1In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple.2Above him stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face. With two he covered his feet. With two he flew.
3One called to another, and said, “Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of Armies! The whole earth is full of his glory!”
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Can God be seen?The Hebrew Bible repeatedly narrates theophanies in which God is seen face-to-face — by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, seventy elders, Manoah, Micaiah, Job, Isa…
John 12:41(v1)Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory, and spoke of him.
Revelation 4:8-9(v3)The four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within. They have no rest day and night, saying,…
Revelation 15:8(v1)The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power. No one was able to enter into the temple until the seven…
Psalms 72:19(v3)Blessed be his glorious name forever! Let the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and amen.
Revelation 7:15-17(v1)Therefore they are before the throne of God, they serve him day and night in his temple. He who sits on the throne will spread his…
Show all 78 cross-references
Psalms 113:5(v1)Who is like Yahweh, our God, who has his seat on high,
Daniel 7:9(v1)“I watched until thrones were placed, and one who was ancient of days sat. His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like…
Matthew 25:31(v1)“But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.
Revelation 4:8(v2)The four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within. They have no rest day and night, saying,…
Isaiah 66:1(v1)Yahweh says, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build to me? Where will I rest?
John 1:18(v1)No one has seen God at any time. The one and only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him.
Revelation 3:21(v1)He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father on his throne.
Psalms 108:5(v1)Be exalted, God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth.
Psalms 46:10(v1)“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.”
Revelation 4:2(v1)Immediately I was in the Spirit. Behold, there was a throne set in heaven, and one sitting on the throne
Exodus 24:10-11(v1)They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was like a paved work of sapphire stone, like the skies for clearness. He didn’t lay his hand on…
Ezekiel 1:25-28(v1)There was a voice above the expanse that was over their heads. When they stood, they let down their wings. Above the expanse that was over…
Ephesians 1:20-21(v1)which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all…
1 Timothy 6:16(v1)He alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and eternal power. Amen.
Revelation 5:1(v1)I saw, in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a book written inside and outside, sealed shut with seven seals.
Ezekiel 1:11(v2)Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above. Two wings of each one touched another, and two covered their bodies.
1 Kings 22:19(vv1–2)Micaiah said, “Therefore hear Yahweh’s word. I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne, and all the army of heaven standing by him on his right…
Numbers 12:8(v1)With him, I will speak mouth to mouth, even plainly, and not in riddles; and he shall see Yahweh’s form. Why then were you not afraid to…
Psalms 103:20(v2)Praise Yahweh, you angels of his, who are mighty in strength, who fulfill his word, obeying the voice of his word.
Psalms 104:4(v2)He makes his messengers winds, and his servants flames of fire.
Isaiah 1:1(v1)The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings…
Isaiah 57:15(v1)For the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, says: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also who is of a…
Ezekiel 10:1(v1)Then I looked, and see, in the expanse that was over the head of the cherubim there appeared above them as it were a sapphire stone, as the…
Ezekiel 1:1(v1)Now in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar, the heavens…
Revelation 4:10(v1)the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives forever and ever, and throw their crowns…
Exodus 15:11(v3)Who is like you, Yahweh, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?
Numbers 14:21(v3)but in very deed—as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with Yahweh’s glory—
1 Kings 8:10-11(v1)It came to pass, when the priests had come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled Yahweh’s house, so that the priests could not stand…
2 Chronicles 26:22-23(v1)Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, wrote. So Uzziah slept with his fathers; and they…
Ezra 3:11(v3)They sang to one another in praising and giving thanks to Yahweh, “For he is good, for his loving kindness endures forever toward Israel.”…
Isaiah 12:4(v1)In that day you will say, “Give thanks to Yahweh! Call on his name. Declare his doings among the peoples. Proclaim that his name is exalted!
Revelation 6:16(v1)They told the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb,
Exodus 15:20-21(v3)Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with…
1 Kings 6:24(v2)Five cubits was the one wing of the cherub, and five cubits the other wing of the cherub. From the tip of one wing to the tip of the other…
2 Kings 15:7(v1)Azariah slept with his fathers; and they buried him with his fathers in David’s city: and Jotham his son reigned in his place.
Psalms 18:10(v2)He rode on a cherub, and flew. Yes, he soared on the wings of the wind.
Psalms 57:11(v3)Be exalted, God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth.
Isaiah 6:6(v2)Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar.
Isaiah 11:9-10(v3)They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh, as the waters cover the sea.…
Isaiah 40:5(v3)Yahweh’s glory shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.”
Zechariah 3:4(v2)He answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, “Take the filthy garments off him.” To him he said, “Behold, I have caused…
Exodus 25:20(v2)The cherubim shall spread out their wings upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces toward one another. The faces…
Exodus 37:9(v2)The cherubim spread out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces toward one another. The faces of the…
1 Kings 6:27(v2)He set the cherubim within the inner house. The wings of the cherubim were stretched out, so that the wing of the one touched the one wall,…
1 Kings 8:7(v2)For the cherubim spread their wings out over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered the ark and its poles above.
Job 1:6(v2)Now on the day when God’s sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, Satan also came among them.
Job 15:15(v2)Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones. Yes, the heavens are not clean in his sight;
Psalms 24:7-10(v3)Lift up your heads, you gates! Be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of glory will come in. Who is the King of glory? Yahweh…
Isaiah 24:16(v3)From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs. Glory to the righteous! But I said, “I pine away! I pine away! woe is me!” The…
Ezekiel 1:6(v2)Everyone had four faces, and each one of them had four wings.
Ezekiel 1:9(v2)Their wings were joined to one another. They didn’t turn when they went. Each one went straight forward.
Ezekiel 1:24(v2)When they went, I heard the noise of their wings like the noise of great waters, like the voice of the Almighty, a noise of tumult like the…
Ezekiel 10:21(v2)Every one had four faces, and every one four wings. The likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings.
Daniel 7:10(v2)A fiery stream issued and came out from before him. Thousands of thousands ministered to him. Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before…
Habakkuk 2:14(v3)For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Yahweh’s glory, as the waters cover the sea.
Zechariah 14:9(v3)Yahweh will be King over all the earth. In that day Yahweh will be one, and his name one.
Revelation 5:7(v1)Then he came, and he took it out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne.
Revelation 7:11(v2)All the angels were standing around the throne, the elders, and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before his throne,…
Revelation 8:13(v2)I saw, and I heard an eagle, flying in mid heaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe! Woe! Woe for those who dwell on the earth, because of…
Revelation 14:6(v2)I saw an angel flying in mid heaven, having an eternal Good News to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, and to every nation, tribe,…
Genesis 17:3(v2)Abram fell on his face. God talked with him, saying,
Exodus 3:6(v2)Moreover he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he…
1 Kings 19:13(v2)When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle, went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave. Behold, a voice came to him, and…
Job 4:18(v2)Behold, he puts no trust in his servants. He charges his angels with error.
Psalms 19:1-3(v3)The heavens declare the glory of God. The expanse shows his handiwork. Day after day they pour out speech, and night after night they…
Psalms 89:7(v2)a very awesome God in the council of the holy ones, to be feared above all those who are around him?
Daniel 9:21(v2)yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched…
Revelation 15:3-4(v3)They sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God, the…
Ezekiel 1:4(v2)I looked, and behold, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud, with flashing lightning, and a brightness around it, and out of…
Ezekiel 10:16(v2)When the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them; and when the cherubim lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the wheels…
Luke 1:10(v2)The whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense.
Ephesians 1:18(v3)having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his…
Hebrews 1:7(v2)Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, and his servants a flame of fire.”
78 distinct cross-references across this passage (79 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (27 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Of his garment, or of his throne.
Of his garment, or of his throne.
God showeth not himself to man in his majesty, but according as man’s capacity is able to comprehend him, that is, by visible signs, as John Baptist saw the holy Ghost in the form of a dove.
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As a Judge ready to give sentence.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Isa 6:1 In the year that king Uzziah died…
Isa 6:1 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
Ver. 1. In the year that Uzziah died.] This was 1590 years from Noah’s flood, say chronologers, where one {a} well observeth how divers things were done in this year within the Church, and without. The Gentiles in Greece, at the town of Eleum, behold their Olympic games; the prophet Isaiah in Judea beholdeth the glory of God, and heareth the trisagion of the blessed angels. So in the year of grace 1617 the Pope proclaimed a jubilee for the peace of Italy and Austria, &c. The Reformed Churches in Germany kept a jubilee likewise at the same time, in way of thankfulness to God for the gospel restored just a hundred years before by Luther, Zuinglius, and other reformers. {b}
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I saw also,] sc., In spiritu et in ecstasi, In spirit and in a rapture. Some compare it with that vision which Ezekiel saw afterwards. {Eze 1:4-28} This whole book is called ‘the vision of Isaiah’; {Isa 1:1} and why? {See Trapp on "Isa 1:1"} Est autem celeberrima haec prophetia, but this is a most famous prophecy of the utter excaecation and excision of the Jews; and is alleged against them by all the four evangelists, and by St Paul. {Rom 11:8}
The Lord.] The Three in One, and One in Three: Isa 6:8, "Who shall go for us?" Compare Gen 1:26; Gen 3:22. See Joh 12:41, where it is applied to God the Son; and Act 5:3-4, where to God the Holy Ghost. This Lord of all was seen by the prophet, not in his essence, or in the infinite excellence of his majesty, {Exo 33:20 1Ti 6:16} but in some visible model of his glory; like as we cannot see the sun in rota, but in radiis, in the body of it, but in the beams only.
Sitting upon a throne.] Instar iudicis et vindicis, as a just judge and sharp revenger of this people’s rebellions; and this throne is in the temple too, the place wherein they most of all trusted, crying, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." {Jer 7:4} Lo, here they were to be sentenced, because they had cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. {Isa 5:24}
High and lifted up.] Stately for sight, and lofty for site, as was Solomon’s. {1Ki 10:18; 1Ki 10:20}
And his train filled the temple.] His train, or his skirts {c} - viz., of his robes. The Sept. and Chaldee have it, "The house was full of his glory." The sense is, saith Oecolampadius, that the least part of the divine majesty is greater than the greatest glory of men. {as 1Co 1:25} "He hath upon his vesture and on his thigh this name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords." {Rev 19:16} Here we can see but his back parts, his train and line. We need see no more that we may live. Zeuxis, the famous painter, drew in a table a fair temple with the doors open, and Venus going in, so as the beholders could behold but her back and her train, as not able to depaint her fair face and fore parts.
{a} Ussher
{b} Jac. Rev. Hist. Pontif. Rom., p. 306.
{c} Sirmata.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv1–3I saw in a vision or ecstasy. The Lord;…
I saw in a vision or ecstasy. The Lord; either,
1. God the Son, who frequently appeared to the patriarchs and prophets, and that sometimes in the form of a man. Or rather,
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2. The Divine Majesty as he subsisteth in three persons, as may be gathered both from the plural number us, used of this Lord, Isa 6:8, and comparing other scriptures; for God the Father is described as sitting upon a throne, Dan 7:9,13, and elsewhere; and the glory of God here manifested is said to be Christ’s glory, Joh 12:41, and the words of the Lord here following are said to be spoken by the Holy Ghost, Act 28:25. Sitting upon a throne, in the posture of a judge, to hear causes, and give sentence. Lifted up towards the roof of the temple.
His train; or, as the word properly signifies, and is here rendered by divers, the skirts or borders of him, or of it, to wit, his royal and judicial robe; for he is represented as a judge.
Filled the temple; his glorious robes reached down to the bottom of the temple, and were spread abroad in the temple, which was an evidence of a more than ordinary majesty. The temple may be here taken either,
1. Largely, and so it includes the courts as well as the house, as that word is oft used; or,
2. Strictly, for the house itself, or for that part of the temple in which this vision was exhibited, which may seem to have been the porch, for that was much higher than the other parts.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn v1The vision which Isaiah saw when he was, as…
The vision which Isaiah saw when he was, as is said of Samuel, established to be a prophet of the Lord (Sa1 3:20), was intended, 1. To confirm his faith, that he might himself be abundantly satisfied of the truth of those things which should afterwards be made known to him. This God opened the communications of himself to him; but such visions needed not to be afterwards repeated upon every revelation. Thus God appeared at first as a God of glory to Abraham (Act 7:2), and to Moses, Exo 3:2. Ezekiel's prophecies and St. John's, begin with visions of the divine glory. 2. To work upon his affections, that he might be possessed with such a reverence of God as would both quicken him and fix him to his service. Those who are to teach others the knowledge of God ought to be well acquainted with him themselves.
The vision is dated, for the greater certainty of it. It was in the year that king Uzziah died, who had reigned, for the most part, as prosperously and well as any of the kings of Judah, and reigned very long, above fifty years. About the time that he died, Isaiah saw this vision of God upon a throne; for when the breath of princes goes forth, and they return to their earth, this is our comfort, that the Lord shall reign for ever, Psa 146:3, Psa 146:4, Psa 146:10. Israel's king dies, but Israel's God still lives. From the mortality of great and good men we should take occasion to look up with an eye of faith to the King eternal, immortal. King Uzziah died under a cloud, for he was shut up as a leper till the day of his death. As the lives of princes have their periods, so their glory is often eclipsed; but, as God is everliving, so his glory is everlasting. King Uzziah dies in an hospital, but the King of kings still sits upon his throne.
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What the prophet here saw is revealed to us, that we, mixing faith with that revelation, may in it, as in a glass, behold the glory of the Lord; let us turn aside therefore, and see this great sight with humble reverence.
I. See God upon his throne, and that throne high and lifted up, not only above other thrones, as it transcends them, but over other thrones, as it rules and commands them. Isaiah saw not Jehovah - the essence of God (no man has seen that, or can see it), but Adonai - his dominion. He saw the Lord Jesus; so this vision is explained Joh 12:41, that Isaiah now saw Christ's glory and spoke of him, which is an incontestable proof of the divinity of our Saviour. He it is who when, after his resurrection, he sat down on the right hand of God, did but sit down where he was before, Joh 17:5. See the rest of the Eternal Mind: Isaiah saw the Lord sitting, Psa 29:10. See the sovereignty of the Eternal Monarch: he sits upon a throne - a throne of glory, before which we must worship, - a throne of government, under which we must be subject, - and a throne of grace, to which we may come boldly. This throne is high, and lifted up above all competition and contradiction.
II. See his temple, his church on earth, filled with the manifestations of his glory. His throne being erected at the door of the temple (as princes sat in judgment at the gates), his train, the skirts of his robes, filled the temple, the whole world (for it is all God's temple, and, as the heaven is his throne, so the earth is his footstool), or rather the church, which is filled enriched, and beautified with the tokens of God's special presence.
III. See the bright and blessed attendants on his throne, in and by whom his glory is celebrated and his government served (Isa 6:2): Above the throne, as it were hovering about it, or nigh to the throne, bowing before it, with an eye to it, the seraphim stood, the holy angels, who are called seraphim-burners; for he makes his ministers a flaming fire, Psa 104:4. They burn in love to God, and zeal for his glory and against sin, and he makes use of them as instruments of his wrath when he is a consuming fire to his enemies. Whether they were only two or four, or (as I rather think) an innumerable company of angels, that Isaiah saw, is uncertain; see Dan 7:10. Note, It is the glory of the angels that they are seraphim, have heat proportionable to their light, have abundance, not only of divine knowledge, but of holy love. Special notice is taken of their wings (and of no other part of their appearance), because of the use they made of them, which is designed for instruction to us. They had each of them six wings, not stretched upwards (as those whom Ezekiel saw, Eze 1:11), but, 1. Four were made use of for a covering, as the wings of a fowl, sitting, are; with the two upper wings, next to the head, they covered their faces, and with the two lowest wings they covered their feet, or lower parts. This bespeaks their great humility and reverence in their attendance upon God, for he is greatly feared in the assembly of those saints, Psa 89:7. They not only cover their feet, those members of the body which are less honourable (Co1 12:23), but even their faces. Though angel's faces, doubtless, are much fairer than those of the children of men (Act 6:15), yet in the presence of God, they cover them, because they cannot bear the dazzling lustre of the divine glory, and because, being conscious of an infinite distance from the divine perfection, they are ashamed to show their faces before the holy God, who charges even his angels with folly if they should offer to vie with him, Job 4:18. If angels be thus reverent in their attendance on God, with what godly fear should we approach his throne! Else we do not the will of God as the angels do it. Yet Moses, when he went into the mount with God, took the veil from off his face. See Co2 3:18. 2. Two were made use of for flight; when they are sent on God's errands they fly swiftly (Dan 9:21), more swiftly with their own wings than if they flew on the wings of the wind. This teaches us to do the work of God with cheerfulness and expedition. Do angels come upon the wing from heaven to earth, to minister for our good, and shall not we soar upon the wing from earth to heaven, to share with them in their glory? Luk 20:36.
IV. Hear the anthem, or song of praise, which the angels sing to the honour of him that sits on the throne, Isa 6:3. Observe,
1. How this song was sung. With zeal and fervency - they cried aloud; and with unanimity - they cried to another, or one with another; they sang alternately, but in concert, and without the least jarring voice to interrupt the harmony.
2. What the song was; it is the same with that which is sung by the four living creatures, Rev 4:8. Note, Praising God always was, and will be to eternity, the work of heaven, and the constant employment of blessed spirits above, Psa 84:4. Note further, The church above is the same in its praises; there is no change of times or notes there. Two things the seraphim here give God the praise of: -
(1.) His infinite perfections in himself. Here is one of his most glorious titles praised: he is the Lord of hosts, of their hosts, of all hosts; and one of his most glorious attributes, his holiness, without which his being the Lord of hosts (or, as it is in the parallel place, Rev 4:8, the Lord God Almighty) could not be so much as it is the matter of our joy and praise; for power, without purity to guide it, would be a terror to mankind. None of all the divine attributes is so celebrated in scripture as this is. God's power was spoken twice (Psa 62:11), but his holiness thrice, Holy, holy, holy. This bespeaks, [1.] The zeal and fervency of the angels in praising God; they even want words to express themselves, and therefore repeat the same again. [2.] The particular pleasure they take in contemplating the holiness of God; this is a subject they love to dwell upon, to harp upon, and are loth to leave. [3.] The superlative excellency of God's holiness, above that of the purest creatures. He is holy, thrice holy, infinitely holy, originally, perfectly, and eternally so. [4.] It may refer to the three person in the Godhead, Holy Father, Holy Son, and Holy Spirit (for it follows, Isa 6:8, Who will go for us?) or perhaps to that which was, and is, and is to come; for that title of God's honour is added to this song, Rev 4:8. Some make the angels here to applaud the equity of that sentence which God was now about to pronounce upon the Jewish nation. Herein he was, and is, and will be, holy; his ways are equal.
(2.) The manifestation of these to the children of men: The earth is full of his glory, the glory of his power and purity; for he is holy in all his works, Psa 145:17. The Jews thought the glory of God should be confined to their land; but it is here intimated that in the gospel times (which are pointed to in this chapter) the glory of God should fill all the earth, the glory of his holiness, which is indeed the glory of all his other attributes; this then filled the temple (Isa 6:1), but, in the latter days, the earth shall be full of it.
V. Observe the marks and tokens of terror with which the temple was filled, upon this vision of the divine glory, Isa 6:4. 1. The house was shaken; not only the door, but even the posts of the door, which were firmly fixed, moved at the voice of him that cried, at the voice of God, who called to judgment (Psa 50:4), at the voice of the angel, who praised him. There are voices in heaven sufficient to drown all the noises of the many waters in this lower world, Psa 93:3, Psa 93:4. This violent concussion of the temple was an indication of God's wrath and displeasure against the people for their sins; it was an earnest of the destruction of it and the city by the Babylonians first, and afterwards by the Romans; and it was designed to strike an awe upon us. Shall walls and posts tremble before God, and shall we not tremble? 2. The house was darkened; it was filled with smoke, which was as a cloud spread upon the face of his throne (Job 26:9); we cannot take a full view of it, nor order our speech concerning it, by reason of darkness. In the temple above there will be no smoke, but everything will be seen clearly. There God dwells in light; here he makes darkness his pavilion, 2 Chron, Rom 6:1.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv1–3In the year that King Uzziah died,.... Which was…
In the year that King Uzziah died,.... Which was the fifty second year of his reign, and in the year 3246 from the creation of the world; and, according to Jerom (l), was the year in which Romulus, the founder of the Roman empire, was born: some understand this not of his proper death, but of his being stricken with leprosy, upon his attempt to burn incense in the temple; upon which he was shut up in a separate house, which was a kind of a civil death: so the Targum,
"in the year in which King Uzziah was smitten;''
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that is, with leprosy; and so Jarchi and others interpret it, from the ancient writers; but the first sense is the best. Some, as Aben Ezra, would have this to be the beginning of the prophecy of Isaiah, because of the mission of the prophet in it; but others rightly observe, that this mission respects not the prophecy in general, but the particular reproof the prophet was sent to give to the Jews herein mentioned. The title of this chapter, in the Arabic version, is remarkable; according to which, this chapter contains the vision which Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw three years, or, as others affirm, thirty years, after prophecy was taken from him. He had prophesied about ten years before this, in the reign of Uzziah; and only this vision was in the reign of Jotham; the next prophecy was delivered out in the reign of Ahaz, Isa 7:1 and others in the time of Hezekiah; and the date of this vision is only mentioned, to observe the order of the visions, agreeably to Isa 1:1 and moreover it may be observed from hence, that kings must die as well as others; but the King of kings ever lives, he is the living God, and the everlasting King, as follows:
I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; not God essentially considered, whose essence is not to be seen; but personally, Father, Son, and Spirit, for all the three Persons appear in this vision, Isa 6:3 particularly Christ, as, is clear from Joh 12:41 who is the "Adonai", or Lord; he is Lord of all, of all men, even of the greatest among them, and of all the angels in heaven, and of the church of God, by his Father's gift, by his own purchase, in right of marriage, and through the conquest of his grace. This sight was not corporeal, but with the eyes of the understanding, in the vision of prophecy; and to have a sight of Christ as the Lord, and especially as our Lord, is very delightful and comfortable; for though he is a sovereign Lord, he is no tyrannical one, is very powerful to protect and defend, and has all fulness for supply; and particularly as "sitting upon a throne" as a king, for he having done his work as a priest, sits down on his throne as a king; and a lovely sight it is to see him enthroned at the right hand of the Majesty on high; and therefore is said to be "high and lifted up"; for this is to be understood not of his throne, as if that was high and lifted up in the highest heavens, as the Targum paraphrases it; but of himself, who is high and exalted above all creatures, as Aben Ezra observes; and this sense the accents determine for: the vision refers to the exaltation of Christ, after his humiliation here on earth; and to behold him crowned with glory and honour is very delightful, since he is exalted as our head and representative in our nature, and acts for us in this his exalted state; and we may be assured of being exalted also. It follows,
and his train filled the temple; either the material temple visionally seen, where his feet were, and his throne in heaven, as Jarchi interprets it; or heaven, as Kimchi, which is the Lord's holy temple, where his throne is, Psa 11:4 or rather the human nature of Christ, the temple where the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and which the train of divine perfections fill; though it may be best of all to understand it of the church, the temple of the living God; and "his train" may denote the effects of Christ's kingly and priestly offices, with which the Church was filled upon his exaltation; as the gifts and graces of his Spirit in an extraordinary manner on the day of Pentecost, and since in a more ordinary way; whereby men have been made ministers of the New Testament, and churches filled with them, and these made useful in filling the churches with members. The Targum is,
"and the temple was filled with the splendour of his glory;''
the "train" is the skirts, borders, or lower parts of the garments, in allusion to those of a king, or rather of the high priest, a type of Christ.
(l) Epist. Damaso, tom. 3. fol. 37. K.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv1–3The glory of the Lord, ver. 1-4. Isaiah is…
The glory of the Lord, ver. 1-4. Isaiah is terrified, ver. 5. Is confirmed for his message, ver. 6-8. The people's obstinacy unto desolation, ver. 9-12. A remnant shall be saved, ver. 13.
I saw - In a vision. The Lord - The Divine Majesty as he subsisteth in three persons. His train - His royal and judicial robe; for he is represented as a judge.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv1–3This chapter, by a particular designation of Isaiah to…
CHAPTER VI
This chapter, by a particular designation of Isaiah to the
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prophetic office, 1-8,
introduces, with great solemnity, a declaration of the whole
tenor of the Diving conduct in reference to his people, who, on
account of their unbelief and impenitence, should for a very
long period be given up to a judicial blindness and hardness of
heart, 9, 10;
and visited with such calamities as would issue on the total
desolation of their country, and their general dispersion,
11, 12.
The prophet adds, however, that under their repeated
dispersions, (by the Chaldeans, Romans, c.,) a small remnant
would be preserved as a seed from which will be raised a
people, in whom will be fulfilled all the Divine promises, 13.
As this vision seems to contain a solemn designation of Isaiah to the prophetic office, it is by most interpreters thought to be the first in order of his prophecies. But this perhaps may not be so for Isaiah is said, in the general title of his prophecies, to have prophesied in the time of Uzziah, whose acts, first and last, he wrote, 2Ch 26:22; which is usually done by a contemporary prophet; and the phrase, in the year that Uzziah died, probably means after the death of Uzziah; as the same phrase (Isa 14:28) means after the death of Ahaz. Not that Isaiah's prophecies are placed in exact order of time. Chapters ii., iii., iv., v., seem by internal marks to be antecedent to chap. i.; they suit the time of Uzziah, or the former part of Jotham's reign; whereas chap. i. can hardly be earlier than the last years of Jotham. See note on Isa 1:7, and Isa 2:1. This might be a new designation, to introduce more solemnly a general dedication of the whole course of God's dispensations in regard to his people and the fates of the nation; which are even now still depending, and will not be fully accomplished till the final restoration of Israel.
In this vision the ideas are taken in general from royal majesty, as displayed by the monarchs of the East; for the prophet could not represent the ineffable presence of God by any other than sensible and earthly images. The particular scenery of it is taken from the temple. God is represented as seated on his throne above the ark, in the most holy place, where the glory appeared above the cherubim, surrounded by his attendant ministers. This is called by God himself "the place of his throne, and the place of the soles of his feet," Eze 43:7. "A glorious throne exalted of old, is the place of our sanctuary," saith the prophet Jeremiah, Jer 17:12. The very posture of sitting is a mark of state and solemnity: Sed et ipsum verbum sedere regni significat potestatem, saith Jerome, Comment. in Eph 1:20. See note on Isa 3:2. St. John, who has taken many sublime images from the prophets of the Old Testament, and in particular from Isaiah, hath exhibited the same scenery, drawn out into a greater number of particulars; Re 4:1-11.
The veil, separating the most holy place from the holy or outermost part of the temple, is here supposed to be taken away; for the prophet, to whom the whole is exhibited, is manifestly placed by the altar of burnt-offering, at the entrance of the temple, (compare Eze 43:5-6,) which was filled with the train of the robe, the spreading and overflowing of the Divine glory. The Lord upon the throne, according to St. John (Joh 12:41,) was Christ; and the vision related to his future kingdom when the veil of separation was to be removed, and the whole earth was to be filled with the glory of God, revealed to all mankind: which is likewise implied in the hymn of the seraphim, the design of which is, saith Jerome on the place, Ut mysterium Trinitatis in una Divinitate demonstrent; et nequaquam templum Judaicum, sicut prius, sed omnem terram illius gloria plenam esse testentur; "That they may point out the mystery of the Trinity in one Godhead; and that the Jewish temple alone should not be, as formerly, the place of the Divine glory, for the whole earth should be filled with it." It relates, indeed, primarily to the prophet's own time, and the obduration of the Jews of that age, and their punishment by the Babylonish captivity; but extends in its full attitude to the age of Messiah, and the blindness of the Jews to the Gospel, (see Mt 13:14; Joh 12:40; Ac 28:26; Ro 11:8,) the desolation of their country by the Romans, and their being rejected by God. That nevertheless a holy seed-a remnant, should be preserved; and that the nation should spread out and flourish again from the old stock.-L.
NOTES ON CHAP. VI
Verse 1. The Lord] Fifty-one MSS. of Kennicott's, and fifty-four of De Rossi's, and one edition; in the 8th verse, forty-four MSS. of Kennicott's, and forty-six of De Rossi's, and one edition; and in the 11th verse thirty-three MSS. of Kennicott's, and many of De Rossi's, and one edition, for אדני Adonai, "the Lord" read יהוה "JEHOVAH," which is probably the true reading; (compare Isa 6:8;) as in many other places, in which the superstition of the Jews has substituted אדני Adonai for יהוה Yehovah. One of my own MSS., a very ancient and large folio, to which the points and the masora have been added by a later hand, has יהוה Yehovah in the 1st and 8th verses, in the teeth of the masora, which orders it in both places to be read אדני Adonai.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Isa 6:1. In the year that King Uzziah died,…
Isa 6:1. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord — “As this vision,” says Bishop Lowth, “seems to contain a solemn designation of Isaiah to the prophetical office, it is by most interpreters thought to be the first in order of his prophecies. But this perhaps may not be so: for Isaiah is said, in the general title of his prophecies, to have prophesied in the time of Uzziah, whose acts, first and last, he wrote, (2Ch 26:22,) and the phrase, in the year when Uzziah died, probably means, after the death of Uzziah; as the same phrase, (Isa 14:28,) means, after the death of Ahaz. Not that Isaiah’s prophecies are placed in exact order of time: chapters 2., 3., 4., 5. seem, by internal marks, to be antecedent to chapter 1.; they suit the time of Uzziah, or the former part of Jotham’s reign: whereas, chapter 1. can hardly be earlier than the last years of Jotham: see note on Isa 1:1; Isa 1:7; Isa 2:1. This might be a new designation of the whole course of God’s dispensations in regard to his people, and the fates of the nation; which are even now still depending, and will not be fully accomplished till the final restoration of Israel.”
I saw the Lord — In a vision or ecstasy. The place of this vision is supposed to be the temple, from which the particular scenery of it is taken. The Divine Majesty is represented as seated upon a throne, high and lifted up — Probably above the ark in the most holy place, where the glory appeared above the cherubim, surrounded by his attendant ministers. “The veil, separating the most holy place from the holy, or the outermost part of the temple, is supposed to be taken away, for the prophet, to whom the whole is exhibited, is manifestly placed by the altar of burnt-offering, at the entrance of the temple, (compare Eze 43:5-6,) which was filled with the train of the robe, the spreading and overflowing of the divine glory. The Lord upon the throne, according to St. John, (Joh 12:41,) was Christ, and the vision related to his future kingdom; when the veil of separation was to be removed, and the whole earth was to be filled with the glory of God, revealed to all mankind. It respects, indeed, primarily the prophet’s own time, and the obduration of the Jews of that age, and their punishment by the Babylonish captivity; but extends, in its full latitude, to the age of the Messiah, and the blindness of the Jews to the gospel; the desolation of their country by the Romans, and their being rejected by God; that, nevertheless, a holy seed, a remnant, should be preserved, and that the nation should sprout out and flourish again from the old stock. — Bishop Lowth.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv1–3In the year - This naturally denotes a period…
In the year - This naturally denotes a period after the death of Uzziah, though in the same year. The mention of the time was evidently made when the prophecy was composed, and it is to be presumed that the death of Uzziah had occurred at the time when the prophet saw this vision. If so, it is clear that this was not the first of his prophecies, for he saw his visions ‘in the days of Uzziah;’ Isa 1:1. The Chaldee, however, reads this: ‘in the year when Uzziah was smitten with the leprosy;’ and most of the Jewish commentators so understand it; 2Ch 26:19-20. The rabbis say that the meaning is, that he then became “civilly” dead, by ceasing to exercise his functions as a king, and that he was cut off as a leprous man from all connection with the people, and from all authority; see the Introduction, Section 3. This is, doubtless, true; but still, the more natural signification is, that this occurred in the year in which he actually died.
I saw - That is, he saw in a “vision;” see the Introduction, Section 7. (4). A similar vision is described by Micaiah; 1Ki 22:19; see also Amo 7:1; Amo 8:1; Amo 9:1; Dan 7:13, ...
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The Lord - In the original here the word is not יהוה yehovâh but אדני 'ădonāy; see the notes at Isa 1:24. Here it is applied to Yahweh; see also Psa 114:7, where it is also so applied; and see Isa 8:7, and Job 28:28, where Yahweh calls himself “Adonai.” The word does not itself denote essential divinity; but it is often applied to God. In some MSS., however, of Kennicott and DeRossi, the word Yahweh is found. We may make two remarks here.
(1) That Isaiah evidently meant to say that it was Yahweh who appeared to him. He is expressly so called in Isa 6:5-8, Isa 6:11.
(2) It is equally clear, from the New Testament, that Isaiah saw the messiah. John quotes the words in this chapter, Isa 6:10, as applicable to Jesus Christ, and then adds Joh 12:41, ‘these things said Esaias when he saw his glory, and spake of him.’
An inspired man has thus settled this as referring to the Messiah, and thus had established the propriety of applying to him the name Yahweh, that is, has affirmed that the Lord Jesus is divine. Jerome says, that this vision was designed to represent the doctrine of the Trinity. In Joh 1:18, it is said, ‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.’ In Exo 33:20, God says, ‘Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live;’ see also 1Ti 6:16. These passages may be reconciled with what is here said by Isaiah, in the following manner:
(1) Isaiah does not say that he saw the Divine Essence; and all that his words fairly imply, is, that he saw a manifestation, or vision of Yahweh - some striking symbolic representation of him.
(2) It was the manifestation of Yahweh in the person of the Messiah, of the ‘only begotten Son who hath revealed or declared him,’ that he saw Such manifestations of God have been made often, and all that the declaration of Isaiah implies, of necessity, is, that he had a vision of God incarnate seated in glory, from whom he now received a new commission to go out and proclaim the truth to that wicked and rebellious generation.
Sitting upon a throne - God is thus often represented as a king, sitting on a throne; 1Ki 22:19; Eze 43:7; Jer 17:12.
High and lifted up - That is, the “throne;” an indication of state and majesty. “And his train.” The word “train” שׁוּליו shûlāyv, properly signifies the skirt of a garment, or a robe; Exo 28:33-34. Here it is evidently designed as a representation of a large, flowing robe, that filled all the most holy part of the temple. The Orientals regarded such large robes as indicative of grandeur and state. The Messiah was seen seated on a throne as a king; clothed in a large, loose, flowing robe, in the manner of oriental monarchs, and surrounded by his ministers. The design of this magnificent vision was not only to impress the prophet with a sense of the holiness of God, but also to give additional weight to his commission, as having been derived immediately from the divine majesty; compare Isa 6:9-10. It is remarkable that Isaiah attempts no representation of Yahweh himself. He mentions his robes; the throne; the seraphim; but mentions no form or appearance of God himself. In this there is great sublimity. There is enough mentioned to fill the mind with awe; there is enough concealed to impress as deeply with a sense of the divine majesty. It is remarkable, also, that it is not the “usual” appearance of God in the temple to which he refers. That was the “Shekinah,” or visible symbol of God. That was on the mercy-seat, this was on a throne; that was a cloud, of this no form is mentioned; over that the cherubim stretched forth their wings, over this stood the seraphim; that had no clothing, this was clad in a full flowing robe.
Filled the temple - Probably, the most holy place only is intended. The large, full, magnificent robe seemed to fill up the entire holy of holies. Some have supposed that this vision was represented as appearing in the “heavens.” But the expression here evidently implies, that it was seen in the “temple” at Jerusalem.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Died. Either a natural (Calmet) or a civil death,…
Died. Either a natural (Calmet) or a civil death, by means of the leprosy. (Chaldean) (Tostat. 7.) --- This and the former chapters relate to the commencement of Joathan’s reign, whether before or after the death of Ozias. (Calmet) --- Many think that this was the first prediction of Isaias. (Origen) (St. Jerome, ad Dam.) --- I saw. By a prophetic vision, as if I had been present at the dedication of the temple, 3 Kings viii. 10. (Calmet) --- Lord. Not the Father, as some have asserted, but the Son, John xii. 40. (St. Jerome, ad Dam.) (Calmet) --- Neither Moses nor any other saw the substance of God; but only a shadow. Yet Manasses hence took a pretext to have Isaias slain. (Origen) (St. Jerome, Trad.) (Paralipomenon) (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures1864 · Public DomainOn v1Isaiah 6.
C.—THE THIRD PORTAL
Isaiah 6.
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We have already shown above, in the general introduction to the threefold entrance, that Isaiah would not place this account of his call at the head because he felt the need of preparing his readers for it. At the same time he brings it about that this, not merely elevated, but holy, and even holiest of all dramas, is put in the place that becomes a holiest of all, that is to say, not without, but within; not in aditu, but in adyto. As in the temple, the court of the priests and the holy place, with the altar of incense, constituted the approach to the holiest of all, so, too, here Isaiah puts two entrances in front of that history that really transposes us into the inmost sanctuary, that explains to us how it was possible that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, should be admitted to the vision of God, and had the boldness to offer himself as God’s messenger. If one were not governed by the illusion that only chap. 1. can be an introduction, it would never enter his mind that chap. 6. is the account of a second call to a merely special mission. Delitzsch remarks: “What Umbreit says, that chap. 6. makes the impression on every unprejudiced mind of being the inaugural vision of the Prophet cannot in fact be denied. Only the position that chap. 6. has in the book wields a contrary influence against this impression as long as it does not admit of being understood in some other way. But the impression remains (as with Isa_1:7-9) and even reappears.” Well, then, we bring the impression that chap. 6. makes (of being the account of the inauguration) into the most harmonious relation to the place it holds in the book, by explaining it as the third, the most elevated and holiest entrance to the prophecies of Isaiah. Concerning the time of its composition not much need be said. That Isaiah wrote chapter 6. no one denies. Whether, then, he wrote it immediately after he had the vision, or later, is indifferent. From the nature of things the former is more probable. At all events he assigned the chapter its present position when he made up his book.
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THE SOLEMN INAUGURATION OF THE PROPHET
Isa_6:1-13
1 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, 2high and lifted up, and 1his train filled the the temple. Above 2 it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain 3he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And 3one cried unto another, and said,
Holy! holy! holy! is the Lord of hosts:
4The whole earth is full of his glory.
4And the 5posts of the 6door moved at the voice of 7him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. 5Then said I, Woe is me! for I Amos 8 undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
6Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, 9having 10a live coal in his hand, which7 he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: and he 11laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin 12purged.
8Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, 13Here am I; send me. 9And he said, Go, and tell this people,
Hear ye 14indeed, but understand not;
And see ye 1516indeed, but perceive not.
10Make the heart of this people fat,
And make their ears heavy, and 17shut their eyes,
Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
11Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered,
Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant,
And the houses without man,
And the land be 18utterly desolate;
12And the Lord 19have removed men far away,
20And there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
13But yet in it shall be a tenth,
2122 And it shall return, and shall be eaten:
As a 23teil tree, and as an oak, 24whose 25substance is in them, when they cast their leaves.
So the 26holy seed shall be the substance thereof.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_6:1. The prophet designates the Lord as אדני (with the sign of the accusat., but without the article as a proper noun). Both אָדוֹן Isa_1:24; Isa_3:1; Isa_10:16; Isa_10:33; Isa_19:4) and אֲרֹנָי (Isa_3:17-18; Isa_4:4; Isa_6:1; Isa_6:8; Isa_6:11; Isaiah 7:14, 29; Isa_8:7; Isa_9:7; Isa_9:16; Isa_10:12; Isa_11:11; Isa_21:6; Isa_21:8; Isa_21:16; Isa_29:13; Isa_30:20; Isa_37:24; Isa_38:16) occur only in the first part of Isaiah.—רם ונשׂא is used by Isa_2:13-14; Isa_57:15, where the Lord Himself is so named.—שׁולים the hem, the broad folded train of which the hems are the ends. The word (used mostly of the priestly garments, Exo_28:33-34; Exo_39:24-26; comp. Jer_13:22; Jer_13:26; Nah_3:5) does not again occur in Isaiah.
Isa_6:3. מְלֹא (is not infin., which is always מְלֹאת, but) is substantive, written oftener מְלוֹא. Comp. Isa_8:8; Isa_31:4; Isa_34:1; Isa_42:10.
Isa_6:7. Piel כִּפֶּר and Pual כֻּפַּר in Isa_22:14; Isa_27:9; Isa_28:18; Isa_47:11.
Isa_6:8. לָנוּ after יֵלֵךְ, is grammatically considered Dat. commodi. Who will do us a service by going? is the sense.
Isa_6:10. The verb שָׁמֵן, pinguem esse, is found in the Kal. only Deu_32:15, and Jer_5:28; beside the present the Hiph. occurs only Neh_9:25, with the meaning “to become fat.” The ears shall become heavy, hard of hearing, deaf. כָּבֵד (Kal) is used in this sense Isa_59:1. Also the word is used of the eyes (Gen_48:10) and of the tongue (Exo_9:10 [כְּכַד adj.]). Comp. Zec_7:11 (Hiph.). The Hiph. occurs more frequently of making heavy, i.e., hardening the heart: Exo_8:11; Exo_8:28; Exo_9:34; Exo_10:10. הָשַׁע is the Hiph. imperat. from שָׁעַע oblinere, to besmear, plaster over (comp. Isa_29:9; Isa_32:3). רָפָא is always used transitively. It must therefore be thought of as joined to the general, ideal subject, which the notion of the verb of itself suggests. As is well known, especially verbs that designate a trade or an occupation in some art are wont to be so used. Therefore may a verb that signifies the healing art be readily so construed. Isaiah resorts to this mode of speech not seldom; Isa_7:24; Isa_8:4; Isa_21:9; Isa_34:11. One might fall on the conjecture by comparison of Isa_53:5, that as there so here it ought to read נִרְפָּא.
Isa_6:11. As to particulars, it is to be noted that אֲשֶׁר אִם עַד “until” (comp. beside Gen_28:15; Num_32:17) involves a conditional sentence; the end does not come, except that before, etc.—In the root שָׁאָה the meaning “to be desert” developes out of the meaning “to make a noise, to rage;” comp. Isa_17:12 sq.; Isa_37:26, and substantive שָׁאוֹן Isa_5:14; Isaiah 13, 4; Isa_24:8; Isa_25:5; Isa_66:6.—מאין יושׁב comp. on Isa_5:9.—מאין אדם comp. Jer_32:43; Jer_33:10; Jer_33:12. The expression occurs beside here only in the second comforting discourse of Jeremiah.
Isa_6:12. The Piel רִחַק is used by Isaiah again only Isa_26:15; Isa_29:13. On the contrary Kal. occurs in the second part: Isa_46:13; Isaiah 49, 19; Isa_54:14; Isa_59:9; Isa_59:11. The Hiph. does not occur in Isaiah at all.
עֲזוּבָה properly the forsaken one, fem. But this feminine here must be taken as the collective genus, so that the word signifies the forsaken (the forsakenness, desolation). Comp. Isa_17:2; Isa_17:9.
Isa_6:13. לבער comp. Isa_4:4.—אֵלָה is terebinth (Isa_1:30) and אַלּוֹן oak (Isa_2:13; Isa_44:14). Both are extremely lasting trees, that become very old and grow steadily in size. Comp. Gesen. Thes. p. 51; Job_14:7-9—שַׁלֶּכֶת occurs again only 1Ch_26:16, where a שַעַר שַלֶּכֶת is spoken of. Is this the gate of casting out (probably only an opening in the wall through which things were thrown out) then the word here is dejectio, prostratio (comp. Jer_9:18). Instead of בָּם we look for מֵהֶם according to our mode of expression. But the Hebrew in his way of representation sees, as it were, the idea of the whole tree before him still, and in or on this ideal tree he distinguishes the stump still present and the (in reality severed) trunk. This is that use of בְּ that may be called partitive. Comp. at Isa_10:22.—אַשֶׁר and בָּם belong together.—זרע קדשׁ (comp. Isa_1:4; Ezr_9:2) signifies the still-existing principle of holy life. The suffix in מַּצַּבְתָּהּ (מַצֶּבֶת only here in Isaiah, מַצֵבָה Isa_19:19) refers to עשׂיריה.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Isaiah describes in plain and simple language, by which the grandeur of the contents is only made the more conspicuous, how, in the year that King Uzziah died he saw the Lord sitting on a high, elevated throne. The train of His garments filled the temple (Isa_6:1). Seraphim surrounded Him, each having three pairs of wings: one covered the countenance, one the feet, and with the third they flew (Isa_6:2). One cried to the other the thrice-holy (Isa_6:3), a cry whose power shook the threshold. But the house was full of smoke (Isa_6:4). The majestic vision awakes in the Prophet the feeling of his sinfulness, and the fear that he shall be destroyed, because he, as a sinful man, has seen the Lord (Isa_6:5). But one of the Seraphs reconciles him with a glowing coal that he has taken from the altar (Isa_6:6-7). Thereupon the Prophet hears the voice of the Lord himself, who asks: whom shall I send? Isaiah offers himself as messenger (Isa_6:8). He is accepted and his commission is imparted to him. But this commission is of an extraordinary character. For it is not so much told him what he shall announce, but what shall be the immediate consequence of his announcement. That is to say, he shall speak to the people, but with the (express) consciousness that not only will it be of no use, but that the people will become only the more hardened (Isa_6:9-10). The Prophet, without regarding the difficulty for himself in the matter, only inquires, because the fate of his people distresses him, how long this anger of the Lord against His people is to last (Isa_6:11 a.). This answer is: until all is destroyed (Isa_6:11 b.), the land devoid of men (Isa_6:12), and not more than a tenth part of the inhabitants remain in it, that shall be dealt with as a tree that was felled for burning. For such becomes a prey to the flames to the very stump that remains in the ground. So there will remain of Israel but the remnant of a remnant (Isa_6:13). The structure of the chapter is extremely simple: Isa_6:1-4 describe the scene of the transaction; Isa_6:5-7 the terror of the Prophet and the allaying of it; Isa_6:8-13 his call to the prophetic functions and the commission imparted to him.
2. In the year—filled with smoke.
Isa_6:1-4. The year that Uzziah died was the year 758 B. C. Jerome (in the Epist. 18 ad Damas.) remarks that this was the same year “quo Romulus, Romani imperii conditor, natus est,” that Romulus was born. The theocracy declines: the world-power springs up. It is asked whether the event took place before or after the death of Uzziah. Without doubt the event took place before the death, but the record of it was made after it. For if both occurred before Uzziah’s death there would have been no mention made of it. If both occurred after the death of the king, then the event would belong to the period of Jotham’s rule, and one would justly look for the name of this king. Thus what has been just stated remains the only possible answer to the above question. Our passage then agrees very well with Isa_1:1, for then Isaiah had prophesied already under Uzziah. Moreover, Isa_14:28 (“in the year King Uzziah died”) supports this explanation, for there it is presumed in the whole context that Uzziah still lives. The opinion of those Rabbis, who, following the lead of the Chaldee, understand the passage to refer to the civil death of Uzziah, i.e., to his becoming a leper, is justly pronounced by Gesenius a rabbinical caprice.
How did Isaiah see the Lord? In reality? or only in the idea, i.e. in fancy, so that, then, the grand painting were only the poetic clothing of a purely subjective, inward transaction? The latter is the opinion of rationalistic expositors. For example, Knobel says: “At all events there happened a moment in Isaiah’s life, when the seer, in holy, divine enthusiasm, soared aloft to Jehovah and heard the Lord’s call to the prophetic office. This event of his God-inspired inward man he portrays in the passage before us, and amplifies it with free, poetic art, more, completely than he experienced it.” But one must be, just a rationalist, to hold that such a transaction cannot possibly be an historical fact, and therefore that it must be declared to be unreal. At the same time one must resolve to pronounce what the Prophet professes to do a pious fraud. For that he would only give a poem is neither intimated in the narrative itself, nor does the character of the entire book suggest it. The Prophets are historians, even where they write poetry. The Prophet speaks here as an historian. Did he represent as an outward calling what was only inward, he would have arrogated an honor that did not become him, and this very arrogance would have deprived him of all claim to credibility. For countless ones have received an inward call. But precisely this outward call, just that which Isaiah here beheld, heard and spoke, is so extraordinary, that only privileged men can boast that they have experienced the like. Of Jeremiah (chap. 1) and Ezekiel (chaps. 1.–3) similar things are told. These men, as Isaiah himself, would be guilty of wicked presumption did they invent a glorious, outward call. We must therefore hold the narrative of Isaiah to be historical.
But if real, was it a physical or spiritual reality? That is to say, did Isaiah behold all this with the eyes of the body or the eyes of the spirit (ἐν πνεύματι)? With the eyes of the body these things are not to be seen. Spiritual corporality can only be taken notice of by the opened inward sense (2Ki_6:17). Therefore something, real of course, but only inward, can be meant here, a spiritual beholding of spiritual reality (1Ki_22:17 sqq.; Ezekiel 8 sqq.; Dan_7:13 sqq.; Rev_1:10 sqq., etc.).
To this is joined the inquiry: In which temple did Isaiah see the Lord? In the earthly, at Jerusalem, or in the heavenly, the pattern of the former? It is no reason against the former, that Isaiah was no priest, and therefore dared not go into the temple. Amos, also, was no priest, and yet saw the Lord in the temple (Isa_9:1). The Prophet did not need to be in the temple bodily in order to see what was present in the temple. Comp. Eze_8:3—But in the earthly temple the throne of the Lord was the ark of the covenant. On this account it is expressly called ישֵׁב הַכְּרֻבִים “dwelling between the cherubim” (2Sa_6:2; 2Ki_19:15; Isa_37:16; Psa_80:2; Psa_99:1; 1 Chr. 13:16). Why should Isaiah, if he saw the Lord in the earthly temple, not have named the ark of the covenant? The expression “throne high and elevated” does not appear to point to the ark of the covenant. For it cannot be said that it is high and lifted up. We shall therefore have to place the vision in the upper, heavenly sanctuary (the original of the Tabernacle in the first place, Exo_25:9; Exo_25:40; Exo_26:30; Exo_27:8, and afterwards of the temple). Thither Isaiah was transferred in spirit.
