1883 Haydock Douay Rheims Bible
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| Isaiah 26:1 | In that day shall this canticle be sung the land of Juda. Sion, the city of our strength, a Saviour, a wall, and a bulwark, shall be set therein. | Day. Under the law of grace, Christians sing this and such like canticles. (Worthington) --- Sion. This word is not in Hebrew, etc., though it be understood. (Calmet) --- Other nations have their respective cities. All Christians admit this one. (Worthington) --- The captives continue to return thanks. Yet the Holy Ghost speaks chiefly of the Church, and of the general resurrection. (Calmet) --- Bulwark. Faith and good works. (Worthington) |
| Isaiah 26:2 | Open ye the gates, and let the just nation, that keepeth the truth, enter in. | Truth. The Jews who returned from Babylon, were more virtuous than their ancestors, as the prophets intimate; though they have Christians principally in view. |
| Isaiah 26:3 | The old error is passed away: thou wilt keep peace: peace, because we have hoped in thee. | Away: condemning the virtuous, as if they were fools. (Menochius) --- Symmachus, "our work, or fiction, is taken away." Hebrew may have other meanings. (Haydock) |
| Isaiah 26:4 | You have hoped in the Lord for evermore, in the Lord God, mighty for ever. | You, people of Juda. |
| Isaiah 26:5 | For he shall bring down them that dwell on high; the high city he shall lay low. He shall bring it down even to the ground; he shall pull it down even to the dust. | High: Nabuchodonosor and his empire. |
| Isaiah 26:6 | The foot shall tread it down; the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy. | Needy. The Jews shall behold the ruin of the city by Cyrus, (Calmet) who was of a contemptible nation. (Haydock) |
| Isaiah 26:7 | The way of the just is right; the path of the just is right to walk in. | In. God will remove every obstacle, at their return. |
| Isaiah 26:8 | And in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, we have patiently waited for thee: thy name, and thy remembrance are the desire of the soul. | |
| Isaiah 26:9 | My soul hath desired thee in the night: yea, and with my spirit within me, in the morning early, I will watch to thee. When thou shalt do thy judgments on the earth, the inhabitants of the world shall learn justice. | Night of distress. |
| Isaiah 26:10 | Let us have pity on the wicked; but he will not learn justice: in the land of the saints he hath done wicked things, and he shall not see the glory of the Lord. | Justice. Clemency would therefore be ill placed. If the Israelites had not been led away captives, would they ever have been reformed? |
| Isaiah 26:11 | Lord, let thy hand be exalted, and let them not see: let the envious people see, and be confounded: and let fire devour thy enemies. | Not see. Let them perish, or live to witness the glory of the Jews. |
| Isaiah 26:12 | Lord, thou wilt give us peace: for thou hast wrought all our works for us. | Works, both in punishing and rewarding. (Calmet) --- God crowns his own gifts. (Estius) |
| Isaiah 26:13 | O Lord, our God, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us, only in thee let us remember thy name. | Lords of Babylon, (Calmet) and our own passions. (Haydock) |
| Isaiah 26:14 | Let not the dead live, let not the giants rise again: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and hast destroyed all their memory. | Giants; the proud emperors of Babylon, whom thou wilt destroy. Septuagint, "physicians;" as Rephaim has also this meaning. |
| Isaiah 26:15 | Thou hast been favourable to the nation, O Lord, thou hast been favourable to the nation: art thou glorified? thou hast removed all the ends of the earth far off. | Nation of the Jews. (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "add evils to them, O Lord; add evils to the nobles of the land." (Haydock) --- Hebrew may have the same sense. --- Ends: princes, or the Chaldeans, sending them also into captivity; or thou hast propagated thy Church over the world. |
| Isaiah 26:16 | Lord, they have sought after thee in distress; in the tribulation of murmuring thy instruction was with them. | They. Septuagint, "We," etc. (Calmet) --- Affliction is a wholesome medicine. (Haydock) |
| Isaiah 26:17 | As a woman with child, when she draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs, so are we become in thy presence, O Lord. | |
| Isaiah 26:18 | We have conceived, and been as it were in labour, and have brought forth wind: we have not wrought salvation on the earth, therefore the inhabitants of the earth have not fallen. | Wind. Our expectation of aid from others has been disappointed. (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "the spirit of thy salvation, which thou hast wrought on the earth. We shall not fall, but the inhabitants of the earth shall fall." (Haydock) --- Their copies must have been different from ours. --- Fallen. The Chanaanites are left for our trial and punishment. (Calmet) |
| Isaiah 26:19 | Thy dead men shall live, my slain shall rise again: awake, and give praise, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is the dew of the light: and the land of the giants thou shalt pull down into ruin. | Dead: a civil death, shall regain their liberty; and those who have left this world in a state of virtue, shall be happy. --- Ruin. Cyrus liberated the Jews, having conquered Babylon. |
| Isaiah 26:20 | Go, my people, enter into thy chambers, shut thy doors upon thee, hide thyself a little for a moment, until the indignation pass away. | Away, and Cambyses be destroyed, Ezechiel 38:11. (Calmet) |
| Isaiah 26:21 | *For behold the Lord will come out of his place, to visit the iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth against him: and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall cover her slain no more. Micheas 1:3. | Shall cover her stain no more. This is said with relation to the martyrs, and their happy resurrection. (Challoner) --- The blood of the saints shall demand vengeance. (Calmet) |