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.
The text makes it very clear. These people are dead. The Hebrew word for dead in this case is muwth. It means to die (as a penalty), to be put to death, or to die prematurely (by neglect of wise moral conduct). Humanity was originally created to be eternal. We are reminded death is a result of sinful choices. The body is a corpse, a carcass. The executed are buried and taking a dirt nap.
But as the pattern of Scripture, the dead are called and commanded. The Hebrew grammar states these dead bodies are caused to wake up. Something, God, has acted on the dead bodies to cause them to awaken. Their response to being resurrected is an intensive, crying yell for joy according to the original grammar. This seems to be a plausible response if you had been dead for years.
Again, the text confirms the original point. These people were dead. The Hebrew word for departed spirits is rapha’. Per Strong’s Concordance, rapha’ means spirit or ghost of the dead. Body and spirit have been reunited.
There are cultural implications regarding dust to the Jew. God created from Adam from dust. Adam returned to the dust as a result of sin/death. Genesis 3:19 “By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Dust is associated with death. Psalm 22:15b…And You lay me in the dust of death. Dust is the fate of humans and animals as noted in Ecclesiastes 3:20 Both go to the same place, both come from the dust, and to dust both return.
Whereas dust is associated with death, dew is associated with life. Dew is a symbol of fertility and life (NET Bible). The context of the verses is nation Israel and their dead. This verse says Israel’s dead will be a symbol of life and rebirth to the world. After approximately 2,000 years of being exiled from their land and dead as a nation, this has literally come to pass. In 1948, Israel became a nation again, a resurrected country. See Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones, for more detail. In the future of April 2014, there will be multiple resurrections of the dead.
The resurrection of Jesus demonstrates mastery over death and sin. Isaiah 25:18 He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces, and He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; for the LORD has spoken.