The Seraphim are not mentioned anywhere else in the whole Old and New Testaments except here. The word שְׂרָכּים is found Num_21:6, but as qualifying נְחָשִׁים (God sent among the people burning, fiery serpents). The singular שָׂרָף occurs, too, Num_21:8; Deu_8:15; Isa_14:29; Isa_30:6, but always in the sense of “serpent.” In Num_21:8, it is synonym of נָחָשׁ. For it is said there; make thee a שׂרף, serpent, and set it on a pole. And then Isa_6:9, it proceeds: and Moses made a נְחַשׁ נְחשֶׁת and set it on a pole. Again Deu_8:15נָהָשׁ שָׂרָף are found joined. In both places in Isaiah, we read שָׂרָף מְעוֹכֵּף. Therefore, שָׂרָף evidently means the serpent, but only by an originally predicate description becoming the designation of the chief conception. For originally שָׂרָף means “the burner,” from שָׂרַף “to burn, burn up.” The burning smart of a wound occasioned this designation. It is, moreover, not impossible that the burning fire is designated by the word שָׂרַף because it moves itself serpent fashion. And in so far the roots ἕρπειν, serpere and שָׂרָף may agree; and an original connection between שָׂרָף and serpens might exist, only the meaning “to crawl,” would not be the medium of this connection. For only the burning fire is thought of as crawling; but the serpent is called שָׂרָף, not because it creeps, but because it burns. On these grounds I do not believe that the angel name שָׂרָף has anything to do with the serpent. According to our passage indeed, the Seraphim have human form, for they have a countenance, they have feet (Isa_6:2) and hands (Isa_6:6). But, Gesenius, before this has shown that the Seraph has nothing whatever to do with the Egyptian Serapis, by the proof that this name has sprung from the names Osiris and Apis (Osar-Api). Comp. Thesaur. p. 1342. Gesenius, with whom recently Herm. Schultz agrees, takes the word in the meaning of the Arabic scharaph (nobilitas), schariph (sheriff , princeps), comp. Dan_10:13; Dan_8:25; which, however, hardly agrees with the use of the Hebrew שׂרף given above. That the Seraphim belong to the highest rank of the angel world, appears from their relation to God and His throne as it is described in our chapter. For they appear here in immediate nearness to the divine throne, and beside them no others are named. That the Seraphim are essentially identical with the Cherubim, has been maintained already by Maimonides (in the מורה הנבוכים3:6). Hendewerk, has tried to prove the identity in the dissertation De Seraphim a Cherubim in Bibliis non diversis,Königsberg, 1836. So, too, Stickel in the Stud. u. Krit. 1840 Heft. II. Boehmer also takes this view (Herzog’sR. Encycl. IV. p. 24). Of course the passage Rev_4:8 seems to favor this view strongly. For there we find ascribed to Cherubim on the one hand the animal forms of Ezekiel, (1 and 10), and on the other the six wings and the Trishagion (thrice holy) of the Seraphim. It appears to me that the forms of John combine in themselves the traits of the Cherubim and Seraphim, and if it is said that the Seraphim of Isaiah differ from the Cherubim of Ezekiel so, too, do the Johannic Cherubim differ from those of Ezekiel, and the Seraphim of Isaiah are the mediating member. After all the question is an open one. If it is asked; why are the Seraphim called “the burning ones?” Philo answers: “because they devour the unformedness of matter, bring it into form and order, and thereby render it a Cosmos.” Boehmer,among others, calls them “fire beings, that burn up everything unholy.” Lange (in the Art. Zorn Gottes, Herzog’sR. Encycl. XVIII. p. 662 sq.), distinguishes the revelation of wrath against universal human sinfulness and sin and the revelation of wrath against the conscious revolt against the revelation of salvation in law and gospel. The first degree seems to him symbolized by God’s dominion over His Cherubim (Gen_3:24; Psa_18:11-15; Psa_104:4), the second by His appearance between the Seraphim (Isaiah 6). “That the Seraphim represent a vision of the judgment of fire, in which, with the hardening of the people, the temple must burn up, is expressed also in the meaning of the word “the consumers.” When Isaiah received the call to preach the hardening of the people, he saw, also, in spirit the temple occupied by the fire angels of God, and filled with smoke.” Apart from the distinction between Seraphim and Cherubim, which I do not think has sufficient motive, it only seems to me that their meaning is too narrowly construed in the above. They do not merely serve as a revelation of the wrath of God. They belong, since there was a world, to the immediate organs of the divine revelation in the world generally. They are ever with God, and “rest neither day nor night,” and when they ceaselessly offer praise, honor, and thanksgiving to Him that lives from everlasting to everlasting, and when they thereby give the tone, as it were, to the song of praise of the four and twenty elders (Rev_4:8 sqq.), so it is seen plainly, that they have not only a mission in relation to the wicked, but also in relation to the pious, even to God Himself. It does not decide the matter of their significance in general, that they appear just here in a moment when wrath is revealed, and that a Seraph burns away the sin of the Prophet. However, this is not the place to penetrate deeper into these mysteries (μυστήρια).
The Seraphim stood ממעל לו, “above him. By a very frequent usage עמד is joined with עַל so that by this preposition the one standing is represented, so to speak, as covering up the one before whom he stands, from the eyes of the spectator standing opposite; Gen_18:8; Gen_24:30; Exo_18:13; Jdg_3:19; Jdg_6:31; 2Ki_23:3; Jer_36:21; 2Ch_23:13. Even standing before Jehovah is designated by this preposition Job_1:6; 1Ki_22:19; Zec_4:14; Zec_6:5.—But in our passage it is not merely said עָלָיו, but ממעל לו. This expression is so strong that we can do nothing else than represent the Seraphim to ourselves as hovering about the Lord, “and with two he flew,” so that they stood, not indeed above his head, but relatively above him. Each Seraph had six wings. The imperfects manifestly serve to indicate a continuous circumstance that is an essential part of the scene, whereas the perfects וקרא and ואמר, “and cried and said,” express an incident that forms part of the transaction. For what the Seraphim did with their wings went on continuously and does not belong to the transaction. But the crying out belongs to the transaction, yet does not go on continuously, but is only an incident that serves to finish the picture. We cannot suppose that the crying out continued while the Prophet, and the Seraph and the Lord talked. Targ. Jonathan happily translates Isa_6:2 b., “duabus velabat,” etc. “With two (wings) each one veiled his face that he might not see, and with two he veiled his body, that he might not be seen.”
It must not be concluded from זה אל זה that there were only two Seraphim, but that there were two choirs, say one on either side. Alternative song is founded in the essence of communion. It is the musical expression of the διαλογισμοί that move the congregation. Therefore it is found in the heavenly congregation as well as in the earthly. But the Seraphim sing “Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah Sabaoth; fullness of the whole earth is His glory.” Thus they praise Him here as the Holy One, because in what follows (Isa_6:9 sq.), He makes known in what degree His holiness shall react against unholy Israel. Delitzsch calls attention to the fact that Isaiah cherished his whole life through, a deep, indelible impression of that holiness of the Lord that confronted him here so mightily in word and aspect. Fourteen times in the first part does he use the expression קדושׁ ישׂראל, “Holy One of Israel,” which is, as it were, the concentrated expression of that impression; fifteen times in the second (comp. at Isa_1:4), whereas the expression occurs beside only thrice in the Psalms, (Psa_71:22; Psa_78:41; Psa_89:19), twice in Jer. Psalms 50:29; Isa_51:5), and once in 2Ki_19:22 parallel with Isa_37:23.
But why this thrice repeated קָדוֹשׁ?. There are, to be sure, examples of such repetition that only aim at rhetorical emphasis (Jer_7:4; Eze_21:32; Nah_1:2). In fact Calvin and Vitringa construe the thrice holy in this sense, while, yet, they expressly say that they would not exclude a deeper significance. Herm. Schultz, (Alttest. Theol. I. p. 345) says: “the choir rests on a song and counter song, combined in the double choir, therefore the threeness of the Holy.” But here we stand before the holiest of all of the Godhead, that is opened up for a moment, and receive a glimpse into the βάθη τοῦ θεοῦ (1Co_2:10, “the deep things of God”). The Christian consciousness, from the remotest period, has not been able to resist the impression that this thrice-holy is a reflex of the triune being of the Godhead. And in the New Testament sphere this impression is the more justified because the evangelist John (Joh_12:41) says expressly Isaiah saw the glory of Jesus when he heard the words of Isa_6:10. In that John says nothing extraordinary. Rather he quite accords with Peter who says (1Pe_1:11) that the Spirit that swayed in the Prophets of the Old Testament was the Spirit of Christ; and with Paul, who says (1Co_10:4) it was Christ that as a spiritual rock led Israel through the wilderness. This is only the confirmation of what we have long known as the significance of the Son, viz.: that He is the medium, and therefore also the mediator of all and every revelation.
In regard to the second clause of Isa_6:3, the question arises, first of all, what is subject? Is מְלֹּא subject, then earth is the principal notion, and it is said here what fills it. Is כְּבוֹדוֹ subject, then the glory of God is the principal notion and it is declared here how comprehensive it is. The latter alone corresponds with the context. But the further inquiry arises: whether כְּבוֹד, “glory,” is to be taken in an active or a passive sense, i. e., as praise, or as majesty, glory. The two cannot be essentially disconnected. For as God’s glory is everywhere, so in a certain sense also it is everywhere praised. For its very enemies even must involuntarily do it honor (Psa_8:2-3). And I do not see why in our passage one should separate the two. Does it not then become those who sing unceasingly the praise of God in His immediate presence to declare that, not only they, but the entire creation continually proclaims the praise of the Lord? But it says only “all the earth.” Of course: for this song of praise sounds here primarily for one man and for men. It is just in respect to these that the truth is declared, on the one hand comforting, on the other appalling, that the glory of the Lord is everywhere, and everywhere it makes itself known and felt. Comp. Isa_40:5; Hab_3:3; Num_14:21; Psa_72:19.
Isa_6:4. אַמָּה signifies in Hebrew primarily the elbow-socket (Armgelenk-Mutter), i. e., the depression resembling the box screw (Schraubenmutter), in which the arm turns itself, the elbow. The word has this meaning, too, in the noted passage 2Sa_8:1, where it is said that David took from the Philistines אֶת־מֶתֶג הָאַמָּה. The bridle of the elbow is the contrast of מֶתֶג שְׂפָתַיִםIsa_37:29, “the bridle of the lips,” a bridle attached to the elbows. The meaning of 2Sa_8:1 is that the Israelites had the bridle of the Philistines, no longer in their mouths indeed, yet still on their arms, so that they were hindered from the free use of them. Therefore אַמָּה is the elbow, from which the meaning “ell” is derived. Accordingly אמות הספים are the elbows of the sills. The sills are compared to the arms and the joints in the angle are the arm joints or elbows. Because the sills, and in fact both the upper and lower, and as well as the side beams, are joined together in these, therefore they are the centre of motion, and every shock felt in such a centre must be communicated to all the radii. אַמָּה occurs only here in this meaning. סִפִים (only here in Isaiah) are the sills, and primarily the under sills. For the upper sill is called מַשְׁקוֹף and the side posts מְזוּזוֹת (Exo_12:7; Exo_12:22-23). But in our passage סִפִים as denominatio a potiori stands for all parts of the door-way. The verb נוּעַ occurs only in the first part of Isa_7:2; Isa_19:1; Isa_24:20; Isa_29:9; Isa_37:22.—קול הקורא (comp. Isa_40:3) is primarily “the voice of the caller.” But in what precedes it speaks, not of one, but of many criers. Thus we know that קורא is to be taken collectively and as concr. pro abst.
The house filled with smoke.—It was then not full of smoke from the commencement, and still less did a cloud of smoke conceal the Lord as Exo_40:34; 1Ki_8:10. For (Isa_6:1) Isaiah saw the Lord. It has been said, the smoke came from the altar of incense (Isa_6:6) and symbolized the seraphic praise. There may appear some truth in that from a comparison of Rev_5:8; Rev_8:3 sq. But it seems to me that the smoke has still another meaning. In so far as it constitutes an antithesis to the light in which the Lord dwells, it seems to me, wherever it occurs in connection with the appearance of the divine glory, to signify the reverse side of the same, the severity, the wrath of God. Thus here, too, the smoke, with whose appearance is connected immediately in Isa_6:5 the Prophet’s confession of sin and mortal fear, introduces the words of condemnation which the Lord afterward speaks to the Prophet as the manifestation of His holy indignation. Comp. Isa_4:5; Isa_9:17; Isa_14:31; Isa_34:10; Isa_51:6; Isa_65:5.
3. Then said I——is purged.
Isa_6:5-7. After the Prophet had heard the Seraphim praise the holiness of the Lord, after he had beheld them themselves in the splendor of their holiness, and also had seen its consequence, the wrath, imaged in the smoke, he is seized with the feeling of his own sinfulness. Every creature that beholds or comes in contact with an immediate trace of the divine Being, has a sense of not being able to exist under the burden of the absolute majesty (Gen_16:13; Gen_32:31; Exo_33:20; Jdg_6:22 sq.; Isa_13:22; 1Sa_6:19 sq.; 2Sa_6:7). This sense must have made itself felt in the Prophet in the highest degree, seeing he beheld the divine Being in a greater proximity and clearness, than, since Moses at least, ever a man did. He cries, therefore: woe is me (comp. Isa_1:4), I am lost (Isa_15:1; Hos_4:6; Hos_10:7; Hos_10:15), for a man of unclean lips am I, and among a people of unclean lips do I dwell! That he emphasizes just the unclean lips comes from the fact that he had just heard the Seraphim bring an offer of praise with clean lips. In contrast with these circumcised lips he becomes conscious how his are uncircumcised (Exo_6:12); in contrast with these calves of the lips (Hos_14:3) and with this fruit of the lips (Pro_18:20; Isa_57:19; Heb_13:15) he feels that he is quite unfit for such an offering, both in respect to his own person, and in respect to that totality to which he belongs; in fact that this unfitness, when he has gone with it into the jurisdiction of the highest King (Isa_33:22; Isa_41:21; Isa_43:15; Isa_44:6) must bring upon him the sentence of death. “Such is the confession which the contrite Prophet makes; on this confession follows the forgiveness of sins, which is confirmed by a heavenly sacrament, and is extended to him by a seraphic absolution.”—Delitzsch.
The altar, which is mentioned, we must think of as an altar of incense, since any other kind of offering than incense in the heavenly sanctuary is inconceivable, and the glowing coals also indicate an altar of incense. From this altar one of the Seraphim took with the tongs a רִצְפָה “hot coal.” That he took it with the tongs, not only corresponds to the usage of the earthly sanctuary (Exo_25:38; Num_4:9; 1Ki_7:49), but has in any case also its internal reasons, as that even in the sphere of heavenly corporal existence such distinctions occur, or that the touching with the tongs has a symbolical meaning.
רִצְפָה (comp. רֶשֶׁףHab_3:5; Son_8:6) is something aglow, whether coal or stone. The word occurs only here [in Isaiah.—Tr.] In the earthly sanctuary the burning of incense was performed by taking coals from the altar of burnt-offering and pouring them on the altar of incense, and then upon these was scattered the incense (Lev_16:12; comp. Isa_10:1). In the heavenly sanctuary there was no altar of burnt-offering. At all events רִצְפָה designates the glowing body on which the incense was cast in order to burn it. With such a glowing body, therefore, the Seraph touched the lips of the Prophet in order to reconcile him. The Prophet’s lips are touched with fire therefore, and that with the same holy fire out of which proceeds the cloud of smoke. Thus from the place that occasioned in him before the painful feeling of his uncleanness, must the holy fire penetrate and burn out the entire man. It must burn up all uncleanness. The Seraph shows himself here right properly as שָׂרָף, as burner. As water has primarily generating and fructifying power, but secondarily also a judging and destroying power (comp. creation, the flood, and Baptism), so fire has primarily devouring, and thereby judging, purifying, and secondarily warming and illuminating power. Omnia purgat edax ignis, vitiumque metallis excoquit, says OvidFast. iv. 785. Τὸ πῦρ καθαίρει, τὸ ὕδωρ ἁγνὶζειPlut.quœst. Romans 1). Comp. Num_31:23; Herzog’sR. Encycl. IX. p. 717 sq.—As here the touching takes place for the purpose of atonement, so Jer_1:9 it is for the purpose of inspiration; in Dan_8:17 sq.; Isa_10:8 sqq.; Rev_1:17, it is for the purpose of imparting strength.
4. Also I heard—and be healed.
Isa_6:8-10. The Lord Himself now begins to speak. Having seen Him (Isa_6:1), Isaiah now hears Him. “I heard” corresponds to the “and I saw” (Isa_6:1). It is worthy of notice that the Lord asks: whom shall I send? that He, therefore, as it were, calls for volunteers. So we read, too, 1Ki_22:20, that the Lord in an assembly of heaven, portrayed very much as the one here, asks: “Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead?” There it appears, 1Ki_6:23 (from the circumstance that Micaiah would have been a deceiver, if a real transaction were reported in 1Ki_6:19-22) that this prophet only narrates a fictitious vision. But anyway the representation remains that the Lord not only gives His servants and messengers command and commission according to His own election, but also proposes the undertaking of a commission to the voluntary determination. Now when the Lord in our passage, as was said, calls for volunteers, as it were, this is not to be explained by the greater difficulty or danger of the mission. For Isaiah’s mission was not as difficult and dangerous as that of Moses or Jeremiah. Now Moses resists the commission all he can (Exodus 3), though he was an אִישׁ חַיִל, “able man,” as few were. Luther says of him (on the call of Moses, Exodus 3): “Moses begins, as it were, a wrangling and disputing with God, and will not accept this office.” Jeremiah refuses because he feels himself really too young and made of too tender stuff. Ezekiel, too, appears inwardly at least to have had no relish for undertaking the commission. For he is exhorted not to be disobedient (Eze_2:8), and, though he does not express them, his doubts and fears are disarmed (Eze_2:6 to Eze_3:9). Jonah, the most rebellious and self-willed of all Prophets, actually flees from the Lord. All these, who would not, are not even asked if they will, but they must. Isaiah, who will, is asked. It appears, therefore, that the manner of the calling is regulated according to the individuals. Where the Lord in His chosen and prepared instruments (Jer_1:5) observes also the subjective readiness of mind, He affords it the opportunity to manifest itself by the question: “who will.” That the Lord, by this question, would not draw out something concealed from Himself is manifest. For how can a thing be unknown to the Lord? There was, in fact, no one there but Isaiah that could have replied to His question. For, it could only be a man that could be in question for the undertaking of the prophetic office in Israel. No such person except Isaiah was present. The question is therefore a form by which the Lord honors the רוּחַ נְדִיבָה, “free spirit” (Psa_51:14 (12)), that He knew was present in the Prophet, in that He gave it opportunity to manifest itself.
Who are the many for whom the service is to be done? The plural is here as little as Gen_1:26; Gen_3:22; Gen_11:7 mere form (Plur.-majest). It is rather, as Delitzsch expresses it, communicatively intended. Jehovah includes the whole assembly. He honors thereby the assembled ones, by taking for granted that His interest is theirs and their interest His. Isaiah at once replies: “Behold, here am I; send me.” This prompt offer quite corresponds with the strong and bold spirit of Isaiah. There is no need of assuming that he had already been called, and had already been in office for a time. He, the mighty man, is at once conscious that this is his affair. He feels that he can do it, and he will do it, too. We find here not a trace of fear or other consideration. It was, however, no proud self-sufficiency that led the Prophet. He has just been reconciled in fact as a sinner. The flame that blazes in him and impels him must have been a pure flame. He feels himself strong in Him that makes him mighty (Php_4:13; Isa_40:29 sq.). This “here am I; send me” is, however, so grand, in fact, when one reflects on the examples of other prophets mentioned already, it is so unique in its way, that one understands wherefore Isaiah would not put this history of his calling quite in the beginning of his book, but rather makes it the third portal of his prophetic building. He feared this intrepid ready-mindedness would be found incomprehensible. He puts in advance of it therefore two other entrances, that the reader may learn thereby to know him and thus come prepared to this scene of his calling. And, in fact, he that has read chapters 1–4 must confess that here “is a Prophet” (Eze_2:5; Eze_33:33), a man that had the stuff in him, and the right to say, “Here am I; send me.”
In Isa_6:9-10 follows out of the mouth of the Lord Himself the commission that the Prophet must discharge. The manner of imparting this commission is directly the opposite of what is usual among men in like circumstances. One seeks, namely, in giving a servant or messenger a hard commission, to represent it, at least, at first, in the most advantageous light. This the Lord does not do. On the contrary, He plainly emphasizes just the hardest part. He acts as if the Prophet were to have nothing joyous to announce, but only judgment and hopeless hardening. Isaiah is called the evangelist of the Old Testament. But there is not a trace of it found here. It is not once said even that he shall warn, exhort, threaten. But, overleaping all intermediate members, only the sorrowful effect is emphasized, and that with such pointedness, that, what in truth can be only an unintended effect, appears as directly designed. It is as if the Lord would give the intrepid man that had said “here am I, send me,” to understand at once, that he would require all his boldness in order to carry through the commission he undertook. Grammatically the words offer almost no difficulty. The inff. absol. in Isa_6:9 cannot have an intensive meaning, as though the Lord had said: hear and see well, with effort, zeal and diligence. For then must they even attain to understanding. But the Lord would say: spite of the much, and ceaseless hearing they shall still understand nothing. This ceaseless but still fruitless hearing is only the correlative of that ceaseless but fruitless preaching, of which especially Jeremiah so often speaks (Jer_7:13; Jer_7:25; Jer_11:7, etc.). Let it be noticed, too, that Jeremiah every where points, as the cause of this fruitless hearing, to the שְׁרִירוּת לֵב, “the hardness of heart,” and the stiffening of the neck (הִקִשׁוּ אֶת־עָרְפָםJer_7:26). The Prophet never spoke to the people such words as we read in Isa_6:9. Therefore it cannot be the meaning of the Lord that He should so speak. But the Lord would say: Whatever thou mayest say to this people, say it not in the hope of being understood and regarded, but say it with the consciousness that thy words shall remain not understood and not regarded, although they might be understood and regarded, and that consequently they must serve to bring out the complete unfolding of that hardness of heart that exists in this people, and thereby be a testimony against this people and a basis of judgment. Thus Isa_6:10 it is not meant that the Prophet shall do what is the devil’s affair, that is, positively and directly lead men off to badness and godlessness. Rather the Lord can ever want only the reverse of this. If, then, it says: “harden the heart, deafen the ear, plaster up the eyes, that they may not see, nor hear, nor take notice and be converted to their salvation,” still this form of speech seems to me to be chosen for the sake of the Prophet. There is, namely, a great comfort for him in it. For what is sadder for a man of God than to see day after day and year after year pass away without any fruit of his labor, in fact with evidence that things grow rather worse than better? Is it not for such a case a mighty comfort to be able to say: that is precisely what the Lord predicted, yea, expressly indicated as His relative and previous intention. Thus one sees that He has not labored in vain, but that He has performed his task. And inasmuch as that judgment is still only a transition point, and by the wonderful wisdom of the Lord, shall become a forerunner of higher development of salvation, so the servant of God can say this for comfort, that even out of the judgment of hardening, that it is His part to provoke, salvation shall grow. God’s wrath, in fact, is never without love. The preliminary earthly judgments, as is well recognized, are to be regarded as chastenings, that have a becoming-better as their aim. And if a people like Israel suffers one judgment after another through thousands of years, and still never becomes better, until at last the Lord breaks in pieces the economy of the Old Testament, like one shivers an earthen vessel by throwing it on the ground, so just this destroying of the old covenant is the previous condition to the arising of a new one, that attains to what the old one could not. But the individuals themselves whose hardening and judgment is an example and beacon for the after-world? Here we touch on a difficult point. Will those whose fall was the riches of the world (Rom_11:12) be eternally damned, or will their fall here below also for them become some time a means to their conversion and raising them up again? The answer to this appears to me to lie in Romans 9-11 But here is not the place to go into it more particularly.—Heart, ear, eye (comp. Isa_32:3-4) are named as the representatives of the inward sense; the heart represents the will, eye and ear the knowing. The heart shall become fat and covered with grease, and thereby be made incapable of emotion.
After it is said what shall be done in regard to the three organs, it is said what shall be guarded against by such doing; and here a reversed order is observed in respect to the positive phrases. What must be guarded against is something immediate and something mediate. Immediately must seeing, hearing and observing be hindered; mediately the penitent conversion and being saved.
In the N. T. our passage is cited five times. In Mat_13:14; Mar_4:12; Luk_8:10 it is applied to the fact that Jesus always spoke to the people in parables. Thereby was the prophecy of our passage fulfilled. Jesus would manifestly say: Were I not to speak in parables, then they would understand nothing at all; my discourse would outwardly rebound, and not penetrate at all, and consequently effect no condition of responsibility on their part. But as I speak by parables, my discourse at least penetrates so far that a certain relative understanding, and consequently, too, a responsibility, is possible. But in as much as they oppose themselves to the realization of this possibility of understanding, they let it be known that evil has the upper hand in them: thus they pronounce in a measure their own judgment. Our passage is cited in Joh_12:40 as explaining why the Jews could not believe in Jesus spite of the signs He did. To this end our passage is construed in the same sense in which the Synoptists take it: even the signs of Jesus, no matter how near they come, still do not bring about faith, because the susceptibility is wanting. Finally in Act_28:25 sqq. Paul makes use of our passage in order to prove generally the unsusceptibility of the Jewish nation to the preaching of the gospel.
5. Then said I——substance thereof.
Isa_6:11-13. The announcement of the judgment of hardening in Isa_6:9-10 sounds quite absolute. Yet the Prophet hears underneath all that it is not so intended. It is impossible that the Lord should quite and forever reject His people, and abrogate the promises given to the fathers. He asks, therefore, “How long, Lord?” (comp. Psa_6:4; Psa_90:13; Hab_2:6). He would say: What are to be quantitively and qualitatively the limits of that judgment of hardening? The answer is: First there must be an entire desolation and depopulating of the land; and when at last still a tenth of the inhabitants is in the land, that tenth part also must be decimated till nothing is left but the stump of a root or stem. That shall then be the seed of a holy future. The meaning of the words is perfectly clear.
The construction is as follows: and still there is in it (the land) a tenth part, and this is again decimated—after the manner of or in resemblance to the terebinth and oak, in which, when felled, a stump remains, its stump (of the tenth) is holy seed. Therefore a stump always remains, and that suffices to guarantee a new life and a new glorious future. This has been steadily verified in the people Israel, both in a corporeal and spiritual respect. After every overthrow, yea, after the most fearful visitations, that aimed at the very extinction of the people, a stump or stem was still always left in the ground. This people is even not to be destroyed. There is nothing tougher than the life of this everlasting Jew. And in spiritual respects it is just the same. Though every knee seems to bow to the old or the new Baal, yet the Lord has preserved always a fragment (7,000 it is called, 1Ki_19:18) in faithfulness.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
On Isa_6:1. The question: why this vision in the year of Uzziah’s death? coincides evidently with the question: why an Isaiah any way, and why was he needed just at this time? If prophets were to be, then must prophecy at some time culminate; and that happened in Isaiah, the greatest of all the prophets that have written. Thence Isaiah can stand neither at the beginning, nor at the close. Not at the beginning, for he is far in advance of the elementary stadium; he represents the summit. Not at the close, for in the days of decline art cannot flourish. It needs quiet times for its development. Such a quiet time (relatively) was that of the four kings under whom Isaiah labored. Caspari (Beitr. p. 218) says of the Uzziah-Jotham period, that for the kingdom of Judah it was 1) a time of great power and prosperity, 2) beside the time of Jehoshaphat (2 Chr. 17:18, 20), it was the greatest period since its existence by the rending away of the Ten Tribes from the house of David, 3) the longest continued prosperity during its existence, 4) the last that it had till it fell, 5) the only period of prosperity during Isaiah’s prophetic ministry. But this period of prosperity was, so to speak, only the spring-time, the youth and formative period of the Isaiah prophecy. It was under Ahaz especially that it had to make trial of itself. The league with Assyria fastened the gaze of the Prophet on the Assyrian dominion, the Babylonian embassy in Hezekiah’s time (chap. 39) on that of Babylon. Although, even under Ahaz and Hezekiah, there were wars and great distress by means of the Syrians and the Ephraimites, as also by the Assyrians, still the destruction was graciously postponed.
In that time, therefore, when the theocracy began to show its relations to the worldly powers in a decisive way, there appeared a prophet, who, thoroughly cultivated under the prosperous period of Uzziah and Jotham, could recognize the portentous characteristics of the time of Ahaz and Hezekiah, and see deep into the signs pregnant with the future; and who could reveal their meaning with such wisdom, power and art as are seen in the book of Isaiah. When Uzziah died, Isaiah was just old enough and far enough advanced in training to begin the prophetic career; under Ahaz he had attained manly maturity; and under Hezekiah, with glorified vision, like one near his death, he beheld the glories of redemption.
2. On Isa_6:1. Jerome inquires: how could Isaiah have seen the Lord, seeing John says (Joh_1:20) “No man hath seen God at any time,” and God Himself said to Moses: “Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live,” Exo_33:20? He replies to the question: that not only the Godhead of the Father, but also that of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, are invisible to bodily eyes, because one essence is in the Trinity. But the eyes of the spirit are able to behold the Godhead according to the saying: “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” Mat_5:8. And Augustine cites this saying of Jerome approvingly, and comments on it (Epist. ad Fortunatianum) Addendo ergo, etc.: “Therefore by saying in addition, ‘but the eyes of the spirit,’ he makes vision of this sort totally different from every kind of bodily vision. But lest any might think he spoke of the present time, he subjoins the testimony of the Lord, wishing to show what he had called eyes of the spirit: by which testimony the promise is declared, not of a present, but of a future vision.”
3. On Isa_6:2. Foerster explains the fact of the Seraphim covering their feet with their wings as proof that they would confess that their holiness was imperfect and impure in comparison with the absolute holiness of God. For this he cites Job_4:18, “Behold, He put no trust in His servants; and His angels He charged with folly,” and Joh_15:15, “Behold, He putteth no trust in His saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in His sight.”
4. It was even the opinion of many Rabbis that a trace of threeness of the divine essence was contained in the three times holy of the Seraphim. Peter Galatinus (Italian, baptized Jew, Franciscan monk) in his Arcanis catholicae veritatis II. 1, has proved this especially of Rabbi Simon Jochai and Jonatan ben Ufiel (the Targumist). Comp. Raymundus Martini in the pugio fidei, and especially Joh. Meyer in the Dissertatio theologica de mysterio sacrosanctae trinitatis ex solius V. Ti. libris demonstrato. Harderwich, 1712.
On the ground of this recognized reference to the Trinity, this song of the Seraphim has obtained great significance in Christian liturgies to the present time. “Its introduction into them has been ascribed to Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch († 116), and already in a letter of Clement, Bishop of Rome († 100), there is found a hint of it. Pope Sixtus I. († 130) is said to have adopted it into the Romish mass.” Schoeberlein, Schatz des liturg. Chor. und Gemeindegesangs I. p. 333. [On the Trishagion comp. a Bib. Encycl. or Bingham’s Antiquity of the Christian Church, Book Isa_14:2 § 3, 4, and Book Isa_15:3 § 10].
5. On Isa_6:4. If a typical meaning of the shaking of the door-posts is insisted on, it must be sought in that power of the revelation of divine glory that affects and moves everything, impressing both personal and impersonal creatures; and an example must be found in the events attending the death of Christ (Mat_27:50 sq.).
6. On Isa_6:5. “God does not put angels into the pulpit, but poor, weak men. The angels do not know how sinful men are affected; but ministers of the Church, chosen from men, know that well.”—Foerster.
7. On Isa_6:8. Vitringa remarks here that Christian expositors, Grotius excepted, explain the change from the singular to the plural number, in “whom shall I send, and who will go for us” as implying the Trinity. “Calvin, too,” he says, “and Piscator, usually more cautious than others in observations of this sort, here plainly utter this sentiment.” [“This explanation is the only one that accounts for the difference of number in the verb and pronoun.”—J. A. Alexander.—Tr.]. The opinion of the Jews, however, is that God is represented metaphorically here, as taking counsel with His family, i. e. the angels. Vitringa remarks also that Sanctius attributes to Thomas and Hugo the important emphasis laid on the plural “for us,” which involves the meaning “who will go for us and not for himself.”
8. On Isa_6:9-10. What God says to the Prophet here rests on a law that may be called the law of the polarity of the will. For every thing here concerns the will, i. e., that will-do that is conditioned by the will-be (comp. my book, Der Gottmensch, p. 46 sqq.). As in electricity similar poles repel one another, and dissimilar attract, which depends on the principle of deep inward relationship and mutual completion, so in like manner it happens in spiritual life. The Lord says, Joh_8:37 : “My word hath no place in you,” and again, Joh_8:43 : “Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my words;” which question he proceeds to answer himself Joh_8:44): “ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do;” and immediately after He says, Joh_8:47 : “He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God.”
Therefore where the word of God comes in contact with a heterogeneous pole, it is repelled. And not only that, but that negative pole becomes more intensely negative by the exercise of its negative power. And the stronger the power that provokes its energetic reaction, and the oftener this provocation occurs, so much the more is it strengthened in that negation till it becomes quite hardened. The magnet loses its power by disuse, whereas frequent use strengthens it. Thus we find that every where the most glorious, clearest, loveliest testimonies to divine truth are not received where the will is wanting to receive them, i. e., where, to speak biblically, the flesh is stronger than the spirit. Therefore must all prophets of the Lord be hated and persecuted in proportion as they announced the truth mightily and penetratingly; and that hate must attain its climax in opposing Him who was Himself the truth.
8. On Isa_6:13. “Paul, also, when he represents the rejection of the Jews in Romans 11, calls the race, Rom_11:16, a holy root, and, Rom_11:23-25, severed branches that God will again graft in.” Starke.
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa_6:3. The thrice holy of the Seraphim a Revelation 1. Of the holiness of God. 2. Of His glory. 3. Of the Trinity.
2. On Isa_6:5-8. The way of reconciliation to God prefigured by the example of the Prophet Isaiah 1. The beginning of this way is the knowledge of sin: a. occasioned by the knowledge of the holiness of God, b. manifesting itself by the confession of sin, c. constraining one to cry for deliverance (woe is me). 2. The end of this way is the forgiveness of sins: a. made possible by the sacrifices to which the altar points, b. applied by the word and sacrament (the address of the angel and the live coal), c. appropriated by faith (the Prophet yields himself to the action of the angel).
3. On Isa_6:8. Installation address. Whom shall I send? etc. Herein lies: 1. The divine call to office. 2. The high importance of the office. 3. The joyful inspiration for the office. Hahn.
4. On Isa_6:9-13. The fruit of preaching. 1. It is gratifying only in a small portion of the hearers (Isa_6:13 b; Mat_22:14). 2. In most hearers it is rather mournful, because by preaching: a. they are only moved to the full unfolding of their enmity; b. they are made ripe for judgment (Isa_6:11-13 a).
Footnotes:
[1]Or, the skirts thereof.
[2]him.
[3]Heb. this cried to this.
[4]Heb. His glory is the fulness of the whole earth.
[5]elbow joints.
[6]Heb. threshold.
[7]the cry.
[8]Heb. cut off.
[9]Heb. and in his hand a live coal
[10]a glowing-stone.
[11]Heb. caused it to touch.
[12]is covered up.
[13]Heb. Behold me.
[14]Or, without ceasing, etc., Heb. in hearing, etc.
[15]Heb. in seeing.
[16]always.
[17]plaster up.
[18]Heb. desolate with desolation.
[19]will remove.
[20]And great will be the desolation.
[21]Or, when it is returned and hath been broused.
[22]that shall again bum up.
[23]terebinth.
[24]of which in falling a stump remains,
[25]Or, stock or stem.
[26]a holy, seed is their stump.
[27]make war on it.
II.—THE FIRST GRAND DIVISION
Isaiah 7-39
FIRST SUBDIVISION
Chaps. 7–12
Israel’s Relation to Assyria as Representative of the World-Power generally in its Destructive Beginning and Prosperous Ending
Chapters 7–12 deal wholly with the relation of Israel to Assyria. They show how the way was opened for this relation by the unhappy league that Ahaz concluded with the king of Assyria for protection against Syria and Ephraim. The Prophet announces first that the fear of the Syrians and of Ephraim is groundless: but Assyria is to be feared. Taking with Assyria a comprehensive view of all later developments of the world-power, he announces to Israel a second exile, corresponding to that of Egypt as the first, but also a second return, corresponding to that glorious return in which Moses led them. This deliverance will be brought about by a Branch that is to be expected from the house of David, that shall spring as son of a virgin from the apparently dried up root of this house, and, in the might of the Spirit of God, will found a kingdom of peace that shall embrace and have dominion over all nature.
This prophetic cycle divides in three parts. In the first part (Isa_7:1 to Isa_9:6) the Prophet opposes to the false reliance on the aid of Assyria against the apparent danger that threatened from Syria and Ephraim, the ideal figure of a child, that finds its type in the half-frightful, half-comforting phenomenon of the virgin’s son Immanuel, partly in the form of a son born to the Prophet himself: types that at the same time are earnest of a preliminary deliverance.
In the second part (Isa_9:7 to Isa_10:4) the Prophet turns to the Israel of the Ten Tribes, with a short, as it were, passing word. Prompted by their proud words, as if it were a little thing for them to make good the loss so far sustained from Assyria, the Prophet announces to Ephraim that what they regarded as the end was only the first of many degrees of ruin that they were to suffer from Assyria.
In the third part (Isa_10:5 to Isa_12:6) the Prophet turns against Assyria itself. Because it would not be the instrument of the Lord in the Lord’s sense, to it is announced its own destruction, but to Israel deliverance and return by the Messiah the Prince of Peace.
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A.—THE PROPHETIC PERSPECTIVE OF THE TIME OF AHAZ
Isa_7:1 to Isa_9:6
In the beginning of the reign of Ahaz Judah was seriously threatened by the league between Syria and Ephraim. Thereupon Isaiah received the commission from Jehovah to say to Ahaz that there was nothing to fear from Syria and Ephraim. Ahaz being summoned to ask for a sign as pledge of the truth of this announcement, refused to do so. In punishment a sign is given to him. He must hear that a virgin of the royal house, probably his daughter, is pregnant, and will bear a son. But this son of a virgin shall receive the exceeding comforting name, “Immanuel.” Before he will be able to distinguish between good and evil, the lands of Syria and Ephraim shall be forsaken and desert. But danger threatens from that side from which Ahaz hopes for help and deliverance—that is, from Assyria. For Assyria will turn the holy land into a desert. Shortly after, the Prophet announces that a son will be born to himself. He does not do this publicly, however, but to two reliable men. At the same time the Prophet must set up a public tablet with the inscription, Maher-shalal-hash-baz. When the boy was born, he received these words as his name. And it was revealed as the meaning of the words, that before the boy could say father and mother, the spoil of Damascus and Samaria would be carried away by the king of Assyria. By this second child, then, substantially the same thing was predicted as by the first, the son of the virgin. Both prophecies must in general have occurred in the same period, in the beginning of the reign of Ahaz (743 B. C). Only the announcement of Immanuel precedes somewhat that of Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Wherefore this double prediction of the same thing? It seems to me that the announcement of Immanuel was intended immediately for the royal family. For it was a sign involving punishment (comp. comment on Isa_7:14). But the people, too, were mightily concerned in this affair. Therefore there was given to them a special sign by Maher-shalal. Such is the extent of the two prophecies at the beginning of Ahaz’s time. It is seen that each has for its central point the future birth of a child. From Isa_8:5 on follows a series of short utterances, all of which relate to the same subjects. The words Isa_8:5-8 are a warning directed primarily to Ephraim, not to despise the kingdom of Judah, nor to over-estimate the power of Syria and Ephraim, for Assyria will overflow the latter like a stream, and then, of course, Judah too. Isa_8:9-15 contains a threatening proclamation to the nations of that time that conspired against Judah, and a warning to Judah not to fear these conspiracies, but rather to let the Lord be the only subject of fear. Finally a conclusion follows (Isa_8:16 to Isa_9:6) which sounds almost like the testament of the Prophet to his disciples. For, after a brief prayer to Jehovah to seal the law and testimony in the hearts of his disciples, he sets forth himself and his disciples as living signs and wonders that exhort men to have faith in Jehovah, warns against the temptation to superstitious divination, and exhorts to cleave to the law and testimony. For only therein, in the troublous days to come, may be found comfort and restoration.
And now that the prophet’s testament may be also a prophetic testament, prayer and exhortation merge into a prophetic vision. The gaze of the Prophet is directed to the remote future. Dark lies the future before him. But just in the quarter that the darkness is deepest, in the least regarded northern border of the holy land, he sees a bright light arise, which marvellously (one involuntarily calls to mind Correggio’s painting of the Nativity) has its origin in the person of a child, that proves to be the promised Branch of David, and restorer of David’s kingdom to everlasting power and glory. If our conjecture is correct, that we have here the Prophet’s testament to his disciples, then we may well conceive why it is introduced just here. First, it has the same obscure prophetic background that was given by the perspective of the abandonment of Israel to the power of Assyria; and then, like both the chief prophecies described above, it makes the dispersion of that obscurity by the clear light of salvation proceed from the person of a child that is to be looked for.
We may accordingly sketch out the division of our section as follows:
I. The two chief prophecies concerning the birth of the virgin’s son and the Prophet’s Son_7:1 to Son_8:4.
1. The prophecy of the virgin’s son Immanuel. Isa_7:1-25.
a) Isaiah and Ahaz at the conduit of the upper pool. Isa_7:1-9.
b) Isaiah in the bosom of the royal family announcing a sign: the Virgin’s Son Immanuel. Isa_7:10-25.
2. Isaiah giving the whole nation a sign by the birth of his son Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Isa_8:1-4.
II. Supplements.
1. Those that despise Shiloah shall be punished by the waters of the Euphrates, Isa_8:5-8.
2. Threatening against those that conspire against Judah, and against those that fear these conspiracies, Isa_8:9-15.
3. The testament of the Prophet to his disciples, Isa_8:16 to Isa_9:6.
a) Prayer and exhortation merging into prophetic vision, Isa_8:16-22 (Isa_9:1).
b) The light of the future proceeding from a child, that is to be born of the race of David, Isa_9:1-16 (2–7).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv2–3stood--not necessarily the posture of standing; rather, were in…
stood--not necessarily the posture of standing; rather, were in attendance on Him [MAURER], hovering on expanded wings.
the--not in the Hebrew.
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seraphim--nowhere else applied to God's attendant angels; but to the fiery flying (not winged, but rapidly moving) serpents, which bit the Israelites (Num 21:6), called so from the poisonous inflammation caused by their bites. Seraph is to burn; implying the burning zeal, dazzling brightness (Kg2 2:11; Kg2 6:17; Eze 1:13; Mat 28:3) and serpent-like rapidity of the seraphim in God's service. Perhaps Satan's form as a serpent (nachash) in his appearance to man has some connection with his original form as a seraph of light. The head of the serpent was the symbol of wisdom in Egypt (compare Num 21:8; Kg2 18:4). The seraphim, with six wings and one face, can hardly be identified with the cherubim, which had four wings (in the temple only two) and four faces (Eze 1:5-12). (But compare Rev 4:8). The "face" and "feet" imply a human form; something of a serpentine form (perhaps a basilisk's head, as in the temples of Thebes) may have been mixed with it: so the cherub was compounded of various animal forms. However, seraph may come from a root meaning "princely," applied in Dan 10:13 to Michael [MAURER]; just as cherub comes from a root (changing m into b), meaning "noble."
twain--Two wings alone of the six were kept ready for instant flight in God's service; two veiled their faces as unworthy to look on the holy God, or pry into His secret counsels which they fulfilled (Exo 3:6; Job 4:18; Job 15:15); two covered their feet, or rather the whole of the lower parts of their persons--a practice usual in the presence of Eastern monarchs, in token of reverence (compare Eze 1:11, their bodies). Man's service a fortiori consists in reverent waiting on, still more than in active service for, God.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv1–3The Inaugural Vision, Isa_6:1-4.
The Inaugural Vision, Isa_6:1-4.
[This could not be an inauguration of Isaiah to the prophetic office, for that he had filled during Uzziah’s reign, (see Isa_1:1,) and probably the last preceding four chapters (2-5) are records of some of his previous publications. It seems more properly the inauguration of a new and fearful period in Judah’s theocratic history; marking the crisis of hopelessness, the nation’s utter giving over, at the close of good Uzziah’s reign. The divine Presence is in the holy of holies, and a herald is called for, and the prophet answers. His message (Isa_6:9-13) announces that such is now the state of Judah’s mind that all preaching will harden the heart, and that the sentence of long desolation is now pronounced, its execution certain, its duration for ever, except for a remnant which will return from the banishment and produce the Messiah.]
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1. I saw — An insight into the invisible world. The prophet’s mind is in communication with heaven, but his mode of apprehension is by symbol. The holy of holies in the temple, with the veil removed, is the scene where the vision occurs. It is told us, in Joh_12:41, that the “Lord,”
=Jehovah, whom Isaiah saw in this vision, was the yet unincarnated Jesus. [Compare the much sublimer theophany of Revelation iv, where see notes. Isaiah gives the apocalypse of Jerusalem’s downfal, John of the mystical Babylon’s.] In this vision the beholder sees the sovereign Jehovah on his throne, high and lifted up, with the folds of his train, or skirts, filling all the temple. Above the throne were standing or hovering, as attendant ministers before the ineffably glorious One, seraphim, or burning ones; beings with the radiance and glory of fire — an essence, so to call it — which symbolized certain intense qualities of character. The word is here only used with this sense in Scripture. It is from שׂרŠ, (saraph,) to burn, and the being is evidently spoken of as wearing a human form, with brilliant fiery appearance, covered with wings. [This word, to burn, is often used in the Old Testament, and for some reason the noun saraph, burner, signifies a serpent. Rabbi Solomon says, (quoted by Barnes,) “serpents are called seraphim, because they burn men with the poison of their teeth.” Better, however, is perhaps the suggestion of Nagelsbach, (Lange’s Bibelwerk,) that serpents were called burners from the resemblance of their vibratory creeping to the vibrations of a flame; they were flamers. And these present holy beings are called burners, not as serpents, but as representing, or, as we may say, incarnating, the burning, consuming purity and holiness of God. Hence their ascription, holy, to God, indicates their own holy nature. They are pure flames of purity and love; and though seen in repose by the prophet — they have a radiant human form — yet we may conceive that when on the wing, sent forth by Jehovah, they may become (what the flying flamingo of the south seems to be) a darting flame. As fire they either purify or destroy, as the object they touch may be; they purified the prophet, they consumed the guilty people, all save the final remnant.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv1–31. In the year that king Uzziah died] i.e.…
1. In the year that king Uzziah died] i.e. about 740 b.c.; see Chronological Note, pp. lxxv f. Whether the event happened before or after the king’s death cannot be determined. It lends an additional interest to the vision if we adopt the latter view, and regard this as the divine answer to the anxious foreboding thoughts which naturally arose in a susceptible mind at the death of a strong and successful ruler. The earthly king has passed away, and now Isaiah sees the true King in His glory.
I saw also the Lord] Many codices read here Jehovah, but the name in the received text is Adonai, the Sovereign (see on ch. Isa_1:24). The word “also” answers to nothing in the original. The words high and lofty apply to the throne, not to Jehovah Himself, as in ch. Isa_57:15.
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his train filled the temple] The skirts of His vesture fill the whole space, and on these alone, not on the person of Jehovah, Isaiah allows his eyes to rest.
1–4. Jehovah appears to the prophet in human form, and as a King, seated on a throne, surrounded by ministering servants who sing His praise (cf. 1Ki_22:19 ff.). The scene is the Temple (Isa_6:1), where Isaiah probably was when the vision occurred. There is no occasion to suppose that a “heavenly palace” is meant. What the prophet sees is the spiritual reality of which the Temple was a symbol, Jehovah’s presence as King in the midst of His people. Cf. ch. Isa_8:18.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv1–3(1) In the year that king Uzziah died.—Probably before…
VI.
(1) In the year that king Uzziah died.—Probably before his death. Had it been after it, the first year of king Jotham would have been the more natural formula. The chapter gives us the narrative of the solemn call of Isaiah to the office of a prophet. It does not follow that it was written at that time, and we may even believe that, if the prophet were the editor of his own discourses, he may have designedly placed the narrative in this position that men might see what he himself saw, that all that was found in the preceding chapters was but the development of what he had then heard, and yet, at the same time, a representation of the evils which made the judgments he was commissioned to declare necessary. On the relation of the call to the prophet’s previous life, see Introduction.
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The date is obviously given as important, and we are led to connect it with the crisis in the prophet’s life of which it tells. He had lived through the last twenty years or so of Uzziah’s reign. There was the show of outward material prosperity. There was the reality of much inward corruption. The king who had profaned the holiness of the Temple had either just died or was dragging out the dregs of his leprous life in seclusion (2Ch_26:21). The question, What was to be the future of his people? must have been much in the prophet’s thoughts. The earthquake that had terrified Jerusalem had left on his mind a vague sense of impending judgment. It is significant that Isaiah’s first work as a writer was to write the history of Uzziah’s reign (2Ch_26:22). (See Introduction.)
I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne.—Isaiah had found himself in ‘the court of the Temple, probably in that of the priests. He had seen the incense-clouds rising from the censer of the priest, and had heard the hymns and hallelujahs of the Levites. Suddenly he passes, as St. Paul afterwards passed, under the influence of like surroundings (Act_22:17), into a state of ecstatic trance, and as though the veil of the Temple was withdrawn, he saw the vision of the glory of the Lord, as Moses (Exo_24:10) and Micaiah of old had seen it (1Ki_22:19), as in more recent times it had appeared to Amos (9:1). The King of kings was seated on His throne, and on the right hand and on the left were the angel-armies of the host of heaven, chanting their hymns of praise.
His train filled the temple.—The word for “temple” is that which expresses its character as the palace of the great King. (Comp. Psa_11:4; Psa_29:9; Hab_2:20.) The “train” answers to the skirts of the glory of the Lord, who clothes Himself with light as with a garment (Exo_33:22-23). It is noticeable (1) that the versions (LXX., Targum, Vulg.) suppress the train, apparently as being too anthropomorphic, and (2) that to the mind of St. John this was a vision of the glory of the Christ (Joh_12:41).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Vers. 1-4. THE VISION OF GOD SEEN BY ISAIAH.…
Vers. 1-4. THE VISION OF GOD SEEN BY ISAIAH. It is thought by some that this vision, and its sequel, constitute the original call of Isaiah to the prophetical office, and in order of time precede all the other contents of the book. But the position of the "vision" in the book is strongly against this view. Prophets who relate their original call naturally place it in the forefront of their narrative. (Jer_1:10 Eze_1:1) It is quite possible, as Bishop Lowth says, that this was "a new designation, to introduce more solemnly a general declaration of the whole course of God"s dispensations in regard to his people, and the fates of the nations." The vision itself may profitably be compared with Ezekiel"s first vision, which it much resembles. (Eze_1:4-28)
In the year that King Uzziah died. The year B.C. 759, probably. We cannot determine from the phrase used whether the vision was seen before or after Uzziah"s death. I saw also; rather, then it was that I saw . (comp. Exo_16:6) The Lord. Not "Jehovah," as in vers. 3 and 5, but "Adonay," for greater reverence. Sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. The imagery is, of course, taken from the practice of earthly kings. Elaborate thrones were affected by the great monarchs of Egypt and Assyria (Lepsius, "Deutmaler," pt. 3. pls. 2, 76, 100, 121; Layard, "Nineveh and Babylon," p. 150). Solomon"s throne was perhaps even grander than any of these. (see 1Ki_10:18-20) It was placed at the summit of six steps," so that its occupant was high and lifted up" above all his courtiers. His train. Not his train of attendants, but "the skirts of his robe." Flowing robes were commonly worn by great monarchs. Filled the temple; or, the palace. The same word is used in Hebrew for both. Dr. Kay supposes the prophet to be "in vision gazing on the actual temple to see its veils drawn aside, and instead of the Shechinah enthroned on the cherubim, to behold the King of glory, enthroned on high, the fringes of his royal robe filling the temple, so that no human priest could minister there." But, as Mr. Cheyne observes, "palace is more in harmony with the picture than temple." It is the heavenly palace of the King of kings into which the prophet"s gaze is allowed to penetrate.
