With the people of God in their exaltation, Moab is, in vers. 9-12, contrasted in its weakness and humiliation, and in its vain attempts to withdraw from the supremacy of the God of Israel. Moab comes here into consideration, only as the representative of all the kingdoms hostile to God, and obstinately persevering in their opposition to His Kingdom; just as Edom in chap. xxxiv., lxiii. The representative character of Moab was recognized by Gesenius also, who thus determines the sense: "Whilst Jehovah's protecting hand rests upon Zion, His enemies helplessly perish." It is intentionally that Moab is mentioned, and not Asshur or Babel, because, in its case, the representative character could not so easily be mistaken or overlooked.--Ver. 12 returns to the world's power in general.
In chap. xxvi., the rejoicing and shouting for the salvation are continued. A characteristic Messianic feature is contained in ver. 19 only, in which, as in chap. xxv. 8, the ceasing of death and the resurrection of the righteous appear as taking place in the Messianic time.
Ver. 19. "Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust! For a dew of light is thy dew, and thou makest fall to the earth the giants."
The saints are raised from the earth; the giants are sunk into the earth. The רפאים "giants" are identical with the ישבי תבל in ver. 18. There it was said in reference to the time of wrath: "We have not wrought any deliverance in the land, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen;" compare vers. 9 and 21; Numb. xiv. 32. Parallel is the announcement of the defeat of the world's power in ver. 14. רפאים, it is true, is there used of the dead; but the signification of the word remains the same: The bodiless spirits were called giants, because they were objects of terror to the living; comp. remarks on Ps. lxxxviii. 11. The word is, in ver. 14, used with a certain irony.--"Light" is equivalent to "salvation." The Plural signifies the fulness of light or salvation. The complete fulfilment which the words, "Thy dead shall live," will find in the resurrection of the body, affords a guarantee for the fulfilment of the previous stages.
In chap. xxvii., it is especially ver. 1 which attracts our attention: "In that day the Lord with His sword, hard, great, and strong, shall visit the leviathan, the tortuous serpent, and killeth the dragon that is in the sea."
We have here three designations of one and the same monster. Gesenius, on the other hand, rightly brings forward the accumulation of the attributes of the sword: With the three epithets applied to the sword, the three epithets of the monster to be killed by it pertinently correspond. The leviathan, the dragon, is, as it were, the king of the sea-animals, compare remarks on Ps. lxxiv. 13, 14. In the spiritual sea of the world, its natural antitype is the conquering world's power; comp. remarks on Rev. xii. 3. But that which is meant is the whole world's power, according to all its phases, which is here viewed as a whole; comp. ver. 13, where it is designated by Asshur and Egypt. The special reference to Babylon rests, here also, on a mere fancy.
After the single discourses out of the Assyrian time, from chap. vii.-xxvii., there follows in [chap. xxviii.-xxxiii.] the sum and substance of those not fully communicated. Even the uncommonly large extent of the section suggests to us such a comprehensive character. And so likewise does the fact that the same thoughts are constantly recurring, as is the case in several of the minor prophets also, e.g. Hosea. But what is most decisive is, that in chap. xxviii. 1-4 Samaria appears as not yet destroyed. Considering that the chronological principle pervades the whole collection, this going back can be accounted for only by the circumstance that we have here a comprehensive representation. And we are the more led to this opinion that, in other passages of the same section, Jerusalem is represented as being threatened immediately. In this section, it is especially the passage in chap. xxviii. 16 which attracts our attention; since, in the New Testament, it is referred to Christ.
