Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 26:19

"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." — Isaiah 26:19 (ASV)

Your dead men shall live. — Better, Your dead shall live; my corpses shall rise. The words, though they imply a belief more or less distinct in a resurrection, are primarily like the vision of dry bones in Ezekiel 37:1-14, and like Saint Paul’s life from the dead in Romans 11:15 , used of national and spiritual resurrection.

For your dew is as the dew of herbs. — The rendering is a tenable one. It expresses the thought that just as the dew that falls upon the parched and withered plant quickens it to a fresh life, so should the dew of Jehovah’s grace (compare 2 Samuel 23:4) revive the dying energies of His people.

Most interpreters, however, render the words the dew of lights (plural expressing completeness), the dew which is born of the womb of the morning (Psalms 110:3). This dew, coming as it does from the Father of Lights (so the Septuagint, The dew that is from You shall be healing for them), shall have power to make the earth cast forth even the shadowy forms of the dead. The verb for “cast forth” is another form of that used in Isaiah 26:18 of childbirth, and is, in this interpretation, used in the same sense.