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Vers. 1-4. The vision of God.
Sight is a thing of degrees. The healthy eye sees with infinite shades of distinctness and indistinctness, according to the amount of light which is vouchsafed it. The diseased eye has an equal variety of gradation in its powers of seeing, owing to the variations in its own condition. And it is with our spiritual as with our natural sight. The vision which men have of God varies infinitely with varying circumstances from extreme dimness up to perfect distinctness. Amid this infinitude of gradation, depending mainly on the internal condition of the visual power, three main varieties, depending on the circumstances under which the spiritual sight exerts itself, may be distinguished.
I THE NATURAL VISION OF GOD IN THIS LIFE. This is, even in the best men, dim and unsatisfying. "Now we see through a glass darkly". (1Co_13:12) We have to look within us and without us; and, among the confused shadows of things, as sight and memory and imagination present them to us, we have to piece together a conception of that mysterious and inscrutable Power which alone exists of itself and has brought all that is beside itself into existence. How should not the vision be unsatisfactory? Agnosticism denies that any conception which we can form can possibly bear any resemblance at all to the reality, if there be a reality.
Agnosticism, to be consistent, ought not to go so far, but should content itself with saying that we cannot tell whether there be a resemblance or no. Some conception, however, of God all men form who reflect at all; and there is so much likeness among the conceptions of men of all times and countries as to point to some basis of truth underlying them all as the only conceivable ground of the similarity. The conceptions differ less in their essential character than in their vividness and their continuousness. Most men see God" dimly and rarely by snatches, and as through a cloud or mist. A small number have a somewhat clearer and more frequent vision. To a few only is it given to "set God always before their face," and to see him with something approaching to distinctness.
II THE ECSTATIC VISION OF GOD IN THIS LIFE. It has been the privilege of some great saints to be lifted up from earth into that condition which is called ecstasy, and while in that state to have a vision of God. In ecstasy Moses saw "the glory of God" from the "cleft in the rock" on his second ascent of Sinai. (Exo_33:18-23 Exo_34:6-8) In ecstasy Isaiah now saw him. In ecstasy Ezekiel saw him "by the river of Chebar". (Eze_1:26-28) So St. John the divine beheld him in the island of Patmos. (Rev_4:2-11) The exact nature of such visions we do not know; but it is only reasonable to suppose that they were, to those favored with them, revelations of God more distinct, more vivid, more satisfying, than any which belong to the ordinary course of nature, even to those which are vouchsafed to the "pure in heart". (Mat_5:8) They fall short in respect of duration; they are transient some of them, perhaps, momentary. But their vividness seems to have so impressed them on the beholders as to have given them a quasi-permanency in the recollection, which made them possessions for life, and gave them an undying influence on the character.
III THE BEATIFIC VISION OF GOD IN ANOTHER LIFE. What this is no tongue of man can tell. "Eye hath not seen," etc. We know only what the Word of God declares. "Then shall we see him face to face; then shall we know even as we are known,". (1Co_13:12) That this vision transcends even the ecstatic one is reasonably concluded, from its being the final reward of God"s saints the beatitude beyond which there is none other. (Rev_22:4) But it is scarcely reverent to speculate on a theme so far above human imagining. Even Bishop Butler seems to overstep the just limit, when he supposes the beatific vision to include the contemplation of the scheme of the universe in the mind of him who contrived it ("Sermon on the love of God," p. 146). We shall not know what the beatific vision is until we are admitted to it. Perhaps it will not be the same to all. Probably, as on earth "the eye sees that which it brings with it the power of seeing," so, in the world beyond the grave, the vision of God will stand in a certain correlation with the seeing faculty of the beholders. All will "see his face," but all will not be capable of receiving from the sight that which it will convey to some. There are degrees of happiness in the next world no less than in the present. If we would derive from that blessed sight all that God intended man to derive from it, we must in this life cultivate the power of "seeing God" and delighting in the contemplation of him.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-13. The prophet"s call and consecration.
There are turning-points in life which give a meaning to the whole of its after-course. A light may be given to the "mind at such moments by which it may have to steer its course for years. In moments of despondency the man of God will fall back on memory, and encourage himself by the recollection that, having once received and followed Divine guidance, that guidance will not desert him in the future. Such was this moment in the history of Isaiah. Life stood before him like a crowded picture; he foresaw the difficulties with which he would have to contend, yet that picture did not dismay him. "Like Christ from the first beginning of his Messianic labors, he thought of the end, nor did he shrink flora the image of death, so that the fact as it came nearer only confirmed what had Dot seemed strange from the beginning" (Ewald). It is the sense, not of our own faithfulness, nor of our own means, but of a Divine destiny working in and through us that must be our support in weak and lonely hours. To feel that we are moving against the course of the sun, even in the midst of external comfort or popular applause, is to be weak and unnerved; while a stern yet sweet joy fills the soul in the prospect of duty and danger, in which, though we seem to fail, we must be victors forever. Every true man has his hours of prophetic revelation; and well for him whose will is strong, and who abides by the truth of that revelation through good and through evil report, unswervingly to the end.
I THE VISION OF THE DIVINE MAJESTY.
1. Its date is fixed in memory. "The year that King Uzziah died." Dates are the resting-places of memory and fancy, around which accumulates the lore of our years. The accessions and the deaths of kings, battles, peaces, revolutions, acts of parliament that wrought weal for the people, such are the dates of nations. And every soul has its epochs birth, youthful events of pleasure, love, struggle, defeat, success; and for each there must be more to him than the events recorded in the calendar. The most "uneventful" year, as we speak, is eventful for the hidden sphere of many a spirit. How hint and poor are our public memorials of history compared with those private recollections which are written in the invisible ink of memory! Let us own that history means, first and foremost to every one of us, the history of our own spirit. By a Divine providence the fragment of an Isaiah"s, a Jeremiah"s, an Ezekiel"s autobiography is preserved through the ages, to remind us that the inner life, the contact of God with the soul, is our real concern, our deepest interest. Between the two dates on the tombstone that will mark our entrance into the world, our passage from it, what a record must lie, stored in the archives of eternity of visions beheld, of voices heard, whether obeyed or disregarded! "In the year that King Uzziah died.
2. It is a vision of the sublimity of God. Seated on a high, exalted throne, God in this image is conceived under the analogy of the Ruler. Father and Ruler such is the Bible view of God; his rule based upon his fatherhood, his fatherhood imparting benignancy and tenderness to the sterner character of the Lawgiver of the universe. But here the Father seems for the moment absorbed in the awful Sovereign, whose throne is in the heights of heaven, his footstool earth. It is only his skirts that are visible to the awe-struck gaze of the prophet. Amidst the most magnificent scenes of external nature, the Alps or the Andes, we may gain a passing soul-expanding vision of the Highest still only part revealed, but much more hidden. The verdure bejeweled with flowers, the forests glancing with the luster of dazzling birds of plumage, these may represent the vesture of the great King, hinting an unutterable beauty on which none can look and live. And so in the inward or moral world. In the history of a people or of a man there are moments when God, in the still more impressive might of his holiness, sweeps by, an awakening and a purifying Spirit. Or in higher moments of devotion we may gain a momentary glimpse of that pure love, so full of terror yet so full of blessing, which burns at the core of things, and whose light is reflected in the light of every human conscience. Yet these are partial revelations, like that to the prophet; glimpses of the skirts of Jehovah"s majesty, tastes of a "burning bliss" which in its fullness could not be endured. It is this sense that there is a beauty all around us, ready at any moment to break into glowing manifestation, were not our mortal eyes too dim to look upon it; an eternal music from which this "muddy vesture of decay grossly closing us in" protects us, which otherwise might paralyze by its thunderous tones; it is this sense which does, or which should, impress a habitual reverence upon the mind. We should all be able to look back upon moments of our history when we have seen in the inner chamber of the mind something of what Isaiah saw, and to cherish the recollection as a lore never to be forgotten. For if we have never known a time when we were reduced into insignificance in the presence of God, and felt that he was all and we were naught, and that the best tradition about God must be hushed into silence before what we personally know of God, we have missed an elementary lesson which, when once obtained, adds weight and worth to all our after-experience.
3. The seraphs and their song. "Seraphs stood high around or, "above him." It is impossible to gain a true notion of the seraphic figures without consulting works of art. Like the cherubim and the griffins and the sphinxes, their origin is in the remotest fore-time. All these were, in fact, among man"s earliest efforts to represent to himself in visible art the Divine power which he felt to be working in and through nature; in the flash of the lightning, the thunder"s roar, the might of the blast, and all those mysterious sounds and sights which usher in the changes of the year. As this is the only place where the seraphim are named, their character must remain for the most part speculative. Similar winged figures are, however, found in Oriental sculpture (such as those in the British Museum) as attributes of a sovereign. And we can hardly be wrong in considering them as appropriate signs of Jehovah"s sovereignty over nature in the vision of Isaiah. Wings in art-figures generally denote the wind. If, then, we compare the passages in the Old Testament whence Jehovah"s power is described as revealed in storm and wind, e.g. Psa_18:10 ("He rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind") or Psa_104:3, 4 ("Who walketh upon the wings of the wind; who maketh his messengers spirits, his ministers a flaming fire"), we may gain a fair understanding of what is meant. The stormy winds at the turning-points of the year reveal force the force of the omnipotent Creator. And at the same time, the Creator is concealed behind, as well as revealed in, these expressions of his might. And so the seraphic figures are seen by the prophet doubly veiled by their own wings in face and feet. For we can neither look upon the face of God nor follow the viewless track of his footsteps. As the noble verse of Cowper aptly expresses it"God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.
We shall not be far wrong if we find this truth symbolically set forth by the six-winged seraphic figures of the prophet"s vision. But the wind is full of music as well as of might, and the seraphs give utterance to a solemn song, which falls into two members, sung antiphonally by these celestial choristers. "One called to the other," just as the priests in the temple-music below. Profound and weighty is the burden of this alternate chant"Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts! The fullness of the whole earth is his glory!
How shall we think of the holiness of Jehovah? As height, like that in which the seraphs sing a nature and a life so "far above" our base and groveling ways? Alas for us, if we do not ever recollect in our worship that, high as yonder empyrean above this "dim spot that men call earth," distinct as the clouds in fleeciest white from the stagnant and foul spots below, are the thoughts of Jehovah above our thoughts, and his ways above our ways! Shall we think of holiness as separation? Woe to us if we know not that purity, which, like the flame, retirees to wed with ought that is alien to itself; which, like the light, divides and discriminates the evil from the good wheresoever it comes! The thrice-holy God is none other than the supremely pure Intelligence, the perfect chastity of Love. But the infinite glory as well as the holiness of Jehovah is celebrated. It is the "fullness of the earth," teeming with life, throbbing with mysterious forces, covered with a rich robe of rare embroidery, holding rich treasures in her keeping; which embodies to our thought the nature of God in its vast extent, just as the pure sky represents the intensity of that nature as a principle of holiness. Silent and inaccessible as sun and stars, he is yet near to us in the throbbing of great nature"s heart nay, of our own. "Speak to him, then! for he hears, and spirit with spirit may meet; Closer is he than thy breathing, nearer than hands and feet.
"God in all this was the thought of Paul the apostle, as of Isaiah the prophet. Incarnate in the flower and in the stem, vocal in the "sound of many waters," or in the tinkling of brook or murmur of zephyr; there is nothing in the world in which he is not revealed. "Thou art, O God, the Life and Light Of all this wondrous world we see! Its glow by day, its smile by night, Are but reflections caught from thee: Where"er we turn, thy glories shine, And all things fair and bright are thine.
4. The yoke of God. A loud cry is heard even above the hymn of the seraphim, and it causes the thresholds to tremble. The thunder was among all ancient nations listened to as the voice of God. It is the natural expression of supreme and irresistible power, before which man, in the last height of his own intelligence and power, must bow. Instantly the smoke soars from the altar, and the temple is filled with smoke. Worship is man"s answer to God"s voice the answerer his conscience, the answer of his heart. Nor can we truly worship without the sense of being face to face with unutterable mystery. For behind the most glorious visions remains he "whom no man hath at any time seen, nor can see;" at the heart of the thunder is that Divine emotion which must slay us were it fully discharged into our souls. The rising smoke may fitly typify that sacred silence, the "offspring of the deeper heart," in which our worship should begin and end.
II THE PROPHET"S CONSECRATION.
1. The effect of the revelation on his mind. First, there is the sense of utter weakness. When the true glory of the spiritual world bursts upon us, it seems as if we must die. Every difficulty conquered brings us a new sense of strength; every human being we have fairly faced in the consciousness of our own manhood we may reduce to our own level; for one man is virtually the peer of every other, the world over. But who can look and live in the presence of the white intense light of the pure and burning Spirit of God? Already, like Abraham, (Ge 18) the man feels himself as if reduced to "dust and ashes;" or, like Moses, that he cannot see the Eternal and live, but must shelter himself in a cleft of the rock, and hide behind the hand of God; (Ex 33) or, like Manoah, forebodes a deathful doom as he gazes into the mystic altar-flame. (Jud_1:13) In Greek and other Gentile legends we read of children receiving a nightly birth of fire as the condition of immortality, the meaning of which was that none but those destined to divinity could endure the fiery ordeal Profound enigma of our nature! That we to whom has been imparted the longing for life eternal, the dim consciousness of an undying destiny, should yet know moments when we seem on the verge of "dusty death." But the man whom God calls to be mighty in word and deed must pass through the whole gamut and scale of human emotion, from the lowest mood of self-distrust to that of loftiest confidence in God. No note must be left unstruck in our own heart, if we are to make it sound in the conscience of others. There is, besides, the consciousness inefficiency. The very calling which already glimmers before Isaiah"s mind as his is that for which he finds himself unfit, lie is to be a nabi, a prophet; that is, a man of fluent lips and pure, through which the streams of Divine eloquence are to flow. Alas! how can this be? For he is a man of unclean lips," and will not the truth be muddied passing through them, and so cease to be truth? All this is a typical experience. The man who has never felt unfit will never be fit for any great thing. Jeremiah, at his call, felt that he was "a child;" and Moses that he was "slow of speech and slow of tongue"; (Exo_4:10) and John fell at the feet of the Son of man "as one dead," brain and hand paralyzed, before he took up the pen that glowed with apocalyptic fire. Who is the fit man for God"s ends? The self-confident man? It depends on what we mean by "self-confidence." Appearances deceive; the show of strength is not the same thing with strength itself, nor the demeanor of weakness a certain index of inefficiency. To read our own hearts is our business. And heart-experience may teach us that absolute confidence in our resources bodes humiliation, while trembling self-distrust may hint that something is to be done by God through us. "Do the very thing you are afraid to do," is in certain moments the voice of conscience and of God. So it proved in this instance.
2. Purification and pardon. One of the burning beings flies to the prophet"s side, bearing a herded stone (for such seems to be the meaning of the word ritzpah) forming part of the altar, and detached without difficulty from it. With this he touches the lips of the trembling seer, saying, "Lo! this hath touched thy lips, and so will thy guilt depart, and thy sin may be atoned for." More meaning can be condensed into a symbolic action than into any mere words. Fire is the enemy of all impurity; and the idea of a fire-baptism as the means of cleansing is deeply rooted in the lore of olden time. In this respect it seems nearly allied to the sprinkling of blood. And just as when Moses sprinkled all the people with the sacrificial blood, or the priests sprinkled the altar and other sacred objects, one drop seemed sufficient to diffuse ceremonial cleanness on the object on which it fell, so the mere touch of the hot coal or stone is enough to signify the completeness of the purification. It is not the quantity of the fiery element, but the quality, which does the work. A small spark may kindle a mass of fuel, or, falling on the hand, spread a keen pain through all the nervous network of the body; so a glimpse of God, a touch from his hand, may change the mood of our being for a lifetime. It may set up a glow which shall not die down till all that is selfish, sensual, base, in us shall lie in ashes. The sense of guilt lies deep in the mind; and never is it so clear and keen as in moments of bodily sickness or mental depression. The moment when we are tempted to say, I cannot help it," there rises up the thought that there is help in God, and therefore that we are not helpless. No sooner does the cry of weakness, the complaint concerning the unclean lips, escape Isaiah, than the eternal evangel, in all its supernatural strength to heal, comes homo to his heart. For this is the eternal gospel" in its essence, whether borne by lips of seraph, prophet, or Son of God: "Thy guilt will depart, thy sin may he atoned for." And in those blessed moments when we grasp this message in its fullest meaning, and believe it in its inmost truth, the heart is set free, and, despite present fetters and prisons in which fact or fancy holds us bound, we know that it will not ever be thus. Then, indeed, the yoke of duty becomes easy, the burden of toil, for the sake of the love which pardons and emancipates, light.
3. The call to service. Again the august and dominant voice of the Eternal is heard: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" A ready answer, full of devotion, full of self-abandonment, comes from that lately overwhelmed heart: "Here am I; send me." Out of weakness Isaiah has been made strong, and there is no hesitation now. There is "triumph lingering in his eyes, wide as of some swimmer"s who descries help from above in his extreme despair." The foolish imprudence which cries, "Here am I; send me," without having calculated the cost of the enterprise and the extent of the resources, is not that of Isaiah. Still less is the unfaithful trifling with one"s powers and opportunities under the excuse of modesty, or the delight in dreams of action rather than in action itself, seen in him. We see some men rashly staking their future on the cast of a die, impetuously crossing a Rubicon; others lingering on the brink, or moving superstitiously in a fancied circle, beyond which seems to lie the frowning impossible. And we see a third class who have learned the Divine magic of the word "obey," and who alone move safely and with high heart to ends greater than their dreams. The servant"s readiness, his quickness of eye and ear, is what we need. Can we allege that we have never seen our vision, heard our call from the unmistakable voice? If the plea he sound, then our mistakes and aberrations cannot be charged against us. But can we maintain such plea so long as there is any meaning in the words" truth" and" duty?" Truth is ever beckoning to us, duty"s low clear voice is ever sounding, though the paths to which they guide lie but dimly before. The call to act is for us all; the call to act greatly but for God"s elected few. Let us not mistake our wishes for Divine commands, nor in vanity create a destiny which is only our own fiction. Still less let us treat impressions which have seized us and shaken us with awe, and against which reluctant flesh and blood have struggled, as dreams to be set aside and fancies to be overcome. If, after straining eye and ear, God seems to leave you through wide tracts of life"s way to struggle with your ignorance and to work out your problems unaided, be it so. This is your call. If otherwise you are the subject of strong and extraordinary impressions, reaching into the reality behind the shows of things, hearing with open ears where others know but confused sounds, be it so. Your call is more direct. If only we will not indulge the blindness of those who will not see, the deafness of those who stop their ears, the proud weakness of those who hate to obey, all may be well.
III THE MISSION.
1. It will be thankless and disappointing. Isaiah is to go and waste, as it seems, his eloquence upon dull ears, upon intelligences sealed up, and hearts that are proof against religious feeling. The light of truth as it streams from him will encounter rocks that will not melt in the sun, natures that can neither be softened nor sweetened. It is the height of a preacher"s joy when every word comes back to him a silent echo from the conscience of the people; and his day of mourning is when he feels himself to be speaking in a valley full of dry bones, or before beings who seem to have life and conscience, set are but as specters of men. In his best moments it seems that all the eloquence is in the people, and he is gathering up in a mist" from them that which he is to "return upon them in a flood." In other moments of discouragement it seems that he is alone in the world, with a sublime cry upon his lips, now become meaningless, because there are none to whom it has a meaning. We know the legend of St. Antony preaching to the fishes; and, indeed, it seems better to talk with the dumb creatures whom we can win to silent sympathy, than to a people which does not consider." The company of the ox or the ass seems better than that or men who have become as stocks and stones, and worse than senseless filings." The preacher and teacher will know these trials, and let him recollect that it is pro uncommon experience. We find its pathos repeated in different ways in all the great prophets, in John the Baptist, the voice in the desert," and in Christ himself. Ate we to cease crying when the echo ceases? Rather let us go on until we hear once more the truth coming back to us. Let us believe that what is true to us in our inmost heart will one day be true for all the world. One of our great countrymen said that he was wont to iterate the same statement again and again until he heard it on the tongue of common talk; and this was a statesman to whom the people owed the greatest material blessings. The test of truth is not the way in which it is received, but the immediate reflection of it in our own mind.
2. The gloom of the time will deepen. "How long, O Lord?" The answer describes a prophet shut in by clouds and mist, or overhung by some all-pervading pall of gloom. Sin is to go on working out its waste, until there be an empty and depopulated land., Things bad begun to make themselves strong by ill." And there are times when evil must be left to gather to a head and run its full course. It may even be the part of the prophet to hasten it on its way. But when we say, "Things are getting worse and worse," let us remember that beyond the worst remains the best, and after last returns the first; for God is the principle of an inexhaustible and unconquerable life.
3. The gleam of hope. There is now visible at the close a gleam on the dark horizon, denoting a coming dawn. A section, an elect few, a tenth, will survive these coming disasters. The fire of judgment and purification, of which the burning seraphs are symbolic, must wither the goodly branches of the national tree, and leave the stem all blackened and charred. Still the stump will remain with its root still fastened in the earth. "Just as the trunk of terebinth or oak, deeply and ineradicably sunk in the earth, bears constantly new shoots, an image of eternity and immortality, springing from an inward "rejuvenating power," so with the spiritual life of the nation and the individual. Here, then, we see how the deepest seriousness and sadness is yet compatible with undying hope.
(1) The nation that hopes in the Eternal can never perish. That terebinth root lives on; all fresh developments of Christianity spring from its undying life.
(2) The man who hopes in the Eternal shall be saved. He may, he must, pass through the fire of trial; but if he endure to the end, he shall be saved. Amidst his ashes he will discover fresh life; for there is hope of the tree, and hope of the man, that though felled, he shall rise again.
(3) Holiness is the secret of life. It is health, it is the sanity of the mind which has made truth its portion, God its delight, and his service its eternal choice. J.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Ver. 1. The vision of God.
"I saw... the Lord," writes the prophet. These simple, strong words suggest to us
I THE VISION WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE. "NO man hath seen God at any time," our Lord declares; and his declaration is sustained by the philosophic truth that he who is a Divine Spirit must be invisible to mortal eye. So far as our apprehension by sense is concerned, God must remain, to every human being, "the King eternal, immortal, invisible." Himself, in his own essential nature, we cannot look upon.
II THE VISION WHICH IS EXTRAORDINARY. God has, on some few occasions, granted special and particular manifestations of himself such that those to whom they were vouchsafed might say, without impropriety, that they had "seen the Lord." Of this kind were the burning bush, (Ex 3) the vision granted to Moses on the mount, (Exo_34:5, Exo_34:6) that of Micaiah, (1Ki_22:19) this one narrated in the text, those of the Apocalypse. In these cases there was a manifestation of Deity in Some form, temporarily assumed, cognizable by the senses, and bringing the soul into close communion with the Eternal One himself.
III THE VISION WHICH IS CONSTANT. It is something more than poetry to think and speak of God as being in the various objects and operations in nature. It is something deeper than fanciful sentiment, and truer than Pantheistic thought, to say that "nature is the robe of God." For his power is immanent in all living things. The forces of nature, which are working everywhere and in all things, are, in truth, the out-workings of his own Divine hand, in constant and regular, and therefore in measurable and reliable activity. When we watch them, we do well to feel that we are near to him; they are directly suggestive of him, and we ought not to be able to regard them with interest without reaching and resting in him of whose presence and skill and love they continually speak to us.
IV THE VISION WHICH IS HISTORICAL. There are two manifestations of Deity which stand by themselves, the latter being transcendently the greater and more gracious of the two.
1. One was in the visible Shechinah: which remained the constant symbol of the presence of Jehovah for many generations; there in the midst of the camp, visible to any eye that looked within the veil, but only to be seen by one man on one great day in the sacred calendar.
2. The other was found in him who was able to say, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." They who looked on him in the days of his flesh, and who heard his voice, might say with peculiar meaning, "I have seen the Lord." And we, before whose eyes a once-crucified Savior has been conspicuously upheld, (see Gal_3:1) and who, in him, have presented to our spiritual vision the holy and loving One, infinitely" worthy of our reverent affection, may also say, with profound truthfulness, that we too "have seen the Lord.
V THE VISION WHICH IS OCCASIONAL. There are certain exceptional experiences which God grants to us now, when he comes very near to us and reveals himself to our souls. It may be on the occasion of some outward incident, the apparent nearness of death and the future world, or the passing of some intimate friend or relation into the unseen realm, or the powerful presentation of the truth by some faithful minister of Christ, or it may be the sudden illumination of the Spirit of God apart from all special circumstances whatsoever; but there are times in individual history when God comes to us, when he makes his person, his claims upon us, his grace to us in his Son, and with these, our highest, eternal interests, to assume to our souls their true, their grand proportions. Then is it well, indeed, for us so to act that we can thereafter say," I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Vers. 1-4. Symbolic impressions of the Divine holiness.
This is the only vision recorded in Isaiah"s prophecy. It did not come at the beginning of his labors, but as an inauguration to a higher degree of the prophetic office. From the tone of the latter part of the chapter, it is evident that he had found out the rebelliousness and obstinacy of the people, and perhaps had become, like Elijah, greatly distressed and discouraged; needing, therefore, such a reviving and encouragement as this vision was fitted to afford. It introduces the prophet as outside, near the altar in front of the temple. The doors are supposed to be open, and the veil hiding the holy of holies to be withdrawn, unfolding the sight of Jehovah as a Monarch sitting on his throne, and surrounded by his ministers of state. According to the tradition, Isaiah"s assertion that he had seen God was the pretext for sawing him asunder, in the reign of Manasseh. In the record of the vision it should be noticed that Isaiah gives only surroundings of God, no description of the Divine Being himself. If this had been the only vision recorded as granted by God to his people, its explanation would have been difficult. It is, however, but one of a long series, and it appears to illustrate a recognized mode of Divine dealings. God takes opportunities of impressing the Divine holiness and claims by symbolic manifestations. We review the principal illustrations from Bible records.
I The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, "Fear not, Abram: I am thy Shield, and thy exceeding great Reward." And Abram, by Divine direction, took a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon, killed them, divided them, and while a horror of great darkness fell upon him, "behold! a smoking furnace and a burning lamp symbols of Divine holiness between the pieces, and the Lord made a covenant with Abram.
II A vision was granted to Jacob, from which the whole tone of his life was changed, and he began a covenanted, God-fearing career. As he lay wearily on his stone pillow, under the clear-shining stars of an Eastern sky, "behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father... the land whereon thou liest, to thee and thy seed will I give it.
III Moses led the flock of Jethro, one memorable day, to the back side of the desert, and "came to the mount of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And God called unto him out of the midst of the bush symbol of the holiness that consumes and purifies said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I
IV When commencing his arduous life-work, a similar impression was wrought upon Joshua. One day he looked towards Jericho, and lo! "there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand." In answer to Joshua"s question he said, "As Captain of the Lord"s host have I come... Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.
V In the times of the judges Gideon and Manoah beheld angels who delivered messages, and ascended in the smoke of sacrificial fires. Samuel, when a little lad, heard the very voice of God speaking his own name, and entrusting him with prophetic messages. Solomon was honored by God"s appearing to him in a night-dream, and offering the bestowment of the best blessings upon him. Elijah, after the lightning, and thunder, and earthquake, and wind had passed, heard God in the still small voice." Job exclaims, as in the rapture of a vision, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself." Jeremiah was directly set apart for his prophetic work. "The Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.
VI In the New Testament records we find similar scenes. Manifestations of angels to shepherds. A wonderful scone of transfiguration for our Lord himself. The descending sheet, and its strange contents, for Peter. The overwhelming light and voice on the road to Damascus, and the elevation into the third heavens, to see the unspeakable, for St. Paul. And the apocalyptic vision for St. John. Isaiah"s vision is in fullest sympathy with all these. For its explanation, see the exegetical portion of the Commentary. It bore upon the prophet, through its symbols, overwhelming impressions
(1) of the holiness,
(2) of the direct claims of God. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv1–3In the year that King Uzziah died I saw…
Isa_6:1-13
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord
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The story of the prophets call--why inserted here
Why the narrative of the prophets call was not, as in the cases of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, allowed to occupy the first place in the book, is a question which cannot be certainly answered.
One conjecture is that chaps. 1-5 were placed first for the purpose of preparing the reader of the book for the severity of tone which marks the end of chap. 6, and of acquainting him with the condition of things in Judah which led to such a tone being adopted. Or, again, it is possible that chap. 6 may have been placed so as to follow chaps. 1-5, because, though describing what occurred earlier, it may not have been actually committed to writing till afterwards--perhaps as an introduction Isa_7:1-25; Isa_8:1-22; Isa_9:1-7. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)
Why did Isaiah publish this account of his call?
Why was it needful to publish a private transaction between God and Isaiah? The only reason we can conceive of is that the prophet needed to give a justification of his public assumption of prophetic work. And that implies in the community a suspicion of prophetic men, and in the young prophets mind struggles and hesitation such as we can easily conceive. This picture of his call he holds up half before himself, as the answer to all the timid fears of his own heart, and half before his countrymen, as his reply to all the objections they might raise against his prophetic commission. This is strongly confirmed when we proceed to look at the message which the prophet is sent to deliver (verses 9, 10). (P. Thomson, M. A.)
The circumstances of the vision
Let us try, if we can, and present to our imaginations some idea of this extraordinary scene. The shades of evening are closing in, and all is still within the sacred precincts of the temple. The daily ritual has been duly observed, and priests and worshippers have withdrawn from the hallowed fane. The noise and stir of the great city, hard by is subsiding; a solemn hush and stillness pervades the place. One solitary worshipper still lingers within the sacred courts absorbed a reverie of prayer. He is a religions and devout man; probably a member of the school of the prophets, well instructed in the faith of his fathers, and familiar with the sacred ritual of the temple, and the lessons that it inculcated. There he is, looking forward possibly to a prophets career, yet feeling keenly the responsibilities which it will involve, and perhaps pleading earnestly to be fitted for his mission. He cannot be blind to the unsatisfactory condition of his people. Amidst much outward profession of religiousness and readiness to comply with the ceremonial demands of the faith, he cannot but discern the presence of barren formalism and hypocrisy, and of a latent superstition that might at any moment, were the restraints of authority removed, blossom out into open idolatry. And who shall say what heart searchings may have occupied his own mind as he knelt there in the temple all alone with God. Was he more spiritual than those around him? Was he sufficiently pure and devout to stand up in protest against a nations sins? One moment all is silence and stillness as he kneels in prayer; the next, and lo! a blaze of glory and a burst of song! Startled and awe-stricken, the lonely worshipper raises his head to find himself confronted with a sublime and dazzling spectacle. His bewildered vision travels up through ranks of light till it finds itself resting for a moment, but only for a moment, on an Object too august for human gaze. I saw also, the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Around that dread Presence the forms of vast and wondrous intelligences of glory, the attendant ministers of the Majesty Divine, seem bending in adoration, and the voice of their worship falls like the roll of thunder on his ear, shaking the very pillars of the temple porch with its awe-inspiring resonance, as they echo and re-echo with answering acclamations the antiphon of heaven--Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
The vision
Isaiah might probably have said, as St. Paul did on a like occasion, Whether I was in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, but he would undoubtedly have confirmed the plain meaning of his words that the vision was a reality and a fact. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
The Symbolism of Isaiahs vision
There is a variety of opinion among the commentators as to the basis of the symbolism of this vision. Some assert that the imagery by which the prophet sets forth the wealth and splendour of the heavenly kingdom is taken entirely from the scenery and ritual of the temple; that when the worshippers had left, and the sacrifices had been offered, and only a few of the most devout remained for prayer and vigil, Isaiah, lingering with the few, unsatisfied and perplexed, beheld this vision, and consecrated himself to his prophetic activity: In this view the picture presented of the celestial world is the inner features and ritual of the temple idealised and expanded. Dr. Cheyne casts doubt upon this interpretation, and leans to the opinion that not the temple but the palace is the point from which the prophets inspired imagination takes its departure. The figures, the messengers, and the throne are from the court, not from the temple. It is impossible wholly to accept either of these views. There is no reason why we should not blend both in our exposition of Isaiahs vision. There are certainly some references to the temple in the altar, the purging away of sin, and the smoke-filled house. In the throne and the train filling the temple there are suggestions of the court. As Isaiah was an attendant on both, it is probable that the ideas under which he sets forth the kingship of Christ, as priestly and yet regal, were drawn from his own observation of the centres of government and worship in his own country. Ideas of righteousness, and sympathy, and sacrifice unite in his conception of the invisible kingdom. (J. Matthews.)
Isaiahs vision of God
Some of you may have been watching a near and beautiful landscape in the land of mountains and eternal snows, till you have been exhausted by its very richness, and till the distant hills which bounded it have seemed, you knew not why, to limit and contract the view; and then a veil has been withdrawn, and new hills, not looking as if they belonged to this earth, yet giving another character to all that does belong to it, have unfolded them selves before you. This is a very imperfect likeness of that revelation which must have been made to the inner eye of the prophet, when he saw another throne than the throne of the house of David, another King than Uzziah or Jotham, another train than that of priests or minstrels in the temple, other winged forms than those golden ones which overshadowed the mercy seat. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)
The inaugural vision of Isaiah
The inaugural vision of Isaiah contains in brief an outline of his prophetic teaching. The passage besides this has a singular psychological and religious interest of a kind personal to the prophet. It consists of a series of steps, each one of which naturally follows upon the other.
I. There is first A VISION OF THE LORD, THE KING, surprising and majestic, with a singular world of beings and activities around Him (cars. 1-4).
II. THIS VISION OF JEHOVAH REACTS UPON THE MIND OF THE PROPHET and makes him think of himself in relation to this great King, the Holy One, whom he had seen; and one thought succeeds another, so that in a moment he lives a history (vats. 5-7).
III. Having passed through this history, the beginning of which was terror, but the end peace, AN ALTOGETHER NEW SENSATION FILLED HIS MIND, as if the world, which was all disorder and confusion before, and filled with a conflict of tendencies and possibilities, had suddenly, in the light felling on it from the great King whom he had seen, become clear and the meaning of it plain, and also what was his own place in it; and this was accompanied with an irresistible impulse to take his place. This is expressed by saying that he heard the voice of the great Sovereign who had been revealed to him proclaiming that He had need of one to send, to which he replied that he would go.
IV. Finally, there comes THE SERVICE WHICH HE HAS TO PERFORM, which is no other than just to take his place in the midst of that world, the meaning of which his vision of the Sovereign Lord had made clear to him, and state this meaning to men, to hold the mirror up to his time and declare to it its condition sad its tendencies, and what in the hand of the great King, God over all, its issue and the issue of all must be (verses 8-13). (A. B.Davidson, D. D.)
Isaiahs vision
I. We have to contemplate A REMARKABLE MANIFESTATION OF GOD.
II. WHAT WAS ITS EFFECT ON THE PROPHET?
III. THE MEANS BY WHICH THE PENITENT PROPHET WAS PURIFIED.
IV. THE CALL OF THE PROPHET.
V. HIS COMMISSION. (T. Allen, D. D.)
Realising God
A mans realisation of the character of God does not depend altogether on his religious experience; it depends also on original capacity, temperament, and on suitable physiological conditions both of body and of mind. (T. Allen, D. D.)
An anticipation of the Incarnation
This vision was an anticipation of the Incarnation of our Lord. St. John tells us distinctly that the glory which the prophet saw was the glory of the Redeemer. No man hath seen God at any time. God is a spiritual being, and therefore He does not appeal to sense. He reveals Himself to faith, to conscience, and to love. But sense is an avenue through which the soul is reached and influenced, and Almighty God, in revealing Himself to man, has not overlooked this constitutional fact. The Incarnation was a tribute of respect paid to our senses. What the prophet saw only in symbol we realise in the form of a glorious historic Presence. (T. Allen, D. D.)
Vision and service
I. THE PROCESSION OF THE DEAD FROM EARTH BRINGS US FACE TO FACE WITH THE ETERNAL KINGDOM. We cannot look upon any visible forms, and note their changefulness and yet the permanence of the ideas they illustrate, and not infer the existence of the world of thought, and law, and reality from which they proceed. But while all life is based on the unseen, and witnesses to its presence ever, the procession of the generations of men on the earth more powerfully still reveals the higher kingdom. Think of the populations that have lived in this planet, and received their first schooling and drill here. After a brief preparation and teaching in the knowledge of the laws and facts of existence, they depart. The procession into the pale kingdoms is endless and crowded. The majority the other side becomes greater each day. It is impossible to think of that succession and deny the celestial world. The law of continuity suggests a life beyond. The principle which secures the completion of all great work rightly begun, speaks of it. Our sense of the justice at the heart of things assures us of a realm of compensation for unrequited labour and unexplained sorrow. The union with God that begins here must be consummated elsewhere. Such facts as these would be forced upon the thought of Isaiah as all Israel mourned the death of their leader and king.
II. THE SUPREME FACT OF THE CELESTIAL KINGDOM IS THE SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST. After Johns statement (Joh_12:41) that Isaiah saw His glory, and spake Of Him, there can be no question with any Christian mind as to the Messianic reference of the manifestation. Isaiah may not have known of the sacrifice and resurrection by which that throne was gained, but the general outlines of the mediatorial kingdom are fully recognised here. I saw the Lord, high and lifted up. All else in heaven was subordinated to that central fact.
1. The supremacy of our Lords rule over heaven and earth, over angels, monarchs, events, the great and the little, the present and the future.
2. The absorbing attraction of that rule. For as prophet, and angels, and men, discern the glory of His love, and mercy, and power, they are constrained to praise.
3. The perfect serenity and sufficiency of His rule are indicated here. Beneath is storm and tumult. He sits above the flood.
4. The universality of His rule is clear. His train fills the temple. Those who went before, and those who came after, cried Hosanna!
5. The design of Christs rule on earth is to bestow pardon and purity.
6. The King who confers cleansing and peace demands service.
7. He does not hesitate to discipline His unfaithful servants until their loyalty is assured.
III. THE EFFECT OF THE VISION OF CHRISTS LORDSHIP ON THE BEHOLDER.
1. A deep sense of personal sinfulness.
2. A deep sense of insufficiency for the work of God.
3. The vision that humbles, clothes with power, fills with certitude, directs our steps, inspires with invincible heroism, and makes us partakers of its glory and its resources. (J. Matthews.)
The vision of God
No truth is more familiar than that God cannot be seen by mortal eye. But God has so manifested Himself that we may say, without impropriety or mistake, that we have seen Him. He did so--
I. OCCASIONALLY, BEFORE THE CHRISTIAN ERA. We have illustrations of this in the case of the burning bush (Exo_3:1-22), of Moses on the mount of God (Exo_34:1-35), of Micaiah, the Hebrew prophet (1Ki_22:1-53), and in that before us in the text. In such experiences, each one of which may have been unlike the others, a very special privilege was granted to these men; so special and peculiar that they felt, and had a right to feel, that they stood in the very near presence of the High and Holy One Himself.
II. PERMANENTLY, IN THE TEMPLE. The religion of the people of Israel differed from that of the surrounding nations in that there was not to be found in their sacred places any image or statue or visible representation of God. If any such were found it was a marked violation of law, a distinct apostasy. Only one visible indication of the Divine presence was permitted, and that was as immaterial as it could be, and was only beheld by one man once in the year--the Shechinah in the Holy of holies. Once a year the high priest might use the words of our text; for when he entered within the veil, on the great day of atonement, he stood in the presence of manifested Deity.
III. ONCE FOR ALL IN THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST. All previous historical manifestations were lost in the presence of the Son of God. He manifested the Divine so that those who saw Him did in truth see God. They saw nothing less than--
1. Divine power, including control over the body and the spirit of man, over the elements of nature, over disease and death.
2. Divine wisdom, reaching to all those truths that concern the nature and will of God, and also the character, life, and destiny of man.
3. Divine purity, shown in an absolutely blameless life.
4. Divine love, shining forth in tender, practical sympathy with men in all their sufferings and sorrows; showing itself in compassion for men in their spiritual destitution (Mar_6:34); culminating in the agony of the garden and the death of the Cross. Well might the Master say that His disciples were privileged beyond kings and prophets, for as they walked with Him they saw the Lord. Conclusion--We can see God in nature, in history, in the outworkings of His providence, in the human conscience and human spirit. But the way in which to seek His face is by acquainting ourselves with, and uniting ourselves to, Jesus Christ, His Son. (W. Clarkson B. A.)
The empty throne filled
I. THE VISION ITSELF. The centre truth is that the Lord of hosts is the King--the King of Israel
II. THE MINISTRATION OF LOSS AND SORROW IN PREPARING THE VISION. If the throne of Israel had not been empty, the prophet would not have seen the throned God in the heavens. And so it is with all our losses, with all our sorrows, with all our disappointments, with all our pains; they have a mission to reveal to us the throned God.
III. THE TEXT SUGGESTS THE COMPENSATION THAT IS GIVEN FOR ALL LOSSES. The one God will become everything and anything that every man, and each man, requires. He shapes Himself according to our need. The water of life does not disdain to take the form imposed upon it by the vessel into which it is poured. The Jews used to say that the manna in the wilderness tasted to each man as each man desired, of dainties or of sorrows. And the God who comes to us all, comes to us each in the shape that we need; just as He came to Isaiah in the manifestation of His kingly power, because the throne of Judah was vacated. So when our hearts are sore with loss the New Testament manifestation of the King, even Jesus Christ, comes to us and says, the same is my mother and sister and brother, and his sweet love compensates for the love that can die, and that lass died. When losses come to us He draws near, as durable riches and righteousness. In all our pains He is our anodyne, and in an our griefs He brings the comfort; He is all in all, and each withdrawn gift is compensated, or will be compensated, to each in Him. So let us learn Gods purpose in emptying heart and chairs and homes. He empties that He may fill them with Himself. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The rectal and mediatorial dominion of God
I. PECULIARITIES OF THIS DOMINION.
1. The law of belief, or what we may otherwise phrase, the law of intellectual humility. Revelation was never intended to be a revelation to our comprehension or to our reason. The revelation of the Bible is made to faith.
2. The law of evangelical faith.
3. The law of holiness. You will find a great difference between the nature of the obedience which God in the Gospel requires and that which earthly governments require.
(1) Earthly governments take cognizance of the outward act, but none at all of the motives, the affections, or the tempers: but God in the Gospel government controls these.
(2) Earthly governments are usually backward in interfering with the private arrangements of commercial and domestic life, and with the personal property of their subjects. But Christianity puts everything under law. Its sway is universal, all-pervading, absolute.
(3) Earthly governments, earthly systems of ethics, either fail to inculcate, or are at positive variance with, much of the more elevated and spiritual morality of the Bible. The great peculiarity of the government of Jehovah the Saviour in this respect is, that He requires men to be holy and not merely to be moral.
4. The law of disciplinary suffering.
II. EXCELLENCIES OF THIS DOMINION.
1. It is a spiritual government.
2. It us a mediatorial government--a government, therefore, of mercy.
3. The supremacy of this dominion might be adverted to. It is a throne high and lifted up above all the thrones and dynasties of the earth. Let this comfort the people of God.
4. It is eternal. (W. M. Bunting.)
The dead king; the living God
Israels king dies, but Israels God still lives. From the mortality of great and good men we should take occasion, with the eye of faith, to look up to the King eternal, immortal, invisible. (M. Henry.)
Government human and Divine
I. THE CHANGE IN CIVIL SOCIETY TAKE PLACE UNDER THE DIRECTION AND GOVERNMENT OF THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD.
II. THE PERMANENCY OF THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT AFFORDS A STRIKING CONTRAST TO THE FADING CHARACTER OF EARTHLY GOVERNMENTS.
III. THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM IN THE HANDS OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST PROCEEDS WITH MAJESTIC PROGRESS NOTWITHSTANDING, AND EVEN BY MEANS OF, THESE VARIOUS CHANGES. (R. Winter, D. D.)
Seeing God
Isaiah saw God: do men see Him today? Was He any nearer to Jerusalem than He is to London and New York? Did that old Hebrew possess faculties different from ours?
1. God can be seen and known. He has been seen and known. Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, Paul, John--all saw Him. He has been seen and known in all lands and among all religions.
2. What do we mean by seeing and knowing God? A spirit cannot be seen with physical eyes. We mean that we are so convinced of the nearness and reality of God that our thinking and living are all determined by that conviction--so sure of Him that we live as if we saw Him by physical sight.
3. But have not men seen their own imaginings, and thought that those were God! Is not a perfect God the noblest work of man! It has not been proved that any have actually known God. It would, in the nature of things, be impossible to demonstrate that to anyone who did not himself possess the same knowledge; but it has been proved that these whom the world always heeds when they speak concerning other things have believed that they had this knowledge; and that faith has been the inspiration of dauntless heroism, most patient endurance, and most sacrificing service.
4. How is God known! Many answers are given. Probably all are partially correct. As each individual sees natural objects from his own standpoint, so must he approach the highest knowledge. We are not asking whether men have known about God, but whether they have known Him. We know about Caesar, but we do not know him; we about the Mikado of Japan, but we do not know him. Many know about God who show no signs of knowing Him. I think that no one has been able to tell how this knowledge is attained: Some say, We are conscious of Him; others, We see Him with the inner eye; others, Reason leads to Him; and others still, He is seen and known in the things which are made. But after all, the most that any can say is, I know Him. Isaiah said, I saw the Lord, but all is hazy and indistinct when he comes to detail
5. All who have learned to love man in the spirit of Christ never can fail of coming to the knowledge of God, for whosoever loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Love is the new life; and love secures knowledge.
6. When we want to know about God we stand before the majesty of an ocean in a storm, before the terrible splendour of Alpine crests and glaciers, beneath the host of the heavens that in solemn silence thread the mazes of the sky, and say: Behold the greatness of God! We study the movement of history, and see how the dispersion of the Jews sent true spiritual ideas into all lands; how the triumphs of Alexander gave a common language to the world; how the supremacy of Rome made nations one; how the carnival of blood called the French Revolution overthrew more abuses than it worked; how the American Civil War ended in the proclamation of freedom, and we say, God is revealing Himself in history. We read the story of the life and death of Jesus, and say, if that is a revelation of God, then He is the One for whom our souls long. But all these revelations may be accepted without personal knowledge. The Father, who is a Spirit, comes to us in spirit; speaks in a still voice in the chambers of memory, conscience, aspiration; and we know Him and yet may not be able to explain that knowledge to those who do not have it. I know my Father; He knows His child. That is the highest human experience. That is eternal life.
7. If eternal life is not a question of dates, of the succession of months and years, but knowing God, then no question is more imperative than, Is it possible for me to know Him? It is a great thing to claim that knowledge. It should never be done irreverently or lightly, but always humbly and with great joy. The mission of the pulpit and the Church is primarily to help men to know God. How, then, may we know Him? However many answers are possible, only one need be given. All who follow Jesus Christ are sure, sooner or later, to realise that, like Him, they, too, are sons of God. (Amory H. Bradford, D. D.)
Removing the veil
1. A king must die! There almost seems to be something incongruous in the very phrase. The very word king means power. The king is the man who can--the man who is possessed of ability, dominions, sovereignty; and the shock is almost violent when we are told that the range of kingship is shaped and determined by death. How the one word suffices for all sorts and conditions of men! The registrar deals with us very summarily! We look through his books. His vocabulary is very limited. He has two words, born and died, and between the two he Can fit in all mankind; there is no exception to disturb his little printed form; we all take our place in it, prince and peasant, emperor and slave. And all this irrespective of character.
2. As kings went in those days, Uzziah had proved himself an admirable king, a wise ruler, a good man. He was distinctly a progressive man, a man of action and enterprise. His energies were not absorbed in merely foreign affairs, nor shaped by the lust of mere dominion. He proceeded upon the principle that a successful foreign policy must be based upon a wise domestic policy; that an efficient and stable rulership must begin at home. I like the way in which the chronicler sums up the kings motives and gives us the very spirit of his home policy, he loved husbandry? He loved husbandry, and therefore you find him hedging his people about with security as they go about their daily life. He digged many wells, he attended to the requirements of irrigation, he laid the hand of protection and favour upon husbandmen and vine dressers, and in every way he showed that he regarded agriculture as the fundamental and primary pursuit of national life. Upon that home policy he built his foreign policy. If you have peace, security, and contentment at the centre it is easier to extend and widen the bounds of your circumference; and with order and prosperity at home, Uzziah was able to enlarge the borders of his empire. He could raise from his devoted people an army of mighty power. The limits of his kingdom were being continually expanded. His name spread far abroad. He was marvellously helped, till he was strong. Such was the nations king; loved by all his people, feared by all his foes. Is it, then, any wonder that King Uzziah--skilled organiser in home affairs, subtle strategist in foreign affairs--became the pillar of the nations hopes, the repository of her trust, the ultimate security of her prosperity and permanence?
3. Now, there is a strange tendency in human nature to deify any person who gives evidence of possessing any kind of extraordinary power. We place them on the hearts throne--the throne on which are centred the souls hopes and which carries with it the ultimate sovereignty and apportionment of life. Extraordinary power of any kind appeals to the godlike within us, and upon the object evincing the extraordinary power we too often fix our trust. Watch the principle in the narrative before us. Here is Isaiah. Before his call and consecration he had lived on the political plane of life. His thought was ever moving among the forces of diplomacy and statecraft. How intensely absorbed he was in the game of national politics! The national problem was to Isaiah a political problem. The ultimate foundation of national prosperity was stable government. The wise handling of political forces was the one essential for the continuity and grandeur of the nations life. That was the plane of thought and life on which Isaiah moved, and on that plane he must find his heroes. He found the hero in Uzziah. What then? He had won Isaiahs admiration. Next, he won his confidence, next his love, next his devotion; then Uzziah became Isaiahs god! Uzziah filled the whole of Isaiahs vision. How now did Isaiahs reasoning run? Thus--What will become of the world when Uzziah dies? When the master of statecraft is gone, in whose hands will the rulership rest? When the political nave is removed, will not all the spokes of the national wheel be thrown into the direst confusion? That was Isaiahs fear, begotten by his hero worship. Well, Uzziah died. What then! Says Isaiah, In the year that King Uzziah died--what?--All my worst fears were abundantly realised? No, no! In the year that King Uzziah died I had my eyes opened; I saw there was a greater, kingdom with a greater King--I saw the Lord. The hero died to reveal the heros God. What, then, did the revelation do for Isaiah? It gave him an enlarged conception of all things. It gave him a new centre for his thoughts and life.
It taught him this, that the ultimate security for all national greatness is not kings and crowns but God. It taught him this, that big armies, and walled cities, and quiet husbandry, and subtle diplomacy, and complex civilisations am not the fundamental forces on which mankind rests. The eternal centre of all true life, the centre which time cannot weaken and which death cannot corrupt, is not diplomacy, but holiness--not Uzziah, but the Lord. The earthly king had come between Isaiah and his God, and it was only when the earthly king was taken away that Isaiah saw the King of kings. I saw the Lord high and lifted up--a limited interest replaced by a larger one, a low standard supplanted by a loftier one, a loom monarch stepping aside to reveal the universal King.
