Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 26:14

"[They are] dead, they shall not live; [they are] deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all remembrance of them to perish." — Isaiah 26:14 (ASV)

They are dead ... —We get a more vivid rendering by omitting the words in italics, Dead, they live not; shadows (Rephaim, as in Psalms 88:10), they rise not. Those of whom the prophet speaks are the rulers of the great world-empires, who, as in Isaiah 14:9; Ezekiel 32:21, have passed into the gloomy world of Hades, from which there was, for them at least, no escape. Their very names should perish from the memories of people. The Septuagint, adopting another etymology of the word Rephaim, gives the singular rendering, Physicians shall not raise them up to life.