Matthew Poole and continuators on Isaiah 26:9

9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night , yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early : for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness .

Sincerely and most affectionately, as Psal. 63. 1. and elsewhere.

The Prophet speaks this in the name of all God's People, by comparing this with the foregoing Verse.

Either, 1. figuratively, in the time of Affliction, which is oft called night or darkness; or rather, 2. properly, as appears from the next Clause, wherein early or in the morning is opposed to it. When others are sleeping, my Thoughts and Desires are working towards God.

By fervent Prayer for thy Loving-kindness.

Betimes in the morning, as the Word signifies.

And good reason it is that we should thus desire and seek thee in the way of thy Judgments, because this is the very design of thy Judgments, that men should thereby be awakened to learn and return to their Duty; and this is a common effect of them, that those who have been careless in Prosperity, are made wiser and better by Afflictions. The inhabitants of the world seem to be here taken not in opposition to God's People, as if not they onely, but even the wicked World would do thus; but in a general Notion, so as to include, yea principally to design God's People, as may be gathered both from the former part of this, and the foregoing Verse, in which he describes their pious Carriage under Affliction; as also from the two following Verses, in which he speaks of the wicked, whom he seems to oppose to these inhabitants of the world, because these learn Righteousness, whilst those wicked men remain incorrigible both under Mercies and Judgments, v. 10, 11.

Marginal references: C[illegible: 1+ letters]nt. 3. 1.