4. This teaching has a most pertinent application to the life of today. Which is the most prominent in English national life today--King Uzziah or King Jesus, the representative of diplomacy or the representative of holiness? Which are we most concerned about--the science of politics or the science of holy living? What are the forces on which we are chiefly depending for the continuity of our national supremacy? The eternal forces are not material, but spiritual, proceeding not from the earth, but coming down from heaven. Material forces must be kept secondary, because they are transient; spiritual forces must be primary, because they are eternal. What is the conclusion of the whole matter? Dont let us lay the stress and emphasis of life upon secondary things--not upon Uzziah, but upon the Lord. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
The Uzziahs of history and the Lord
History tells us the stories of nations who have looked no further than King Uzziah, and who have been accustomed to use the temporal and earthly forces which Uzziah represents. And how has it fared with them? Ancient Phoenicia looked no further than King Uzziah. She built her national temple upon the foundation of commerce, and the only binding force among her people was the relationships of trade. Ancient Greece looked no further than King Uzziah. She raised a palatial national structure upon the foundation of literature and art, and the structure was exceeding beautiful, the wonder and admiration of all time. Ancient Rome looked no further than King Uzziah. She raised an apparently solid masonry, compact and massive, upon a political foundation, and all the stones in the building were clamped together by a tie of patriotism, such as the world has elsewhere never known. Now what has become of them--Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome! How has it fared with the nations so constituted, the houses so built? This is the record. They stood for a time, proud, august, radiant with imperial splendour, fair with the smile of fortune, and reflecting the sunny light of the prosperous day. But the rains descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon those nations, and they fell, and great was the fall of them! Surely that is a lesson for today, that national foundations must not be laid by Uzziah but by the Lord. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
The material fleeting: the spiritual enduring
I spent a little time in the old castle at Stifling, and in one of the rooms of the tower were two curiosities which riveted my attention. In one corner of the room was an old time worn pulpit. It was John Knoxs pulpit, the pulpit from which he used to proclaim so faithfully the message of the King: In the opposite corner were a few long spears, much corrupted by rust, found on the field of Banncokburn, which lies just beyond the castle walls. John Knoxs pulpit on the one hand, the spears of Bannockburn on the other! One the type of material forces, forces of earth and time; the other the type of spiritual forces, forces of eternity and heaven. The spears, representative of King Uzziah; the pulpit, representative of the Lord. Which symbolises the eternal? The force and influence which radiated from that pulpit will enrich and fashion Scottish character when Bannockburn has become an uninfluential memory, standing, vague and indefinite, on the horizon of a far distant time. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
Gain through loss
God puts out our little light that we may see Him the better. When you are looking out of the window at night, gazing towards the sky, you will see the stare more clearly if you put out your gaslight. That is what God has to do for us. He has to put out the secondary lights in order that we may see the eternal light. Uzziah has to die, in order that we may see it is God who lives. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
The compensations of life
I know a little cottage which is surrounded by great and stately trees, clothed with dense and massy foliage. In the summer days, and through all the sunny season, it just nestles in the circle of green, and has no vision of the world beyond. But the winter comes, so cold and keen. It brings its sharp knife of frost, cuts off the leaves, until they fall trembling to the ground. There is nothing left but the bare framework on which summer hung her beauteous growths. Poor little cottage, with the foliage all gone! But is there no compensation? Yes, yea Standing in the cottage in the winter time and looking out of the window, you can see a mansion, which has come into view through the openings left by the fallen leaves. The winter brought the vision of the mansion! My brother, you were surrounded by the summer green of prosperity. It had become your king. There your vision ended. But the Lord wished to give your thought a further reach. He wanted your soul to see the mansion which the Father hath prepared for them that love Him. So He took away your little king. He sent the winter and stripped your trees; and in the year that the little king died you saw the Lord. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
Isaiahs call
I. THE MEDIUM THROUGH WHICH IT WAS GIVEN A VISION. Why was it recorded? Not to indulge the conceit of the prophet, nor even chiefly to certify him to the Jews; but because of the messages to them which it so vividly conveys, and the representative interest of the experience to all spiritual minds.
II. THE STATE OF MIND THE VISION PRODUCED. (verse 5.) Fear, dejection, self-humiliation. Both personally and as representative of the Jewish nation he was convicted of sin is the invariable result of close intercourse with God. Our inborn sin is brought to light and rebuked. And the more Christlike we are the more will our brothers sin likewise weigh upon our hearts. It is in this very experience that our preparation for service begins.
III. HOW THIS WAS DEALT WITH. The fact of sinfulness is not denied by Him to whom it is confessed. It is tacitly confirmed by what takes place. Yet how tender and considerate is the silence of the Judge of all the earth! At once He institutes and sets in operation a mediatorial agency. Such guilt and impurity no water can cleanse: fire is needed, fire from the Consuming Fire.
IV. THE CALL.
I. Couched first in a universal question,--Whom shall I send? etc.
2. After the prophets response the call is more direct and personal: Go, and tell this people, etc the more general call to us consists, as it did to Isaiah, in the sense of our neighbours need and our own duty with regard to supplying it. But if a Christian It in earnest, and willing to surrender himself to the commandment of his Lord, more specific direction will not be wanting.
V. THE RESPONSE. (verse 8) Then said I, Here am I; send me. A sacrifice and a petition. (Homiletic Magazine.)
Isaiahs vision
I. THE INEFFABLE MAJESTY OF GOD.
1. His Supreme authority. Sitting upon a throne, high and lifted ups He is the high and lofty One. He ruleth over all, matter and mind, the evil and the Good.
2. His magnificent upset. His train filled the temple. This is an allusion to the flowing robes of Oriental monarchs, which signalise their stately grandeur, What is the costume of the Infinite? Thou clothest Thyself with light as with a garment. The flowing robes of His majesty filled the temple of immensity.
3. His illustrious attendants. Above it stood the seraphim. Eastern monarchs had numerous princes and nobles as their attendants; but these fiery ones are the ministers of the eternal King.
4. His absolute holiness. One cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The repetition indicates the intensity of their conviction.
II. THE LOFTY SERVICES OF CELESTIAL INTELLIGENCES. Their services are--
1. Reverential.
2. Alert. They do not move with a tardy reluctance in the service of their Lord; but with wings expanded they stand ever ready to execute His behest.
3. Individual. One cried unto another. Each was intensely alive to his own responsibility and duty.
4. Harmonious. After the separate cries there was a blending of all in one grand chorus, The whole earth is full of His glory.
5. Enthusiastic. As the peal of a majestic organ sometimes shakes the cathedral, the voice of one worshipper in heaven is represented as moving the posts of the door. The grand solo sends a tremor through the temple.
III. THE AMAZING CAPACITY OF THE HUMAN SOUL. Isaiah saw all this, not with the outward eye, but with the eye of his mind. Unlike all other creatures on this earth, man has a capacity to see God. He can see God enthroned in the universe.
1. Sin has injured this capacity. Whilst all men have the power to see God, few men do.
2. The Gospel restores this capacity. It opens the spiritual eye, sweeps away the carnal atmosphere, and shows God filling the temple. (Homilist.)
The Trinity in unity
(for Trinity Sunday):--
I. AS TO THE UNIVERSAL PREVALENCE OF BELIEF IN THE DOCTRINE. The doctrine of the Trinity has always been one of those things, to use the language of St. Luke, which have been most surely believed among us.
II. THE SCRIPTURAL PROOF OF THE DOCTRINE. It underlies the whole Bible, and is inextricably interwoven with its fabric and its structure.
III. THE NATURE OF THIS DOCTRINE. We grant at once that it is mysterious, and that it is inexplicable. We walk by faith, not by sight. This great doctrine in its inner being is hidden from us; but it presents a countenance to us full of beauty and loveliness, the features of which are discerned by the eye of faith. It is a golden casket, containing a most precious jewel; locked, if you like, which we cannot open, but enriching us nevertheless. It is a song in a strange language, the meaning of it in a great degree unintelligible, but the melody most exquisite. Practical application of the doctrine--
1. It is bound up with our duty to God. We have duties to pay to each of the three Persons if we would perfectly know our glorious God, if we would worthily magnify His holy name.
2. It is bound up with our hope of salvation.
3. It is bound up with the fulness of Gospel blessings. Take the apostolic benediction; what more can you conceive of spiritual life and blessing than is contained within that? (R. W. Forrest, M. A.)
The command and encouragement to communicate the Gospel
The communication of the will of God to others is connected with the manifestation of the excellency of all the perfections of the Deity, but appears in the passage before us in more especial relation to the glory of the Divine holiness.
I. THE REVELATION WHICH GOD HAS MADE TO HIS INTELLIGENT CREATURES MANIFESTS HIS SUPREME AND PERFECT HOLINESS. The great lesson which the vision taught was the holiness of Jehovah, and that by the manifestation of this the whole earth was to be filled with His glory. This, if not the source and end, has always formed a part, and has often been preeminent in the manifestations God has made to His intelligent creatures. Although inseparably blended with the infinite benevolence and perfect rectitude, we find this perfection more frequently associated with the name, and employed to qualify the attributes of Jehovah, than any other. The arm of the Lord, the emblem of His power, is called His holy arm; His eyes, emblems of omniscience, the eyes of His holiness; His presence, Holy of holies; His majesty, the throne of His holiness; His name, the holy name; Himself, the Holy One. This is equally applicable to the Father, Holy Father,--the Son, Holy Child,--the Spirit, Holy Ghost. All the manifestations God has ever made of Himself, so far as our limited and imperfect knowledge extends, have been those of His holiness. He is holy in all His works. It was because they beheld a new impress of the moral image of Jehovah that the sons of God shouted together for joy. The Divine holiness was also exhibited, under a new aspect, to all orders intelligent creation, in the contrast between the state of the first human pair and that of fallen spirits. All the manifestations which, since the fall the Divine Being has condescended to make to our race, either of His dominion over the affairs of men, the intimations of His will, or the operations of His grace and Spirit on the soul, have been revelations of the Divine holiness. In the human nature of Christ, the glory of Divine holiness was enshrined in a temple more pure than that in which the Shekinah had appeared; here was an altar that sanctified both the giver and the gift; a sacrifice in which Omniscience saw no imperfection; a Priest who needed not to offer sacrifice for His own sins, for He was holy, harmless, and undefiled. The purity of God had been shown in the creation; in the consequences of the fall: the destruction of the old world; and the giving of the law: but on Calvary, though softened by the veil of humanity through which it was revealed, it beamed forth with an intensity and effulgence which rendered it at once the most stupendous and sublime display of the Divine equity and holiness that ever has, or, we have reason to believe, ever will take place. The design of the sacrifice displays more vividly this glorious perfection. It was not simply to redeem from sin, but to redeem to holiness. The dispensation which terminated with the return of the Redeemer to the bosom of the Father, has been followed by another, less imposing, but equally clear and more extensive, manifestation of the Divine holiness, the descent of the Holy Spirit. The volume of inspiration is a revelation of the Divine holiness; all its precepts and promises are holy. With what superiority in moral excellency does this view of the connection between the diffusion of the Gospel and the glorious holiness of Jehovah invest this sacred cause; what impressive instruction does it impart to all engaged in its varied departments, at home or abroad; and how imperative its requirement, that, on every order of agency in its support, direction, and application, holiness unto the Lord should ever be distinctly inscribed!
II. THE COMMUNICATION TO OTHERS OF THE REVELATION WHICH GOD HAS MADE, IS ENJOINED BY DIVINE AUTHORITY. Whatever motives may engage the people of God to communicate to others what He has revealed to them, the Divine command constitutes the foundation, augments the force of every other, and must give vitality and efficiency to all This commission has been either special or ordinary; but the authority has been the same in all, and the obligation equal.
III. KNOWLEDGE OF THE DIVINE WILL, AND EXPERIENCE OF THE DIVINE MERCY, DEMAND AND ENCOURAGE PROMPT AND CHEERFUL OBEDIENCE. This is strongly and beautifully shown in the vision of the prophet. Many of the communications of the Divine will appear to have been preceded by peculiar manifestations of the Divine glory. Thus Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel; the disciples, after the resurrection, and on the mountain in Galilee; Saul, on his way to Damascus; and the beloved disciple in Patmos, were favoured. This was probably designed to strengthen their minds with vivid and solemn impressions of the greatness and majesty of that God whose message they were to declare, and to encourage their fidelity. It is a humiliating fact, that, with authority equally distinct, motives more numerous and strong, and facilities greater than at any former time, discouragements and difficulties still keep many at home, who ought to be on the broad plains of moral death, pointing the nations to the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. These difficulties principally arise from the views which are taken of the nature of the work and the qualifications it requires.
1. Physical unfitness.
2. Deficiency of natural or acquired abilities.
3. Moral unfitness.
4. Attachment to home, and the privations and perils of the work.
5. The magnitude and importance of the work.
Let us glance at the encouragements to obedience.
1. The dominion and omnipotence of the Redeemer.
2. The grateful import of the message.
3. The measure of success, though not the rule of duty, is cheering.
4. The spirit of the times and the aspect of the world. (W. Ellis.)
The idea of God
I. ISAIAHS VISION OF GOD. This was, in all probability, the greatest incident in his whole life, and it left an indelible mark on his thinking, lust as the thinking of St. Paul, and, in fact, his whole activity, sprang out of what happened to him on the way to Damascus. That day he saw God. That is his own account of the matter. Now, as he prophesies through three reigns after the death of Uzziah, Jothams, Ahazs, and Hezekiahs, and probably lived sixty years after this date, he must at the time have been a very young man, and I am strongly inclined to think that this was not only the commencement of his activity as a prophet, but the beginning of his own religious life. It was what, in modern language, would be called his conversion. He says that he saw the Lord, and what better account could anyone give of the crisis by which real religion commences? Before this, Isaiah had heard plenty about God, because he seems to have been the son of a wealthy family living in Jerusalem; but, as another eminent Old Testament writer indicates, there is a vast difference between hearing about God and seeing Him. I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye sooth Thee. It is really just the transition from the religion of tradition to the religion of experience. Religion comes to us all first as a tradition. It is the tradition of our home, the tradition of our Church, the tradition of our country, and so on; but as long as it is merely that, it is vague, unreal, and remote. But some day this God of whom we have heard is realised by us to be here; and this Christ, of whom we have heard that He has saved others, comes seeking for entrance into our own soul; and if we let Him in, our religion passes into an entirely new stage. Now, this was what happened to Isaiah.
II. THE EFFECT OF THE VISION ON HIS WORK. One of the seraphim cried to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. That is to say, two attributes of God overawed and overwhelmed these supernal beings--His holiness and His omnipotence. The one of these is the inner glory of God; the other is the outer glory. He is holy, holy, holy inwardly--that is perfectly, unspeakably, uncompromisingly holy; and then outwardly, the whole earth is full of His glory; or rather, to put it quite literally, the fulness of the universe--that is to say, all the variety of suns and stars, of heaven and earth, of land and sea--all that is His glory, or the garment by which He is made visible. We are wont in secular things to say that the child is father of the man, and if any man does anything very remarkable in the world it will usually be found that he has seen by the instinct of genius very early what he was intended to do. And this is true of Isaiah in the spiritual sphere. What he saw that day in a moment it took a whole lifetime to write out. Manifold as is the truth in the Book of Isaiah, it may all be deduced from these two things--the holiness of God and the omnipotence of God. The one half of his prophecies may be summed up in this word which I borrow from one part of his writings: Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. The book opens with an extraordinary description of the sins of the nation, and this theme occurs all through. And what is all that but just an echo of holy, holy, holy? If God is what the seraphim said that day He was, then sin must be such as Isaiah represents it to be. Then, the other great note of his writings is that which is expressed in the first verse of the opening of the second part of the book: Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God. Isaiah is among all the prophets the prophet of comfort. He was indeed a prophet of calamity, and perhaps in no other book of the Old Testament do we see so clearly as in his the cruel and the irresistible might of the great world monarchs by which the people of that age were surrounded; but mighty as these were, a Mightier was known to Isaiah; One to whom they were just like the dust; One that could call them like dogs to His feet, and wield them as the woodman in the woods wields his axe; and therefore those people whose God is the Lord do not need to fear these great monarchs; let them only trust and hope. That was the Gospel of Isaiah, and who does not see that it is merely an echo of what he heard the seraphim say: The whole earth is full of His glory. For these two ideas about God, Isaiah has two names that recur all through his writings. To denote the holiness of God, he calls Him the Holy One of Israel; and to denote His omnipotence he calls Him the Lord of hosts.
III. THE EFFECT OF THE VISION ON HIMSELF. The revelation made to him that day about God, namely, that He is the Holy One, had an immediate and transforming effect on himself. My idea is that up to this time Isaiah was a man of the world, perhaps indulging in the vices which the young nobility of Jerusalem of that day were famous for; but now, in a moment, in the light of God, he sees the error of his ways and the putridity of his heart, and hence there bursts from him the exclamation: Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. You see he felt his sin chiefly on his lips--i.e., it was sins of speech he became conscious of. I should think that few will doubt that when he says, I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, he means to refer to a prevalence of profanity amongst his companions. Well, is it not the most natural explanation to believe that he had in his previous life given way to that sin, and now that is the sin that burns in on his conscience? But he learned at this point also something very precious about the holy God. As soon as he had confessed his sin, one of the seraphim, doubtless obeying a secret hint from Jehovah, flew to the altar, and, seizing the tongs, lifted from the altar a hot stone, and laid it on the lips of the prophet--on the place where his sin was. The meaning was that his sin was burned away. And this became to Isaiah the cause of one of the greatest features of his work as a prophet in his subsequent life. There is no writer in the Bible that in language more tender and convincing speaks about Gods willingness to forgive. And where did Isaiah learn that! He learnt it that day when the seraph laid the burning stone upon his own lips and burned his sin away. The other half of the revelation, the omnipotence of God, had its immediate practical effect also. But it was the Maker of Isaiah that was playing on his mind on this occasion for His own purpose. He was playing as an artist might play on an exquisite instrument, and in point of fact the mind of Isaiah was one of the most exquisite instruments that have ever existed in this world. There has hardly ever been a mind in this world, in its native structure, so perfect, and the Maker of it was now touching it to splendid issue. He was needing a messenger to that generation, and He had fixed on Isaiah to be His messenger, and He was making him ready. Isaiah had just realised that God was the Omnipotent, to whom all creatures and he himself belonged, and now that the relief and joy of forgiveness were thrilling through him, he realised in a still higher sense he belonged absolutely to the God who had pardoned. (James Stalker, D. D.)
Isaiahs vision in the temple
God often prepares His servants for special work by special grace.
I. The views with which this vision furnishes us concerning GOD.
1. His sovereignty.
2. His holiness.
3. His mercy.
II. The views with which this vision furnishes us concerning ANGELS.
1. Their humility.
2. Their obedience.
3. Their devotion.
III. The views with which this vision furnishes us respecting MAN.
1. His sinful condition.
2. His gracious recovery.
3. His exalted calling. (G. T. Perks, D. D.)
Preparation for the Lords work
I. SPECIAL PREPARATION IS NECESSARY FOR A SPECIAL WORK OF GRACE, WHETHER IT BE IN THE INDIVIDUAL HEART, OR IN THE CHURCH.
II. THE BLESSED RESULTS OF THE WORK WILL BE LARGELY PROPORTIONED TO THE CHARACTER AND DEGREE OF THE PREPARATION. (J. Sherwood.)
The three-fold vision
I. A VISION OF GOD. This can only come to us in our present state indirectly, parabolically, or as here, symbolically. It will include a conception of Gods--
1. Authority: a throne high and lifted up.
2. Glory: His train filled the temple.
3. Holiness: seraphic action and seraphic tones proclaimed Him as the Thrice Holy.
II. A vision OF SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE. Just as the prophet came to understand that there was a vast spiritual universe behind and beyond the material, and of which the material was but the hint and type, so must we. He saw in the seraphim a revelation of the existence of spiritual beings.
III. A VISION OF SELF. There is a vision of his--
1. Own individuality. The right use of the pronouns I and me, is a lesson worth learning, he finds.
2. Relationship to others: I dwell among a people, etc.
3. Sinfulness. To this--
(1) The vision of God as holy;
(2) The vision of spiritual beings as pure; and
(3) The consciousness of his own condition, all contributed.
4. Possible purification. Here we have--
(1) The supernatural means of this purification. A seraph.
(2) The connection of these means with sacrifice. From off the altar, etc.
5. Life mission. Here we note--
(1) Gods care for the world. It is He who cries Who will go for us?
(2) The godly mans response. It is for him eagerly, obediently, loyally to cry, Here am I, send me.--In Isaiah, in Paul, in every godly man, the vision of God leads to unselfish consecration to the good of others. (U. R. Thomas, B. A.)
Isaiahs vision
I. THE VISION WHICH THE PROPHET BEHELD (verses 1-4).
1. Of the Divine supremacy.
2. Of the Divine attendants. Their name signifies fiery ones. There is a remarkable analogy between what is said here, and what is stated of the mysterious beings in the Book of Revelation--They rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. The holiness of God is the great burthen of the celestial songs.
3. The vision connects holiness with the Divine greatness--The whole earth is full of His glory. All His creatures speak His praise.
4. A remarkable effect is stated to have been produced by this celebration of the Divine majesty and holiness--The posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. This may be intended to show the terrors of the Divine holiness, when it is kindled and brought into exercise by human transgression. Smoke is connected in Scripture with the tokens of rising wrath in the Almighty. Deu_29:20; Psa_18:7-8; Rev_15:8.) And the sequel informs us that He had determined to waste the cities, and depopulate the habitations, until there should be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. Observe from the vision here granted to the prophet, how necessary it is that those who go out on the work of the Lord should have a vision of His glory and greatness that they may have a proper sense of the work in which they are engaged. How can he speak of the glory of God, who has not seen it? Or how can he speak of the holiness of God, of the terrors of me Almighty, who has himself no true idea of either?
II. THE EFFECT WHICH THIS VISION PRODUCED UPON THE PROPHETS MIND. Then said I, Woe is met for I am undone. etc. The vision of the glory of God which he beheld, became the means of filling him with reverence, humility, and fear. The prophet was filled with an awful sense of his own depravity in two respects--
1. As a man. Why are the lips mentioned! Not because the depravity, is merely superficial, or resting on the surface; but because the depravity of the heart rends and rages without, and finds vent in the tongue. The vision of the Divine holiness is the best way of impressing our minds with a sense of our own defects and vileness.
2. As an intended messenger of God. He saw how unworthy he was to receive messages from God and go out to the people. If private Christians should feel their depravity and unworthiness, how much more should those who are ministers. He who has not been humbled under a sense of his own unworthiness before God has no right at all to go out to speak to others.
III. THE SUSTAINING VISITATION WHICH WAS MADE IN CONNECTION WITH THE EFFECT PRODUCED. To prevent the prophet from sinking into despair, Divine consolation was given. Notice--
1. The agent sent. One of the seraphim. These are often employed in messages of goodness to man. Observe his celerity--he flew. These celestial beings take an especial interest in the fulfilment of the designs of God.
2. The assurance communicated. Thine iniquity is taken away, etc.
3. The manner in which the assurance is testified. Then flew one, etc. Fire is symbolical of purity. The Spirits influence is compared to fire. This transaction signifies--
(1) The purity of the ministry.
(2) The fervour of the ministry.
IV. THE COMMISSION WHICH, IN CONNECTION WITH THIS VISITATION, WAS PROPOSED AND ACCEPTED. Whom shall I send, etc. Observe--
1. That the messenger who goes out, God sends by His own power.
2. Such messengers are fully devoted to God. They may indeed say Corban with respect to all they have. What an honourable work is this! It is also a work of responsibility.
3. The messenger of God must proceed without debate as to the object of his mission. (J. Parsons.)
Isaiahs vision
The scene is Messianic. Christ is in it.
I. WHAT THE PROPHET SAW AND HEARD. There is no special stress to be laid on the term Lord, as used here. It is not the incommunicable name of essence, Jehovah; but the title of dominion, of mastership and ownership. The awe of His appearance is in the circumstances or surroundings.
1. He is upon a throne, high and lifted up. It is the throne of absolute sovereignty; of resistless, questionless, supremacy over all.
2. He is in the temple, where the throne is the mercy seat, between the cherubim, over the ark of the Covenant, which is the symbol and seal of reconciliation and friendly communion. And He is there in such rich grace and glory that the whole temple is filled with the overflowing robe of His redeeming majesty.
3. Above, or upon, that ample overflowing train of so magnificent a raiment stood the seraphim. These are not, as I take it, angelic or super angelic spirits, but the Divine Spirit Himself, the Holy Ghost; appearing thus in the aspect and attitude of gracious ministry. In that attitude He multiplies Himself, as it were, according to the number and exigencies of the churches and the individuals to whom He has to minister. He takes up, moreover, the position of reverential waiting for His errand, and in an agency manifold, but yet one, readiness to fly to its execution. The cherubim are on almost all hands admitted to be representative emblems of redeemed creation, or of the redeemed Church on earth. And I cannot think it wrong to give to the seraphim in this, the only passage in which the name occurs, a somewhat corresponding character as representative emblems of the active heavenly agency in redemption. Nor is the plural form any objection. I find a similar mode of setting forth the multiform and multifarious agency of the Spirit in the opening salutation of the
Apocalypse--the seven Spirits which are before His throne Rev_1:4). It is the Holy Ghost, waiting to go forth from the Father, to apply and carry forward the threefold work of the Son, as Prophet, Priest, and King; and to do so as if He were becoming seven Spirits in accommodation to the seven churches; as if each church was to have Him as its own; yes, and each believer, too.
4. With this great sight, voice and movement are joined. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. It is not necessarily the voice of the seraphim, though that is the ordinary I would rather take the words abstractly and indefinitely. There is an antiphonic cry or song. It is not said among whom. Of course, the readiest reference is come seraphim. But the text does not require that; it is literally this cried to this. And the attendance of an angelic choir, of all hosts of heaven, may be assumed. Assuredly Christ is here. He is here as revealing the Father. And He is here, not merely outwardly, in outward manifestation; but inwardly, in the deepest inward contact and converse of the soul with God.
II. HOW THE PROPHET FELT (verse 5). It is a thorough prostration.
III. HOW THE PROPHETS CASE IS MET. Lo! an altar; the altar of propitiation, on which lies the ever freshly bleeding victim. One of the seraphim--the Holy Spirit in one of His varied modes of operation--flies, as if in haste, with what is as good as the entire altar and its sacrifice to apply it all effectually. And the effect is as immediate as the touch. Nothing comes in between. There is no waiting, as for a medicine to work its cure; no bargaining, as if a price were to be paid; no process to be gone through; no preparation to be made.
IV. THE SUBSEQUENT OFFER AND COMMAND (verses 8, 9). Two things are noticeable here.
1. The grace of God in allowing the prophet, thus exercised, to be a volunteer for service. The Lord might issue a peremptory command. But His servant has the unspeakable privilege of giving himself voluntarily to the Lord who willingly gave Himself for him.
2. The unreservedness of the prophets volunteering. It is no half hearted purpose conditional on circumstances; but the full, single-eyed heartiness of one loving much, because forgiven much, that breaks out in the frank, unqualified, unconditional self-enlistment and self-enrolment in the Lords host, Here am I, send me. Hence, accordingly, the crowning proof and pledge of his conversion, his cleansing, his revival, his commission. He now learns for the first time, after he has committed himself beyond the possibility of honourable retraction or recall, what is the errand darkly indicated by the heavenly voice, Whom shall I send? At first there may be secretly the feeling that any mission on which such a master may send me must have in it the elements of intrinsic glory and assured triumph. But as it turns out it is far otherwise than that. The case is altogether the reverse. The mission is to be a mission of judgment. But what then? Does the freshly quickened volunteer withdraw his offer? or qualify it? or raise any question at all about it? No; he simply asks one question; a brief one; comprised in three words--Lord, how long? It is a question indicating nothing like reluctance or hesitation; no repenting of his offer; no drawing back. For himself he has nothing more to say. It is only in the interest of his people, and out of deepest sympathy with them, that the irrepressible cry of piety and of patriotism bursts from his lips--Lord, how long? how long? (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)
Isaiahs vision
I. THE LIGHT IN WHICH THE SON OF GOD APPEARS TO THOSE WHO ENJOY AN INTIMATE UNION WITH HIM AND A NEAR CONTEMPLATION OF HIM. He is represented--
1. As seated on a lofty throne.
2. As attended by celestial spirits.
3. As receiving their homage and praise.
(1) The matter of it.
(2) The manner of it.
II. THE EFFECT WHICH THIS INTIMATE UNION AND NEAR CONTEMPLATION WILL PRODUCE.
1. Humility. It is ignorance of God that is the parent of pride. True knowledge of Him tends to humility. Qualities are never seen so clearly as by contrast. The application of a straight rule marks the obliquity of a crooked line.
2. Purification.
3. Self-devotion. As eyes dazzled by the sun see not the glittering of drops of dew upon the earth, so the glory of worldly objects ceases to interest a soul that is taken up with the contemplation of God; while he will be led, by a regard to Him whose word has been the instrument of his purification and encouragement, to devote himself unreservedly to His will. (R. Brodie, M. A.)
Isaiahs vision of Gods glory
I. The first view of the Divine glory in the text is that of RULE AND DOMINION. The Lord is King--this is the first character under which to approach Him whenever we engage in worship.
II. The second view of the majesty and glory of God is that IN HIS NATURE AND PERFECTION HE IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE.
III. The third view of the Divine Majesty is HOLINESS.
IV. The fourth view is that of A PENITENT, ABASED MAN SINKING BEFORE THIS OVERPOWERING MANIFESTATION.
V. The fifth view we have is that of THIS HUMBLE, SILENCED MAN OBTAINING MERCY. (J. Summerfield, M. A.)
Isaiahs vision of Christs glory
He who sat upon the throne Isaiah saw is none other than God Himself. But in his Gospel (Joh_12:41) John tells us, these things said Esaias, when he saw Christs glory, and spake of Him. It is the throne of Jesus. Let us examine the manner in which they who actually saw the vision were affected by it, and this will best show us at once its consummate splendour and the sentiments it should awaken.
I. It was seen by ANGELS AND THE SPIRITS OF THE JUST MADE PERFECT, AND HOW WERE THESE AFFECTED.
1. They were astonished.
2. They were filled with joy. Because Gods grace runs in the channel of justice.
3. They celebrate it with songs.
4. They were ready to advance the cause of redemption, for with their wings they were ready to fly.
II. Let us understand from the experience of Isaiah HOW BELIEVERS ARE AFFECTED BY THE VISION OF OUR TEXT.
1. Isaiah was overwhelmed at the first. He sees in himself nothing but the dry stubble of guilt, and in God an insatiable fire, approaching to devour it. He sees no fitness for heaven, either in himself or those he loved.
2. But he is immediately revived.
3. Then called to active duty.
III. We would now consider HOW THE WORLD IS AFFECTED BY THE VISION THAT ISAIAH SAW. Isaiah preaches the Gospel, but his message is rejected. So now. (J. J. Bonar.)
The enthroned Lord
The Lord is always upon a throne, even when He is nailed to the Cross; this Lord and His throne are inseparable. There are dignitaries that have to study how to keep their thrones; but the Lord and HIS throne are one. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Isaiahs vision of God
I. THE OCCASION OF THE VISION. The emptied throne is the occasion for the manifestation of the true King. Gods purpose in all His withdrawals is the same as His purpose in all His gifts, that we may be led to see Him more clearly as the one foundation of all things, the anchor of our lives and the hope and stay of our hearts. The text not only teaches us the purpose of all withdrawals, but comes to us heavy-freighted with the blessed thought that God is able to fill every place that He empties. This King of Judah was followed by another, a decent enough young man in his way, who on the whole went straight and did Gods will. But that was no comfort to the prophets heart. It did not avail to show him a Jotham behind an Uzziah. What he needed, and what you and I need, to fill the empty places in our hearts and lives, is the vision that flamed upon his inward eye; and the conviction that the Lord, the King Himself, had come when the earthly shadow passed away.
II. THE CONTENTS OF THE VISION. The temple here is, of course, not the mere earthly house, but that higher house of the Lord, of which the temple of earth is a shadow. Isaiahs vision was none the less objective, none the less distinguishable from an imagination of his own, none the less manifestly and marvellously, a revelation from God, because if we had been there we should have seen nothing, any more than the Sanhedrim shared in the vision of the opened heavens which gladdened Stephens dying eyes. Mark, how there is no word of description here of what the prophet saw in the centre of the light. But if we listen to the description given to us, there are two great thoughts in it. I saw the Lord sitting on the throne, high and lifted up--the infinite exaltation of that Divine nature which separates Him from all the lowness of creatures, and makes Him the blessed and incomprehensible infinite foundation of good and of blessedness and the source of life. Correspondent and parallel to this thought of the sovereign exaltation is the song that is put into the mouth of the seraphim. The same idea is expressed by Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, as is expressed by high and lifted up. The holiness of God means the infinite separation of the infinite nature from the finite creature; and that separation is manifest both in the incomprehensible elevation of His being and in the perfect purity of His nature. But whilst thus a great gulf is fixed between us and Him, and we, like the seraphs, have to veil our faces that we see not, and our feet that we be not seen, there is another side to the thought, His skirts filled the temple, and that is paralleled with the other number of the seraphs song, the whole earth is full of His glory. For the glory of God is the manifestation of His holiness. And just as the trailing skirts of that great robe spread over the whole floor of the temple, so through the whole earth go flashing the manifold manifestations of His glory. These twin thoughts, never to be separated from each other, of the infinite separation and the immeasurable self-communication of our Father-God, are all as true for us today as they ever were. That vision is as possible to us as it was to Isaiah. It was no prerogative of the prophets office. Our eyes too, if we will, may behold the King in His beauty. It is Christ that explains to us by His Incarnation how it ever came to pass that to mans inward or outward eyes there was granted a manifestation of Deity in the form of humanity as here; and His permanent revelation of God to us puts us more than on a level with any of those of old to whom were granted the foreshadowings of that historical fact of God manifest in the flesh. He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.
III. THE EFFECTS OF SUCH A VISION ON THE LIFE. A man that sees God will know his own impurity. Where there is a sense of sin roused by the sight of God there will come the fiery coal from the altar that purifies; and where there is a sense of sin, and the taking away of it, by the sacrifice not brought by the prophet, but provided for the prophet by God, there will follow the glad surrender of self for all service, and any mission. Here am I, send me. So this vision of God is the foundation of all nobleness of life. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Isaiah a typical prophet
This is not a story of individual experience only. Isaiah was a typical prophet with special duties, and, consequently, with special qualifications for their right discharge. But in many respects he is also representative of the faithful preacher of the Gospel and worker for Christ. In its inspirations, its aims and motives, its responsibilities and difficulties, the prophets office was like that of Christs servant everywhere, and from this record we may gather lessons of universal application.
1. The prophet must be a man whose soul is possessed with God, to whom God is a reality, not an abstraction, a living and present Friend, not a distant and unknown Ruler. There must be visions of God in the glory of His holiness as well as in the tenderness of His condescension, or there will be neither desire nor capacity to testify of Him. It is the pure in heart who thus see God, and even as Isaiah needed that the live coal from the altar should touch his lips and he should be cleansed from all iniquity, so must Christs messenger know for himself the blessedness of that salvation which he preaches to others. This does not supersede the necessity for intellectual qualifications for the work. Impulse, however pure and noble, cannot fit a man for even the humblest work, much less for the noblest, the most difficult, the most responsible of all. God does lay His hands upon some whom the wisdom of this world would pronounce incompetent for the work. As in the case of Bunyan, the working of His grace in the heart may develop gifts of fancy or of eloquence which might else have lain dormant.
2. Of the special gift of inspiration which Isaiah enjoyed suffice it to say that if that is to be reduced to a genius for righteousness which he shared in common with the rest of the Jewish race, the unique character and supreme authority of the Bible are gone. Define inspiration how men will, it must, at all events, imply that God revealed His will to these prophets and seers by whom the Sacred Volume was penned, as He did not to the great poets and writers of the world, or this Book has no distinctive value.
3. The prophet must be a consecrated servant--one who lives not to do his own pleasure, but to glorify God. (J. G. Rogers, B. A.)
The making of a prophet
1. The experience that made Isaiah a prophet took the form of a vision. It happened in a period of distressing perplexity and gloom. Wrestling passionately with the darkness, craving wistfully for light, the yearning to see God in the mans soul became so intense and sensitive, that the great Heart in heaven answered the longing of the heart on earth, and aspiration leapt into realisation, and faith flashed into vision That sight of God--the living, holy, loving God--made Isaiah a prophet. Preachers and teachers of today! if we are to be prophets, we need lust such a sight of God.
2. The vision of God made Isaiah a prophet; but the immediate result was something different. The first effect of contact with God was to produce in his soul an intolerable sense of sin. Had Isaiah been Pharisee, he would have seized the opportunity of his sudden vicinity to the Almighty to direct the Divine attention to his virtues and superiority over other men. Had he been one of those philosophers in whom the heart has been overlaid by the intellect, he would have calmly proceeded to make observations of the Divine for a new theory of the absolute and unconditioned, in sublime insensibility to the deepest problem of existence, the awful antithesis of human sin and of Divine holiness. Because Isaiah was a good man, his new proximity to God woke within him a crushing horror of defilement and undoneness. And it was so, precisely because, he had never been so near to God before, and had never felt himself of so much importance. Away down here, sinning among his fellow men, the blots and blemishes of his soul seemed of little moment. But up there, in the stainless light of heaven, with Gods holy eyes resting on him, every spot of sin within him grew hot and horrible, every defiling stain an insult and a suffering inflicted on the sensitive holiness of God. These two things are linked together, and no man can divorce them--the dignity of humanity and the damnableness of sin.
3. The ethical process by which, in the imagery of the vision, Isaiahs sense of sinfulness came home to him, is finely natural and simple. It was at his lips that the consciousness of his impurity caught him. I am a man of unclean lips. That, judged by our formulas and standards, might seem a somewhat superficial conviction of sin. We should have expected him to speak of his unclean heart, or the total corruption of his whole nature. But actual conviction of sin is very regardless of our theories, and is as diverse in its manifestations as are the characters and records of men. Sin finds out one man in one place, and another in a quite different spot, and perhaps the experience is most real when it is least theological.
4. Isaiah, in the presence of God, felt within him the pang of that death, which must be the end of unpardoned sin in contact with the Divine holiness. He felt himself as good as dead, yet never in all his life had he so longed to live as now, in sight of God and heaven and holiness. He did not ask to escape. He was too overwhelmed to pray or hope. But to Gods heart that cry of despair was an infinitely persuasive prayer for mercy. Pagan sages and Christian saints alike unite in proclaiming the overmastering strength of sin.
5. Is there, then, no possibility of recovery? no way of cleansing? One there is, and one alone. Aye, if only God so loves our sin-stained race as that His stainless purity enters really into our humanity, and wrestles with our impurity in a contact that must be suffering to the Divine holiness, and is sin cleansing to us--that were salvation surely; that were redemption. But is it a reality! Jesus Christ has lived, and died, and lives again, and we know that His Holy Spirit dwells in us and in our world. That, and that alone, is salvation; not any theories nor any rites, but Gods Holy Spirit given unto us.
6. It was at Isaiahs lips that the sense of sin had stung him, and it was there that he received the cleansing. He, too, might now join in heavens praise and service; no more an alien, but a member of the celestial choir and a servant of the King. That act of Divine mercy had transformed him.
7. He was a new creature, and instantly the change appeared. The voice of God sounds through the temple, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And the first of all heavens hosts to offer is Isaiah A moment before, he had shrunk back, crushed and despairing, from Gods presence, feeling as if the Divine gaze were death to him. Now he springs forward, invokes Gods attention on himself, and before all heavens tried and trusty messengers proposes himself as Gods ambassador. Was it presumption! was it self-assertion? I think, if ever Isaiah was not thinking of himself at all, and was conscious only of God and goodness and gratitude, it was then, when his heart was running over with wonder, love, and praise for Gods unspeakable mercy to him. It was not presumption; it was a true and beautiful instinct that made him yearn with resistless longing to do something for that God who had shown such grace to him. (Prof. W. G. Elmslie, D. D.)
Christian missions
I. WHAT ISAIAH SAW.
II. WHAT HE SAID. Woe, etc.
III. WHAT HE FELT. The assurance of pardon.
IV. WHAT HE HEARD. The pardoned sinner is all ear, all eye. I heard the voice of the Lord, etc.
V. WHAT HE DID. He made consecration. (Richard Knill.)
Isaiahs vision
1. Inasmuch as sitting upon a throne implies a human form, we are inclined to agree with those expositors who speak of Isaiahs vision as a vision of Jehovah-Jesus.
2. The vision rebukes those who entertain the notion that, so far as Divine superintendence is concerned, the universe is in a state of orphanage.
3. The vision likewise rebukes those who picture God as absorbed in the contemplation of His own excellence, and as existing in solitary grandeur. God is of a social nature. Like earthly kings He has a court, as much superior to theirs as He is Himself above them.
3. Isaiahs vision further teaches us, that the creatures referred to, and represented by the seraphim, possess such a knowledge of God, are in such sympathy with Him, and have such confidence in Him, that their lives are spent in an element of worship.
4. The vision was designed to qualify Isaiah for the fulfilment of his course as one of the prophets of Judah; and nobly it answered its purpose. (G. Cron, M. A.)
Isaiahs vision
(for Trinity Sunday):--We have here the proper inauguration of the great evangelical prophet to his future work; and one which, in its essential features, resembles very closely the inauguration which other eminent servants of God, alike under the Old Covenant and under the New, obtained;--Moses (Exo_3:6); Jeremiah Jer_1:6-9); Paul; Joshua (Jos_1:1); Gideon (Jdg_6:12-24); Ezekiel (Eze_1:3); Peter (Luk_5:4-10). Gods messengers go mot until they are sent, and presume not to deliver a message which they have not received directly from the Sender.
1. And, first, he gives the date of the vision. What meaning may there sometimes be in a thing which seems so simple as a date! What significance, what solemnity may it sometimes have, as surely it has here. How simply and yet how grandly are earth and heaven here brought together, and the fleeting phantoms of one set over against the abiding realities of the other.
2. But if Gods throne is in heaven, the skirts of His glory reach even to the earth: His train filled the temple.
3. The glimpse afforded here to the Church of the elder dispensation of that great crowning mystery which the Church of the newer dispensation throughout all the world is celebrating today. In this Trisagion we have, it is true, no more than a glimpse of the mystery; even as in the Old Testament more is nowhere vouchsafed. More, in all likelihood, the Church could not then, nor until it had been thoroughly educated into a confession of the unity of the Godhead, with safety have received; while yet it was a precious confirmation of the faith, when, in a later day, this mystery was fully made known, to discover that the rudiments of it had been laid long before in Scripture.
4. But what is the first impression which this glorious vision makes upon the prophet? His first cry is not of exultation and delight, but rather of consternation and dismay. Woe is me, etc. Even the heathen, as more than one legend in their mythology declares, could apprehend something of this truth. If Jupiter comes to Semele arrayed in the glories of deity, she perishes, consumed to ashes in a brightness which is more than mortality can bear. So, too, it must have fared with Moses, if to him, still clothed in flesh and blood, that over-bold request of his, Show me Thy glory, had been conceded; if it had not been answered to him, Thou canst not see My face; for there shall no man see Me and live. We shall perish, for we have seen the Lord of hosts, was the ever recurring cry of those saints of old; and even such is the voice of the prophet here.
5. Yet that moment with all its dreadfulness is a passage, in some sense the only passage, into a true life. And such the prophet found it. Observe the manner in which sin, the guilt of sin, is here, as evermore in Holy Scripture, spoken of as taken away by a free act of God, an act of His in which man is passive; in which he has, so to speak, to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord; an act to which he can contribute nothing, save indeed only that Divinely awakened hunger of the soul after the benefit which we call faith.
6. Behold in the prophet the fruit of iniquity taken away, and sin purged. Behold the joyful readiness with which he now offers himself for the service of his God. (Abp. Trench.)
The triune Name a call, a message, a chastening
The contemplation of the majesty of God is the source of the largest hope for all His creatures. For beings pure and holy that vision is the call to unfaltering adoration and limitless faith; for men of unclean lips--sin-stained, and labouring in a sin-stained world--it is the reassuring call to the prophets work
I. The vision of God THE CALL OF THE PROPHET.
1. Nowhere is the thought presented to us in the Bible with more moving force than in this record of Isaiahs mission. The very mark of time by which the history is introduced has a pathetic significance. It places together in sharp contrast the hasty presumption of num and the unchanging love of God. The king died an outcast and a leper because he had ventured to take to himself the function of a priest in the house of God; and in close connection with that tragic catastrophe an access to God, far older than that which the successful monarch had prematurely claimed, was foreshown to the prophet in s heavenly figure. Isaiah, a layman, was, it a appears, in the heavenly court, and he saw in a trance the way into the holiest place laid open. The veils were removed from sanctuary and shrine, and he beheld more than met the eyes of the high priest, the one representative of the people, on the one day on which he was admitted, year by year, to the dark chamber which shrouded the Divine presence. For an eternal moment Isaiahs senses were unsealed. He saw that which is and not that which appears. For him the symbol of God dwelling in light unapproachable, was transformed into a personal presence; the chequered scene of human labour and worship was filled with the train of God; the marvels of human skill were instinct with the life of God. The spot which God had chosen was disclosed to his gaze as the centre of the Divine revelation; but, at the same time, he was taught to acknowledge that the Divine presence is not limited by any bounds, or excluded by any blindness, when he heard from the lips of angels that the fulness of the whole earth is His glory. Now, when we recall what Judaism was at the time--local, rigid, exclusive--we can at once understand that such a revelation taken into the soul was for Isaiah an illumination of the world. He could see all creation in its true nature through the light of God.
So to have looked upon it was to have gained that which the seer, cleansed by the sacred fire, was constrained to declare. Humbled, and purified in his humiliation, he could have but one answer when the voice of the Lord required a messenger: Here am I; send me.
2. Isaiahs vision and call are for us also, and they await from us a like response. When he looked upon that august sight, he saw Christs glory; he saw in figures and far off that which we have been allowed to contemplate more nearly and with the power of closer apprehension. He saw in transitory shadows that which we have received in a historic Presence. By the Incarnation God has entered, and empowered us to feel that He has entered, into fellowship with humanity and men. As often as that truth rises before our eyes, all heaven is indeed rent open, and all earth is displayed as God made it. For us, then, the vision and the call of Isaiah find a fuller form, a more sovereign voice in the Gospel than the Jewish prophet could know
3. What does the mystery, the revelation of God, even Christ Col_2:2), mean, the mystery of which we are ministers and prophets, the mystery which brings the eternal within the forms of time, the mystery which shows to us absolute love made visible in the Incarnate Word? It means that the outward, the transitory, is a yell woven by the necessities of our weakness, which half hides and half reveals the realities with which it corresponds; that the changing forms in which spiritual aspirations are clothed from generation to generation and from life to life, are illuminated, quickened, harmonised in one supreme fact; that beyond the temples in which it is our blessing to worship, and beyond the phrases which it is our joy to affirm, there is an infinite glory which can have no local circumscription, and an infinite Truth which cannot be grasped by any human thought; that man, bruised and burdened by sorrows and sins, was made for God, and that through His holy love he shall not fail of his destiny; that all creation is an expression of Gods thought of wisdom brought within the reach of human intelligence; that Gods Spirit sent in His Sons name will interpret little by little, as we can read the lesson, all things as contributory to His praise; that we also, compassed with infirmities and burdened with sins, may take, up the song of the redeemed creation, the song of the unfallen angels, and say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the fulness of the earth is His glory. It means this, and more than this.
II. The vision of God THE MESSAGE OF THE PROPHET. It is this vision which the prophet has to proclaim and to interpret to his fellowmen, not as an intellectual theory, but as an inspiration of life. The prophets teaching must be the translation of his experience. The Gospel of Christ Incarnate, the Gospel of the Holy Trinity in the terms of human life, covers every imaginable part of life to the end of time, and is new now as it has been new in all the past; as it will be new, new in its power and in its meaning, while the world lasts. True it is that such a vision of God--Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier--entering into fellowship with the beings whom He has made, gathering up all things to Himself, making peace through the blood of the Cross, shows life to us, as Isaiah saw it, in a most solemn aspect: that it must fill us, as it filled Isaiah, with the sense of our immeasurable unworthiness in the face of Christs majesty and Christs love: that it must touch us also with something of a cleansing power. And because it is so we can take heart again. For such emotion, such purification of soul, is the beginning of abiding strength.
III. The vision of God THE CHASTENING OF THE PROPHET. In the fulfilment of our prophetic work we need more than we know the abasing and elevating influences which the vision of Isaiah and the thoughts which it suggests are fitted to create or deepen. In the stress of restless occupation we are tempted to leave too much out of sight the inevitable mysteries of life. We deal lightly with the greatest questions. We are peremptory in defining details of dogma beyond the teaching of Scripture. We are familiar beyond apostolic precedent in our approaches to God. We fashion heavenly things after the fashion of earth. In all these respects then for our strengthening and for our purifying, we must seek for ourselves aria strive to spread about us the sense of the awfulness of being, as those who have seen God at Bethlehem, Calvary, Olivet, and on the throne encircled by a rainbow as an emerald: the sense, vague and imperfect at the best, of the illimitable range of the courses and issues of action; the sense of the untold vastness of that life which we are bold to measure by our feeble powers; the sense of the majesty of Him before whom the angels veil their faces. If we are cast down by the meannesses, the sorrows, the sins of the world, it is because we dwell on some little part of which we see little; but let the thought of God in Christ come in, and we can rest in that holy splendour. At the same time let us not dare to confine at our will the action of the light. It is our own irreparable loss if in our conceptions of doctrine we gain clearness of definition by following out the human conditions of apprehending the Divine, and forget that every outline is the expression in terms of a lower order of that which is many-sided; if in our methods of devotion we single out the human nature of the Lord, or rather the manifestation of His unascended manhood, as the object of our thoughts, and forget that He leads us to the Father; if we rest in things visible and do not rather strive to read ever more clearly the spiritual lessons to which they point; if we concentrate our worship in isolated rites and fail to bear to the world of daily thought and action the teaching and the promises of sacraments. (B. F. Westcott, D. D.)
Uzziah and Isaiah: George III and John Wesley
The year in which King Uzziah died must have appeared a very noteworthy one to the Jewish contemporaries of Isaiah, most of whom, in all probability, regarded the death of one king and the accession of another as the most important events which occurred in it. Yet to us, who know that this was the year in which Isaiah was called to the prophetic office, these occurrences shrink into insignificance when compared with the last named fact, although that would take place without attracting the notice of any one besides the prophet himself . . . In the year 1738, on May 24 th, the prince was born who was afterwards known as George III. The event would soon be proclaimed all through England. On the evening of the same day, in a quiet meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, another event took place, known only to one man: John Wesley believed to the saving of the soul, and obtained assurance of sins forgiven. In a few years George III will become to all but a few a name, and nothing more; but John Wesley will become more illustrious, and the influence of his work will be more widely felt, as the ages roll on. (B. Hellier.)
