SUMMARY
God promises that the dead shall live and corpses shall rise.
ANALYSIS
The surprise of this text is that, most often in Old Testament thought, death was the end of everything–even of a relationship with God, since there was no praise of God in SheolIn the Hebrew Bible Sheol was the place where people, both good and bad, went when they died. While it was a place that might cause sorrow and anguish, it was not necessarily a cause for despair, for, as the psalmist said, God was even... (the place of the dead) (see Psalms 6:5; 30:9; 89:48). God was the God of the living, but death marked the end (IsaiahIsaiah, son of Amoz, who prophesied in Jerusalem, is included among the prophets of the eighth century BCE (along with Amos, Hosea, and Micah)--preachers who boldly proclaimed God's word of judgment against the economic, social, and religious disorders of their time. 38:18-19).
Occasionally, however, God’s Old Testament people are given a glimpse of something more: the dead shall live, corpses shall rise, dry bones will be given new life (EzekielEzekiel was a priest and prophet who was raised in Jerusalem and exiled to Babylon in 597 BCE. 37). This hope was not based in the human or in notions of human immortality, unknown to the Bible, but in the ongoing goodness of God, who simply would not let people go. Finally, people came to know that God was present even in Sheol (PsalmA psalm is a song of praise. In the Old Testament 150 psalms comprise the psalter, although some of the psalms are laments and thanksgivings. In the New Testament early Christians gathered to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. 139:8).
In the New Testament era, the Jewish people continued to debate the possibility of resurrection (MatthewA tax collector who became one of Jesus' 12 disciples. 22:23). The New Testament claim of resurrection is finally not a theological principle, but simply a witness to what God demonstrated in JesusJesus is the Messiah whose life, death, and resurrection are God's saving act for humanity. (1 Corinthians 15:12-14)
