
1 Corinthians 15, Paul's full resurrection chapter, drawing on OT seed-and-earth imagery and the prophetic resurrection expectation.
Hosea 13.14, "I will ransom them from the power of Sheol"; another OT resurrection promise.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.