The elevating presence of God
How well I remember when first I visited Switzerland that my bedroom window, perched in Les Avants, looked across the blue of the Lake of Geneva towards that noble line of snow-capped mountains that border its southern shore. It seemed for the brief fortnight that I lived there as though the spell of that mighty vision held me enthralled. I slept and awoke and wrote and conversed as one on whom a new dignity had fallen. Could I ever be mean or selfish in the presence of that mystery of purity and solemnity? This and much more shall be the temper of the soul which by the grace of the Holy Spirit has learnt habitually to recognise and cultivate the presence of God as revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible1887 · Public DomainOn v1
CHAPTER IV
ISAIAHS CALL AND CONSECRATION
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740 B.C.
written 735? or 727?
Isaiah 6
IT has been already remarked that in chapter 6 we should find no other truths than those which have been unfolded in chapters 2-5: the Lord exalted in righteousness, the coming of a terrible judgment from Him upon Judah and the survival of a bare remnant of the people. But chapter 6 treats the same subjects with a difference. In chapters 2-4 they gradually appear and grow to clearness in connection with the circumstances of Judahs history; in chapter 5 they are formally and rhetorically vindicated; in chapter 6 we are led back to the secret and solemn moments of their first inspiration in the prophets own soul. It may be asked why chapter 6 comes last and not first in this series, and why in an exposition attempting to deal, as far as possible, chronologically with Isaiahs prophecies, his call should not form the subject of the first chapter. The answer is simple, and throws a flood of light upon the chapter. In all probability chapter 6 was written after its predecessors, and what Isaiah has put into it is not only what happened in the earliest moments of his prophetic life, but that spelt out and emphasised by his experience since. The ideal character of the narrative, and its date some years after the events which it relates, are now generally admitted. Of course the narrative is all fact. No one will believe that he, whose glance penetrated with such keenness the character of men and movements, looked with dimmer eye into his own heart. It is the spiritual process which the prophet actually passed through before the opening of his ministry. But it is that, developed by subsequent experience, and presented to us in the language of outward vision. Isaiah had been some years a prophet, long enough to make clear that prophecy was not to be for him what it had been for his predecessors in Israel, a series of detached inspirations and occasional missions, with short responsibilities, but a work for life, a profession and a career, with all that this means of postponement, failure, and fluctuation of popular feeling. Success had not come so rapidly as the prophet in his original enthusiasm had looked for, and his preaching had effected little upon the people. Therefore he would go back to the beginning, remind himself of that to which God had really called him, and vindicate the results of his ministry, at which people scoffed and his own heart grew sometimes sick. In chapter 6 Isaiah acts as his own remembrancer. If we keep in mind that this chapter, describing Isaiahs call and consecration to the prophetic office, was written by a man who felt that office to be the burden of a lifetime, and who had to explain its nature and vindicate its results to his own soul-grown somewhat uncertain, it may be, of her original inspiration-we shall find light upon features of the chapter that are otherwise most obscure.
I. THE VISION
(Isa_6:1-4)
Several years, then, Isaiah looks back and says, "In the year King Uzziah died." There is more than a date given here; there is a great contrast suggested. Prophecy does not chronicle by time, but by experiences, and we have here, as it seems, the cardinal experience of a prophets life.
All men knew of that glorious reign with the ghastly end-fifty years of royalty, and then a lazar-house. There had been no king like this one since Solomon; never, since the son of David brought the Queen of Sheba to his feet, had the national pride stood so high or the nations dream of sovereignty touched such remote borders. The peoples admiration invested Uzziah with all the graces of the ideal monarch. The chronicler of Judah tells us "that God helped him and made him to prosper, and his name spread far abroad, and he was marvellously helped till he was strong"; he with the double name-Azariah, Jehovah-his-Helper; Uzziah, Jehovah-his-Strength. How this glory fell upon the fancy of the future prophet, and dyed it deep, we may imagine from those marvellous colours, with which in later years he painted the king in his beauty. Think of the boy, the boy that was to be an Isaiah, the boy with the germs of this great prophecy in his heart-think of him and such a hero as this to shine upon him, and we may conceive how his whole nature opened out beneath that sun of royalty and absorbed its light.
Suddenly the glory was eclipsed, and Jerusalem learned that she had seen her king for the last time: "The Lord smote the king so that he was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several house, and he was cut off from the house of the Lord." Uzziah had gone into the temple, and attempted with his own hands to burn incense. Under a later dispensation of liberty he would have been applauded as a brave Protestant, vindicating the right of every worshipper of God to approach Him without the intervention of a special priesthood. Under the earlier dispensation of law his act could be regarded only as one of presumption, the expression of a worldly and irreverent temper, which ignored the infinite distance between God and man. It was followed, as sins of wilfulness in religion were always followed under the old covenant, by swift disaster. Uzziah suffered as Saul, Uzzah, Nadab, and Abihu did. The wrath, with which he burst out on the opposing priests brought on, or made evident as it is believed to have done in other cases, an attack of leprosy. The white spot stood out unmistakably from the flushed forehead, and he was thrust from the temple-"yea, himself also hasted to go out."
We can imagine how such a judgment, the moral of which must have been plain to all, affected the most sensitive heart in Jerusalem. Isaiahs imagination was darkened, but he tells us that the crisis was the enfranchisement of his faith. "In the year King Uzziah died"-it is as if a veil had dropped, and the prophet saw beyond what it had hidden, "the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up." That it is no mere date Isaiah means, but a spiritual contrast which he is anxious to impress upon us, is made clear by his emphasis of the rank and not the name of God. It is "the Lord sitting upon a throne-the Lord" absolutely, set over against the human prince. The simple antithesis seems to speak of the passing away of the young mans hero-worship and the dawn of his faith; and so interpreted, this first verse of chapter 6 is only a concise summary of that development of religious experience which we have traced through chapters 2-4. Had Isaiah ever been subject to the religious temper of his time, the careless optimism of a prosperous and proud people, who entered upon their religious services without awe, "trampling the courts of the Lord," and used them like Uzziah, for their own honour, who felt religion to be an easy thing, and dismissed from it all thoughts of judgment and feelings of penitence-if ever Isaiah had been subject to that temper, then once for all he was redeemed by this stroke upon Uzziah. And, as we have seen, there is every reason to believe that Isaiah did at first share the too easy public religion of his youth. That early vision of his, {Isa_2:2-5} the establishment of Israel at the head of the nations, to be immediately attained at his own word {Isa_5:5} and without preliminary purification, was it not simply a less gross form of the kings own religious presumption? Uzziahs fatal act was the expression of the besetting sin of his people, and in that sin Isaiah himself had been a partaker. "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." In the person of their monarch the temper of the whole Jewish nation had come to judgment. Seeking the ends of religion by his own way, and ignoring the way God had appointed, Uzziah at the very moment of his insistence was hurled back and stamped unclean. The prophets eyes were opened. The king sank into a lepers grave, but before Isaiahs vision the Divine majesty arose in all its loftiness. "I saw the Lord high and lifted up." We already know what Isaiah means by these terms. He has used them of Gods supremacy in righteousness above the low moral standards of men, of Gods occupation of a far higher throne than that of the national deity of Judah, of Gods infinite superiority to Israels vulgar identification of His purposes with her material prosperity or His honour with the compromises of her politics, and especially of Gods seat as their Judge over a people, who sought in their religion only satisfaction for their pride and love of ease.
From this contrast the whole vision expands as follows.
Under the mistaken idea that what Isaiah describes is the temple in Jerusalem, it has been remarked that the place of his vision is wonderful in the case of one who set so little store by ceremonial worship. This, however, to which our prophet looks is no house built with hands, but Jehovahs own heavenly palace (Isa_6:1 -not temple); only Isaiah describes it in terms of the Jerusalem temple which was its symbol. It was natural that the temple should furnish Isaiah not only with the framework of his vision, but also with the platform from which he saw it. For it was in the temple that Uzziahs sin was sinned and Gods holiness vindicated upon him. It was in the temple that, when Isaiah beheld the scrupulous religiousness of the people, the contrast of that with their evil lives struck him, and he summed it up in the epigram "wickedness and worship." {Isa_1:13} It was in the temple, in short, that the prophets conscience had been most roused, and just where the conscience is most roused there is the vision of God to be expected. Very probably it was while brooding over Uzziahs judgment on the scene of its occurrence that Isaiah beheld his vision. Yet for all the vision contained the temple itself was too narrow. The truth which was to be revealed to Isaiah, the holiness of God, demanded a wider stage and the breaking down of those partitions, which, while they had been designed to impress Gods presence on the worshipper, had only succeeded in veiling Him. So while the seer keeps his station on the threshold of the earthly building, soon to feel it rock beneath his feet, as heavens praise bursts like thunder on the earth, and while his immediate neighbourhood remains the same familiar house, all beyond is glorified. The veil of the temple falls away, and everything behind it. No ark nor mercy-seat is visible, but a throne and a court-the palace of God in heaven, as we have it also pictured in the eleventh and twenty-ninth Psalms. The Royal presence is everywhere. Isaiah describes no face, only a Presence and a Session: "the Lord sitting on a throne, and His skirts filled the palace."
"No face; only the sight
Of a sweepy garment vast and white
With a hem that I could recognise."
Around (not above, as in the English version) were ranged the hovering courtiers, of what shape and appearance we know not, except that they veiled their faces and their feet before the awful Holiness, -all wings and voice, perfect readinesses of praise and service. The prophet heard them chant in antiphon, like the temple choirs of priests. And the one choir cried out, "Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts"; and the other responded, "The whole earth is full of His glory."
It is by the familiar name Jehovah of hosts-the proper name of Israels national God-that the prophet hears the choirs of heaven address the Divine Presence. But what they ascribe to the Deity is exactly what Israel will not ascribe, and the revelation they make of His nature is the contradiction of Israels thoughts concerning Him.
What, in the first place, is holiness? We attach this term to a definite standard of morality or an unusually impressive fulness of character. To our minds it is associated with very positive forces, as of comfort and conviction-perhaps because we take our ideas of it from the active operations of the Holy Ghost. The original force of the term holiness, however, was not positive, but negative, and throughout the Old Testament, whatever modifications its meaning undergoes, it retains a negative flavour. The Hebrew word for holiness springs from a root which means to set apart, make distinct, put at a distance from. When God is described as the Holy One in the Old Testament it is generally with the purpose of withdrawing Him from some presumption of men upon His majesty or of negativing their unworthy thoughts of Him. The Holy One is the Incomparable: "To whom, then, will ye liken Me, that I should be equal to him? saith the Holy One." {Isa_40:25} He is the Unapproachable: "Who is able to stand before Jehovah, this holy God?". {1Sa_6:20} He is the Utter Contrast of man: "I am God, and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee". {Hos_11:9} He is the Exalted and Sublime: "Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place". {Isa_57:15} Generally speaking, then, holiness is equivalent to separateness, sublimity-in fact, just to that loftiness or exaltation which Isaiah has already so often reiterated as the principal attribute of God. In their thrice-repeated Holy the seraphs are only telling more emphatically to the prophets ears what his eyes have already seen, "the Lord high and lifted up." Better expression could not be found for the full idea of Godhead. This little word Holy radiates heavens own breadth of meaning. Within its fundamental idea-distance or difference from man-what spaces are there not for every attribute of Godhead to flash? If the Holy One be originally He who is distinct from man and mans thoughts, and who impresses man from the beginning with the awful sublimity of the contrast in which He stands to him, how naturally may holiness come to cover not only that moral purity and intolerance of sin to which we now more strictly apply the term, but those metaphysical conceptions as well, which we gather up under the name "supernatural," and so finally, by lifting the Divine nature away from the change and vanity of this world, and emphasising Gods independence of all beside Himself, become the fittest expression we have for Him as the Infinite and Self-existent. Thus the word holy appeals in turn to each of the three great faculties of mans nature, by which he can be religiously exercised-his conscience, his affections, his reason; it covers the impressions which God makes on man as a sinner, on man as a worshipper, on man as a thinker. The Holy One is not only the Sinless and Sin-abhorring, but the Sublime and the Absolute too.
But while we recognise the exhaustiveness of the series of ideas about the Divine Nature, which develop from the root meaning of holiness, and to express which the word holy is variously used throughout the Scriptures, we must not, if we are to appreciate the use of the word on this occasion, miss the motive of recoil which starts them all. If we would hear what Isaiah heard in the seraphs song, we must distinguish in the three-fold ascription of holiness the intensity of recoil from the confused religious views and low moral temper of the prophets generation. It is no scholastic definition of Deity which the seraphim are giving. Not for a moment is it to be supposed, that to that age, whose representative is listening to them, they are attempting to convey an idea of the Trinity. Their thrice-uttered Holy is not theological accuracy, but religious emphasis. This angelic revelation of the holiness of God was intended for a generation some of whom were idol-worshippers, confounding the Godhead with the work of their own hands or with natural objects, and none of whom were free from a confusion in principle of the Divine with the human and worldly, for which now sheer mental slovenliness, now a dull moral sense, and now positive pride was to blame. To worshippers who trampled the courts of the Lord with the careless feet and looked up the temple with the unabashed faces, of routine, the cry of the seraphs, as they veiled their faces and their feet, travailed to restore that shuddering sense of the sublimity of the Divine Presence, which in the impressible youth of the race first impelled man, bowing low beneath the awful heavens, to name God by the name of the Holy. To men, again, careful of the legal-forms of worship, but lawless and careless in their lives, the song of the seraphs revealed not the hard truth, against which they had already rubbed conscience trite, that Gods law was inexorable, but the fiery fact that His whole nature burned with wrath towards sin. To men, once more, proud of their prestige and material prosperity, and presuming in their pride to take their own way with God, and to employ like Uzziah the exercises of religion for their own honour, this vision presented the real sovereignty of God: the Lord Himself seated on a throne there- just where they felt only a theatre for the display of their pride, or machinery for the attainment of their private ends. Thus did the three-fold cry of the angels meet the threefold sinfulness of that generation of men.
But the first line of the seraphs song serves more than a temporary end. The Trisagion rings, and has need to ring, forever down the Church. Everywhere and at all times these are the three besetting sins of religious people-callousness in worship, carelessness in life, and the temper which employs the forms of religion simply for self-indulgence or self-aggrandisement. These sins are induced by the same habit of contentment with mere form; they can be corrected only by the vision of the Personal Presence who is behind all form. Our organisation, ritual, law, and sacrament-we must be able to see them fall away, as Isaiah saw the sanctuary itself disappear, before God Himself, if we are to remain heartily moral and fervently religious. The Church of God has to learn that no mere multiplication of forms, nor a more aesthetic arrangement of them, will redeem her worshippers from callousness. Callousness is but the shell which the feelings develop in self-defence when left by the sluggish and impenetrative soul to beat upon the hard outsides of form.. And nothing will fuse this shell of callousness but that ardent flame, which is kindled at touching of the Divine and human spirits, when forms have fallen away and the soul beholds with open face the Eternal Himself. As with worship, so with morality. Holiness is secured not by ceremonial, but by a reverence for a holy Being. We shall rub our consciences trite against moral maxims or religious rites. It is the effluence of a Presence, which alone can create in us, and keep in us, a clean heart. And if any object that we thus make light of ritual and religious law, of Church and sacrament, the reply is obvious. Ritual and sacrament are to the living God but as the wick of a candle to the light thereof. They are given to reveal Him, and the process is not perfect unless they themselves perish from the thoughts to which they convey Him. If God is not felt to be present, as Isaiah felt Him to be, to the exclusion of all forms, then these will be certain to be employed, as Uzziah employed them, for the sake of the only other spiritual being of whom the worshipper is conscious-himself. Unless we are able to forget our ritual in spiritual communion with the very God, and to become unconscious of our organisation in devout consciousness of our personal relation to Him, then ritual will be only a means of sensuous indulgence, organisation only a machinery for selfish or sectarian ends. The vision of God-this is the one thing needful for worship and for conduct.
But while the one verse of the antiphon reiterates what Jehovah of hosts is in Himself, the other describes what He is in revelation. "The whole earth is full of His glory." Glory is the correlative of holiness. Glory is that in which holiness comes to expression. Glory is the expression of holiness, as beauty is the expression of health. If holiness be as deep as we have seen, so varied then will glory be. There is nothing in the earth but it is the glory of God. "The fulness of the whole earth is His glory," is the proper grammatical rendering of the song. For Jehovah of hosts is not the God only of Israel, but the Maker of heaven and earth, and not the victory of Israel alone, but the wealth and the beauty of all the world is His glory. So universal an ascription of glory is the proper parallel to that of absolute Godhead, which is implied in holiness.
II. THE CALL
(Isa_6:4-8)
Thus, then, Isaiah, standing on earth, on the place of a great sin, with the conscience of his peoples evil in his heart, and himself not without the feeling of guilt, looked into heaven, and beholding the glory of God, heard also with what pure praise and readiness of service the heavenly hosts surrounded His throne. No wonder the prophet felt the polluted threshold rock beneath him, or that as where fire and water mingle there should be the rising of a great smoke. For the smoke described is not, as some have imagined, that of acceptable incense, thick billows swelling through the temple to express the completion and satisfaction of the seraphs worship; but it is the mist which ever arises where holiness and sin touch each other. It has been described both as the obscurity that envelops a weak mind in presence of a truth too great for it, and the darkness that falls upon a diseased eye when exposed to the mid-day sun. These are only analogies, and may mislead us. What Isaiah actually felt was the dim-eyed shame, the distraction, the embarrassment, the blinding shock of a personal encounter with One whom he was utterly unfit to meet. For this was a personal encounter. We have spelt out the revelation sentence by sentence in gradual argument; but Isaiah did not reach it through argument or brooding. It was not to the prophet what it is to his expositors, a pregnant thought, that his intellect might gradually unfold, but a Personal Presence, which apprehended and overwhelmed him. God and he were there face to face. "Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because a man unclean of lips am I, and in the midst of a people unclean of lips do I dwell; for the King, Jehovah of hosts, mine eyes have beheld."
The form of the prophets confession, "uncleanness of lips," will not surprise us as far as he makes it for himself. As with the disease of the body, so with the sin of the soul; each often gathers to one point of pain. Every man, though wholly sinful by nature, has his own particular consciousness of guilt. Isaiah being a prophet felt his mortal weakness most upon his lips. The inclusion of the people, however, along with himself under this form of guilt, suggests a wider interpretation of it. The lips are, as it were, the blossom of a man. "Grace is poured upon thy lips, therefore God hath blessed thee forever. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also." It is in the blossom of a plant that the plants defects become conspicuous; it is-when all a mans faculties combine for the complex and delicate office of expression that any fault which is in him will come to the surface. Isaiah had been listening to the perfect praise of sinless beings, and it brought into startling relief the defects of his own peoples worship. Unclean of lips these were indeed when brought against that heavenly choir. Their social and political sin-sin of heart and home and market-came to a head in their worship, and what should have been the blossom of their life fell to the ground like a rotten leaf beneath the stainless beauty of the seraphs praise.
While the prophet thus passionately gathered his guilt upon his lips, a sacrament was preparing on which God concentrated His mercies to meet it. Sacrament and lips, applied mercy and presented sin, now come together. "Then flew unto me one of the seraphim, and in his hand a glowing stone-with tongs had he taken it off the altar-and he touched my mouth and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and so thy iniquity passeth away and thy sin is atoned for."
The idea. of this function is very evident, and a scholar who has said that it "would perhaps be quite intelligible to the contemporaries of the prophet, but is undoubtedly obscure to us," appears to have said just the reverse of what is right; for so simple a process of atonement leaves out the most characteristic details of the Jewish ritual of sacrifice, while it anticipates in an unmistakable manner the essence of the Christian sacrament. In a scene of expiation laid under the old covenant, we are struck by the absence of oblation or sacrificial act on the part of the sinner himself. There is here no victim slain, no blood sprinkled; an altar is only parenthetically suggested, and even then in its simplest form, of a hearth on which the Divine fire is continually burning. The "glowing stone," not "live coal" as in the English version, was no part of the temple furniture, but the ordinary means of conveying heat or applying fire in the various purposes of household life. There was, it is true, a carrying of fire in some of the temple services, as, for example, on the great Day of Atonement, but then it was effected by a small grate filled with living embers. In the household, on the other hand, when cakes had to be baked, or milk boiled, or water warmed, or in fifty similar applications of fire, a glowing stone taken from off the hearth was the invariable instrument. It is this swift and simple domestic process which Isaiah now sees substituted for the slow and intricate ceremonial of the temple-a seraph with a glowing stone in his hand, "with tongs had he taken it off the altar." And yet the prophet feels this only as a more direct expression of the very same idea with which the elaborate ritual was inspired-for which the victim was slain, and the flesh consumed in fire, and the blood sprinkled. Isaiah desires nothing else, and receives no more, than the ceremonial law was intended to assure to the sinner-pardon of his sin and reconciliation to God. But our prophet will have conviction of these immediately, and with a force which the ordinary ritual is incapable of expressing. The feelings of this Jew are too intense and spiritual to be satisfied with the slow pageant of the earthly temple, whose performances to a man in his horror could only have appeared so indifferent and far away from himself as not to be really his own nor to effect what he passionately desired. Instead, therefore, of laying his guilt in the shape of some victim on the altar, Isaiah, with a keener sense of its inseparableness from himself, presents it to God upon his own lips. Instead of being satisfied with beholding the fire of God consume it on another body than his own, at a distance from himself, he feels that fire visit the very threshold of his nature, where he has gathered the guilt, and consume it there. The whole secret of this startling nonconformity to the law, on the very floor of the temple, is that for a man who has penetrated to the presence of God the legal forms are left far behind, and he stands face to face with the truth by which they are inspired. In that Divine Presence Isaiah is his own altar; he acts his guilt in his own person, and so he feels the expiatory fire come to his very self directly from the heavenly hearth. It is a replica of the fifty-first Psalm: "For Thou delightest not in sacrifice, else would I give it; Thou hast no pleasure in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit." This is my sacrifice, my sense of guilt gathered here upon my lips: my "broken and contrite heart," who feel myself undone before Thee, "Lord, Thou wilt not despise."
It has always been remarked as one of the most powerful proofs of the originality and Divine force of Christianity, that from mans worship of God, and especially from those parts in which the forgiveness of sin is sought and assured, it did away with the necessity of a physical rite of sacrifice; that it broke the universal and immemorial habit by which man presented to God a material offering for the guilt of his soul. By remembering this fact we may measure the religious significance of the scene we now contemplate. Nearly eight centuries before there was accomplished upon Calvary that Divine Sacrifice for sin, which abrogated a rite of expiation, hitherto universally adopted by the conscience of humanity, we find a Jew, in the dispensation where such a rite was most religiously enforced, trembling under the conviction of sin, and upon a floor crowded with suggestions of physical sacrifice; yet the only sacrifice he offers is the purely spiritual one of confession. It is most notable. Look at it from a human point of view, and we can estimate Isaiahs immense spiritual originality; look at it from a Divine and we cannot help perceiving a distinct foreshadow of what was to take place by the blood of Jesus under the new covenant. To this man, as to some others of his dispensation, whose experience our Christian sympathy recognises so readily in the Psalms, there was granted afore-time boldness to enter into the holiest. For this is the explanation of Isaiahs marvellous disregard of the temple ritual. It is all behind him. This man has passed within the veil. Forms are all behind him, and he is face to face with God. But between two beings in that position, intercourse by the far off and uncertain signals of sacrifice is inconceivable. It can only take place by the simple unfolding of the heart. It must be rational, intelligent, and by speech. When man is at such close quarters with God what sacrifice is possible but the sacrifice of the lips? Form for the Divine reply there must be some, for even Christianity has its sacraments, but like them this sacrament is of the very simplest form, and like them it is accompanied by the explanatory word. As Christ under the new covenant took bread and wine, and made the homely action of feeding upon them the sign and seal to His disciples of the forgiveness of their sins, so His angel under the old and sterner covenant took the more severe, but as simple and domestic form of fire to express the same to His prophet. And we do well to emphasise that the experimental value of this sacrament of fire is bestowed by the word attached to it. It is not a dumb sacrament, with a magical efficacy. But the prophets mind is persuaded and his conscience set at peace by the intelligible words of the minister of the sacrament.
Isaiahs sin being taken away, he is able to discern the voice of God Himself. It is in the most beautiful accordance with what has already happened that he hears this not as command, but request, and answers not of compulsion, but of freedom. "And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? and who will go for us? And I said, Here am I; send me." What spiritual understanding alike of the will of God and the responsibility of man, what evangelical liberty and boldness, are here! Here we touch the spring of that high flight Isaiah takes both in prophecy and in active service for the State. Here we have the secret of the filial freedom, the life-long sense of responsibility, the regal power of initiative, the sustained and unfaltering career, which distinguish Isaiah among the ministers of the old covenant, and stamp him prophet by the heart and for the life, as many of them are only by the office and for the occasion. Other prophets are the servants of the God of heaven; Isaiah stands next the Son Himself. On others the hand of the Lord is laid in irresistible compulsion; the greatest of them are often ignorant, by turns headstrong and craven, deserving correction, and generally in need of supplementary calls and inspirations. But of such scourges and such doles Isaiahs royal career is absolutely without a trace. His course, begun in freedom, is pursued without hesitation or anxiety; begun in utter self-sacrifice, it knows henceforth no moment of grudging or disobedience. "Esaias is very bold," because he is so free and so fully devoted. In the presence of mind with which he meets each sudden change of politics during that bewildering half-century of Judahs history, we seem to hear his calm voice repeating its first, "Here am I." Presence of mind he always had. The kaleidoscope shifts: it is now Egyptian intrigue, now Assyrian force; now a false king requiring threat of displacement by Gods own hero, now a true king, but helpless and in need of consolation; now a rebellious people to be condemned, and now an oppressed and penitent one to be encouraged:-different dangers, with different sorts of salvation possible, obliging the prophet to promise different futures, and to say things inconsistent with what he had already said. Yet Isaiah never hesitates; he can always say, "Here am I." We hear that voice again in the spontaneousness and versatility of his style. Isaiah is one of the great kings of literature, with every variety of style under his sway, passing with perfect readiness, as subject or occasion calls, from one to another of the tones of a superbly endowed nature. Everywhere this man impresses us with his personality, with the wealth of his nature and the perfection of his control of it. But the personality is consecrated. The "Here am I" is followed by the "send me." And its health, harmony, and boldness are derived, Isaiah being his own witness, from this early sense of pardon and purification at the Divine hands. Isaiah is indeed a king and a priest unto God-a king with all his powers at his own command, a priest with them all consecrated to the service of Heaven.
One cannot pass away from these verses without observing the plain answer which they give to the question, What is a call to the ministry of God? In these days of dust and distraction, full of party cries, with so many side issues of doctrine and duty presenting themselves, and the solid attractions of so many other services insensibly leading men to look for the same sort of attractiveness in the ministry, it may prove a relief to some to ponder the simple elements of Isaiahs call to be a professional and lifelong prophet. Isaiah got no "call" in our conventional sense of the word, no compulsion that he must go, no articulate voice describing him as the sort of man needed for the work, nor any of those similar "calls" which sluggish and craven spirits so often desire to relieve them of the responsibility or the strenuous effort needed in deciding for a profession which their conscience will not permit them to refuse. Isaiah got no such call. After passing through the fundamental religious experiences of forgiveness and cleansing, which are in every case the indispensable premises of life with God, Isaiah was left to himself. No direct summons was addressed to him, no compulsion was laid on him; but he heard the voice of God asking generally for messengers, and he on his own responsibility answered it for himself in particular. He heard from the Divine lips of the Divine need for messengers, and he was immediately full of the mind that he was the man for the mission, and of the heart to give himself to it. So great an example cannot be too closely studied by candidates for the ministry in our own day. Sacrifice is not the half-sleepy, half-reluctant submission to the force of circumstance or opinion, in which shape it is so often travestied among us, but the resolute self-surrender and willing resignation of a free and reasonable soul. There are many in our day who look for an irresistible compulsion into the ministry of the Church; sensitive as they are to the material bias by which men roll off into other professions, they pray for something of a similar kind to prevail with them in this direction also. There are men who pass into the ministry by social pressure or the opinion of the circles they belong to, and there are men who adopt the profession simply because it is on the line of least resistance.
From which false beginnings rise the spent force, the premature stoppages, the stagnancy, the aimlessness and heartlessness, which are the scandals of the professional ministry and the weakness of the Christian Church in our day. Men who drift into the ministry, as it is certain so many do, become mere ecclesiastical flotsam and jetsam, incapable of giving carriage to any soul across the waters of this life, uncertain of their own arrival anywhere, and of all the waste of their generation, the most patent and disgraceful. God will have no drift-wood for His sacrifices, no drift-men for His ministers. Self-consecration is the beginning of His service, and a sense of our own freedom and our own responsibility is an indispensable element in the act of self-consecration. We-not God-have to make the decision. We are not to be dead, but living, sacrifices, and everything which renders us less than fully alive both mars at the time the sincerity of our surrender and reacts for evil upon the whole of our subsequent ministry.
III. THE COMMISSION
(Isa_6:9-13)
A heart so resolutely devoted as we have seen Isaiahs to be was surely prepared against any degree of discouragement, but probably never did man receive so awful a commission as he describes himself to have done. Not that we are to suppose that this fell upon Isaiah all at once, in the suddenness and distinctness with which he here records it. Our sense of its awfulness will only be increased when we realise that Isaiah became aware of it, not in the shock of a single discovery, sufficiently great to have carried its own anaesthetic along with it, but through a prolonged process of disillusion, and at the pain of those repeated disappointments, which are all the more painful that none singly is great enough to stupefy. It is just at this point of our chapter that we feel most the need of supposing it to have been written some years after the consecration of Isaiah, when his experience had grown long enough to articulate the dim forebodings of that solemn moment. "Go and say to this people, Hearing, hear ye, but understand not; seeing, see ye, but know not. Make fat the heart of this people, and its ears make heavy, and its eyes smear, lest it see with its eyes, and hear with its ears, and its heart understand, and it turn again and be healed." No prophet, we may be sure, would be asked by God to go and tell his audiences that in so many words, at the beginning of his career. It is only by experience that a man understands that kind of a commission, and for the required experience Isaiah had not long to wait after entering on his ministry. Ahaz himself, in whose death-year it is supposed by many that Isaiah wrote this account of his consecration-the conduct of Ahaz himself was sufficient to have brought out the convictions of the prophets heart in this startling form, in which he has stated his commission. By the word of the Lord and an offer of a sign from Him, Isaiah did make fat that monarchs heart and smear his eyes. And perverse as the rulers of Judah were in the examples and policies they set, the people were as blindly bent on following them to destruction. "Every one," said Isaiah, when he must have been for some time a prophet, "every one is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly."
But if that clear, bitter way of putting the matter can have come to Isaiah only with the experience of some years, why does he place it upon the lips of God, as they give him his commission? Because Isaiah is stating not merely his own singular experience, but a truth always true of the preaching of the word of God, and of which no prophet at the time of his consecration to that ministry can be without at least a foreboding. We have not exhausted the meaning of this awful commission when we say that it is only a forcible anticipation of the prophets actual experience. There is more here than one mans experience. Over and over again are these words quoted in the New Testament, till we learn to find them true and always everywhere that the Word of God is preached to men, -the description of what would seem to be its necessary effect upon many souls. Both Jesus and Paul use Isaiahs commission of themselves. They do so like Isaiah at an advanced stage in their ministry, when the shock of misunderstanding and ejection has been repeatedly felt, but then not solely as an apt description of their own experience. They quote Gods words to Isaiah as a prophecy fulfilled in their own case-that is to say, as the statement of a great principle or truth of which their own ministry is only another instance. Their own disappointments have roused them to the fact, that this is always an effect of the word of God upon numbers of men-to deaden their spiritual faculties. While Matthew and the book of Acts adopt the milder Greek version of Isaiahs commission, John gives a rendering that is even stronger than the original. "He hath blinded," he says of God Himself, "their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes and perceive with their hearts." In Marks narrative Christ says that He speaks to them that are outside in parables, "for the purpose that seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand, lest haply they should turn again and it should be forgiven them." We may suspect, in an utterance so strange to the lips of the Lord of salvation, merely the irony of His baffled love. But it is rather the statement of what He believed to be the necessary effect of a ministry like His own. It marks the direction, not of His desire, but of natural sequence.
With these instances we can go back to Isaiah and understand why he should have described the bitter fruits of experience as an imperative laid upon him by God. "Make fat the heart of this people, and its ears make heavy, and its eyes do thou smear." It is the fashion of the prophets grammar, when it would state a principle or necessary effect, to put it in the form of a command. What God expresses to Isaiah so imperatively as almost to take our breath away; what Christ uttered with such abruptness that we ask, Does He speak in irony? what Paul laid down as the conviction of a long and patient ministry, is the great truth that the Word of God has not only a saving power, but that even in its gentlest pleadings and its purest Gospel, even by the mouth of Him who came, not to condemn, but to save the world, it has a power that is judicial and condemnatory.
It is frequently remarked by us as perhaps the most deplorable fact of our experience, that there exists in human nature an accursed facility for turning Gods gifts to precisely the opposite ends from those for which He gave them. So common is mans misunderstanding of the plainest signs, and so frequent his abuse of the most evident favours of Heaven, that a spectator of the drama of human history might imagine its Author to have been a Cynic or Comedian, portraying for His own amusement the loss of the erring at the very moment of what might have been their recovery, the frustration of love at the point of its greatest warmth and expectancy. Let him look closer, however, and he will perceive, not a comedy, but a tragedy, for neither chance nor cruel sport is here at work, but free will and the laws of habit, with retribution and penalty. These actors are not puppets in the hand of a Power that moves them at will; each of them plays his own part, and the abuse and contradiction of which he is guilty are but the perogative of his freedom. They are free beings who thus reject the gift of Divine assistance and so piteously misunderstand Divine truth. Look closer still, and you will see that the way they talk, the impression they accept of Gods goodness, the effects of His judgments upon them, are determined not at the moment of their choice, and not by a single act of their will, but by the whole tenor of their previous life. In the sudden flash of some gift or opportunity, men reveal the stuff of which they are made, the disposition they have bred in themselves. Opportunity in human life is as often judgment as it is salvation. When we perceive these things, we understand that life is not a comedy, where chance governs or incongruous situations are invented by an Almighty Satirist for His own sport, but a tragedy, with all tragedys pathetic elements of royal wills contending in freedom with each other, of mens wills clashing with Gods: men the makers of their own destinies, and Nemesis not directing, but following their actions. We go back to the very fundamentals of our nature on this dread question. To understand what has been called "a great law in human degeneracy," that "the evil heart can assimilate good to itself and convert it to its nature," we must understand what free will means, and take into account the terrible influence of habit.
Now there is no more conspicuous instance of this law, than that which is afforded by the preaching of the Gospel of God. Gods Word, as Christ reminds us, does not fall on virgin soil; it falls on soil already holding other seed. When a preacher stands up with the Word of God in a great congregation, vast as Scripture warrants us for believing his power to be, his is not the only power that is operative. Each man present has a life behind that hour and place, lying away in the darkness, silent and dead as far as the congregation are concerned, but in his own heart as vivid and loud as the voice of the preacher, though he be preaching never so forcibly. The prophet is not the only power in the delivery of Gods Word, nor is the Holy Spirit the only power. That would make all preaching of the Word a mere display. But the Bible represents it as a strife. And now it is said of men themselves that they harden their hearts against the Word, and now-because such hardening is the result of previous sinning, and has therefore a judicial character-that God hardens their hearts. "Simon, Simon," said Christ to a face that spread out to His own all the ardour of worship, "Satan is desiring to have you, but I have prayed that your faith fail not." God sends His Word into our hearts; the Mediator stands by, and prays that it make us His own. But there are other factors in the operation, and the result depends on our own will; it depends on our own will, and it is dreadfully determined by our habits.
Now this is one of the first facts to which a young reformer or prophet awakes. Such an awakening is a necessary element in his education and apprenticeship. He has seen the Lord high and lifted up. His lips have been touched by the coal from off the altar. His first feeling is that. nothing can withstand that power, nothing gainsay this inspiration. Is he a Nehemiah, and the hand of the Lord has been mighty upon him? Then he feels that he has but to tell his fellows of it to make them as enthusiastic in the Lords work as himself. Is he a Mazzini, aflame from his boyhood with aspiration for his country, consecrated from his birth to the cause of duty? Then he leaps with joy upon his mission; he has but to show himself, to speak, to lead the way, and his country is free. Is he-to descend to a lower degree of prophecy-a Fourier, sensitive more than most to how anarchic society is, and righteously eager to settle it upon stable foundations? Then he draws his plans for reconstruction, he projects his phalanges and phalansteres, and believes that he has solved the social problem. Is he-to come back to the heights-an Isaiah, with the Word of God in him like fire? Then he sees his vision of the perfect state; he thinks to lift his people to it by a word. "O house of Jacob," he says, "come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord!"
For all of whom the next necessary stage of experience is one of disappointment, with the hard commission, "Make the heart of this people fat." They must learn that, if God has caught themselves young, and when it was possible to make them entirely His own, the human race to whom He sends them is old, too old for them to effect much upon the mass of it beyond the hardening and perpetuation of evil. Fourier finds that to produce his perfect State he would need to re-create mankind, to cut down the tree to the very roots, and begin again. After the first rush of patriotic fervour, which carried so many of his countrymen with him, Mazzini discovers himself in "a moral desert," confesses that the struggle to liberate his fatherland, which has only quickened him to further devotion in so great a cause, has been productive of scepticism in his followers, and has left them withered and hardened of heart, whom it had found so capable of heroic impulses. He tells us how they upbraided and scorned him, left him in exile, and returned to their homes, from which they had set out with vows to die for their country, doubting now whether there was anything at all worth living or dying for outside themselves. Mazzinis description of the first passage of his career is invaluable for the light which it throws upon this commission of Isaiah. History does not contain a more dramatic representation of the entirely opposite effects of the same Divine movement upon different natures. While the first efforts for the liberty of Italy materialised the greater number of his countrymen, whom Mazzini had persuaded to embark upon them, the failure and their consequent defection only served to strip this heroic soul of the last rags of selfishness, and consecrate it more utterly to the will of God and the duty that lay before it.
A few sentences from the confessions of the Italian patriot may be quoted, with benefit to our appreciation of what the Hebrew prophet must have passed through.
"It was the tempest of doubt, which I believe all who devote their lives to a great enterprise, yet have not dried and withered up their soul-like Robespierre-beneath some barren intellectual formula, but bare retained a loving heart, are doomed, once at least, to battle through. My heart was overflowing with and greedy of affection, as fresh and eager to unfold to joy as in the days when sustained by my mothers smile, as full of fervid hope for others, at least, if not for myself. But during these fatal months there darkened round me such a hurricane of sorrow, disillusion, and deception as to bring before my eyes, in all its ghastly nakedness, a foreshadowing of the old age of my soul, solitary in a desert world, wherein no comfort in the struggle was vouchsafed to me. It was not only the overthrow for an indefinite period of every Italian hope; it was the falling to pieces of that moral edifice of faith and love from which alone I had derived strength for the combat; the scepticism I saw arising round me on every side; the failure of faith in those who had solemnly bound themselves to pursue unshaken the path we had known at the outset to be choked with sorrows; the distrust I detected in those most dear to me, as to the motives and intentions which sustained and urged me onward in the evidently unequal struggle When I felt that 1 was indeed alone in the world, I drew back in terror at the void before me. There. in that moral desert, doubt came upon me. Perhaps I was wrong, and the world right? Perhaps my idea was indeed a dream? One morning I awoke to find my mind tranquil and my spirit calmed, as one who has passed through a great danger. The first thought that passed across my spirit was, Your sufferings are the temptations of egotism, and arise from a misconception of life I perceived that although every instinct of my heart rebelled against that fatal and ignoble definition of life which makes it to be a search after happiness, yet I had not completely freed myself from the dominating influence exercised by it upon the age. I had been unable to realise the true ideal of love-love without earthly hope. Life is a mission, duty therefore its highest law. From the idea of God I descended to faith in a mission and its logical consequence-duty the supreme rule of life: and having reached that faith, I swore to myself that nothing in this world should again make me doubt or forsake it. It was, as Dante says, passing through martyrdom to peace-a forced and desperate peace I do not deny, for I fraternised with sorrow, and wrapped myself in it as in a mantle; but yet it was peace, for I learned to suffer without rebellion, and to live calmly and in harmony with my own spirit. I reverently bless God the Father for what consolations of affection-I can conceive of no other-He has vouchsafed to me in my later years; and in them I gather strength to struggle with the occasional return of weariness of existence. But even were these consolations denied me, I believe I should still be what I am. Whether the sun shine with the serene splendour of an Italian noon, or the leaden, corpse-like hue of the northern mist be above us, I cannot see that it changes our duty. God dwells above the earthly heaven and the holy stars of faith and the future still shine with n our souls, even though their light consume itself unreflected as the sepulchral lamp."
Such sentences are the best commentary we can offer on our text. The cases of the Hebrew and Italian prophets are wonderfully alike. We who have read Isaiahs fifth chapter know how his heart also was "overflowing with and greedy of affection," and in the second and third chapters we have seen "the hurricane, of sorrow, disillusion, and deception darken round him." "The falling to pieces of the moral edifice of faith and love," "scepticism rising on every side," "failure of faith in those who had solemnly bound themselves," "distrust detected in those most dear to me" - and all felt by the prophet as the effect of the sacred movement God had inspired him to begin:-how exact a counterpart it is to the cumulative process of brutalising which Isaiah heard God lay upon him, with the imperative "Make the heart of this people fat!" In such a morally blind, deaf, and dead-hearted world Isaiahs faith was indeed "to consume itself unreflected like the sepulchral lamp." The glimpse into his heart given us by Mazzini enables us to realise with what terror Isaiah faced such a void. "O Lord, how long?" This, too, breathes the air of "a forced and desperate peace," the spirit of one who, having realised life as a mission, has made the much more rare recognition that the logical consequence is neither the promise of success nor the assurance of sympathy, but simply the acceptance of duty, with whatever results and under whatever skies it pleases God to bring over him.
"Until cities fall into ruin without an inhabitant
And houses without a man,
And the land be left desolately waste.
And Jehovah have removed man far away,
And great be the desert in the midst of the land;
And still if there be a tenth in it,
Even it shall be again for consuming.
Like the terebinth, and like the oak.
Whose stock when they are felled remaineth in them,
The holy seed shall be its stock,"
The meaning of these words is too plain to require exposition, but we can hardly over-emphasise them. This is to be Isaiahs one text throughout his career. "Judgment shall pass through; a remnant shall remain." All the policies of his day, the movement of the worlds forces, the devastation of the holy land, the first captivities of the holy people, the reiterated defeats and disappointments of the next fifty years-all shall be clear and tolerable to Isaiah as the fulfilling of the sentence to which he listened in such "forced and desperate peace" on the day of his consecration. He has had the worst branded into him; henceforth no man nor thing may trouble him. He has seen the worst, and knows there is a beginning beyond. So when the wickedness of Judah and the violence of Assyria alike seem most unrestrained-Assyria most bent on destroying Judah, and Judah least worthy to live-Isaiah will yet cling to this, that a remnant must remain. All his prophecies will be variations of this text; it is the key to his apparent paradoxes. He will proclaim the Assyrians to be Gods instrument, yet devote them to destruction. He will hail their advance on Judah, and yet as exultingly mark its limit, because of the determination in which he asked the question, "O Lord, how long?" and the clearness with which he understood the until, that came in answer to it. Every prediction he makes, every turn he seeks to give to the practical politics of Judah, are simply due to his grasp of these two facts-a withering and repeated devastation, in the end a bare survival. He has, indeed, prophecies which travel farther; occasionally he is permitted to indulge in visions of a new dispensation. Like Moses, he climbs his Pisgah, but he is like Moses also in this, that his lifetime is exhausted with the attainment of the margin of a long period of judgment and struggle, and then he passes from our sight, and no man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day. As abruptly as this vision closes with the announcement of the remnant, so abruptly does Isaiah disappear on the fulfilment of the announcement-some forty years subsequent to this vision-in the sudden rescue of the holy seed from the grasp of Sennacherib.
We have now finished the first period of Isaiahs career. Let us catalogue what are his leading doctrines up to this point. High above a very sinful people, and beyond all their conceptions of Him, Jehovah, the national God, rises holy, exalted in righteousness. From such a God to such a people it can only be judgment and affliction that pass; and these shall not be averted by the fact that He is the national God, and they His worshippers. Of this affliction the Assyrians gathering far off upon the horizon are evidently to be the instruments. The affliction shall be very sweeping; again and again shall it come; but the Lord will finally save a remnant of His people. Three elements compose this preaching-a very keen and practical conscience of sin; an overpowering vision of God, in whose immediate intimacy the prophet believes himself to be; and a very sharp perception of the politics of the day.
One question rises. In this part of Isaiahs ministry there is no trace of that Figure whom we chiefly identify with his preaching; the Messiah. Let us have patience; it is not time for Him; but the following is His connection with the prophets present doctrines.
Isaiahs great result at present is the certainty of a remnant. That remnant will require two things-they will require a rallying-point, and they will require a leader. Henceforth Isaiahs prophesying will be bent to one or other of these. The two grand purposes of his word and work will be, for the sake of the remnant, the inviolateness of Zion, and the coming of the Messiah. The former he has, indeed, already intimated (chapter 4); the latter is now to share with it his hope and eloquence.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn vv1–2Isa_6:1-2; Isa_6:5-7. I saw also the Lord, &c.
THE SERVICE OF THE SERAPHIM
Isa_6:1-2; Isa_6:5-7. I saw also the Lord, &c.
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In that perfect prayer which our Lord bequeathed to His disciples we are taught to ask that God’s will may be done in earth as it is done in heaven. Thus angelic service is set before us as a model and pattern. Not that the services we are called upon to render are the same with those assigned to angels. Their sphere is heaven, ours for the present is the earth; and each of these spheres has its distinct and peculiar duties, appropriate to the nature and faculties of its occupants. But the spirit in which the employments of angels and men should be prosecuted is the same. One common sentiment—the sentiment of adoration and devotedness—should animate and govern them all. Hence the passage before us, although containing a record of the transactions of another sphere, contains a lesson, if not respecting the nature of our duties, yet respecting the method in which we should seek to fulfil them.
I. The twofold life of a servant of God, whether human or angelic, is here very beautifully exhibited to us. The seraphim are represented as veiling their faces and feet with their wings while they stand in adoration before the throne of God. But although engaged in ceaselessly adoring the Divine perfections, they do not lead a life of barren contemplation. The words, “with twain he did fly,” intimate to us that they are also engaged in the active execution of those errands with which God has charged them. The Christian’s life, like that of the seraphim, branches out into the two great divisions of contemplative devotion and active exertion. It is the life of Mary combined with that of Martha (P. D. 2417).
1. The devotional branch of the Christian’s life. In the exercises of the closet and of the sanctuary are to be found the springs of the Christian’s exertions in his Master’s cause. These exercises are not originating sources of grace, but they are channels and vehicles through which God’s Spirit conveys Himself to the soul—pitchers in which may be drawn up the waters of the River of Life to refresh and recruit the energies of him whom a painful resistance to evil within and without has rendered weary and faint in his mind (H. E. I. 3426, 4107, 4108, and 3438–3448). If devotion be essential to the perfection of a seraph’s service, how much more essential must it be to ours, our necessities being so immensely greater than those of the bright inhabitants of heaven! The exigencies of our time make devotion especially needful now. The present is emphatically a period of the world’s history in which “many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased.” Moreover, there is a revival of outward energy and activity in the cause of religion. This is a blessing. But remember, days of excitement are not days of deep devotion. There may be much of rapid movement abroad in the world without a corresponding adoration of God in the secret chamber of the heart—much of flying without veiling of the face [1303]
[1303] If this be the case with any of us, if, with the busy occupation of the hands in the furtherance of religious objects, we have allowed the inward life of communion with God to decline, how painfully do we resemble those virgins who took no heed to provide for their dying lamps a continual supply of oil! The profession which we have made before men, however bright its blaze, will one day be shown to have been delusive—to have been destitute of those animating principles of faith and love from which alone can flow an acceptable service.—Goulburn.
2. The outward manifestation of the Christian life discernible by the world. Care must be taken not only that the lamp shall be filled with oil, but that there shall be a light shining before men (Mat_5:16; H. E. I. 1042, 1044, 3906). The seraphim are not so wrapt up in adoration of God that they are forgetful of active service. “With twain they did fly” for the execution of the errands on which they were commissioned.
Here is a reproof of the monastic principle, that seclusion from the society of our fellow-men and from the active duties of life is necessary in order to secure an uninterrupted period of leisure for solitary spiritual exercises. Undue predominance is thus given to one branch of God’s service, to the prejudice and neglect of the other and no less important branch. Exercise as well as nourishment and repose is essential to the health of the body, and so toil in the vineyard—earnest endeavour to advance the kingdom of God in our own hearts and the hearts of others—is no less essential to the health of the soul. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;” but for what purpose? That they may walk in good works, and run with patience the race that is set before them (chap. Isa_40:31; H. E. I. 1736–1742).
II. Some practical lessons concerning the maintenance and manifestation of the twofold Christian life.
1. A lesson as to the spirit which should pervade all devotion. These bright and glorious beings are without sin. Still, such is their sense of the infinite distance between themselves and their Creator, that they veil their faces and their feet before His throne in token of adoring reverence. The first and most essential element of devotion is a feeling of deep awe flowing from a sense of God’s transcendent excellences and leading to profound self-abasement (H. E. I. 3798, 3799, 5074). If reverence was befitting in the seraphim, how much more is it necessary in sinful men! (Luk_18:13; Ezr_9:6).
The vision of God wrought in Isaiah a feeling almost akin to despair. It seemed to him as if the perfect holiness of God was engaged to banish for ever every creature possessing the slightest taint of moral evil (Isa_6:5). In Isa_6:6-7 we have the glorious remedy. What is the significance of the symbols? By the work of the Son of God a mighty Altar of Propitiation has been reared up, and thence there comes to the penitent sinner cleansing as well as pardon. The “live coal” is an emblem of that love and zeal in God’s service with which the Holy Spirit imbues the souls of those who flee to the Altar of Atonement as their only refuge from the wrath to come. A participation in that Spirit’s influence is absolutely essential to our true participation in the chorus of the angelic host (H. E. I. 2887).
2. A few words on that active service which is the outward manifestation of the principles nourished by devotion.
(1.) We must prepare for it by the care and culture of our own heart [1306]
(2.) There is also an outward work which God has made binding on all of us. He has assigned to each of us a certain position in life. Every such position involves its peculiar responsibilities, snares, and occupations. The responsibilities must be cheerfully and manfully met, the occupations diligently fulfilled, as a piece of taskwork allotted to us by the Lord of the vineyard (Eph_6:7). Besides, God has intrusted to us, in various measures, substance, time, abilities, influence, and these we are diligently to use for the promotion of the cause of God in the world. In our busy path through life, which brings us in contact with so many individuals, opportunities are ever and anon presented to us of being useful to our fellow-men; and to watch for, seize, and improve such opportunities is not the least important of these branches of active service (P. D. 40, 3567, 3569).