"Behold I have laid for a foundation in Zion a stone, a tried (stone), a precious corner stone of perfect foundation; he that believeth need not make haste," viz., for an escape or refuge for himself, Ps. lv. 9. In opposition to false hopes, this stone is pointed to as the only true foundation, and all are threatened with unavoidable destruction who do not make it their foundation. The stone is the Kingdom of God, the Church; compare Zech. iii. 9, where the Kingdom of God likewise appears under the image of the stone. But since the Kingdom of God (which, in chap. viii. 16, had been represented under the image of the quietly flowing waters of Siloah) is, for all eternity, closely connected with the house of David which centres in Christ, that which, in the first instance, is said of the kingdom of God refers, at the same time, to its head and centre. Parallel is Is. xiv. 32; "The Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of His people trust in it." The האמין here corresponds with the חסה with ב there. The difference is, that there Zion itself is the object of confidence, while here it is the stone which is in Zion. There, Zion is the spiritual Zion; not the mountain as an assemblage of stones, nor the outward temple as such, but Zion in so far as it is a sanctuary, the seat of the presence of the Lord. The Lord--such is the sense--has founded His Kingdom among us; and the circumstance that we are citizens of the Kingdom gives us security, enables us to be calm even in the midst of the greatest danger. Here, on the contrary, Zion is the outward Zion, and the Kingdom of God is the Church as distinguished from it. The Zion here corresponds to the holy mountains in Ps. lxxxvii. 1, where, in a similar manner, a distinction is drawn between the material and spiritual Zion: "His foundation is in the holy mountains," on which I remarked in my Commentary: "The foundation of Zion took place spiritually by its being chosen to be the seat of the sanctuary. It was then only that the place, already existing, received its spiritual foundation." The stone laid by God as a foundation in Zion, in the passage under consideration, is, in substance, identical with the "tent that He placed among men," in Ps. lxxviii. 60. "In substance the sanctuary was erected by God alone, who, by fulfilling His promise, 'I dwell in the midst of them,' breathed the living soul into the body, and caused His name to dwell there." In Ezek. xi. the substance of the sanctuary, the Shechinah, withdraws into heaven.--Our passage, farther, touches very closely upon chap. viii. 14: "And He (the Lord) becomes a sanctuary and a stone of offence, and a rock of stumbling to both the houses of Israel, and a snare and a trap to the inhabitants of Jerusalem." The stone here is the Church; there it is the Lord himself, according to His relation to Israel, the Lord who has become manifest in His Church. Another point of contact is offered by Ps. cxviii. 22: "The stone which the builders rejected has become the corner-stone." In that passage, too, the stone is the Kingdom and people of God: "The people of God whom the kingdoms of the world despised, have, by the working of God, then been raised to the dignity of the world-ruling people."
A simple quotation of the passage before us is found in Rom. x. 11: λέγει γὰρ ἡ γραφή· πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων ἐπ’ αὐτῷ οὐ καταισχυνθήσεται. In chap. ix. ver. 3, we have chap. viii. 14, and the passage under consideration blended in a remarkable manner: ἰδού τίθημι ἐν Σιὼν λίθον προκόμματος καὶ πέτραν σκανδάλου· καὶ πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων ἐπ' αὐτῷ οὐ καταισχυνθήσεται, and from the remarks already offered, the right to this blending is evident. Peter, in 1 Pet. ii. 6, 7, adds to these two passages, that in Ps. cxviii. 22: διότί περιέχει ἐν τῇ γραφῇ: ἰδοὺ τίθημι ἐν Σιὼν λίθον ἀκρογωνιαῖον, ἐκλεκτὸν, ἔντιμον, καὶ ὁ πιστεύων ἐπ’ αὐτῷ οὐ μὴ καταισχυνθῇ. ὑμῖν οὖν ἡ τιμὴ τοῖς πιστεύουσιν. ἀπεῖστοῦσι δὲ λίθον ὃν ἀπεδοκίμασαν οἱ οἰκοδομοῦντες, οὗτος ἐγενήθη εἰς κεφαλὴν γωνίας, καὶ λίθος προσκόμματος καὶ πέτρα σκανδάλου, on which Bengel remarks: "Peter quotes, in ver. 6 and 7, three passages, the first from Isaiah, the second from the Psalms, the third again from Isaiah. To the third he alludes in ver. 8, but to the second and first, in ver. 4, having, even then already both of them in his mind." Matth. xxi. 42-44 refers only to Ps. cxviii. and to Is. viii. 14, 15. to the latter passage in ver. 44; Acts iv. has Ps. cxviii. only in view.