[1306] God requires us to set a strict watch over its outgoings—a watch such as sentinels keep over the persons and goods which pass out of a city whose allegiance to the sovereign is suspected—to curb and quell at its earliest outbreak every rising of vanity, temper, bitterness, passion, and just—to drag forth from its dark recesses and to slay every cherished iniquity which has found there a harbour and a hiding-place. Our own heart is a vineyard over which God hath set every one of us to dress it and to keep it. We are to extirpate the soil’s poisonous produce, and to implore upon the soil of this vineyard the precious dews of the Divine Spirit, which may remedy its native barrenness and turn it from a desert into the garden of the Lord.—Goulburn. See also H. E. I. 1841, 1 42, 2695–2708.
CONCLUSION.—
1. It is not the intrinsic dignity of our duties, nor the large result of our fulfilment of them, which renders the diligent performance of them an acceptable work in God’s eyes. The great design of our being placed in this world is not that we may do some signal service, or large amount of service, to our Creator, but rather that we may execute the service (be it great or small) allotted to us in a spirit of fidelity, zeal, and love. The spirit which is thrown into and pervades the work is everything—the work itself (comparatively) nothing. Be the sphere what it may which Divine Providence has assigned us, let the duties of it be executed in a seraphic spirit (P. D. 1484).
2. We have overwhelming motives, if we did but rightly appreciate them, to devotedness of our every faculty to the service of our God. The redeemed sinner owes to God far more of allegiance than the angel who has retained his integrity. Angels no such Fall have known, “angels no such Love have known,” as we.—E. M. Goulburn, D.C.L.: Sermons, pp. 77–99,
THE TRINITY IN UNITY
(For Trinity Sunday.)
Isa_6:1-3. In the year that King Uzziah died, &c.
Scene of this sublime vision, the Temple; time, “the year that King Uzziah died.” Why is this fact mentioned? Uzziah had profaned the Temple (2Ch_26:16-21); his son and successor was Jotham, the only king of the house of Judah whose character has not one dishonouring blot; was it not appropriate that, when the disobedient king was removed, and a king who honoured God and His house had succeeded him, there should have been this glorious revelation of the King of kings—not merely as a preparation of the prophet for his mission, but as an encouragement to the monarch to persevere in his loyalty towards God and His truth?
That which was granted to the prophet was a vision of the Triune God. Proofs: Isa_6:3, which shows the plurality of persons in the Divine unity; Joh_12:41, where it is asserted that that which the prophet saw was the glory of Christ; Act_28:25, where it is asserted that the voice which the prophet heard was the voice of the Holy Ghost; Isa_6:3, the threefold repetition of “holy.” I purpose, therefore, to make some observations on this important subject of the Trinity.
I. The doctrine of the Trinity has been believed by the Church of Christ in all ages. This is at least a presumption that it is taught in Scripture, successive generations of devout men could scarcely have been mistaken on such a vital point.
II. This doctrine of the Trinity underlies the whole Bible, and is inextricably interwoven with its fabric and structure. The Old Testament testifies to the Divine unity, as contrasted with the polytheism which prevailed among heathen nations; the Gospels record the manifestation of the Incarnate Son of God; the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles set forth the work of the Third Person in the Church. There is direct testimony to this doctrine, such as Mat_28:19, 2Co_13:14. But just as circumstantial evidence when it is clear and complete is even more satisfactory and decisive than the very best direct testimony, still more valuable is the indirect testimony to this doctrine underlying the whole Bible; like a threefold cord, it runs through the whole book, and binds the whole of Divine revelation together.
III. This doctrine of the Trinity, while it is clearly taught in Scripture, is mysterious and inexplicable. We can no more comprehend it with the unaided human understanding than by uplifting the fingers we can touch the starry firmament [694] This is no reason for refusing to accept it [697] for we accept many other facts which we cannot explain (we cannot explain even the familiar fact of sight), but it is a reason for not insisting dogmatically that other men should accept our explanations of it.
[694] See Article: THE TRINITY, in my Homiletic Encyclopædia of illustrations, and section 1501 in my Dictionary of Poetical Illustrations.
[697] See Article: THE TRINITY, in my Homiletic Encyclopædia of illustrations, and section 1501 in my Dictionary of Poetical Illustrations.
As we cannot stay to consider the effect of this vision upon the mind of the prophet, I shall conclude with just three words of practical application of the doctrine itself.
1. It is bound up with our duty to God. We are bound to accept it, because He has revealed it; and accepting it, we are bound to yield to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost the homage and love of our souls.
2. It is bound up with our hope of salvation. If it is not true that the Everlasting Son came forth from the bosom of the Father, and took upon Him to deliver man; and if it is not true that the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son raises men from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, and restamps upon their souls the lost lineaments of our Maker’s image, what foundation is there left for our hope of everlasting life?
3. It is bound up with the fulness of the Gospel blessings. These are all summed up in the Apostolic benediction, 2Co_13:14. If these be ours, we “have all and abound.”—R. W. Forrest (Christian World Pulpit, i. 492).
REVELATIONS OF GOD
Isa_6:1-5. In the year that King Uzziah died I saw, &c. [700]
[700] The scene of the Vision is the Temple, and its features will have been the same whether we suppose them to have risen before Isaiah’s imagination while he was absent from the spot, in the solitude of his chamber or his house-top, or assume (as I myself prefer to do), that he was actually praying in the Temple at the time.
Though it is unlikely that any of the successors to what was but a small remnant of Solomon’s kingdom perfectly restored the Temple after it was deprived of its original splendour by Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam, yet we see the worthier princes from time to time repairing the structure when it had been suffered to fall into decay, and replacing, as far as they could, the treasures and the costly decorations of which it was repeatedly despoiled to buy off foreign invaders; and probably there was no period in which the restoration would be more complete than in the reign of Uzziah, who in his power, wealth, and magnificence, came nearer than any other to Solomon. And there will be much more of fact than of fancy in the picture, if, for the clearer understanding of the scene of this vision, we figure to ourselves the youthful prophet in his rough hair or woollen garment (probably not unlike that of the Capuchin friar as we now see him in the streets or churches of Rome), going up to the Temple to worship;—and if we look with him at the Temple as, at the end of 300 years from its building, it must have presented itself to his eyes, with its ample courts, and colonnades, and porch, and its holy house, and holy of holies, well-proportioned, and of the most elaborate workmanship, though rather massive than large according to our notions. As he crossed the variegated pavement of “the great court of the congregation,” and stopped—for we have no reason to suppose him a Levite—at the entrance to the inner, or “priests’ ” court, on each hand would rise one of the tall pillars which Solomon set up in token that the kingdom was constituted by Jehovah, and would be upheld by His might (1Ki_7:21; 2Ch_3:17), and which, once of “bright brass,” but now mellowed into bronze, had their square capitals richly wreathed with molten lilies, chain-work, and pomegranates; before him, resting on the back of the twelve oxen, and cast like them in brass, would appear the “molten sea,” a basin of thirty cubits in circumference, and containing two or three thousand baths of water, its, brim wrought “like the brim of a cup with flowers of lilies,” and under these a double row of ornamental knobs; while on each side stood five smaller lavers, the bases of which rested on wheels, and were most elaborately ornamented with oxen, lions, cherubims, and palm-trees engraved upon them; and beyond these again he would see the great brazen altar of burnt-offering, with its never-extinguished fire; and overhead the roof of thick cedar beams resting on rows of columns. These were the courts of the palace of the divine King of Israel, for the reception of His subjects and His ministers.[Compare the description of Solomon’s own house, which besides its inner porch had another where he sat to judge the people, 1Ki_7:7. The arrangement of the Temple is plainly that of a palace.] The house itself again consisted of two parts, the outer of which, the holy place, was accessible to those priests who were in immediate attendance on their unseen Sovereign, while the inner, or holiest place, was the very presence-chamber of the Monarch who dwelt “between the cherubims,” which spread their golden wings over the ark containing the covenant He had vouchsafed to enter into with His people, and itself forming a “mercy-seat,” where was “the place of His throne and the place of the sole of His feet.” In the position which I have, following the requirements of the narrative in the chapter before us, supposed Isaiah to be placed, he would see through the open folding-doors of cypress, carved “with cherubims, and palm-trees, and open flowers,” and “covered with gold upon the carved work,” into the holy place, which he could not enter; and the light of the golden lamps on either side would show him the cedar panelling of the walls, carved with knobs and open flowers, with cherubims and palm-trees, festooned with chain-work, and richly gilt; the mosaics of precious stone; the cypress floor; the altar of incense; the table with the shew-bread; the censers, tongs, and other furniture of “pure and perfect gold;” and before the doorway at the further end, and not concealed by the open leaves of the olive-wood doors (carved and gilded like the others), would be distinguishable the folds of the vail “of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen,” embroidered with cherubims. In the East the closed vail, or purdah, declares the presence and secures the privacy of the monarch, into which no man may intrude and live; and in the Temple at Jerusalem it was the symbol of the awful presence and unapproachable majesty of the King Jehovah, Lord of hosts.… Perhaps on this occasion, or certainly on many others, Isaiah had been joining in the public daily sacrifice and worship and had afterwards brought his own free-will offering—a bullock or a lamb without blemish. Such an offering, the symbol of his dedication of himself to Jehovah’s service, would be the natural expression of his earnest desire for some token that at last it was permitted him to enter on the actual functions of the prophetic office for which he had been so long preparing; and that this vision was the answer to such beautiful prayerful desire—itself an inspiration from on high—we may well believe.—Strachey.
Some of you may have been watching a near and beautiful landscape in the land of mountains and eternal snows, till you have been exhausted by its very richness, and till the distant hills which bounded it have seemed, you knew not why, to limit and contract the view,—and then a vail has been withdrawn, and new hills not looking as if they belonged to this earth, yet giving another character to all that does belong to it, have unfolded themselves before you. This is an imperfect, very imperfect, likeness (yet it is one), of that revelation which must have been made to the inner eye of the prophet, when he saw another throne than the throne of the house of David, another king than Uzziah or Jotham, another train than that of priests or minstrels in the Temple, other winged forms than those golden ones which overshadowed the mercy-seat. Each object was the counterpart of one that was then or had been at some time before his bodily eyes.… The symbols and service of the Temple were not, as priests and people often thought, an earthly machinery for scaling a distant Heaven; they were witnesses of a Heaven nigh at hand, of a God dwelling in the midst of His people, of His being surrounded by spirits which do His pleasure, hearkening to the voice of His words.—F. D. Maurice.
I. Earthly powers fade and perish, but the Eternal Power that uses them all lives on (Isa_6:1). Comfort here, when a great king or statesman is taken away from the head of a nation; when a great leader of an arduous reformatory movement, such as Luther, is laid low; when an eloquent preacher or wise pastor is summoned to his rest; or even when the head of a household is cut off just when his family most need his care. He who has wrought by their instrumentality can work without it (Psa_68:5, &c.)
II. In God’s temples there is room only for God. “His train filled the Temple.” Ahaz could build in the courts of the Lord’s house an altar to the god of Damascus (2Ki_16:10-16), but he could not worship two gods there, for the only living and true God departed when His sanctuary was thus profaned. God will have all, or none (Isa_42:8). All His earthly temples must be counterparts of the one heavenly temple, where He reigns alone. In no church will God divide His empire with the State or with popular opinion: we must choose between Him and all other authorities. In no heart will He reign along with any other principle or passion (Mat_6:24.)
III. Until we reach the land where there is no temple, we cannot see God as He is [703] To Isaiah a vision of God was granted, and yet it was but a symbolic vision. He saw a throne, and on it seated? Being of indescribable majesty; but who imagines that he saw God as He is? Does God sit on a throne, after the fashion of kings, such as Uzziah, who fade and die? The vision was a condescension to the human faculties of the seer, and served its purpose, that of impressing upon him the majesty and holiness of the Most High. And he tells us more of the ministers who surround the throne than of its Occupant! Him no words can describe; of Him no absolute disclosure is now possible; He can but give us revelations—visions—administrations of Himself. And this He has done.
1. In nature. The purpose of the manifold and wondrous universe is not accomplished if we look only at the creation, and do not discern in it veils not thickly hiding, but helping to re veal the Creator (Rom_1:19-20) [706]
2. In Providence. The manner in which the world is governed is, to the man who studies it comprehensively, earnestly, and reverently, a revelation of the character of the Ruler.
3. In His Word. That man miserably mistakes, who studies the Bible as anything less than a many-sided disclosure of God.
4. In Christ [709] a familiar thought this, yet how seldom do we enter into its depths! We do not worship an un known God, yet we cannot see Him as He is until we have entered into that light which is inaccessible and which no mortal can approach unto, until we have been ourselves trans formed into “children of Kght,” and so rendered capable of looking on “the Father of lights.”
[703] See my Dictionary of Poetical Illustrations, No. 1501; and my Homiletic Encyclopædia of Illustrations, Nos. 2229–2240.
[706] D. P. I., 1489, 1493, 1496, 1502, 1504–1506, 1508, 1509, 1511, 1514, 1519, 1526, 2545, 2552, 2563; H. E. I., 2242.
[709] H. E. I., 854–857, 2241, 2243.
IV. Those to whom He reveals Himself most fully are most humble, and those whom He most exalts are most ready to serve. We have both these truths illustrated in the seraphim and in Isaiah.
ISAIAH’S VISION
Isa_6:1-7. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord, &c. [712]
[712] God is invisible; yet in that heavenly world in which He has His special and eternal residence He manifests Himself in ineffable glory, dwelling in what the Scriptures call “the light which no man can approach unto.” Of that heavenly world, the tabernacle and temple were splendid emblems; they were “patterns of heavenly things.” But why the astonishing fact, that when sinful creatures erected a tent in the wilderness, and a temple subsequently at Jerusalem, the visible glory of God descended, taking possession of the place? God thus came down from heaven to earth, with all these impressive circumstances of visible majesty, to teach His creatures that He was awfully glorious, and fearful even in His praises; that even in His acts of grace His holiness is solemnly declared; and thus to show with what reverence and purity man ought to approach to Him. So when Isaiah was to be appointed to an office in which he was to fear God, and not the face of man, and which, to give it weight and authority, required an entire sanctity, a scene similar to that which had been displayed in the temple at its consecration, but greatly heightened and magnified, was disclosed to him in vision. The space of this visionary temple appears to have been far more ample than that of the one at Jerusalem; the throne was greatly elevated, it was “high, and lifted up;” the “train,” the “skirts” (as in the margin) of the cloud of the Divine presence filled the whole place; instead of the carved representations of the cherubim of glory fixed on the mercy-seat, the prophet beholds the cherubim themselves, living, and all ardour, activity, and adoration; they are not represented in the vision as the cherubim in the holiest of all, silently gazing on the glory of God and the mysteries of His covenant, but as hymning His praises, proclaiming His spotless purity, and declaring “the whole earth to be full of His glory.” The prophet, beholding the wondrous scene, sinks oppressed and self-abhorred, until a coal from the altar touches his lips, and he is thus sanctified to the service of God, and put among His ministers.—Watson.
Behold, in these temple scenes, both what the Lord your God is, and what He requires from you.
I. The first of these temple scenes presents to our view the majesty of God: “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high, and lifted up.” One of the first and most important truths for us to learn is the absolute rule of God—over nature, man, the principalities of heaven. Mark the scenic circumstances. He sitteth upon His throne: this is the attitude,
1. Of supremacy and dignity; He sitteth while all other beings stand before Him to receive His commands, bow in adoration, or are prostrate in abasement.
2. It is the attitude of ease and perfect security [715] But, above all, mark the place of His throne as displayed in this wonderful vision. It stands in the temple; it has been sprinkled with the blood of propitiation; it is now the mercy-seat. To the truly penitent all its terror appears softened with grace.
[715] No rebellions shake the throne of God; though “the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing,” yet “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.” The throne of God is a rock in the midst of the ever-rolling ocean of created existence, that heaves and swells with ceaseless change; but, in comparison of Him, its mightiest billows have but their moment of existence, and sink into the mass at the base of the immovable throne of the Everlasting One.—Watson.
II. The second of these temple scenes displays to us the ineffable and incomprehensible nature of God. Let not man suppose that he can by searching find out God, or know the Almighty unto perfection. This is scenically, but most impressively, represented to us in the vision before us: “His train”—the skirts of the shekinah—“filled the temple,” its fainter rays beaming from the central blaze in the holiest of all, and irradiating the more distant objects. But even that was too much for man, and it is therefore added, “And the house was filled with smoke;” a veil was thus drawn over what was too bright and dazzling for mortal vision; and though God dwelt in the light, yet it was light involving itself in thick darkness (Psa_97:2; Exo_16:10). Revelation has not superseded mystery (Job_26:14). As to His dispensations, we are all still to walk by faith rather than by sight; and as to the depths of His nature, rather to adore than reason. An infinite being is necessarily incomprehensible by finite beings [718] He must be mysterious. If we could fully know God, we must either be equal to Him, or He must lose the glory of His nature and come down to ourselves (1Co_13:9; Rom_11:33).
[718] An observer on a mountain-cliff may be able to survey the whole circumference of a lake that lies beneath him, but no man can see the whole of the ocean, simply because it is the ocean, and not a lake.—Watson.
III. The third view presented by this vision is that of the adorable and awful holiness of God (Isa_6:3). This is seen in His titles (Psa_71:22; Deu_32:4); in His acts; in His law; in His visible image on earth, His Son incarnate; in His Gospel; in His judgments; in the reward of the righteous.
IV. In the next scene which the vision presents we behold a sinful man convicted and laid prostrate before this holy God (Isa_6:5).
V. In the final scene we behold a convicted, self-abased, and penitent man pardoned and consecrated to the service of God (Isa_6:6-7). What are we taught by this wondrous representation? That for guilty man there is pardon, that for unholy men there is purification, and that lips, once unclean, but now sanctified, may join in the hymns of seraphim, and, without dread, approach to God, and celebrate the glories even of His holiness. This we are taught, but not this only; not merely is the fact, but the manner of it, brought before us. See, then, the means. The instrument of purification is fire; but not any kind of fire, fire from any place; it is fire from the altar, the altar where atonement is made for sin; fire, therefore, both of divine origin, and coming to us through the great Propitiation. We can be at no loss for an interpretation of the symbols thus employed. Our altar is the cross; the propitiatory sacrifice, the spotless Lamb of God; by the merit of His death, and the baptizing fire of His Spirit, are the guilty and polluted pardoned and sanctified to God.—Richard Watson: Works, vol. iv. pp. 143–153.
THE PROPHET’S CALL
Isa_6:1-13. In the year that King Uzziah died, &c.
We have here the history of Isaiah’s call to his great life-work. Perhaps in a modern biography this chapter would have been placed first. But there was wisdom in placing it where it stands; it was well to give us some insight into the real character of the men among whom Isaiah was called to labour, for thus we are enabled more easily to understand the nature of the mission on which he was sent [688] Studying this chapter as a history of the prophet’s call, I learn—
[688] This vision evidently contains the designation of Isaiah to his work as a prophet. It does not follow that he may not himself have put his book together in the form, or nearly in the form, in which we have received it. The early chapters as they describe the state of the people, not at one particular moment but through a course of years, announcing the punishments which must follow from that state with the blessings which could come out of them, are a living index to the subsequent prophecies and history. The place which they occupy, supposing it was assigned by Isaiah, cannot hinder us from accepting his own express words as a proof, that the year in which King Uzziah died was the critical year of his life, that which explained to him why he was sent into the world and what task he had to perform in it.—F. D. Maurice.
I. That a threefold spiritual preparation is needed for effective service of God [691] It is generally admitted that some kind of preparation is needed, e.g., for the ministry of the Gospel; but it is not generally recognised that a merely professional preparation is of no avail whatever. A man may pass through the whole routine of college life, both literary and theological, and yet not be a prophet of the Lord. Such preparation is not merely not enough, it is not even essential. “Schools of the prophets” may exist without sending forth a single prophet, and God calls many prophets who have never been inside a school door. This is true of every kind and form of God’s service, e.g., the Sunday-school, the home, Christian literature. In every case a threefold spiritual preparation is necessary. Without it we may pretend to be God’s servants; but the disguise will always be imperfect, and we shall always be betraying what we really are. Even the old blind Isaacs whom we deceive will not be sure about us: we may have on Esau’s garments, but we shall never perfectly imitate Esau’s voice. What, then, is this preparation?
1. A vision of God. Before we can serve God effectively, we must to some extent see Him as He is. In all departments of human activity, knowledge of the person served is essential to perfect service. Those who have never seen an earthly king cannot serve him as do those who are in daily intercourse with him; their loyalty is at the most a sentiment, not a constraining power. The biographies of God’s most eminent servants in all ages make it plain that the first and indispensable stage in preparation for His service is a vision of God Himself—a revelation of His majesty and holiness (Isa_6:1-4).
2. What a man needs before he can effectively serve God is a vision of himself. The great hindrance to such service is self-satisfaction and self-sufficiency. But when a man really sees God as He is, he straightway sees himself as he is (Isa_6:5). Job’s experience (Job_42:5-6). Peter’s experience (Luk_5:8). He sees himself to be utterly unfit and unable to serve God, and so attains to the second indispensable qualification for such service (Eph_3:8; 1Co_15:9, &c.)
3. The third thing which a man needs before he can effectively serve God is participation in God’s salvation. This is a rule that needs to be stated with wisdom. As a matter of fact, God has used the ministry of unconverted men. Such men may be guide-posts, though not guides. How much better to be a guide! How much more useful is a guide! But we cannot thus serve our generation unless we have been made a partaker of God’s salvation. By a sanctifying process,—a process involving in some cases terrible pain (Isa_6:6-7),—we must have been made “separate from sinners.”
[691] Once for all must he who was to be a prophet have become absolutely certain of the true relation of the world and Jehovah,—must have beheld, as in a distinct form, the sublime and holy character of Jehovah, and felt that he was directed by Him alone; once for all must he have recognised the divine power of truth against the whole world, and himself as living and moving in it alone; once for all must he have entered, with the effectual energy and act of his whole inner being, into the counsels of God, and found himself for ever bound by them, and endowed by these bonds with true power and freedom:—this was the first condition and the true beginning of all the work of the prophet, the holy consecration and the inner call, without which none can become a true prophet.—Ewald.
II. Those who have undergone this preparation will devote themselves unreservedly to God’s service.
1. There will spring up spontaneously within them a desire to serve God. They will not need to be pressed into this service; they will volunteer (Isa_6:8).
2. They will not be deterred by the difficulty or painfulness of the service to which they are called. It was a hard and distasteful service that was demanded of Isaiah—to prophesy to an unbelieving and scoffing generation (Isa_5:18-19); to enter upon a ministry that would leave men worse than it found them (Isa_6:9-10). Nor was this ministry to be brief; it was to be prolonged through many years (Isa_6:11-12). Note: in sending Isaiah on such a ministry there was nothing inconsistent with the Divine righteousness or goodness. God’s truth must be proclaimed, whether men will heed or reject it; and the inevitable effect of such proclamation of the truth is to render those who reject it more stupid and wicked than they were before (2Co_2:16; Joh_9:39). But, painful as it was, Isaiah did not shrink from it. Nor do any who have passed through such a preparation as his. They do not ask concerning a work or duty, “Is it easy?” “Is it pleasant?” but, “Does God call me to it?” Paul: (Act_21:13).
III. There is great encouragement for those who have unreservedly devoted themselves to the service of God.
1. What God demands from them is not success, but faithfulness. He did not require Isaiah to convert his fellow-countrymen, but to prophesy to them faithfully. There his responsibility began and ended. So is it with preachers, teachers, and priests to-day. Men measure by success, but God by faithfulness. What a difference is the result, e.g., in such a case as that of Carey, who laboured for years without making one convert! or in such a case as Isaiah’s!
2. No faithful servant of God will ever labour without some success. Isaiah was not to toil altogether in vain. There was to be a wide-spread apostacy of his countrymen, but not a universal apostacy; a small remnant would still cleave to the Lord (Isa_6:13); and doubtless Isaiah’s ministry did much to keep them in the paths of righteousness. So is it with us; much of our seed may be wasted, but not all of it (Psa_126:6; 1Co_15:58).
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible1900 · Public DomainOn v1I. "I saw the Lord," etc. Some of you…
Isa 6:1
I. "I saw the Lord," etc. Some of you may have been watching a near and beautiful landscape in the land of mountains and eternal snows, till you have been exhausted by its very richness, and till the distant hills which bounded it have seemed, you knew not why, to limit and contract the view; and then a veil has been withdrawn, and new hills, not looking as if they belonged to this earth, yet giving another character to all that does belong to it, have unfolded themselves before you. This is a very imperfect likeness of that revelation which must have been made to the inner eye of the prophet, when he saw another throne than the throne of the house of David, another King than Uzziah or Jotham, another train than that of priests or minstrels in the temple, other winged forms than those golden ones which overshadowed the mercy-seat.
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II. "Above the throne stood the seraphim," etc. The sense of awe increasing with the clearness and purity of a spirit, and with the nearness of its approach to God; the face being veiled which receives its light from Him, and most covets to behold Him; the absence of all wish to display their own perfections in spirits that are perfect; the freedom and willingness to go anywhere, to do any errands of mercy,—these are some of the more obvious thoughts which the study of this vision suggests.
III. The vision reaches its highest point in the cry, Holy, holy, holy. It is the holiness of God which the seraphim proclaim, that which cannot be represented to the eye, that of which descriptions and symbols offer no image. It was this which led the prophet to say, "Woe is me! for I am undone."
IV. The live coal on the altar is a substance dead and cold in itself, which has been kindled from above, and therefore is capable of imparting life and warmth. That warmth and life, communicated to the prophet, take away his iniquity and purge his sin.
V. "Here am I; send me." The mighty change which has been wrought in him is soon apparent. He is sure that God cares for Israelites, and has a message to them; he is sure that a man is to be the bearer of that message. The new fire which has entered into him makes him ready to offer himself as that man.
VI. The most awful lesson which Isaiah had to teach his people was that God’s own ordinances, the regular sequence of sovereigns, the duties and symbols of the temple, were contributing to make their eyes dim, and their ears deaf, and their hearts fat. They were seeing all the outward tokens of an invisible King, but they perceived not Him.
VII. "Yet in it shall be a tenth." The nation will be preserved; the remnant, the tenth, would be a pledge and witness of its preservation. Their preservation would prove that the nation was a sacred and immortal thing, because the holy seed was in the midst of it, because it did not derive its life or its unity from this or that believing man, or from a multitude of believing men; but from Him in whom they believed; from that Divine King who lived, though king Uzziah and all other kings died,—nay, though the whole land should seem to die.
F. D. Maurice, Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, p. 218.
Reference: Isa 6:1.—J. W. Lance, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 244.
Isa 6:1-2
I. The spiritual or angelic life on earth consists not only of devotion. The seraph himself, though indeed the spirit of adoration is upon him always, is not always engaged in direct acts of praise. "With twain he did fly," speed forth, like lightning, upon the errands on which God sends him. There is a deep-seated necessity for work in the constitution of our nature. One of the greatest thinkers of antiquity defined happiness to be "an energy of the soul." The reason why activity fails in numberless instances to secure happiness is that it is separated from God, that it is not in His service and interests.
II. There is a contemplative element in the service of the seraphim—their activity is fed from the springs of their devotion. And so it must be with God’s human servants. The activity which flows from ambition, the diligence which is purely mechanical and the result of habit, is not angelic diligence and activity. To attempt to lead the spiritual life without devotion is even a greater mistake than to go apart from our duties in order to lead it. Our flying on God’s errands will be an unhallowed flight, if we do not first secretly adore Him in our hearts.
E. M. Goulburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion, p. 30.
Isa 6:1-3
We have here in this wondrous vision the proper inauguration of the great evangelical prophet to his future work.
I. First, he gives the date of the vision. "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord." What would he say but this: "In the year when the crowned monarch of the earth went down into the dust and darkness of the tomb, and all the pomp and pageantry which had surrounded him for a little while dissolved and disappeared, I saw another king, even the King Immortal, sitting upon His throne, which is forever and ever"? How simply and yet how grandly are earth and heaven here brought together, and the fleeting phantoms of one set over against the abiding realities of the other!
II. What is the first impression which this glorious vision makes upon the prophet? His first cry is not that of exultation and delight, but rather of consternation and dismay. "Woe is me! for I am undone." He who had uttered this cry was one who had kept himself from his iniquity, holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience; and yet in that terrible light he saw and avowed himself as a man undone, saw stains in himself which he had not imagined before, discovered impurities which he had not dreamt of before, saw his own sin and his people’s sin, till that mighty cry of anguish was wrung from him. Yet that moment, with all its dreadfulness, was a passage into a true life.
III. Observe the manner in which the guilt of sin is here, as evermore in Holy Scripture, spoken of as taken away by a free act of God,—an act of His in which man is passive; in which he has, so to speak, to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,—an act to which he can contribute nothing, save indeed only that divinely awakened hunger of the soul after the benefit which we call faith. It is quite another thing with the power of sin. In the subduing of the power of sin we must be fellow-workers with God; all the faculties of our renewed nature will need to be strained to the uttermost.
IV. Behold the joyful readiness with which the prophet now offers himself for the service of His God. "Here am I; send me." He stops not to inquire whereunto the Lord would send him, to undertake what painful labour, to drink what cup of suffering, to be baptized with what baptism of blood. Be the task what it may, he is ready for it.
R. C. Trench, Sermons New and Old, p. 98 (see also Sermons Preached in Ireland, p. 166).
References: Isa 6:1-3.—M. Nicholson, Communion with Heaven, p. 57; R. W. Forrest, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 492. Isa 6:1-4.—Homilist, Excelsior series, vol. ii., p. 347.
Isa 6:1-8
I. Consider what the prophet saw. He sees Jehovah as Ruler, Governor, King; He is upon a throne, high and lifted up. It is the throne of absolute sovereignty: of resistless, questionless supremacy over all. He is in the temple where the throne is the mercy-seat, between the cherubim; over the ark of the covenant, which is the symbol and seal of friendly communion. His train, the skirts of His wondrous garment of light and love, filled the temple. Above, or upon, that train stood the seraphim. These are not, as I take it, angelic or super-angelic spirits, but the Divine Spirit Himself, the Holy Ghost, appearing thus in the aspect and attitude of gracious ministry. With this great sight voice and movement are joined. A voice of adoring awe fills the august temple with the echoing sound. The voice occasions commotion, excitement, shaken door-posts, the smoke of the glorious cloudy fire filling all the house.
II. How the prophet felt. It is a thorough prostration. He falls on his face as one dead. He cannot stand that Divine presence—that living, personal, Divine presence—abruptly confronting him in the inmost shrine of the Lord’s sanctuary, and the sanctuary of his own heart. What the Lord really is, thus flashing on his conscience, shows him what he is himself. Undone! unclean! Unclean in the very sphere and line of living in which I ought to be most scrupulously clean!
III. How the prophet’s case was met. There, full in his view, is an altar with its sacrifice; present to him then, though future; with a living coal from that living altar, the blessed Spirit touches him at the very point of his deepest self-despair. And the effect is as immediate as the touch. Nothing comes in between. Enough that there are, on the one side, the unclean lips, and on the other the live coal from off the altar. To the one let the other be applied, graciously, effectually, by the sevenfold, myriadfold, agency of the Spirit who is ever before the throne on high. The prophet asks nothing more. He hears the voice, as of Him who said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee." "Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged."
IV. The subsequent offer and command. Two things are noticeable here: the grace of God in allowing the prophet, thus exercised, to be a volunteer for service; and the unreservedness of the prophet’s volunteering. It is no half-hearted purpose, conditional on circumstances; but the full, single-eyed heartiness of one loving much, because forgiven much, that breaks out in the frank, unqualified, unconditional self-enlistment and self-enrolment in the Lord’s host,—"Here am I; send me."
R. S. Candlish, Sermons, p. 86.
References: Isa 6:1-8.—H. F. Burder, Sermons, p. 115; S. Cox, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. ii., pp. 18, 21. Isa 6:1-10.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 283. Isa 6:1-11.—Ibid., vol. iv;, p. 274.
Isa 6:2
Is it not strange, that of those parts of an angel’s figure, which seem as if they were made only for action, four out of six are used for an entirely different purpose? It is to teach us, that it is not every power which we have—and which we might think given us for public service, and for the outer life—which is really intended by God for that use. Never think that large faculties are fitted only for large enterprises, and that all your endowments are to be spent on that which is to meet the general eye. Remember that of six wings an angel uses only two to fly with.
I. "With twain he covered his face." Similarly did Abraham, when he talked with God; and Moses in the bush, and Elijah and John. For the face is the expression of a man. His intellect, his heart, are there, and therefore the "covering of the face" is the confession of the weakness and unworthiness of the mind. It is the acknowledgment of the infinite distance of God. It is the sense of His exceeding glory.
II. "And with twain he covered his feet." In order, I suppose, that his very form and motion might not be seen; and therefore it is mentioned before the flight. He did not set out until, as far as possible, himself was concealed. There shall be simply the fact of a mission, and the message; so that if an angel were to bring God’s embassy to you, you would not see the angel.
III. "And with twain he did fly." We are taught that angels are always interchanging some nearer worship, or some further ministry. An angel’s being gives four parts to humility, and two to service. Be it with us the same. All life, humility and service; but still to humility the largest share.
IV. Why is an angel so very humble? (1) An angel is very great, and therefore he grows humble. (2) An angel is always conversant with the great things of God. (3) An angel knows and is sure that he is loved.
V. Why could an angel fly so well? (1) Because he rests. (2) Because he is disencumbered of self.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 4th series, p. 34.
References: Isa 6:2.—W. G. Forbes, Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iii., p. 239. Isa 6:2, Isa 6:3.—B. Lambert, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 168.
Isa 6:2-4
I. The seraphim, or burning ones—these strange mystic creatures whom Isaiah beheld hovering above Jehovah’s throne, and whose resounding cries pierced his soul. The first thing that strikes us is their redundance of wings. They each had six, only two of which were used for flying; the others, with which they shrouded their faces and their feet, were, apparently, quite superfluous. Was it not sheer waste to be possessing wings that were merely employed as covering, and never spread for flight? And yet, perhaps, without this shrouding of their faces and their feet, they might not have answered so well high Heaven’s purposes, might not have swept abroad with such undivided intentness, and such entire abandonment on their Divine errands.
We meet sometimes with these seemingly wasted wings in men, in the form of powers or capabilities, knowledges or skills, for the exercise of which there is no scope or opportunity in their lot, which they are not called on or able to apply. And yet a gift or capacity for which our position affords no adequate application may, nevertheless, be a secret serviceable force in us, rendering us all the wiser or mightier in the position that is below our abilities. We may be moving there more beautifully and more sufficiently on account of the wings that hang motionless.
II. Look at the apparent contradiction here between the covered faces of the seraphim and their loud temple-shaking shouts. Fancy the posts of the Lord’s house quivering, and the prophet’s heart stirred to its depths beneath the cries of those whose heads were bowed and hid behind their wings! Here to me, however, is an image or adumbration of much truth. Great, penetrating, and inspiring utterances, like the utterances of the seraphim of Isaiah’s vision, are they not always connected with some deep, still inwardness, with some profound withdrawal and retirement of soul? Is it not always from such as have held their breath that they come? from such as have brooded oft in solitude and sighed, being burdened?
III. Notice the unintentional, unpurposed effect produced by the seraphim; the much commotion they created without in the least aiming at or meaning it. Earnestness and enthusiasm in a cause will generally effect more than it seeks or thinks of.
IV. In the composition of the seraphim we may see imaged three things, which are always involved in real greatness of character, without which no real nobility is attained. (1) "They covered their faces"—it was the expression of humility. (2) "They covered their feet"—it was theirs to fly, and they would not be tempted to walk. Devotion to some chosen life-purpose involves always some resolute self-limiting in relation to things lawful enough, but not expedient, and always impels to it. (3) "With twain they did fly"—swift, so swift to execute the errands of Jehovah; and faithful velocity, instantaneous and vivid movement in obedience to the voice of the Lord within you,—this is the third of the three essentials to real greatness of character and nobility of life which Isaiah’s seraphim suggest.
S. A. Tipple, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 24.
Isa 6:3
I. The vision of God is the call of the prophet. Nowhere is the thought presented to us in the Bible with more moving force than in the record of Isaiah’s mission. The very mark of time by which the history is introduced has a pathetic significance. It places together in sharp contrast the hasty presumption of man and the unchanging love of God. Isaiah, a layman, was, it appears, in the temple court, and he saw in a trance the way into the holiest place laid open. He beheld not the glory resting upon the symbolic ark, but the Lord sitting upon the throne, high and lifted up; not the carved figures of angels, but the seraphim standing with outstretched wings, ready for swift service; not the vapour of earthly incense, but the cloud of smoke which witnessed to the majesty which it hid. This opening of "the eyes of his heart" was God’s gift, God’s call to him. For an eternal moment Isaiah’s senses were unsealed. He saw that which is, and not that which appears when we recall what Judaism was at the time,—local, rigid, exclusive. We can at once understand that such a vision, such a revelation taken into the soul, was for Isaiah an illumination of the world. He could at last see all creation in its true nature through the light of God. Humbled and purified in his humiliation, he could have but one answer when the voice of the Lord required a messenger: "Here am I; send me."
II. As the vision of God is the call of the prophet, so it is this vision which the prophet has to proclaim and to interpret to his fellow-men, not as an intellectual theory, but as an inspiration of life. The prophet’s teaching must be the translation of his experience. He bears witness of that which he has seen. His words, are not an echo, but a living testimony. The heart alone can speak to the heart. But he who has beheld the least fragment of the Divine glory, he who has spelt out in letters of light on the face of the world one syllable of the Triune Name, will have a confidence and a power which nothing else can bring. Only let him trust what he has seen, and it will become to him a guiding star till he rests in the unveiled presence of Christ.
III. The vision of God is also the chastening of the prophet. And in the fulfilment of our prophetic work we need more than we know the abasing and elevating influences which the vision of Isaiah and the thoughts of today are fitted to create or deepen. For our strengthening and for our purifying, we must seek for ourselves, and strive to spread about us the sense of the awfulness of being, as those who have seen God at Bethlehem, Calvary, Olivet, and on the throne encircled by a rainbow as an emerald; the sense, vague and imperfect at the best, of the illimitable range of the courses and issues of action; the sense of the untold vastness of that life which we are content to measure by our feeble powers; the sense of the majesty of Him before whom the angels veil their faces.
B. F. Westcott, Christus Consummator, p. 163.
I. Two of the Divine attributes form the theme of the seraphs’ hymn: God’s holiness as inherent in Himself; His glory as manifested in the earth. Holiness, the first of these, denotes, fundamentally, a state of freedom from all imperfection, specially from all moral imperfection; a state, moreover, realised with such intensity as to imply not only the absence of evil, but antagonism to it. It is more than goodness, more than purity, more than righteousness; it embraces all these in their ideal completeness, but it expresses besides the recoil from everything which is their opposite.
II. But not only does the seraphic hymn celebrate the Divine nature in its own transcendent purity and perfection, it celebrates it as it is manifested in the material world: "the fulness of the whole earth is His glory." By "glory" we mean the outward show or state attendant upon dignity or rank. The glory, then, of which Isaiah speaks, is the outward expression of the Divine nature. Pictured as visible splendour, it may impress the eye of flesh; but any other worthy manifestation of the being of God may be not less truly termed His glory. It is more than the particular attribute of power or wisdom; it is the entire fulness of the Godhead, visible to the eye of faith, if not to the eye of sense, in the concrete works of nature, arresting the spectator and claiming from him the tribute of praise and homage.
III. Wherein does the world so reflect the being of God as to be the expression of His glory? It is visible (1) in the fact, as such, of creation; (2) in the means by which an abode has been prepared for the reception of life and intelligence, and the majestic scale upon which the process has been conceived and carried out; (3) in the rare and subtle mechanism which sustains the world in every part, and the intrinsic adequacy and beauty of the results.
IV. Can we trace any evidence of the moral character of God, or is the earth full merely of the tokens of His power? It is difficult to think that we are mistaken in tracing it in the constitution of human nature, in the affections and aspirations which it displays, in the conditions upon which social life is observed to depend. He who has inspired human nature with true impulses of justice and generosity, of sympathy and love, with admiration for the heroic and noble, with scorn for the ignoble and the mean, cannot but be possessed of a kindred character Himself. Though the rays are broken and the image is obscured, the moral glory of the Creator shines in the world; it is reflected in the verdict of the individual conscience; it is latent in the ethical sanctions upon which the permanence and welfare of society depends.
S. R. Driver, The Anglican Pulpit of To-Day, p. 456.
References: Isa 6:3.—B. F. Westcott, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. v., p. 363; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 336, and vol. xviii., p. 280; F. Godet, Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 110; J. Keble, Sermons from Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 364; J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. vi., p. 362. Isa 6:4.—S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii., p. 33.
Isa 6:5
The vision of Isaiah is a true symbol of the soul’s progress.
I. The first stage of the vision is the revelation of God in His glory and in His holiness. The spiritual being of man truly begins when he has seen God. This vision of God must be a moral vision, that is, the apprehension of God as a King and Lawgiver, and therefore, as in relation to ourselves, our duty, and our affection. There is no true vision of God which embraces the entire vision of man until the eye of the spirit has been opened, and we gaze at God, not an idea or a fancy, but a Being great, majestic, holy, sitting upon a throne with law and claim even upon ourselves.
II. The second stage of the vision is the effect of this revelation upon the heart of the prophet. The sight of God is followed by the consciousness of personal sin. The claim of God is seen in the kingship which the throne symbolises. To know God is also to know duty, and to know duty is to know failure and disobedience, and the miserable deflections from duty which mock our human lives.
III. The next change of the vision is the purifying act of the seraph, who flies with a coal from the altar, and touches the lips of the penitent prophet. And here we recognise the sanctifying of the aroused soul by a relation to sacrifice; the confession of previous guilt is followed by the removal of the sin through a Divine act. (1) To the consciously guilty, there is a means of forgiveness. (2) The coal is from the altar. The purification is associated with sacrifice, and the means of that purifying follows and depends upon the burnt offering. Does not this point us to the grand Christian doctrine that sin is taken from the confessing soul by the sacrifice of the Lamb of God?
IV. The last change in the vision is the reply of the sanctified spirit to the requirement of God; and this points to the further stage of spiritual growth, that which follows upon the reception of saving power—acceptance and obedience to the Divine will.
L. D. Bevan, Penny Pulpit, No. 364.
Reference: Isa 6:5.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 280.
Isa 6:5-8
These verses teach us the essentials of true worship and of acceptable approach to God. And they seem to indicate these essentials as threefold, involving:—
I. A sense of personal wretchedness. To worship truly, there must be a sense of our own nothingness and need. The sense of wretchedness is first induced by the contemplation of the holiness and majesty of God. It is relieved by the condescension and mercy of the King. He is not only holy. "Mercy and truth meet together; righteousness and peace embrace each other;" and in that embrace the man who is undone is folded, and invited to bring forth his offering.
II. A sense of pardon. "Our God is a consuming fire," and our first contemplation of Him thus is one which appals and overcomes us. But a little further prostration before the Holy One shows that the fire is a purging fire, not to consume the man, but only to erase the confessed uncleanness from his lips. With the anointing of the holy fire on the lip, there comes the new life into the heart, and now the mortal may mingle his praises with the seraphim themselves.
III. But worship is not complete without service. To the ascription of the heart and lip there must be added the alacrity and obedience of the life. There was service for the seraphim: to fly with the live coal. And there is service for the seer: to fly with the living message. "Here am I; send me." Here is the alacrity of obedience. There is no curious inquiry about the nature of the service. The man becomes as winged as the seraph.
A. Mursell, Lights and Landmarks, p. 72.
References: Isa 6:5-8.—H. T. Edwards, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 353. Isa 6:6-7.—J. M. Neale, Sermons on Passages from the Prophets, vol. i., p. 17.
Isa 6:6-8
There must be a relation between prayer and action: between prayer, which is the soul of the inward life; and action, which is the substance of the outward.
I. Prayer is the preparation for action. What prayer is to preaching, that is action to prayer, its end and goal. That sermon is successful which makes men pray; that prayer is successful which makes men act. (1) It is necessary to remember that action has a spiritual field as well as an outward. There is an action of the soul, which is the highest of all practical workings. That living energy of conscious and fervent love—love to God, and love to man—which goes forth in holy aspirations, charitable feelings, and benevolent designs, is action, and the noblest action. (2) Prayer, which is the arming of the soul, must have respect to the items of the conflict even more than to the sum. The prayer which would affect action must be minute and detailed, as well as earnest.
II. Action is the working out of prayer. Even as the prophet, when the live coal had touched his lips, purging iniquity, heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" and answered, "Here am I; send me," so will the man of prayer, and the man to whom Christ is all, go forth in the spirit of prayer and in the strength of faith, to do the work of God, inward and outward, in his vocation. (1) In prayer he has received power; (2) he has anticipated trial; (3) he acts in the spirit of prayer; (4) he looks forward to the prayer of evening. The prospect of prayer is powerful with him, like its retrospect. He would fain be able to close the day, not in depression, but in thankfulness; not as a vanquished man, but as one who has done all and stands.
C. J. Vaughan, Voices of the Prophets, p. 194.
Isa 6:8
I. God often chooses marked seasons for His greatest self-manifestations; makes individual souls associate eventful days with their own more personal history. It was so with Isaiah. In that memorable year, naturally speaking, he himself was to see God.
II. It is the sight of the King which works conviction. One half-hour of Divine communion, one resolute determined entering of the Holy of Holies, that we may see the Lord seated upon His throne, and the holy angels veiling face and feet as they sing His praise, will do more for us in the wholesome work of self-abasement and self-abhorrence, because it will bring us into the light which alone makes manifest, and show us, in the very act of condemning, the beauty of the holiness which condemns.
III. Yet even the sense of sin might paralyse being alone. The man who is to do God’s work must not only see himself in God’s light, but see also how the light which exposes is a light also to purify and to transform. There is an altar of Divine sacrifice kindled from heaven—it stands not within, but in front of the Divine dwelling—and each coal of it is for the purging of the conscience. God sends His messenger to fetch from that altar—which is, being interpreted, the Cross of Jesus—a live coal to touch the unclean lips, and take away the iniquity which would else preclude the service.
IV. God asks, Whom shall I send? God wants a person. He cannot send a thing, nor a machine, nor a sound,—no, nor even a book. God wants us not to aid Him in guiding the stars in their courses, or in giving growth to the vegetable or life to the animal. For us, God’s business is with human lives, human souls. That which God has in view, that which God is perpetually taking counsel upon, is the welfare, the happiness, and, if either have been disturbed, then the restoration, the rectification, the redemption, the salvation, of the lives which He created, of the souls which He has made. When He says, Whom shall I send? He inquires, in other words, Who among the living will lend a hand to this work? Be jealous to be the one sent.
C. J. Vaughan, Half-Hours in the Temple Church, p. 177.
References: Isa 6:8.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., No. 687, and vol. xxiii., No. 1351; A. Maclaren, Old Testament Outlines, p. 169.
Isa 6:8-10
I. This, in all seeming, was the thankless office to which Isaiah was called, to be heard, to be listened to, by some with contempt, by others with seeming respect, and to leave things in the main worse than he found them. His office was towards those, in part at least, who were ever hearing, never doing, and so never understanding. The more they heard and saw, the farther they were from understanding, from being converted, from the reach of healing. And what said the prophet? Contrary as the sentence must have been to all the yearnings of his soul, crushing to his hopes, he knew that it must be just, because "the Judge of the whole world" must do right. He intercedes, but only by these three words: "Lord, how long?" This question implied a hope that there would be an end; the answer "until" implied that there would be an end.
II. Where there is desolation for the sake of God, there is also consolation. Isaiah had not seen the Beatific Vision. Not with his bodily eyes did he behold God, nor with his bodily ears did he hear His words; but to his inward sight did God disclose some likeness, whereby he should understand the nature of the Divine Essence, how God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, in-exists in Himself; although the Beatific Vision, as He is, was reserved for the life to come. So God prepared him to be—above all others, even of the goodly company of the prophets—the evangelic prophet, in that he had seen the glory of the Lord. This, then, is ever his consolation, this his joy in trouble, this his life in death. The surges of this world, higher and higher as they rose, only bore his soul upward toward his God. He, too, was a man of longing. In the darkness of the world God ever brings this light before him,—his darkest visions are the dawn-streaks of the brightest light.
E. B. Pusey, Lenten Sermons, p. 466.
References: Isa 6:8-13.—S. Cox, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 217. Isa 6:9.—J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii., p. 48. Isa 6:9, Isa 6:10.—M. Nicholson, Redeeming the Time, p. 125; E. W. Shalders, Expositor, 1st series, vol. vii., p. 471. Isa 6:13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii.,. No. 121. 6—P. Thomson, Expositor, 1st series, vol. xl., p. 119. Isa 7:6.—E. H. Plumptre, Ibid., 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 236. Isa 7:9.—I. Williams, Sermons on the Epistles and Gospels, vol. ii., p. 353.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn vv1–3
Isaiah
VISION AND SERVICE
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THE EMPTY THRONE FILLED
Isa 6:1.
Uzziah had reigned for fifty-two years, during the greater part of which he and his people had been brilliantly prosperous. Victorious in war, he was also successful in the arts of peaceful industry. The later years of his life were clouded, but on the whole the reign had been a time of great well-being. His son and successor was a young man of five-and-twenty; and when he came to the throne ominous war-clouds were gathering in the North, and threatening to drift to Judah. No wonder that the prophet, like other thoughtful patriots, was asking himself what was to come in these anxious days, when the helm was in new hands, which, perhaps, were not strong enough to hold it. Like a wise man, he took his thoughts into the sanctuary; and there he understood. As he brooded, this great vision was disclosed to his inward eye. ‘In the year that King Uzziah died’ is a great deal more than a date for chronological purposes. It tells us not only the when, but the why, of the vision. The earthly king was laid in the grave; but the prophet saw that the true King of Israel was neither the dead Uzziah nor the young Jotham, but the Lord of hosts. And, seeing that, fears and forebodings and anxieties and the sense of loss, all vanished; and new strength came to Isaiah. He went into the temple laden with anxious thoughts; he came out of it with a springy step and a lightened heart, and the resolve ‘Here am I; send me.’ There are some lessons that seem to me of great importance for the conduct of our daily life which may be gathered from this remarkable vision, with the remarkable note of time that is appended to it.
Now, before I pass on, let me remind you, in a word, of that apparently audacious commentary upon this great vision, which the Evangelist John gives us: ‘These things said Esaias, when he had beheld His glory and spake of Him.’ Then the Christ is the manifest Jehovah; is the King of Glory. Then the vision which was but a transitory revelation is the revelation of an eternal reality, and ‘the vision splendid’ does not ‘fade but brightens, into the light of common day’; when instead of being flashed only on the inward eye of a prophet, it is made flesh and walks amongst us, and lives our life, and dies our death. Our eyes have seen the King in as true a reality, and in better fashion, than ever Isaiah did amid the sanctities of the Temple. And the eyes that have seen only the near foreground, the cultivated valleys, and the homes of men, are raised, and lo! the long line of glittering peaks, calm, silent, pure. Who will look at the valleys when the Himalayas stand out, and the veil is drawn aside?
I. Let me say a word or two about the ministration of loss and sorrow in preparing for the vision.
It was when ‘King Uzziah died’ that the prophet ‘saw the Lord sitting upon the throne.’ If the Throne of Israel had not been empty, he would not have seen the throned God in the heavens. And so it is with all our losses, with all our sorrows, with all our disappointments, with all our pains; they have a mission to reveal to us the throned God. The possession of the things that are taken away from us, the joys which our sorrows smite into dust, have the same mission, and the highest purpose of every good, of every blessing, of every possession, of every gladness, of all love-the highest mission is to lead us to Him. But, just as men will frost a window, so that the light may come in but the sight cannot go out, so by our own fault and misuse of the good things which are meant to lead us up to, and to show us, God, we frost and darken the window so that we cannot see what it is meant to show us. And then a mighty and merciful hand shivers the painted glass into fragments, because it has been dimming ‘the white radiance of Eternity.’ And though the casement may look gaunt, and the edges of the broken glass may cut and wound, yet the view is unimpeded. When the gifts that we have misused are withdrawn, we can see the heaven that they too often hide from us. When the leaves drop there is a wider prospect. When the great tree is fallen there is opened a view of the blue above. When the night falls the stars sparkle. When other props are struck away we can lean our whole weight upon God. When Uzziah dies the King becomes visible.
Is that what our sorrows, our pains, losses, disappointments do for us? Well for those to whom loss is gain, because it puts them in possession of the enduring riches! Well for those to whom the passing of all that can pass is a means of revealing Him who ‘is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever’! The message to us of all these our pains and griefs is ‘Come up hither.’ In them all our Father is saying to us, ‘Seek ye My face.’ Well for those who answer, ‘Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not Thy face far from me.’
Let us take care that we do not waste our griefs and sorrows. They absorb us sometimes with vain regrets. They jaundice and embitter us sometimes with rebellious thoughts. They often break the springs of activity and of interest in others, and of sympathy with others. But their true intention is to draw back the thin curtain, and to show us ‘the things that are,’ the realities of the throned God, the skirts that fill the Temple, the hovering seraphim, and the coal from the altar that purges.
II. Let me suggest how our text shows us the compensation that is given for all losses.
As I have pointed out already, the thought conveyed to the prophet by this vision was not only the general one, of God’s sovereign rule, but the special one of His rule over and for, and His protection of, the orphan kingdom which had lost its king. The vision took the special shape that the moment required. It was because the earthly king was dead that the living, heavenly King was revealed.
So there is just suggested by it this general thought, that the consciousness of God’s presence and work for us takes in each heart the precise shape that its momentary necessities and circumstances require. That infinite fulness is of such a nature as that it will assume any form for which the weakness and the need of the dependent creature call. Like the one force which scientists now are beginning to think underlies all the various manifestations of energy in nature, whether they be named light, heat, motion, electricity, chemical action, or gravitation, the one same vision of the throned God, manifest in Jesus Christ, is protean. Here it flames as light, there burns as heat, there flashes as electricity; here as gravitation holds the atoms together, there as chemical energy separated and decomposes them; here results in motion, there in rest; but is the one force. And so the one God will become everything and anything that every man, and each man, requires. He shapes himself according to our need. The water of life does not disdain to take the form imposed upon it by the vessel into which it is poured. The Jews used to say that the manna in the wilderness tasted to each man as each man desired. And the God, who comes to us all, comes to us each in the shape that we need; just as He came to Isaiah in the manifestation of His kingly power, because the throne of Judah was vacated.
So when our hearts are sore with loss, the New Testament Manifestation of the King, even Jesus Christ, comes to us and says, ‘The same is my mother and sister and brother,’ and His sweet love compensates for the love that can die, and that has died. When losses come to us He draws near, as durable riches and righteousness. In all our pains He is our anodyne, and in all our griefs He brings the comfort; He is all in all, and each withdrawn gift is compensated, or will be compensated, to each in Him.
So, dear friends, let us learn God’s purpose in emptying hearts and chairs and homes. He empties them that He may fill them with Himself. He takes us, if I might so say, into the darkness, as travellers to the south are to-day passing through Alpine tunnels, in order that He may bring us out into the land where ‘God Himself is sun and moon,’ and where there are ampler ether and brighter constellations than in these lands where we dwell. He means that, when Uzziah dies, our hearts shall see the King. And for all mourners, for all tortured hearts, for all from whom stays have been stricken and resources withdrawn, the old word is true: ‘Lord shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.’
Let me recall to you what I have already insisted on more than once, that the perfecting of this vision is in the historical fact of the Incarnate Son. Jesus Christ shows us God. Jesus Christ is the King of Glory. If we will go to Him, and fix our eyes and hearts on Him, then losses may come, and we shall be none the poorer; death may unclasp our hands from dear hands, but He will close a dearer one round the hand that is groping for a stay; and nothing can betaken away but He will more than fill the gap it leaves by His own sweet presence. If our eyes behold the King, if we are like John the Seer in his rocky Patmos, and see the Christ in His glory and royalty, then He will lay His hands on us and say, ‘Fear not! Weep not; I am the First and the Last,’ and forebodings, and fears, and sense of loss will all be changed into trustfulness and patient submission. ‘Seeing Him, who is invisible,’ we shall be able to endure and to toil, until the time when the vision of earth is perfected by the beholding of heaven. Blessed are they who with purged eyes see, and with yielding hearts obey, the heavenly vision, and turn to the King and offer themselves for any service He may require, saying, ‘Here am I; send me.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow1909 · Public DomainOn v1The Prophet's Call
The Prophet's Call
This c., which recounts the prophet's call and commission, would stand first in a chronological arrangement of the book. The opening words remind us of the vision of Micaiah (1Ki_22:19), and we should compare the visions of Jeremiah and Ezekiel which inaugurated their prophetic activity. In St. John's vision (Revelation 4) the same anthem, 'Holy, holy, holy,' is sung by the six-winged living creatures round about the throne. Isaiah's vision foreshadows such leading elements of his thought as, (1) the majesty of God, (2) the uncleanness of the people, (3) his conviction that he had a divine message for them, (4) their stubbornness and heedlessness, (5) the necessity of judgment, (6) the idea of the remnant.
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1-4. Isaiah's vision of Jehovah enthroned and the worship of heaven. 5-7. He confesses his sin and is absolved. 8-13. He receives his prophetic commission.
1. The year that king Uzziah died] 740 b.c. See Intro. The prophet, when meditating perhaps on the condition of the nation and its gloomy prospects, is favoured with a vision of the glory of God. Train] i.e. the skirts (RM) of his royal robes.
2. Above it] RV 'above him.' The seraphims] here only in OT. the word denotes supernatural beings, It is derived from the verb 'to burn,' and may simply indicate the fiery or glowing appearance of Jehovah's attendant angels (Eze_1:13-14). Elsewhere, however, the same word stands for venomous serpents (Num_21:6; Isa_14:29; Isa_30:6) and it may here be intended to convey the meaning that the guardians of Jehovah's throne are of serpentine form. This is scarcely borne out by the context (Isa_6:6-7), though in Ezekiel's vision of heaven animal forms are introduced (Eze_1:10.)
Covered his face] in reverence.
3. Holy, holy, holy] The threefold repetition denotes emphasis or intensity (Jer_7:4). It is significant that the title of Jehovah most characteristic of Isaiah's prophecies is 'the Holy One of Israel.' In the light of later revelation Christians have not unnaturally seen here a foreshadowing of the Holy Trinity: cp. Rev_4:8.
4. The posts of the door moved] RV 'the foundations of the thresholds were moved.' Smoke] a symbol of the divine presence, as in Exo_19:9, Exo_19:18; 1Ki_8:10, 1Ki_8:11.
5. Lips] the pure praises of the seraphim made Isaiah think by contrast of his own sins of the lips. For mine eyes have seen, etc.] No man could see God and live (Exo_33:20).
6. Live coal] Fire is the symbol of purification: cp. Mal_3:2; Mat_3:11.
8. For us] the plural in the mouth of God as in Gen_1:26; Gen_3:22; Gen_11:7. Jehovah consults with the angels around His throne; similarly in Micaiah's vision (1Ki_22:19-20 : cp. Psa_89:7).
10. The result of the prophet's preaching described as though it were the purpose. Most of his hearers will stubbornly reject his message, with the result that they will become dead to all impressions. The heart] regarded by the Hebrews as the seat of the understanding: cp. Hos_7:11. Convert] RV 'turn again.'
11, 12. Isaiah feels that such a state of things cannot be allowed to continue, and is assured that Jehovah will interpose with a terrible judgment of war and exile.
12. There he a great forsaking] RV 'the forsaken places be many.'
13. RV 'And if there be yet a tenth in it, it shall again be eaten up: as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stock remaineth, when they are felled; so the holy seed is the stock thereof.' The meaning is that the coming judgment is not a single one but a series. Yet as when an evergreen tree is cut down the stump remains from which new shoots may grow, so there will be a faithful remnant of Israel left, to be the germ of a renewed people. This doctrine of the remnant is characteristic of Isaiah: cp. Isa_4:3; Isa_7:3; Isa_10:20, Isa_10:21.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield1917 · Public DomainOn v2Heb. Burners. The word occurs only here. (See Scofield…
seraphims
Heb. Burners. The word occurs only here. (See Scofield "Eze 1:5"). The Seraphim are, in many respects, in contrast with the Cherubim, though both are expressive of the divine holiness, which demands that the sinner shall have access to divine presence only through a sacrifice which really vindicates the righteousness of God.
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(See Scofield "Rom 3:24") See Scofield "Rom 3:25" See Scofield "Rom 3:26" and that the saint shall be cleansed before serving. Gen 3:22-24 illustrates the first; Isa 6:1-8 the second. The Cherubim may be said to have to do with the altar, the Seraphim with the laver. See Scofield "Psa 51:7" See Scofield "Joh 13:10". The Seraphim appear to be actual angelic beings.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein1922 · Public DomainOn v1The Prophet’s Vision and New Commission
CHAPTER 6
The Prophet’s Vision and New Commission
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1. The time of the vision (Isa 6:1) 2. Jehovah of hosts (Isa 6:2-4) 3. The prophet’s woe (Isa 6:5) 4. The cleansing (Isa 6:6-7) 5. “Here am I. Send me.” (Isa 6:8) 6. The new commission (Isa 6:9-10) 7. The limitation of the judgment (Isa 6:11-13)Note the eight steps: vision, conversion, self-judgment, cleansing, self-surrender, communion, commission, intercession. This vision is the glory of Christ Joh 12:41. The fulfillment of the hardening judgment of the nation, the blinding of their eyes did not set in completely in Isaiah’s day. Study carefully Mat 13:14-15;Joh 12:39-50;Act 28:25-31. However, Israel’s blindness is not permanent.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v1Jehovah Revealed in his Glory
Jehovah Revealed in his Glory
v. 1. In the year that King Uzziah died, that is, in the last year of this king’s successful reign, 2Ki 15:1-7; 2 Chronicles 26, in the year 758 B. C. I saw also the Lord, the All-powerful, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, the prophetic vision, beyond the range of the normal ability of human senses, permitting the prophet to see the revelation of God, not face to face, -for God dwells in an inaccessible light,—but in a manner which uncovered the divine glory to his inner mind, and his train filled the Temple, that is, His kingly robe with its majestic train, fitting emblem of the divine glory, covered and filled the heavenly Sanctuary.
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v. 2. Above it stood the seraphim, heavenly spirits of the highest rank, ministers of the Lord serving as guardians of the throne. Each one had six wings, in accordance with their nature as heavenly beings; with twain he covered his face, for even the seraphim cannot endure the sight of the essential holiness of God, and with twain he covered his feet, for even the angels, with a proper feeling of humility and modesty, prefer to keep their forms covered before the eyes of the Most Holy One, and with twain he did fly, floating about the throne of the Lord.
v. 3. And one cried unto another, in a wonderful antiphonal chorus, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, thrice holy not only on account of the supreme excellence of His essential holiness, but also on account of the Trinity of persons, each of which is the possessor of the divine holiness in its fullness and glory; the whole earth is full of His glory, literally, "filling the whole earth is His glory"; for all men on earth will see the revelation of His divine majesty, all His works, in creation, redemption, sanctification, will serve to magnify Him as the supreme and only God. Cf Rev 4:8.
v. 4. And the posts of the door, the foundations of the sills, or thresholds, the heavenly temple with its portals down to the lowest foundation, moved at the voice of him that cried, the powerful sound of the entire chorus, and the house was filled with smoke, as from the incense of all the prayers of the saints, uniting with the angels above to give praise and adoration to the great Lord of heaven, Rev 5:8; Rev 8:3-4.
v. 5. Then said I, overcome with awe and terror at the tremendous impressiveness of the scene, Woe is me! for I am undone, lost, threatened with death and destruction, because I am a man of unclean lips, the feeling of his own sinfulness coming over him all the more strongly in view of the perfect holiness which he had just seen, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, descendant and member of a generation of sinners; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, between whom and man is not only the gulf separating the Creator from His creatures, but the greater abyss between the holy God and the world of sinners. Cf Exo 33:20.
v. 6. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar, the altar of incense evidently being referred to;
v. 7. and he laid it upon my mouth, he caused the glowing coal to come into contact with the prophet’s lips, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged, atoned for. The act of the angel evidently had a symbolical meaning, first of all with reference to the atonement made in and through the person of Jesus Christ, the work of redemption carried out in accordance with the Triune God’s counsel. Not only, however, is the prophet, sinful man as he was, assured of the grace of God, but the Lord also imparts special strength to him and fits him to be the instrument of His inspiration.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv1, 3he was high and elevated
he was high and elevated
The words "high" and "elevated" emphasize that the throne was very high and above everything around it. The height of the throne represents how great and powerful the Lord is. (See: Doublet)
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filled the temple
"filled the palace." The word used for temple here is often used to refer to the palace of kings.
Above him were the seraphim
The word "seraphim" is the plural of seraph. This means the Lord was seated on the throne and the seraphim were standing or flying near the Lord ready to serve him.
seraphim
This word suggests that the creatures might have a fiery appearance or resemble snakes. Because we do not know exactly what "seraphim" means, you could translate this as "winged creatures" or "winged living things." Or, you can borrow the word and use it in your language. (See: Translate Unknowns and Copy or Borrow Words)
each one had six wings
"each seraph had six wings" or "each creature had six wings"
with two each covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew
The words "wings" and "seraph" are understood. AT: "with two wings each seraph covered his face, and with two wings he covered his feet, and with two wings he flew" (See: Ellipsis)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv1–36:1-13 Isaiah’s marvelous vision of God as King on…
6:1-13 Isaiah’s marvelous vision of God as King on his throne served as a pivotal event in the life of the prophet. The historical circumstances surrounding this event can be interpreted in two ways: (1) Some see ch 6 as Isaiah’s original call to ministry, meaning that chs 1–5 and 7–12 fit into the reign of Ahaz, who came to rule after the death of Uzziah (6:1). If this were so, why was Isaiah’s call not at the beginning of the book? Perhaps his call was put in ch 6 for literary reasons, serving as a conclusion to chs 1–5 and an introduction to chs 7–12. The prophet’s own transformation and commissioning symbolizes the entire nation’s need for conversion if it wants to fulfill its mandate to be God’s light to the world. (2) Others understand chs 1–12 as chronological; Isaiah’s call in ch 6 would then serve as a recommissioning of the prophet to minister in a new way in a different period (the time of Ahaz) when his words would be rejected. Those who hold this interpretation point to 2:7-9; 3:16-24; and 5:8-14, contending that these passages reflect a time of prosperity, military strength, pride, and splendor; these conditions existed during Uzziah’s reign but not during Ahaz’s reign.
6:1 At the time of King Uzziah’s death, the Assyrians had begun to reassert their dominance in the ancient Near East. It marked the beginning of an era dominated by major world powers—Assyria, then Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome. • I saw the Lord: “Lord” (Hebrew ’adonay) is used to describe human rulers as well as God. God is the supreme King. • on a lofty throne: The apostle John also had a vision of God’s heavenly throne (see Rev 4:2; 7:10; 21:5). • If just the train of the Lord’s robe filled the Temple, how great and majestic must have been the robe itself and the one wearing it.
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Of his garment, or of his throne.
Of his garment, or of his throne.
God showeth not himself to man in his majesty, but according as man’s capacity is able to comprehend him, that is, by visible signs, as John Baptist saw the holy Ghost in the form of a dove.
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As a Judge ready to give sentence.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Isa 6:1 In the year that king Uzziah died…
Isa 6:1 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
Ver. 1. In the year that Uzziah died.] This was 1590 years from Noah’s flood, say chronologers, where one {a} well observeth how divers things were done in this year within the Church, and without. The Gentiles in Greece, at the town of Eleum, behold their Olympic games; the prophet Isaiah in Judea beholdeth the glory of God, and heareth the trisagion of the blessed angels. So in the year of grace 1617 the Pope proclaimed a jubilee for the peace of Italy and Austria, &c. The Reformed Churches in Germany kept a jubilee likewise at the same time, in way of thankfulness to God for the gospel restored just a hundred years before by Luther, Zuinglius, and other reformers. {b}
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I saw also,] sc., In spiritu et in ecstasi, In spirit and in a rapture. Some compare it with that vision which Ezekiel saw afterwards. {Eze 1:4-28} This whole book is called ‘the vision of Isaiah’; {Isa 1:1} and why? {See Trapp on "Isa 1:1"} Est autem celeberrima haec prophetia, but this is a most famous prophecy of the utter excaecation and excision of the Jews; and is alleged against them by all the four evangelists, and by St Paul. {Rom 11:8}
The Lord.] The Three in One, and One in Three: Isa 6:8, "Who shall go for us?" Compare Gen 1:26; Gen 3:22. See Joh 12:41, where it is applied to God the Son; and Act 5:3-4, where to God the Holy Ghost. This Lord of all was seen by the prophet, not in his essence, or in the infinite excellence of his majesty, {Exo 33:20 1Ti 6:16} but in some visible model of his glory; like as we cannot see the sun in rota, but in radiis, in the body of it, but in the beams only.
Sitting upon a throne.] Instar iudicis et vindicis, as a just judge and sharp revenger of this people’s rebellions; and this throne is in the temple too, the place wherein they most of all trusted, crying, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." {Jer 7:4} Lo, here they were to be sentenced, because they had cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. {Isa 5:24}
High and lifted up.] Stately for sight, and lofty for site, as was Solomon’s. {1Ki 10:18; 1Ki 10:20}
And his train filled the temple.] His train, or his skirts {c} - viz., of his robes. The Sept. and Chaldee have it, "The house was full of his glory." The sense is, saith Oecolampadius, that the least part of the divine majesty is greater than the greatest glory of men. {as 1Co 1:25} "He hath upon his vesture and on his thigh this name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords." {Rev 19:16} Here we can see but his back parts, his train and line. We need see no more that we may live. Zeuxis, the famous painter, drew in a table a fair temple with the doors open, and Venus going in, so as the beholders could behold but her back and her train, as not able to depaint her fair face and fore parts.
{a} Ussher
{b} Jac. Rev. Hist. Pontif. Rom., p. 306.
{c} Sirmata.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–3 I saw in a vision or ecstasy. The Lord;…
I saw in a vision or ecstasy. The Lord; either,
1. God the Son, who frequently appeared to the patriarchs and prophets, and that sometimes in the form of a man. Or rather,
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2. The Divine Majesty as he subsisteth in three persons, as may be gathered both from the plural number us, used of this Lord, Isa 6:8, and comparing other scriptures; for God the Father is described as sitting upon a throne, Dan 7:9,13, and elsewhere; and the glory of God here manifested is said to be Christ’s glory, Joh 12:41, and the words of the Lord here following are said to be spoken by the Holy Ghost, Act 28:25. Sitting upon a throne, in the posture of a judge, to hear causes, and give sentence. Lifted up towards the roof of the temple.
His train; or, as the word properly signifies, and is here rendered by divers, the skirts or borders of him, or of it, to wit, his royal and judicial robe; for he is represented as a judge.
Filled the temple; his glorious robes reached down to the bottom of the temple, and were spread abroad in the temple, which was an evidence of a more than ordinary majesty. The temple may be here taken either,
1. Largely, and so it includes the courts as well as the house, as that word is oft used; or,
2. Strictly, for the house itself, or for that part of the temple in which this vision was exhibited, which may seem to have been the porch, for that was much higher than the other parts.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 The vision which Isaiah saw when he was, as…
The vision which Isaiah saw when he was, as is said of Samuel, established to be a prophet of the Lord (Sa1 3:20), was intended, 1. To confirm his faith, that he might himself be abundantly satisfied of the truth of those things which should afterwards be made known to him. This God opened the communications of himself to him; but such visions needed not to be afterwards repeated upon every revelation. Thus God appeared at first as a God of glory to Abraham (Act 7:2), and to Moses, Exo 3:2. Ezekiel's prophecies and St. John's, begin with visions of the divine glory. 2. To work upon his affections, that he might be possessed with such a reverence of God as would both quicken him and fix him to his service. Those who are to teach others the knowledge of God ought to be well acquainted with him themselves.
The vision is dated, for the greater certainty of it. It was in the year that king Uzziah died, who had reigned, for the most part, as prosperously and well as any of the kings of Judah, and reigned very long, above fifty years. About the time that he died, Isaiah saw this vision of God upon a throne; for when the breath of princes goes forth, and they return to their earth, this is our comfort, that the Lord shall reign for ever, Psa 146:3, Psa 146:4, Psa 146:10. Israel's king dies, but Israel's God still lives. From the mortality of great and good men we should take occasion to look up with an eye of faith to the King eternal, immortal. King Uzziah died under a cloud, for he was shut up as a leper till the day of his death. As the lives of princes have their periods, so their glory is often eclipsed; but, as God is everliving, so his glory is everlasting. King Uzziah dies in an hospital, but the King of kings still sits upon his throne.
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What the prophet here saw is revealed to us, that we, mixing faith with that revelation, may in it, as in a glass, behold the glory of the Lord; let us turn aside therefore, and see this great sight with humble reverence.
I. See God upon his throne, and that throne high and lifted up, not only above other thrones, as it transcends them, but over other thrones, as it rules and commands them. Isaiah saw not Jehovah - the essence of God (no man has seen that, or can see it), but Adonai - his dominion. He saw the Lord Jesus; so this vision is explained Joh 12:41, that Isaiah now saw Christ's glory and spoke of him, which is an incontestable proof of the divinity of our Saviour. He it is who when, after his resurrection, he sat down on the right hand of God, did but sit down where he was before, Joh 17:5. See the rest of the Eternal Mind: Isaiah saw the Lord sitting, Psa 29:10. See the sovereignty of the Eternal Monarch: he sits upon a throne - a throne of glory, before which we must worship, - a throne of government, under which we must be subject, - and a throne of grace, to which we may come boldly. This throne is high, and lifted up above all competition and contradiction.
II. See his temple, his church on earth, filled with the manifestations of his glory. His throne being erected at the door of the temple (as princes sat in judgment at the gates), his train, the skirts of his robes, filled the temple, the whole world (for it is all God's temple, and, as the heaven is his throne, so the earth is his footstool), or rather the church, which is filled enriched, and beautified with the tokens of God's special presence.
III. See the bright and blessed attendants on his throne, in and by whom his glory is celebrated and his government served (Isa 6:2): Above the throne, as it were hovering about it, or nigh to the throne, bowing before it, with an eye to it, the seraphim stood, the holy angels, who are called seraphim-burners; for he makes his ministers a flaming fire, Psa 104:4. They burn in love to God, and zeal for his glory and against sin, and he makes use of them as instruments of his wrath when he is a consuming fire to his enemies. Whether they were only two or four, or (as I rather think) an innumerable company of angels, that Isaiah saw, is uncertain; see Dan 7:10. Note, It is the glory of the angels that they are seraphim, have heat proportionable to their light, have abundance, not only of divine knowledge, but of holy love. Special notice is taken of their wings (and of no other part of their appearance), because of the use they made of them, which is designed for instruction to us. They had each of them six wings, not stretched upwards (as those whom Ezekiel saw, Eze 1:11), but, 1. Four were made use of for a covering, as the wings of a fowl, sitting, are; with the two upper wings, next to the head, they covered their faces, and with the two lowest wings they covered their feet, or lower parts. This bespeaks their great humility and reverence in their attendance upon God, for he is greatly feared in the assembly of those saints, Psa 89:7. They not only cover their feet, those members of the body which are less honourable (Co1 12:23), but even their faces. Though angel's faces, doubtless, are much fairer than those of the children of men (Act 6:15), yet in the presence of God, they cover them, because they cannot bear the dazzling lustre of the divine glory, and because, being conscious of an infinite distance from the divine perfection, they are ashamed to show their faces before the holy God, who charges even his angels with folly if they should offer to vie with him, Job 4:18. If angels be thus reverent in their attendance on God, with what godly fear should we approach his throne! Else we do not the will of God as the angels do it. Yet Moses, when he went into the mount with God, took the veil from off his face. See Co2 3:18. 2. Two were made use of for flight; when they are sent on God's errands they fly swiftly (Dan 9:21), more swiftly with their own wings than if they flew on the wings of the wind. This teaches us to do the work of God with cheerfulness and expedition. Do angels come upon the wing from heaven to earth, to minister for our good, and shall not we soar upon the wing from earth to heaven, to share with them in their glory? Luk 20:36.
IV. Hear the anthem, or song of praise, which the angels sing to the honour of him that sits on the throne, Isa 6:3. Observe,
1. How this song was sung. With zeal and fervency - they cried aloud; and with unanimity - they cried to another, or one with another; they sang alternately, but in concert, and without the least jarring voice to interrupt the harmony.
2. What the song was; it is the same with that which is sung by the four living creatures, Rev 4:8. Note, Praising God always was, and will be to eternity, the work of heaven, and the constant employment of blessed spirits above, Psa 84:4. Note further, The church above is the same in its praises; there is no change of times or notes there. Two things the seraphim here give God the praise of: -
(1.) His infinite perfections in himself. Here is one of his most glorious titles praised: he is the Lord of hosts, of their hosts, of all hosts; and one of his most glorious attributes, his holiness, without which his being the Lord of hosts (or, as it is in the parallel place, Rev 4:8, the Lord God Almighty) could not be so much as it is the matter of our joy and praise; for power, without purity to guide it, would be a terror to mankind. None of all the divine attributes is so celebrated in scripture as this is. God's power was spoken twice (Psa 62:11), but his holiness thrice, Holy, holy, holy. This bespeaks, [1.] The zeal and fervency of the angels in praising God; they even want words to express themselves, and therefore repeat the same again. [2.] The particular pleasure they take in contemplating the holiness of God; this is a subject they love to dwell upon, to harp upon, and are loth to leave. [3.] The superlative excellency of God's holiness, above that of the purest creatures. He is holy, thrice holy, infinitely holy, originally, perfectly, and eternally so. [4.] It may refer to the three person in the Godhead, Holy Father, Holy Son, and Holy Spirit (for it follows, Isa 6:8, Who will go for us?) or perhaps to that which was, and is, and is to come; for that title of God's honour is added to this song, Rev 4:8. Some make the angels here to applaud the equity of that sentence which God was now about to pronounce upon the Jewish nation. Herein he was, and is, and will be, holy; his ways are equal.
(2.) The manifestation of these to the children of men: The earth is full of his glory, the glory of his power and purity; for he is holy in all his works, Psa 145:17. The Jews thought the glory of God should be confined to their land; but it is here intimated that in the gospel times (which are pointed to in this chapter) the glory of God should fill all the earth, the glory of his holiness, which is indeed the glory of all his other attributes; this then filled the temple (Isa 6:1), but, in the latter days, the earth shall be full of it.
V. Observe the marks and tokens of terror with which the temple was filled, upon this vision of the divine glory, Isa 6:4. 1. The house was shaken; not only the door, but even the posts of the door, which were firmly fixed, moved at the voice of him that cried, at the voice of God, who called to judgment (Psa 50:4), at the voice of the angel, who praised him. There are voices in heaven sufficient to drown all the noises of the many waters in this lower world, Psa 93:3, Psa 93:4. This violent concussion of the temple was an indication of God's wrath and displeasure against the people for their sins; it was an earnest of the destruction of it and the city by the Babylonians first, and afterwards by the Romans; and it was designed to strike an awe upon us. Shall walls and posts tremble before God, and shall we not tremble? 2. The house was darkened; it was filled with smoke, which was as a cloud spread upon the face of his throne (Job 26:9); we cannot take a full view of it, nor order our speech concerning it, by reason of darkness. In the temple above there will be no smoke, but everything will be seen clearly. There God dwells in light; here he makes darkness his pavilion, 2 Chron, Rom 6:1.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–3 In the year that King Uzziah died,.... Which was…
In the year that King Uzziah died,.... Which was the fifty second year of his reign, and in the year 3246 from the creation of the world; and, according to Jerom (l), was the year in which Romulus, the founder of the Roman empire, was born: some understand this not of his proper death, but of his being stricken with leprosy, upon his attempt to burn incense in the temple; upon which he was shut up in a separate house, which was a kind of a civil death: so the Targum,
"in the year in which King Uzziah was smitten;''
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that is, with leprosy; and so Jarchi and others interpret it, from the ancient writers; but the first sense is the best. Some, as Aben Ezra, would have this to be the beginning of the prophecy of Isaiah, because of the mission of the prophet in it; but others rightly observe, that this mission respects not the prophecy in general, but the particular reproof the prophet was sent to give to the Jews herein mentioned. The title of this chapter, in the Arabic version, is remarkable; according to which, this chapter contains the vision which Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw three years, or, as others affirm, thirty years, after prophecy was taken from him. He had prophesied about ten years before this, in the reign of Uzziah; and only this vision was in the reign of Jotham; the next prophecy was delivered out in the reign of Ahaz, Isa 7:1 and others in the time of Hezekiah; and the date of this vision is only mentioned, to observe the order of the visions, agreeably to Isa 1:1 and moreover it may be observed from hence, that kings must die as well as others; but the King of kings ever lives, he is the living God, and the everlasting King, as follows:
I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; not God essentially considered, whose essence is not to be seen; but personally, Father, Son, and Spirit, for all the three Persons appear in this vision, Isa 6:3 particularly Christ, as, is clear from Joh 12:41 who is the "Adonai", or Lord; he is Lord of all, of all men, even of the greatest among them, and of all the angels in heaven, and of the church of God, by his Father's gift, by his own purchase, in right of marriage, and through the conquest of his grace. This sight was not corporeal, but with the eyes of the understanding, in the vision of prophecy; and to have a sight of Christ as the Lord, and especially as our Lord, is very delightful and comfortable; for though he is a sovereign Lord, he is no tyrannical one, is very powerful to protect and defend, and has all fulness for supply; and particularly as "sitting upon a throne" as a king, for he having done his work as a priest, sits down on his throne as a king; and a lovely sight it is to see him enthroned at the right hand of the Majesty on high; and therefore is said to be "high and lifted up"; for this is to be understood not of his throne, as if that was high and lifted up in the highest heavens, as the Targum paraphrases it; but of himself, who is high and exalted above all creatures, as Aben Ezra observes; and this sense the accents determine for: the vision refers to the exaltation of Christ, after his humiliation here on earth; and to behold him crowned with glory and honour is very delightful, since he is exalted as our head and representative in our nature, and acts for us in this his exalted state; and we may be assured of being exalted also. It follows,
and his train filled the temple; either the material temple visionally seen, where his feet were, and his throne in heaven, as Jarchi interprets it; or heaven, as Kimchi, which is the Lord's holy temple, where his throne is, Psa 11:4 or rather the human nature of Christ, the temple where the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and which the train of divine perfections fill; though it may be best of all to understand it of the church, the temple of the living God; and "his train" may denote the effects of Christ's kingly and priestly offices, with which the Church was filled upon his exaltation; as the gifts and graces of his Spirit in an extraordinary manner on the day of Pentecost, and since in a more ordinary way; whereby men have been made ministers of the New Testament, and churches filled with them, and these made useful in filling the churches with members. The Targum is,
"and the temple was filled with the splendour of his glory;''
the "train" is the skirts, borders, or lower parts of the garments, in allusion to those of a king, or rather of the high priest, a type of Christ.
(l) Epist. Damaso, tom. 3. fol. 37. K.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–3 The glory of the Lord, ver. 1-4. Isaiah is…
The glory of the Lord, ver. 1-4. Isaiah is terrified, ver. 5. Is confirmed for his message, ver. 6-8. The people's obstinacy unto desolation, ver. 9-12. A remnant shall be saved, ver. 13.
I saw - In a vision. The Lord - The Divine Majesty as he subsisteth in three persons. His train - His royal and judicial robe; for he is represented as a judge.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–3 This chapter, by a particular designation of Isaiah to…
CHAPTER VI
This chapter, by a particular designation of Isaiah to the
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prophetic office, 1-8,
introduces, with great solemnity, a declaration of the whole
tenor of the Diving conduct in reference to his people, who, on
account of their unbelief and impenitence, should for a very
long period be given up to a judicial blindness and hardness of
heart, 9, 10;
and visited with such calamities as would issue on the total
desolation of their country, and their general dispersion,
11, 12.
The prophet adds, however, that under their repeated
dispersions, (by the Chaldeans, Romans, c.,) a small remnant
would be preserved as a seed from which will be raised a
people, in whom will be fulfilled all the Divine promises, 13.
As this vision seems to contain a solemn designation of Isaiah to the prophetic office, it is by most interpreters thought to be the first in order of his prophecies. But this perhaps may not be so for Isaiah is said, in the general title of his prophecies, to have prophesied in the time of Uzziah, whose acts, first and last, he wrote, 2Ch 26:22; which is usually done by a contemporary prophet; and the phrase, in the year that Uzziah died, probably means after the death of Uzziah; as the same phrase (Isa 14:28) means after the death of Ahaz. Not that Isaiah's prophecies are placed in exact order of time. Chapters ii., iii., iv., v., seem by internal marks to be antecedent to chap. i.; they suit the time of Uzziah, or the former part of Jotham's reign; whereas chap. i. can hardly be earlier than the last years of Jotham. See note on Isa 1:7, and Isa 2:1. This might be a new designation, to introduce more solemnly a general dedication of the whole course of God's dispensations in regard to his people and the fates of the nation; which are even now still depending, and will not be fully accomplished till the final restoration of Israel.
In this vision the ideas are taken in general from royal majesty, as displayed by the monarchs of the East; for the prophet could not represent the ineffable presence of God by any other than sensible and earthly images. The particular scenery of it is taken from the temple. God is represented as seated on his throne above the ark, in the most holy place, where the glory appeared above the cherubim, surrounded by his attendant ministers. This is called by God himself "the place of his throne, and the place of the soles of his feet," Eze 43:7. "A glorious throne exalted of old, is the place of our sanctuary," saith the prophet Jeremiah, Jer 17:12. The very posture of sitting is a mark of state and solemnity: Sed et ipsum verbum sedere regni significat potestatem, saith Jerome, Comment. in Eph 1:20. See note on Isa 3:2. St. John, who has taken many sublime images from the prophets of the Old Testament, and in particular from Isaiah, hath exhibited the same scenery, drawn out into a greater number of particulars; Re 4:1-11.
The veil, separating the most holy place from the holy or outermost part of the temple, is here supposed to be taken away; for the prophet, to whom the whole is exhibited, is manifestly placed by the altar of burnt-offering, at the entrance of the temple, (compare Eze 43:5-6,) which was filled with the train of the robe, the spreading and overflowing of the Divine glory. The Lord upon the throne, according to St. John (Joh 12:41,) was Christ; and the vision related to his future kingdom when the veil of separation was to be removed, and the whole earth was to be filled with the glory of God, revealed to all mankind: which is likewise implied in the hymn of the seraphim, the design of which is, saith Jerome on the place, Ut mysterium Trinitatis in una Divinitate demonstrent; et nequaquam templum Judaicum, sicut prius, sed omnem terram illius gloria plenam esse testentur; "That they may point out the mystery of the Trinity in one Godhead; and that the Jewish temple alone should not be, as formerly, the place of the Divine glory, for the whole earth should be filled with it." It relates, indeed, primarily to the prophet's own time, and the obduration of the Jews of that age, and their punishment by the Babylonish captivity; but extends in its full attitude to the age of Messiah, and the blindness of the Jews to the Gospel, (see Mt 13:14; Joh 12:40; Ac 28:26; Ro 11:8,) the desolation of their country by the Romans, and their being rejected by God. That nevertheless a holy seed-a remnant, should be preserved; and that the nation should spread out and flourish again from the old stock.-L.
NOTES ON CHAP. VI
Verse 1. The Lord] Fifty-one MSS. of Kennicott's, and fifty-four of De Rossi's, and one edition; in the 8th verse, forty-four MSS. of Kennicott's, and forty-six of De Rossi's, and one edition; and in the 11th verse thirty-three MSS. of Kennicott's, and many of De Rossi's, and one edition, for אדני Adonai, "the Lord" read יהוה "JEHOVAH," which is probably the true reading; (compare Isa 6:8;) as in many other places, in which the superstition of the Jews has substituted אדני Adonai for יהוה Yehovah. One of my own MSS., a very ancient and large folio, to which the points and the masora have been added by a later hand, has יהוה Yehovah in the 1st and 8th verses, in the teeth of the masora, which orders it in both places to be read אדני Adonai.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Isa 6:1. In the year that King Uzziah died,…
Isa 6:1. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord — “As this vision,” says Bishop Lowth, “seems to contain a solemn designation of Isaiah to the prophetical office, it is by most interpreters thought to be the first in order of his prophecies. But this perhaps may not be so: for Isaiah is said, in the general title of his prophecies, to have prophesied in the time of Uzziah, whose acts, first and last, he wrote, (2Ch 26:22,) and the phrase, in the year when Uzziah died, probably means, after the death of Uzziah; as the same phrase, (Isa 14:28,) means, after the death of Ahaz. Not that Isaiah’s prophecies are placed in exact order of time: chapters 2., 3., 4., 5. seem, by internal marks, to be antecedent to chapter 1.; they suit the time of Uzziah, or the former part of Jotham’s reign: whereas, chapter 1. can hardly be earlier than the last years of Jotham: see note on Isa 1:1; Isa 1:7; Isa 2:1. This might be a new designation of the whole course of God’s dispensations in regard to his people, and the fates of the nation; which are even now still depending, and will not be fully accomplished till the final restoration of Israel.”
I saw the Lord — In a vision or ecstasy. The place of this vision is supposed to be the temple, from which the particular scenery of it is taken. The Divine Majesty is represented as seated upon a throne, high and lifted up — Probably above the ark in the most holy place, where the glory appeared above the cherubim, surrounded by his attendant ministers. “The veil, separating the most holy place from the holy, or the outermost part of the temple, is supposed to be taken away, for the prophet, to whom the whole is exhibited, is manifestly placed by the altar of burnt-offering, at the entrance of the temple, (compare Eze 43:5-6,) which was filled with the train of the robe, the spreading and overflowing of the divine glory. The Lord upon the throne, according to St. John, (Joh 12:41,) was Christ, and the vision related to his future kingdom; when the veil of separation was to be removed, and the whole earth was to be filled with the glory of God, revealed to all mankind. It respects, indeed, primarily the prophet’s own time, and the obduration of the Jews of that age, and their punishment by the Babylonish captivity; but extends, in its full latitude, to the age of the Messiah, and the blindness of the Jews to the gospel; the desolation of their country by the Romans, and their being rejected by God; that, nevertheless, a holy seed, a remnant, should be preserved, and that the nation should sprout out and flourish again from the old stock. — Bishop Lowth.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–3 In the year - This naturally denotes a period…
In the year - This naturally denotes a period after the death of Uzziah, though in the same year. The mention of the time was evidently made when the prophecy was composed, and it is to be presumed that the death of Uzziah had occurred at the time when the prophet saw this vision. If so, it is clear that this was not the first of his prophecies, for he saw his visions ‘in the days of Uzziah;’ Isa 1:1. The Chaldee, however, reads this: ‘in the year when Uzziah was smitten with the leprosy;’ and most of the Jewish commentators so understand it; 2Ch 26:19-20. The rabbis say that the meaning is, that he then became “civilly” dead, by ceasing to exercise his functions as a king, and that he was cut off as a leprous man from all connection with the people, and from all authority; see the Introduction, Section 3. This is, doubtless, true; but still, the more natural signification is, that this occurred in the year in which he actually died.
I saw - That is, he saw in a “vision;” see the Introduction, Section 7. (4). A similar vision is described by Micaiah; 1Ki 22:19; see also Amo 7:1; Amo 8:1; Amo 9:1; Dan 7:13, ...
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The Lord - In the original here the word is not יהוה yehovâh but אדני 'ădonāy; see the notes at Isa 1:24. Here it is applied to Yahweh; see also Psa 114:7, where it is also so applied; and see Isa 8:7, and Job 28:28, where Yahweh calls himself “Adonai.” The word does not itself denote essential divinity; but it is often applied to God. In some MSS., however, of Kennicott and DeRossi, the word Yahweh is found. We may make two remarks here.
(1) That Isaiah evidently meant to say that it was Yahweh who appeared to him. He is expressly so called in Isa 6:5-8, Isa 6:11.
(2) It is equally clear, from the New Testament, that Isaiah saw the messiah. John quotes the words in this chapter, Isa 6:10, as applicable to Jesus Christ, and then adds Joh 12:41, ‘these things said Esaias when he saw his glory, and spake of him.’
An inspired man has thus settled this as referring to the Messiah, and thus had established the propriety of applying to him the name Yahweh, that is, has affirmed that the Lord Jesus is divine. Jerome says, that this vision was designed to represent the doctrine of the Trinity. In Joh 1:18, it is said, ‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.’ In Exo 33:20, God says, ‘Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live;’ see also 1Ti 6:16. These passages may be reconciled with what is here said by Isaiah, in the following manner:
(1) Isaiah does not say that he saw the Divine Essence; and all that his words fairly imply, is, that he saw a manifestation, or vision of Yahweh - some striking symbolic representation of him.
(2) It was the manifestation of Yahweh in the person of the Messiah, of the ‘only begotten Son who hath revealed or declared him,’ that he saw Such manifestations of God have been made often, and all that the declaration of Isaiah implies, of necessity, is, that he had a vision of God incarnate seated in glory, from whom he now received a new commission to go out and proclaim the truth to that wicked and rebellious generation.
Sitting upon a throne - God is thus often represented as a king, sitting on a throne; 1Ki 22:19; Eze 43:7; Jer 17:12.
High and lifted up - That is, the “throne;” an indication of state and majesty. “And his train.” The word “train” שׁוּליו shûlāyv, properly signifies the skirt of a garment, or a robe; Exo 28:33-34. Here it is evidently designed as a representation of a large, flowing robe, that filled all the most holy part of the temple. The Orientals regarded such large robes as indicative of grandeur and state. The Messiah was seen seated on a throne as a king; clothed in a large, loose, flowing robe, in the manner of oriental monarchs, and surrounded by his ministers. The design of this magnificent vision was not only to impress the prophet with a sense of the holiness of God, but also to give additional weight to his commission, as having been derived immediately from the divine majesty; compare Isa 6:9-10. It is remarkable that Isaiah attempts no representation of Yahweh himself. He mentions his robes; the throne; the seraphim; but mentions no form or appearance of God himself. In this there is great sublimity. There is enough mentioned to fill the mind with awe; there is enough concealed to impress as deeply with a sense of the divine majesty. It is remarkable, also, that it is not the “usual” appearance of God in the temple to which he refers. That was the “Shekinah,” or visible symbol of God. That was on the mercy-seat, this was on a throne; that was a cloud, of this no form is mentioned; over that the cherubim stretched forth their wings, over this stood the seraphim; that had no clothing, this was clad in a full flowing robe.
Filled the temple - Probably, the most holy place only is intended. The large, full, magnificent robe seemed to fill up the entire holy of holies. Some have supposed that this vision was represented as appearing in the “heavens.” But the expression here evidently implies, that it was seen in the “temple” at Jerusalem.
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Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Died. Either a natural (Calmet) or a civil death,…
Died. Either a natural (Calmet) or a civil death, by means of the leprosy. (Chaldean) (Tostat. 7.) --- This and the former chapters relate to the commencement of Joathan’s reign, whether before or after the death of Ozias. (Calmet) --- Many think that this was the first prediction of Isaias. (Origen) (St. Jerome, ad Dam.) --- I saw. By a prophetic vision, as if I had been present at the dedication of the temple, 3 Kings viii. 10. (Calmet) --- Lord. Not the Father, as some have asserted, but the Son, John xii. 40. (St. Jerome, ad Dam.) (Calmet) --- Neither Moses nor any other saw the substance of God; but only a shadow. Yet Manasses hence took a pretext to have Isaias slain. (Origen) (St. Jerome, Trad.) (Paralipomenon) (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Isaiah 6.
C.—THE THIRD PORTAL
Isaiah 6.
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We have already shown above, in the general introduction to the threefold entrance, that Isaiah would not place this account of his call at the head because he felt the need of preparing his readers for it. At the same time he brings it about that this, not merely elevated, but holy, and even holiest of all dramas, is put in the place that becomes a holiest of all, that is to say, not without, but within; not in aditu, but in adyto. As in the temple, the court of the priests and the holy place, with the altar of incense, constituted the approach to the holiest of all, so, too, here Isaiah puts two entrances in front of that history that really transposes us into the inmost sanctuary, that explains to us how it was possible that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, should be admitted to the vision of God, and had the boldness to offer himself as God’s messenger. If one were not governed by the illusion that only chap. 1. can be an introduction, it would never enter his mind that chap. 6. is the account of a second call to a merely special mission. Delitzsch remarks: “What Umbreit says, that chap. 6. makes the impression on every unprejudiced mind of being the inaugural vision of the Prophet cannot in fact be denied. Only the position that chap. 6. has in the book wields a contrary influence against this impression as long as it does not admit of being understood in some other way. But the impression remains (as with Isa_1:7-9) and even reappears.” Well, then, we bring the impression that chap. 6. makes (of being the account of the inauguration) into the most harmonious relation to the place it holds in the book, by explaining it as the third, the most elevated and holiest entrance to the prophecies of Isaiah. Concerning the time of its composition not much need be said. That Isaiah wrote chapter 6. no one denies. Whether, then, he wrote it immediately after he had the vision, or later, is indifferent. From the nature of things the former is more probable. At all events he assigned the chapter its present position when he made up his book.
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THE SOLEMN INAUGURATION OF THE PROPHET
Isa_6:1-13
1 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, 2high and lifted up, and 1his train filled the the temple. Above 2 it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain 3he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And 3one cried unto another, and said,
Holy! holy! holy! is the Lord of hosts:
4The whole earth is full of his glory.
4And the 5posts of the 6door moved at the voice of 7him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. 5Then said I, Woe is me! for I Amos 8 undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
6Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, 9having 10a live coal in his hand, which7 he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: and he 11laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin 12purged.
8Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, 13Here am I; send me. 9And he said, Go, and tell this people,
Hear ye 14indeed, but understand not;
And see ye 1516indeed, but perceive not.
10Make the heart of this people fat,
And make their ears heavy, and 17shut their eyes,
Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
11Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered,
Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant,
And the houses without man,
And the land be 18utterly desolate;
12And the Lord 19have removed men far away,
20And there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
13But yet in it shall be a tenth,
2122 And it shall return, and shall be eaten:
As a 23teil tree, and as an oak, 24whose 25substance is in them, when they cast their leaves.
So the 26holy seed shall be the substance thereof.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_6:1. The prophet designates the Lord as אדני (with the sign of the accusat., but without the article as a proper noun). Both אָדוֹן Isa_1:24; Isa_3:1; Isa_10:16; Isa_10:33; Isa_19:4) and אֲרֹנָי (Isa_3:17-18; Isa_4:4; Isa_6:1; Isa_6:8; Isa_6:11; Isaiah 7:14, 29; Isa_8:7; Isa_9:7; Isa_9:16; Isa_10:12; Isa_11:11; Isa_21:6; Isa_21:8; Isa_21:16; Isa_29:13; Isa_30:20; Isa_37:24; Isa_38:16) occur only in the first part of Isaiah.—רם ונשׂא is used by Isa_2:13-14; Isa_57:15, where the Lord Himself is so named.—שׁולים the hem, the broad folded train of which the hems are the ends. The word (used mostly of the priestly garments, Exo_28:33-34; Exo_39:24-26; comp. Jer_13:22; Jer_13:26; Nah_3:5) does not again occur in Isaiah.
Isa_6:3. מְלֹא (is not infin., which is always מְלֹאת, but) is substantive, written oftener מְלוֹא. Comp. Isa_8:8; Isa_31:4; Isa_34:1; Isa_42:10.
Isa_6:7. Piel כִּפֶּר and Pual כֻּפַּר in Isa_22:14; Isa_27:9; Isa_28:18; Isa_47:11.
Isa_6:8. לָנוּ after יֵלֵךְ, is grammatically considered Dat. commodi. Who will do us a service by going? is the sense.
Isa_6:10. The verb שָׁמֵן, pinguem esse, is found in the Kal. only Deu_32:15, and Jer_5:28; beside the present the Hiph. occurs only Neh_9:25, with the meaning “to become fat.” The ears shall become heavy, hard of hearing, deaf. כָּבֵד (Kal) is used in this sense Isa_59:1. Also the word is used of the eyes (Gen_48:10) and of the tongue (Exo_9:10 [כְּכַד adj.]). Comp. Zec_7:11 (Hiph.). The Hiph. occurs more frequently of making heavy, i.e., hardening the heart: Exo_8:11; Exo_8:28; Exo_9:34; Exo_10:10. הָשַׁע is the Hiph. imperat. from שָׁעַע oblinere, to besmear, plaster over (comp. Isa_29:9; Isa_32:3). רָפָא is always used transitively. It must therefore be thought of as joined to the general, ideal subject, which the notion of the verb of itself suggests. As is well known, especially verbs that designate a trade or an occupation in some art are wont to be so used. Therefore may a verb that signifies the healing art be readily so construed. Isaiah resorts to this mode of speech not seldom; Isa_7:24; Isa_8:4; Isa_21:9; Isa_34:11. One might fall on the conjecture by comparison of Isa_53:5, that as there so here it ought to read נִרְפָּא.
Isa_6:11. As to particulars, it is to be noted that אֲשֶׁר אִם עַד “until” (comp. beside Gen_28:15; Num_32:17) involves a conditional sentence; the end does not come, except that before, etc.—In the root שָׁאָה the meaning “to be desert” developes out of the meaning “to make a noise, to rage;” comp. Isa_17:12 sq.; Isa_37:26, and substantive שָׁאוֹן Isa_5:14; Isaiah 13, 4; Isa_24:8; Isa_25:5; Isa_66:6.—מאין יושׁב comp. on Isa_5:9.—מאין אדם comp. Jer_32:43; Jer_33:10; Jer_33:12. The expression occurs beside here only in the second comforting discourse of Jeremiah.
Isa_6:12. The Piel רִחַק is used by Isaiah again only Isa_26:15; Isa_29:13. On the contrary Kal. occurs in the second part: Isa_46:13; Isaiah 49, 19; Isa_54:14; Isa_59:9; Isa_59:11. The Hiph. does not occur in Isaiah at all.
עֲזוּבָה properly the forsaken one, fem. But this feminine here must be taken as the collective genus, so that the word signifies the forsaken (the forsakenness, desolation). Comp. Isa_17:2; Isa_17:9.
Isa_6:13. לבער comp. Isa_4:4.—אֵלָה is terebinth (Isa_1:30) and אַלּוֹן oak (Isa_2:13; Isa_44:14). Both are extremely lasting trees, that become very old and grow steadily in size. Comp. Gesen. Thes. p. 51; Job_14:7-9—שַׁלֶּכֶת occurs again only 1Ch_26:16, where a שַעַר שַלֶּכֶת is spoken of. Is this the gate of casting out (probably only an opening in the wall through which things were thrown out) then the word here is dejectio, prostratio (comp. Jer_9:18). Instead of בָּם we look for מֵהֶם according to our mode of expression. But the Hebrew in his way of representation sees, as it were, the idea of the whole tree before him still, and in or on this ideal tree he distinguishes the stump still present and the (in reality severed) trunk. This is that use of בְּ that may be called partitive. Comp. at Isa_10:22.—אַשֶׁר and בָּם belong together.—זרע קדשׁ (comp. Isa_1:4; Ezr_9:2) signifies the still-existing principle of holy life. The suffix in מַּצַּבְתָּהּ (מַצֶּבֶת only here in Isaiah, מַצֵבָה Isa_19:19) refers to עשׂיריה.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Isaiah describes in plain and simple language, by which the grandeur of the contents is only made the more conspicuous, how, in the year that King Uzziah died he saw the Lord sitting on a high, elevated throne. The train of His garments filled the temple (Isa_6:1). Seraphim surrounded Him, each having three pairs of wings: one covered the countenance, one the feet, and with the third they flew (Isa_6:2). One cried to the other the thrice-holy (Isa_6:3), a cry whose power shook the threshold. But the house was full of smoke (Isa_6:4). The majestic vision awakes in the Prophet the feeling of his sinfulness, and the fear that he shall be destroyed, because he, as a sinful man, has seen the Lord (Isa_6:5). But one of the Seraphs reconciles him with a glowing coal that he has taken from the altar (Isa_6:6-7). Thereupon the Prophet hears the voice of the Lord himself, who asks: whom shall I send? Isaiah offers himself as messenger (Isa_6:8). He is accepted and his commission is imparted to him. But this commission is of an extraordinary character. For it is not so much told him what he shall announce, but what shall be the immediate consequence of his announcement. That is to say, he shall speak to the people, but with the (express) consciousness that not only will it be of no use, but that the people will become only the more hardened (Isa_6:9-10). The Prophet, without regarding the difficulty for himself in the matter, only inquires, because the fate of his people distresses him, how long this anger of the Lord against His people is to last (Isa_6:11 a.). This answer is: until all is destroyed (Isa_6:11 b.), the land devoid of men (Isa_6:12), and not more than a tenth part of the inhabitants remain in it, that shall be dealt with as a tree that was felled for burning. For such becomes a prey to the flames to the very stump that remains in the ground. So there will remain of Israel but the remnant of a remnant (Isa_6:13). The structure of the chapter is extremely simple: Isa_6:1-4 describe the scene of the transaction; Isa_6:5-7 the terror of the Prophet and the allaying of it; Isa_6:8-13 his call to the prophetic functions and the commission imparted to him.
2. In the year—filled with smoke.
Isa_6:1-4. The year that Uzziah died was the year 758 B. C. Jerome (in the Epist. 18 ad Damas.) remarks that this was the same year “quo Romulus, Romani imperii conditor, natus est,” that Romulus was born. The theocracy declines: the world-power springs up. It is asked whether the event took place before or after the death of Uzziah. Without doubt the event took place before the death, but the record of it was made after it. For if both occurred before Uzziah’s death there would have been no mention made of it. If both occurred after the death of the king, then the event would belong to the period of Jotham’s rule, and one would justly look for the name of this king. Thus what has been just stated remains the only possible answer to the above question. Our passage then agrees very well with Isa_1:1, for then Isaiah had prophesied already under Uzziah. Moreover, Isa_14:28 (“in the year King Uzziah died”) supports this explanation, for there it is presumed in the whole context that Uzziah still lives. The opinion of those Rabbis, who, following the lead of the Chaldee, understand the passage to refer to the civil death of Uzziah, i.e., to his becoming a leper, is justly pronounced by Gesenius a rabbinical caprice.
How did Isaiah see the Lord? In reality? or only in the idea, i.e. in fancy, so that, then, the grand painting were only the poetic clothing of a purely subjective, inward transaction? The latter is the opinion of rationalistic expositors. For example, Knobel says: “At all events there happened a moment in Isaiah’s life, when the seer, in holy, divine enthusiasm, soared aloft to Jehovah and heard the Lord’s call to the prophetic office. This event of his God-inspired inward man he portrays in the passage before us, and amplifies it with free, poetic art, more, completely than he experienced it.” But one must be, just a rationalist, to hold that such a transaction cannot possibly be an historical fact, and therefore that it must be declared to be unreal. At the same time one must resolve to pronounce what the Prophet professes to do a pious fraud. For that he would only give a poem is neither intimated in the narrative itself, nor does the character of the entire book suggest it. The Prophets are historians, even where they write poetry. The Prophet speaks here as an historian. Did he represent as an outward calling what was only inward, he would have arrogated an honor that did not become him, and this very arrogance would have deprived him of all claim to credibility. For countless ones have received an inward call. But precisely this outward call, just that which Isaiah here beheld, heard and spoke, is so extraordinary, that only privileged men can boast that they have experienced the like. Of Jeremiah (chap. 1) and Ezekiel (chaps. 1.–3) similar things are told. These men, as Isaiah himself, would be guilty of wicked presumption did they invent a glorious, outward call. We must therefore hold the narrative of Isaiah to be historical.
But if real, was it a physical or spiritual reality? That is to say, did Isaiah behold all this with the eyes of the body or the eyes of the spirit (ἐν πνεύματι)? With the eyes of the body these things are not to be seen. Spiritual corporality can only be taken notice of by the opened inward sense (2Ki_6:17). Therefore something, real of course, but only inward, can be meant here, a spiritual beholding of spiritual reality (1Ki_22:17 sqq.; Ezekiel 8 sqq.; Dan_7:13 sqq.; Rev_1:10 sqq., etc.).
To this is joined the inquiry: In which temple did Isaiah see the Lord? In the earthly, at Jerusalem, or in the heavenly, the pattern of the former? It is no reason against the former, that Isaiah was no priest, and therefore dared not go into the temple. Amos, also, was no priest, and yet saw the Lord in the temple (Isa_9:1). The Prophet did not need to be in the temple bodily in order to see what was present in the temple. Comp. Eze_8:3—But in the earthly temple the throne of the Lord was the ark of the covenant. On this account it is expressly called ישֵׁב הַכְּרֻבִים “dwelling between the cherubim” (2Sa_6:2; 2Ki_19:15; Isa_37:16; Psa_80:2; Psa_99:1; 1 Chr. 13:16). Why should Isaiah, if he saw the Lord in the earthly temple, not have named the ark of the covenant? The expression “throne high and elevated” does not appear to point to the ark of the covenant. For it cannot be said that it is high and lifted up. We shall therefore have to place the vision in the upper, heavenly sanctuary (the original of the Tabernacle in the first place, Exo_25:9; Exo_25:40; Exo_26:30; Exo_27:8, and afterwards of the temple). Thither Isaiah was transferred in spirit.
The Seraphim are not mentioned anywhere else in the whole Old and New Testaments except here. The word שְׂרָכּים is found Num_21:6, but as qualifying נְחָשִׁים (God sent among the people burning, fiery serpents). The singular שָׂרָף occurs, too, Num_21:8; Deu_8:15; Isa_14:29; Isa_30:6, but always in the sense of “serpent.” In Num_21:8, it is synonym of נָחָשׁ. For it is said there; make thee a שׂרף, serpent, and set it on a pole. And then Isa_6:9, it proceeds: and Moses made a נְחַשׁ נְחשֶׁת and set it on a pole. Again Deu_8:15נָהָשׁ שָׂרָף are found joined. In both places in Isaiah, we read שָׂרָף מְעוֹכֵּף. Therefore, שָׂרָף evidently means the serpent, but only by an originally predicate description becoming the designation of the chief conception. For originally שָׂרָף means “the burner,” from שָׂרַף “to burn, burn up.” The burning smart of a wound occasioned this designation. It is, moreover, not impossible that the burning fire is designated by the word שָׂרַף because it moves itself serpent fashion. And in so far the roots ἕρπειν, serpere and שָׂרָף may agree; and an original connection between שָׂרָף and serpens might exist, only the meaning “to crawl,” would not be the medium of this connection. For only the burning fire is thought of as crawling; but the serpent is called שָׂרָף, not because it creeps, but because it burns. On these grounds I do not believe that the angel name שָׂרָף has anything to do with the serpent. According to our passage indeed, the Seraphim have human form, for they have a countenance, they have feet (Isa_6:2) and hands (Isa_6:6). But, Gesenius, before this has shown that the Seraph has nothing whatever to do with the Egyptian Serapis, by the proof that this name has sprung from the names Osiris and Apis (Osar-Api). Comp. Thesaur. p. 1342. Gesenius, with whom recently Herm. Schultz agrees, takes the word in the meaning of the Arabic scharaph (nobilitas), schariph (sheriff , princeps), comp. Dan_10:13; Dan_8:25; which, however, hardly agrees with the use of the Hebrew שׂרף given above. That the Seraphim belong to the highest rank of the angel world, appears from their relation to God and His throne as it is described in our chapter. For they appear here in immediate nearness to the divine throne, and beside them no others are named. That the Seraphim are essentially identical with the Cherubim, has been maintained already by Maimonides (in the מורה הנבוכים3:6). Hendewerk, has tried to prove the identity in the dissertation De Seraphim a Cherubim in Bibliis non diversis,Königsberg, 1836. So, too, Stickel in the Stud. u. Krit. 1840 Heft. II. Boehmer also takes this view (Herzog’sR. Encycl. IV. p. 24). Of course the passage Rev_4:8 seems to favor this view strongly. For there we find ascribed to Cherubim on the one hand the animal forms of Ezekiel, (1 and 10), and on the other the six wings and the Trishagion (thrice holy) of the Seraphim. It appears to me that the forms of John combine in themselves the traits of the Cherubim and Seraphim, and if it is said that the Seraphim of Isaiah differ from the Cherubim of Ezekiel so, too, do the Johannic Cherubim differ from those of Ezekiel, and the Seraphim of Isaiah are the mediating member. After all the question is an open one. If it is asked; why are the Seraphim called “the burning ones?” Philo answers: “because they devour the unformedness of matter, bring it into form and order, and thereby render it a Cosmos.” Boehmer,among others, calls them “fire beings, that burn up everything unholy.” Lange (in the Art. Zorn Gottes, Herzog’sR. Encycl. XVIII. p. 662 sq.), distinguishes the revelation of wrath against universal human sinfulness and sin and the revelation of wrath against the conscious revolt against the revelation of salvation in law and gospel. The first degree seems to him symbolized by God’s dominion over His Cherubim (Gen_3:24; Psa_18:11-15; Psa_104:4), the second by His appearance between the Seraphim (Isaiah 6). “That the Seraphim represent a vision of the judgment of fire, in which, with the hardening of the people, the temple must burn up, is expressed also in the meaning of the word “the consumers.” When Isaiah received the call to preach the hardening of the people, he saw, also, in spirit the temple occupied by the fire angels of God, and filled with smoke.” Apart from the distinction between Seraphim and Cherubim, which I do not think has sufficient motive, it only seems to me that their meaning is too narrowly construed in the above. They do not merely serve as a revelation of the wrath of God. They belong, since there was a world, to the immediate organs of the divine revelation in the world generally. They are ever with God, and “rest neither day nor night,” and when they ceaselessly offer praise, honor, and thanksgiving to Him that lives from everlasting to everlasting, and when they thereby give the tone, as it were, to the song of praise of the four and twenty elders (Rev_4:8 sqq.), so it is seen plainly, that they have not only a mission in relation to the wicked, but also in relation to the pious, even to God Himself. It does not decide the matter of their significance in general, that they appear just here in a moment when wrath is revealed, and that a Seraph burns away the sin of the Prophet. However, this is not the place to penetrate deeper into these mysteries (μυστήρια).
The Seraphim stood ממעל לו, “above him. By a very frequent usage עמד is joined with עַל so that by this preposition the one standing is represented, so to speak, as covering up the one before whom he stands, from the eyes of the spectator standing opposite; Gen_18:8; Gen_24:30; Exo_18:13; Jdg_3:19; Jdg_6:31; 2Ki_23:3; Jer_36:21; 2Ch_23:13. Even standing before Jehovah is designated by this preposition Job_1:6; 1Ki_22:19; Zec_4:14; Zec_6:5.—But in our passage it is not merely said עָלָיו, but ממעל לו. This expression is so strong that we can do nothing else than represent the Seraphim to ourselves as hovering about the Lord, “and with two he flew,” so that they stood, not indeed above his head, but relatively above him. Each Seraph had six wings. The imperfects manifestly serve to indicate a continuous circumstance that is an essential part of the scene, whereas the perfects וקרא and ואמר, “and cried and said,” express an incident that forms part of the transaction. For what the Seraphim did with their wings went on continuously and does not belong to the transaction. But the crying out belongs to the transaction, yet does not go on continuously, but is only an incident that serves to finish the picture. We cannot suppose that the crying out continued while the Prophet, and the Seraph and the Lord talked. Targ. Jonathan happily translates Isa_6:2 b., “duabus velabat,” etc. “With two (wings) each one veiled his face that he might not see, and with two he veiled his body, that he might not be seen.”
It must not be concluded from זה אל זה that there were only two Seraphim, but that there were two choirs, say one on either side. Alternative song is founded in the essence of communion. It is the musical expression of the διαλογισμοί that move the congregation. Therefore it is found in the heavenly congregation as well as in the earthly. But the Seraphim sing “Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah Sabaoth; fullness of the whole earth is His glory.” Thus they praise Him here as the Holy One, because in what follows (Isa_6:9 sq.), He makes known in what degree His holiness shall react against unholy Israel. Delitzsch calls attention to the fact that Isaiah cherished his whole life through, a deep, indelible impression of that holiness of the Lord that confronted him here so mightily in word and aspect. Fourteen times in the first part does he use the expression קדושׁ ישׂראל, “Holy One of Israel,” which is, as it were, the concentrated expression of that impression; fifteen times in the second (comp. at Isa_1:4), whereas the expression occurs beside only thrice in the Psalms, (Psa_71:22; Psa_78:41; Psa_89:19), twice in Jer. Psalms 50:29; Isa_51:5), and once in 2Ki_19:22 parallel with Isa_37:23.
But why this thrice repeated קָדוֹשׁ?. There are, to be sure, examples of such repetition that only aim at rhetorical emphasis (Jer_7:4; Eze_21:32; Nah_1:2). In fact Calvin and Vitringa construe the thrice holy in this sense, while, yet, they expressly say that they would not exclude a deeper significance. Herm. Schultz, (Alttest. Theol. I. p. 345) says: “the choir rests on a song and counter song, combined in the double choir, therefore the threeness of the Holy.” But here we stand before the holiest of all of the Godhead, that is opened up for a moment, and receive a glimpse into the βάθη τοῦ θεοῦ (1Co_2:10, “the deep things of God”). The Christian consciousness, from the remotest period, has not been able to resist the impression that this thrice-holy is a reflex of the triune being of the Godhead. And in the New Testament sphere this impression is the more justified because the evangelist John (Joh_12:41) says expressly Isaiah saw the glory of Jesus when he heard the words of Isa_6:10. In that John says nothing extraordinary. Rather he quite accords with Peter who says (1Pe_1:11) that the Spirit that swayed in the Prophets of the Old Testament was the Spirit of Christ; and with Paul, who says (1Co_10:4) it was Christ that as a spiritual rock led Israel through the wilderness. This is only the confirmation of what we have long known as the significance of the Son, viz.: that He is the medium, and therefore also the mediator of all and every revelation.
In regard to the second clause of Isa_6:3, the question arises, first of all, what is subject? Is מְלֹּא subject, then earth is the principal notion, and it is said here what fills it. Is כְּבוֹדוֹ subject, then the glory of God is the principal notion and it is declared here how comprehensive it is. The latter alone corresponds with the context. But the further inquiry arises: whether כְּבוֹד, “glory,” is to be taken in an active or a passive sense, i. e., as praise, or as majesty, glory. The two cannot be essentially disconnected. For as God’s glory is everywhere, so in a certain sense also it is everywhere praised. For its very enemies even must involuntarily do it honor (Psa_8:2-3). And I do not see why in our passage one should separate the two. Does it not then become those who sing unceasingly the praise of God in His immediate presence to declare that, not only they, but the entire creation continually proclaims the praise of the Lord? But it says only “all the earth.” Of course: for this song of praise sounds here primarily for one man and for men. It is just in respect to these that the truth is declared, on the one hand comforting, on the other appalling, that the glory of the Lord is everywhere, and everywhere it makes itself known and felt. Comp. Isa_40:5; Hab_3:3; Num_14:21; Psa_72:19.
Isa_6:4. אַמָּה signifies in Hebrew primarily the elbow-socket (Armgelenk-Mutter), i. e., the depression resembling the box screw (Schraubenmutter), in which the arm turns itself, the elbow. The word has this meaning, too, in the noted passage 2Sa_8:1, where it is said that David took from the Philistines אֶת־מֶתֶג הָאַמָּה. The bridle of the elbow is the contrast of מֶתֶג שְׂפָתַיִםIsa_37:29, “the bridle of the lips,” a bridle attached to the elbows. The meaning of 2Sa_8:1 is that the Israelites had the bridle of the Philistines, no longer in their mouths indeed, yet still on their arms, so that they were hindered from the free use of them. Therefore אַמָּה is the elbow, from which the meaning “ell” is derived. Accordingly אמות הספים are the elbows of the sills. The sills are compared to the arms and the joints in the angle are the arm joints or elbows. Because the sills, and in fact both the upper and lower, and as well as the side beams, are joined together in these, therefore they are the centre of motion, and every shock felt in such a centre must be communicated to all the radii. אַמָּה occurs only here in this meaning. סִפִים (only here in Isaiah) are the sills, and primarily the under sills. For the upper sill is called מַשְׁקוֹף and the side posts מְזוּזוֹת (Exo_12:7; Exo_12:22-23). But in our passage סִפִים as denominatio a potiori stands for all parts of the door-way. The verb נוּעַ occurs only in the first part of Isa_7:2; Isa_19:1; Isa_24:20; Isa_29:9; Isa_37:22.—קול הקורא (comp. Isa_40:3) is primarily “the voice of the caller.” But in what precedes it speaks, not of one, but of many criers. Thus we know that קורא is to be taken collectively and as concr. pro abst.
The house filled with smoke.—It was then not full of smoke from the commencement, and still less did a cloud of smoke conceal the Lord as Exo_40:34; 1Ki_8:10. For (Isa_6:1) Isaiah saw the Lord. It has been said, the smoke came from the altar of incense (Isa_6:6) and symbolized the seraphic praise. There may appear some truth in that from a comparison of Rev_5:8; Rev_8:3 sq. But it seems to me that the smoke has still another meaning. In so far as it constitutes an antithesis to the light in which the Lord dwells, it seems to me, wherever it occurs in connection with the appearance of the divine glory, to signify the reverse side of the same, the severity, the wrath of God. Thus here, too, the smoke, with whose appearance is connected immediately in Isa_6:5 the Prophet’s confession of sin and mortal fear, introduces the words of condemnation which the Lord afterward speaks to the Prophet as the manifestation of His holy indignation. Comp. Isa_4:5; Isa_9:17; Isa_14:31; Isa_34:10; Isa_51:6; Isa_65:5.
3. Then said I——is purged.
Isa_6:5-7. After the Prophet had heard the Seraphim praise the holiness of the Lord, after he had beheld them themselves in the splendor of their holiness, and also had seen its consequence, the wrath, imaged in the smoke, he is seized with the feeling of his own sinfulness. Every creature that beholds or comes in contact with an immediate trace of the divine Being, has a sense of not being able to exist under the burden of the absolute majesty (Gen_16:13; Gen_32:31; Exo_33:20; Jdg_6:22 sq.; Isa_13:22; 1Sa_6:19 sq.; 2Sa_6:7). This sense must have made itself felt in the Prophet in the highest degree, seeing he beheld the divine Being in a greater proximity and clearness, than, since Moses at least, ever a man did. He cries, therefore: woe is me (comp. Isa_1:4), I am lost (Isa_15:1; Hos_4:6; Hos_10:7; Hos_10:15), for a man of unclean lips am I, and among a people of unclean lips do I dwell! That he emphasizes just the unclean lips comes from the fact that he had just heard the Seraphim bring an offer of praise with clean lips. In contrast with these circumcised lips he becomes conscious how his are uncircumcised (Exo_6:12); in contrast with these calves of the lips (Hos_14:3) and with this fruit of the lips (Pro_18:20; Isa_57:19; Heb_13:15) he feels that he is quite unfit for such an offering, both in respect to his own person, and in respect to that totality to which he belongs; in fact that this unfitness, when he has gone with it into the jurisdiction of the highest King (Isa_33:22; Isa_41:21; Isa_43:15; Isa_44:6) must bring upon him the sentence of death. “Such is the confession which the contrite Prophet makes; on this confession follows the forgiveness of sins, which is confirmed by a heavenly sacrament, and is extended to him by a seraphic absolution.”—Delitzsch.
The altar, which is mentioned, we must think of as an altar of incense, since any other kind of offering than incense in the heavenly sanctuary is inconceivable, and the glowing coals also indicate an altar of incense. From this altar one of the Seraphim took with the tongs a רִצְפָה “hot coal.” That he took it with the tongs, not only corresponds to the usage of the earthly sanctuary (Exo_25:38; Num_4:9; 1Ki_7:49), but has in any case also its internal reasons, as that even in the sphere of heavenly corporal existence such distinctions occur, or that the touching with the tongs has a symbolical meaning.
רִצְפָה (comp. רֶשֶׁףHab_3:5; Son_8:6) is something aglow, whether coal or stone. The word occurs only here [in Isaiah.—Tr.] In the earthly sanctuary the burning of incense was performed by taking coals from the altar of burnt-offering and pouring them on the altar of incense, and then upon these was scattered the incense (Lev_16:12; comp. Isa_10:1). In the heavenly sanctuary there was no altar of burnt-offering. At all events רִצְפָה designates the glowing body on which the incense was cast in order to burn it. With such a glowing body, therefore, the Seraph touched the lips of the Prophet in order to reconcile him. The Prophet’s lips are touched with fire therefore, and that with the same holy fire out of which proceeds the cloud of smoke. Thus from the place that occasioned in him before the painful feeling of his uncleanness, must the holy fire penetrate and burn out the entire man. It must burn up all uncleanness. The Seraph shows himself here right properly as שָׂרָף, as burner. As water has primarily generating and fructifying power, but secondarily also a judging and destroying power (comp. creation, the flood, and Baptism), so fire has primarily devouring, and thereby judging, purifying, and secondarily warming and illuminating power. Omnia purgat edax ignis, vitiumque metallis excoquit, says OvidFast. iv. 785. Τὸ πῦρ καθαίρει, τὸ ὕδωρ ἁγνὶζειPlut.quœst. Romans 1). Comp. Num_31:23; Herzog’sR. Encycl. IX. p. 717 sq.—As here the touching takes place for the purpose of atonement, so Jer_1:9 it is for the purpose of inspiration; in Dan_8:17 sq.; Isa_10:8 sqq.; Rev_1:17, it is for the purpose of imparting strength.
4. Also I heard—and be healed.
Isa_6:8-10. The Lord Himself now begins to speak. Having seen Him (Isa_6:1), Isaiah now hears Him. “I heard” corresponds to the “and I saw” (Isa_6:1). It is worthy of notice that the Lord asks: whom shall I send? that He, therefore, as it were, calls for volunteers. So we read, too, 1Ki_22:20, that the Lord in an assembly of heaven, portrayed very much as the one here, asks: “Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead?” There it appears, 1Ki_6:23 (from the circumstance that Micaiah would have been a deceiver, if a real transaction were reported in 1Ki_6:19-22) that this prophet only narrates a fictitious vision. But anyway the representation remains that the Lord not only gives His servants and messengers command and commission according to His own election, but also proposes the undertaking of a commission to the voluntary determination. Now when the Lord in our passage, as was said, calls for volunteers, as it were, this is not to be explained by the greater difficulty or danger of the mission. For Isaiah’s mission was not as difficult and dangerous as that of Moses or Jeremiah. Now Moses resists the commission all he can (Exodus 3), though he was an אִישׁ חַיִל, “able man,” as few were. Luther says of him (on the call of Moses, Exodus 3): “Moses begins, as it were, a wrangling and disputing with God, and will not accept this office.” Jeremiah refuses because he feels himself really too young and made of too tender stuff. Ezekiel, too, appears inwardly at least to have had no relish for undertaking the commission. For he is exhorted not to be disobedient (Eze_2:8), and, though he does not express them, his doubts and fears are disarmed (Eze_2:6 to Eze_3:9). Jonah, the most rebellious and self-willed of all Prophets, actually flees from the Lord. All these, who would not, are not even asked if they will, but they must. Isaiah, who will, is asked. It appears, therefore, that the manner of the calling is regulated according to the individuals. Where the Lord in His chosen and prepared instruments (Jer_1:5) observes also the subjective readiness of mind, He affords it the opportunity to manifest itself by the question: “who will.” That the Lord, by this question, would not draw out something concealed from Himself is manifest. For how can a thing be unknown to the Lord? There was, in fact, no one there but Isaiah that could have replied to His question. For, it could only be a man that could be in question for the undertaking of the prophetic office in Israel. No such person except Isaiah was present. The question is therefore a form by which the Lord honors the רוּחַ נְדִיבָה, “free spirit” (Psa_51:14 (12)), that He knew was present in the Prophet, in that He gave it opportunity to manifest itself.
Who are the many for whom the service is to be done? The plural is here as little as Gen_1:26; Gen_3:22; Gen_11:7 mere form (Plur.-majest). It is rather, as Delitzsch expresses it, communicatively intended. Jehovah includes the whole assembly. He honors thereby the assembled ones, by taking for granted that His interest is theirs and their interest His. Isaiah at once replies: “Behold, here am I; send me.” This prompt offer quite corresponds with the strong and bold spirit of Isaiah. There is no need of assuming that he had already been called, and had already been in office for a time. He, the mighty man, is at once conscious that this is his affair. He feels that he can do it, and he will do it, too. We find here not a trace of fear or other consideration. It was, however, no proud self-sufficiency that led the Prophet. He has just been reconciled in fact as a sinner. The flame that blazes in him and impels him must have been a pure flame. He feels himself strong in Him that makes him mighty (Php_4:13; Isa_40:29 sq.). This “here am I; send me” is, however, so grand, in fact, when one reflects on the examples of other prophets mentioned already, it is so unique in its way, that one understands wherefore Isaiah would not put this history of his calling quite in the beginning of his book, but rather makes it the third portal of his prophetic building. He feared this intrepid ready-mindedness would be found incomprehensible. He puts in advance of it therefore two other entrances, that the reader may learn thereby to know him and thus come prepared to this scene of his calling. And, in fact, he that has read chapters 1–4 must confess that here “is a Prophet” (Eze_2:5; Eze_33:33), a man that had the stuff in him, and the right to say, “Here am I; send me.”
In Isa_6:9-10 follows out of the mouth of the Lord Himself the commission that the Prophet must discharge. The manner of imparting this commission is directly the opposite of what is usual among men in like circumstances. One seeks, namely, in giving a servant or messenger a hard commission, to represent it, at least, at first, in the most advantageous light. This the Lord does not do. On the contrary, He plainly emphasizes just the hardest part. He acts as if the Prophet were to have nothing joyous to announce, but only judgment and hopeless hardening. Isaiah is called the evangelist of the Old Testament. But there is not a trace of it found here. It is not once said even that he shall warn, exhort, threaten. But, overleaping all intermediate members, only the sorrowful effect is emphasized, and that with such pointedness, that, what in truth can be only an unintended effect, appears as directly designed. It is as if the Lord would give the intrepid man that had said “here am I, send me,” to understand at once, that he would require all his boldness in order to carry through the commission he undertook. Grammatically the words offer almost no difficulty. The inff. absol. in Isa_6:9 cannot have an intensive meaning, as though the Lord had said: hear and see well, with effort, zeal and diligence. For then must they even attain to understanding. But the Lord would say: spite of the much, and ceaseless hearing they shall still understand nothing. This ceaseless but still fruitless hearing is only the correlative of that ceaseless but fruitless preaching, of which especially Jeremiah so often speaks (Jer_7:13; Jer_7:25; Jer_11:7, etc.). Let it be noticed, too, that Jeremiah every where points, as the cause of this fruitless hearing, to the שְׁרִירוּת לֵב, “the hardness of heart,” and the stiffening of the neck (הִקִשׁוּ אֶת־עָרְפָםJer_7:26). The Prophet never spoke to the people such words as we read in Isa_6:9. Therefore it cannot be the meaning of the Lord that He should so speak. But the Lord would say: Whatever thou mayest say to this people, say it not in the hope of being understood and regarded, but say it with the consciousness that thy words shall remain not understood and not regarded, although they might be understood and regarded, and that consequently they must serve to bring out the complete unfolding of that hardness of heart that exists in this people, and thereby be a testimony against this people and a basis of judgment. Thus Isa_6:10 it is not meant that the Prophet shall do what is the devil’s affair, that is, positively and directly lead men off to badness and godlessness. Rather the Lord can ever want only the reverse of this. If, then, it says: “harden the heart, deafen the ear, plaster up the eyes, that they may not see, nor hear, nor take notice and be converted to their salvation,” still this form of speech seems to me to be chosen for the sake of the Prophet. There is, namely, a great comfort for him in it. For what is sadder for a man of God than to see day after day and year after year pass away without any fruit of his labor, in fact with evidence that things grow rather worse than better? Is it not for such a case a mighty comfort to be able to say: that is precisely what the Lord predicted, yea, expressly indicated as His relative and previous intention. Thus one sees that He has not labored in vain, but that He has performed his task. And inasmuch as that judgment is still only a transition point, and by the wonderful wisdom of the Lord, shall become a forerunner of higher development of salvation, so the servant of God can say this for comfort, that even out of the judgment of hardening, that it is His part to provoke, salvation shall grow. God’s wrath, in fact, is never without love. The preliminary earthly judgments, as is well recognized, are to be regarded as chastenings, that have a becoming-better as their aim. And if a people like Israel suffers one judgment after another through thousands of years, and still never becomes better, until at last the Lord breaks in pieces the economy of the Old Testament, like one shivers an earthen vessel by throwing it on the ground, so just this destroying of the old covenant is the previous condition to the arising of a new one, that attains to what the old one could not. But the individuals themselves whose hardening and judgment is an example and beacon for the after-world? Here we touch on a difficult point. Will those whose fall was the riches of the world (Rom_11:12) be eternally damned, or will their fall here below also for them become some time a means to their conversion and raising them up again? The answer to this appears to me to lie in Romans 9-11 But here is not the place to go into it more particularly.—Heart, ear, eye (comp. Isa_32:3-4) are named as the representatives of the inward sense; the heart represents the will, eye and ear the knowing. The heart shall become fat and covered with grease, and thereby be made incapable of emotion.
After it is said what shall be done in regard to the three organs, it is said what shall be guarded against by such doing; and here a reversed order is observed in respect to the positive phrases. What must be guarded against is something immediate and something mediate. Immediately must seeing, hearing and observing be hindered; mediately the penitent conversion and being saved.
In the N. T. our passage is cited five times. In Mat_13:14; Mar_4:12; Luk_8:10 it is applied to the fact that Jesus always spoke to the people in parables. Thereby was the prophecy of our passage fulfilled. Jesus would manifestly say: Were I not to speak in parables, then they would understand nothing at all; my discourse would outwardly rebound, and not penetrate at all, and consequently effect no condition of responsibility on their part. But as I speak by parables, my discourse at least penetrates so far that a certain relative understanding, and consequently, too, a responsibility, is possible. But in as much as they oppose themselves to the realization of this possibility of understanding, they let it be known that evil has the upper hand in them: thus they pronounce in a measure their own judgment. Our passage is cited in Joh_12:40 as explaining why the Jews could not believe in Jesus spite of the signs He did. To this end our passage is construed in the same sense in which the Synoptists take it: even the signs of Jesus, no matter how near they come, still do not bring about faith, because the susceptibility is wanting. Finally in Act_28:25 sqq. Paul makes use of our passage in order to prove generally the unsusceptibility of the Jewish nation to the preaching of the gospel.
5. Then said I——substance thereof.
Isa_6:11-13. The announcement of the judgment of hardening in Isa_6:9-10 sounds quite absolute. Yet the Prophet hears underneath all that it is not so intended. It is impossible that the Lord should quite and forever reject His people, and abrogate the promises given to the fathers. He asks, therefore, “How long, Lord?” (comp. Psa_6:4; Psa_90:13; Hab_2:6). He would say: What are to be quantitively and qualitatively the limits of that judgment of hardening? The answer is: First there must be an entire desolation and depopulating of the land; and when at last still a tenth of the inhabitants is in the land, that tenth part also must be decimated till nothing is left but the stump of a root or stem. That shall then be the seed of a holy future. The meaning of the words is perfectly clear.
The construction is as follows: and still there is in it (the land) a tenth part, and this is again decimated—after the manner of or in resemblance to the terebinth and oak, in which, when felled, a stump remains, its stump (of the tenth) is holy seed. Therefore a stump always remains, and that suffices to guarantee a new life and a new glorious future. This has been steadily verified in the people Israel, both in a corporeal and spiritual respect. After every overthrow, yea, after the most fearful visitations, that aimed at the very extinction of the people, a stump or stem was still always left in the ground. This people is even not to be destroyed. There is nothing tougher than the life of this everlasting Jew. And in spiritual respects it is just the same. Though every knee seems to bow to the old or the new Baal, yet the Lord has preserved always a fragment (7,000 it is called, 1Ki_19:18) in faithfulness.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
On Isa_6:1. The question: why this vision in the year of Uzziah’s death? coincides evidently with the question: why an Isaiah any way, and why was he needed just at this time? If prophets were to be, then must prophecy at some time culminate; and that happened in Isaiah, the greatest of all the prophets that have written. Thence Isaiah can stand neither at the beginning, nor at the close. Not at the beginning, for he is far in advance of the elementary stadium; he represents the summit. Not at the close, for in the days of decline art cannot flourish. It needs quiet times for its development. Such a quiet time (relatively) was that of the four kings under whom Isaiah labored. Caspari (Beitr. p. 218) says of the Uzziah-Jotham period, that for the kingdom of Judah it was 1) a time of great power and prosperity, 2) beside the time of Jehoshaphat (2 Chr. 17:18, 20), it was the greatest period since its existence by the rending away of the Ten Tribes from the house of David, 3) the longest continued prosperity during its existence, 4) the last that it had till it fell, 5) the only period of prosperity during Isaiah’s prophetic ministry. But this period of prosperity was, so to speak, only the spring-time, the youth and formative period of the Isaiah prophecy. It was under Ahaz especially that it had to make trial of itself. The league with Assyria fastened the gaze of the Prophet on the Assyrian dominion, the Babylonian embassy in Hezekiah’s time (chap. 39) on that of Babylon. Although, even under Ahaz and Hezekiah, there were wars and great distress by means of the Syrians and the Ephraimites, as also by the Assyrians, still the destruction was graciously postponed.
In that time, therefore, when the theocracy began to show its relations to the worldly powers in a decisive way, there appeared a prophet, who, thoroughly cultivated under the prosperous period of Uzziah and Jotham, could recognize the portentous characteristics of the time of Ahaz and Hezekiah, and see deep into the signs pregnant with the future; and who could reveal their meaning with such wisdom, power and art as are seen in the book of Isaiah. When Uzziah died, Isaiah was just old enough and far enough advanced in training to begin the prophetic career; under Ahaz he had attained manly maturity; and under Hezekiah, with glorified vision, like one near his death, he beheld the glories of redemption.
2. On Isa_6:1. Jerome inquires: how could Isaiah have seen the Lord, seeing John says (Joh_1:20) “No man hath seen God at any time,” and God Himself said to Moses: “Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live,” Exo_33:20? He replies to the question: that not only the Godhead of the Father, but also that of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, are invisible to bodily eyes, because one essence is in the Trinity. But the eyes of the spirit are able to behold the Godhead according to the saying: “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” Mat_5:8. And Augustine cites this saying of Jerome approvingly, and comments on it (Epist. ad Fortunatianum) Addendo ergo, etc.: “Therefore by saying in addition, ‘but the eyes of the spirit,’ he makes vision of this sort totally different from every kind of bodily vision. But lest any might think he spoke of the present time, he subjoins the testimony of the Lord, wishing to show what he had called eyes of the spirit: by which testimony the promise is declared, not of a present, but of a future vision.”
3. On Isa_6:2. Foerster explains the fact of the Seraphim covering their feet with their wings as proof that they would confess that their holiness was imperfect and impure in comparison with the absolute holiness of God. For this he cites Job_4:18, “Behold, He put no trust in His servants; and His angels He charged with folly,” and Joh_15:15, “Behold, He putteth no trust in His saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in His sight.”
4. It was even the opinion of many Rabbis that a trace of threeness of the divine essence was contained in the three times holy of the Seraphim. Peter Galatinus (Italian, baptized Jew, Franciscan monk) in his Arcanis catholicae veritatis II. 1, has proved this especially of Rabbi Simon Jochai and Jonatan ben Ufiel (the Targumist). Comp. Raymundus Martini in the pugio fidei, and especially Joh. Meyer in the Dissertatio theologica de mysterio sacrosanctae trinitatis ex solius V. Ti. libris demonstrato. Harderwich, 1712.
On the ground of this recognized reference to the Trinity, this song of the Seraphim has obtained great significance in Christian liturgies to the present time. “Its introduction into them has been ascribed to Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch († 116), and already in a letter of Clement, Bishop of Rome († 100), there is found a hint of it. Pope Sixtus I. († 130) is said to have adopted it into the Romish mass.” Schoeberlein, Schatz des liturg. Chor. und Gemeindegesangs I. p. 333. [On the Trishagion comp. a Bib. Encycl. or Bingham’s Antiquity of the Christian Church, Book Isa_14:2 § 3, 4, and Book Isa_15:3 § 10].
5. On Isa_6:4. If a typical meaning of the shaking of the door-posts is insisted on, it must be sought in that power of the revelation of divine glory that affects and moves everything, impressing both personal and impersonal creatures; and an example must be found in the events attending the death of Christ (Mat_27:50 sq.).
6. On Isa_6:5. “God does not put angels into the pulpit, but poor, weak men. The angels do not know how sinful men are affected; but ministers of the Church, chosen from men, know that well.”—Foerster.
7. On Isa_6:8. Vitringa remarks here that Christian expositors, Grotius excepted, explain the change from the singular to the plural number, in “whom shall I send, and who will go for us” as implying the Trinity. “Calvin, too,” he says, “and Piscator, usually more cautious than others in observations of this sort, here plainly utter this sentiment.” [“This explanation is the only one that accounts for the difference of number in the verb and pronoun.”—J. A. Alexander.—Tr.]. The opinion of the Jews, however, is that God is represented metaphorically here, as taking counsel with His family, i. e. the angels. Vitringa remarks also that Sanctius attributes to Thomas and Hugo the important emphasis laid on the plural “for us,” which involves the meaning “who will go for us and not for himself.”
8. On Isa_6:9-10. What God says to the Prophet here rests on a law that may be called the law of the polarity of the will. For every thing here concerns the will, i. e., that will-do that is conditioned by the will-be (comp. my book, Der Gottmensch, p. 46 sqq.). As in electricity similar poles repel one another, and dissimilar attract, which depends on the principle of deep inward relationship and mutual completion, so in like manner it happens in spiritual life. The Lord says, Joh_8:37 : “My word hath no place in you,” and again, Joh_8:43 : “Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my words;” which question he proceeds to answer himself Joh_8:44): “ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do;” and immediately after He says, Joh_8:47 : “He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God.”
Therefore where the word of God comes in contact with a heterogeneous pole, it is repelled. And not only that, but that negative pole becomes more intensely negative by the exercise of its negative power. And the stronger the power that provokes its energetic reaction, and the oftener this provocation occurs, so much the more is it strengthened in that negation till it becomes quite hardened. The magnet loses its power by disuse, whereas frequent use strengthens it. Thus we find that every where the most glorious, clearest, loveliest testimonies to divine truth are not received where the will is wanting to receive them, i. e., where, to speak biblically, the flesh is stronger than the spirit. Therefore must all prophets of the Lord be hated and persecuted in proportion as they announced the truth mightily and penetratingly; and that hate must attain its climax in opposing Him who was Himself the truth.
8. On Isa_6:13. “Paul, also, when he represents the rejection of the Jews in Romans 11, calls the race, Rom_11:16, a holy root, and, Rom_11:23-25, severed branches that God will again graft in.” Starke.
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa_6:3. The thrice holy of the Seraphim a Revelation 1. Of the holiness of God. 2. Of His glory. 3. Of the Trinity.
2. On Isa_6:5-8. The way of reconciliation to God prefigured by the example of the Prophet Isaiah 1. The beginning of this way is the knowledge of sin: a. occasioned by the knowledge of the holiness of God, b. manifesting itself by the confession of sin, c. constraining one to cry for deliverance (woe is me). 2. The end of this way is the forgiveness of sins: a. made possible by the sacrifices to which the altar points, b. applied by the word and sacrament (the address of the angel and the live coal), c. appropriated by faith (the Prophet yields himself to the action of the angel).
3. On Isa_6:8. Installation address. Whom shall I send? etc. Herein lies: 1. The divine call to office. 2. The high importance of the office. 3. The joyful inspiration for the office. Hahn.
4. On Isa_6:9-13. The fruit of preaching. 1. It is gratifying only in a small portion of the hearers (Isa_6:13 b; Mat_22:14). 2. In most hearers it is rather mournful, because by preaching: a. they are only moved to the full unfolding of their enmity; b. they are made ripe for judgment (Isa_6:11-13 a).
Footnotes:
[1]Or, the skirts thereof.
[2]him.
[3]Heb. this cried to this.
[4]Heb. His glory is the fulness of the whole earth.
[5]elbow joints.
[6]Heb. threshold.
[7]the cry.
[8]Heb. cut off.
[9]Heb. and in his hand a live coal
[10]a glowing-stone.
[11]Heb. caused it to touch.
[12]is covered up.
[13]Heb. Behold me.
[14]Or, without ceasing, etc., Heb. in hearing, etc.
[15]Heb. in seeing.
[16]always.
[17]plaster up.
[18]Heb. desolate with desolation.
[19]will remove.
[20]And great will be the desolation.
[21]Or, when it is returned and hath been broused.
[22]that shall again bum up.
[23]terebinth.
[24]of which in falling a stump remains,
[25]Or, stock or stem.
[26]a holy, seed is their stump.
[27]make war on it.
II.—THE FIRST GRAND DIVISION
Isaiah 7-39
FIRST SUBDIVISION
Chaps. 7–12
Israel’s Relation to Assyria as Representative of the World-Power generally in its Destructive Beginning and Prosperous Ending
Chapters 7–12 deal wholly with the relation of Israel to Assyria. They show how the way was opened for this relation by the unhappy league that Ahaz concluded with the king of Assyria for protection against Syria and Ephraim. The Prophet announces first that the fear of the Syrians and of Ephraim is groundless: but Assyria is to be feared. Taking with Assyria a comprehensive view of all later developments of the world-power, he announces to Israel a second exile, corresponding to that of Egypt as the first, but also a second return, corresponding to that glorious return in which Moses led them. This deliverance will be brought about by a Branch that is to be expected from the house of David, that shall spring as son of a virgin from the apparently dried up root of this house, and, in the might of the Spirit of God, will found a kingdom of peace that shall embrace and have dominion over all nature.
This prophetic cycle divides in three parts. In the first part (Isa_7:1 to Isa_9:6) the Prophet opposes to the false reliance on the aid of Assyria against the apparent danger that threatened from Syria and Ephraim, the ideal figure of a child, that finds its type in the half-frightful, half-comforting phenomenon of the virgin’s son Immanuel, partly in the form of a son born to the Prophet himself: types that at the same time are earnest of a preliminary deliverance.
In the second part (Isa_9:7 to Isa_10:4) the Prophet turns to the Israel of the Ten Tribes, with a short, as it were, passing word. Prompted by their proud words, as if it were a little thing for them to make good the loss so far sustained from Assyria, the Prophet announces to Ephraim that what they regarded as the end was only the first of many degrees of ruin that they were to suffer from Assyria.
In the third part (Isa_10:5 to Isa_12:6) the Prophet turns against Assyria itself. Because it would not be the instrument of the Lord in the Lord’s sense, to it is announced its own destruction, but to Israel deliverance and return by the Messiah the Prince of Peace.
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A.—THE PROPHETIC PERSPECTIVE OF THE TIME OF AHAZ
Isa_7:1 to Isa_9:6
In the beginning of the reign of Ahaz Judah was seriously threatened by the league between Syria and Ephraim. Thereupon Isaiah received the commission from Jehovah to say to Ahaz that there was nothing to fear from Syria and Ephraim. Ahaz being summoned to ask for a sign as pledge of the truth of this announcement, refused to do so. In punishment a sign is given to him. He must hear that a virgin of the royal house, probably his daughter, is pregnant, and will bear a son. But this son of a virgin shall receive the exceeding comforting name, “Immanuel.” Before he will be able to distinguish between good and evil, the lands of Syria and Ephraim shall be forsaken and desert. But danger threatens from that side from which Ahaz hopes for help and deliverance—that is, from Assyria. For Assyria will turn the holy land into a desert. Shortly after, the Prophet announces that a son will be born to himself. He does not do this publicly, however, but to two reliable men. At the same time the Prophet must set up a public tablet with the inscription, Maher-shalal-hash-baz. When the boy was born, he received these words as his name. And it was revealed as the meaning of the words, that before the boy could say father and mother, the spoil of Damascus and Samaria would be carried away by the king of Assyria. By this second child, then, substantially the same thing was predicted as by the first, the son of the virgin. Both prophecies must in general have occurred in the same period, in the beginning of the reign of Ahaz (743 B. C). Only the announcement of Immanuel precedes somewhat that of Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Wherefore this double prediction of the same thing? It seems to me that the announcement of Immanuel was intended immediately for the royal family. For it was a sign involving punishment (comp. comment on Isa_7:14). But the people, too, were mightily concerned in this affair. Therefore there was given to them a special sign by Maher-shalal. Such is the extent of the two prophecies at the beginning of Ahaz’s time. It is seen that each has for its central point the future birth of a child. From Isa_8:5 on follows a series of short utterances, all of which relate to the same subjects. The words Isa_8:5-8 are a warning directed primarily to Ephraim, not to despise the kingdom of Judah, nor to over-estimate the power of Syria and Ephraim, for Assyria will overflow the latter like a stream, and then, of course, Judah too. Isa_8:9-15 contains a threatening proclamation to the nations of that time that conspired against Judah, and a warning to Judah not to fear these conspiracies, but rather to let the Lord be the only subject of fear. Finally a conclusion follows (Isa_8:16 to Isa_9:6) which sounds almost like the testament of the Prophet to his disciples. For, after a brief prayer to Jehovah to seal the law and testimony in the hearts of his disciples, he sets forth himself and his disciples as living signs and wonders that exhort men to have faith in Jehovah, warns against the temptation to superstitious divination, and exhorts to cleave to the law and testimony. For only therein, in the troublous days to come, may be found comfort and restoration.
And now that the prophet’s testament may be also a prophetic testament, prayer and exhortation merge into a prophetic vision. The gaze of the Prophet is directed to the remote future. Dark lies the future before him. But just in the quarter that the darkness is deepest, in the least regarded northern border of the holy land, he sees a bright light arise, which marvellously (one involuntarily calls to mind Correggio’s painting of the Nativity) has its origin in the person of a child, that proves to be the promised Branch of David, and restorer of David’s kingdom to everlasting power and glory. If our conjecture is correct, that we have here the Prophet’s testament to his disciples, then we may well conceive why it is introduced just here. First, it has the same obscure prophetic background that was given by the perspective of the abandonment of Israel to the power of Assyria; and then, like both the chief prophecies described above, it makes the dispersion of that obscurity by the clear light of salvation proceed from the person of a child that is to be looked for.
We may accordingly sketch out the division of our section as follows:
I. The two chief prophecies concerning the birth of the virgin’s son and the Prophet’s Son_7:1 to Son_8:4.
1. The prophecy of the virgin’s son Immanuel. Isa_7:1-25.
a) Isaiah and Ahaz at the conduit of the upper pool. Isa_7:1-9.
b) Isaiah in the bosom of the royal family announcing a sign: the Virgin’s Son Immanuel. Isa_7:10-25.
2. Isaiah giving the whole nation a sign by the birth of his son Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Isa_8:1-4.
II. Supplements.
1. Those that despise Shiloah shall be punished by the waters of the Euphrates, Isa_8:5-8.
2. Threatening against those that conspire against Judah, and against those that fear these conspiracies, Isa_8:9-15.
3. The testament of the Prophet to his disciples, Isa_8:16 to Isa_9:6.
a) Prayer and exhortation merging into prophetic vision, Isa_8:16-22 (Isa_9:1).
b) The light of the future proceeding from a child, that is to be born of the race of David, Isa_9:1-16 (2–7).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–3 stood--not necessarily the posture of standing; rather, were in…
stood--not necessarily the posture of standing; rather, were in attendance on Him [MAURER], hovering on expanded wings.
the--not in the Hebrew.
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seraphim--nowhere else applied to God's attendant angels; but to the fiery flying (not winged, but rapidly moving) serpents, which bit the Israelites (Num 21:6), called so from the poisonous inflammation caused by their bites. Seraph is to burn; implying the burning zeal, dazzling brightness (Kg2 2:11; Kg2 6:17; Eze 1:13; Mat 28:3) and serpent-like rapidity of the seraphim in God's service. Perhaps Satan's form as a serpent (nachash) in his appearance to man has some connection with his original form as a seraph of light. The head of the serpent was the symbol of wisdom in Egypt (compare Num 21:8; Kg2 18:4). The seraphim, with six wings and one face, can hardly be identified with the cherubim, which had four wings (in the temple only two) and four faces (Eze 1:5-12). (But compare Rev 4:8). The "face" and "feet" imply a human form; something of a serpentine form (perhaps a basilisk's head, as in the temples of Thebes) may have been mixed with it: so the cherub was compounded of various animal forms. However, seraph may come from a root meaning "princely," applied in Dan 10:13 to Michael [MAURER]; just as cherub comes from a root (changing m into b), meaning "noble."
twain--Two wings alone of the six were kept ready for instant flight in God's service; two veiled their faces as unworthy to look on the holy God, or pry into His secret counsels which they fulfilled (Exo 3:6; Job 4:18; Job 15:15); two covered their feet, or rather the whole of the lower parts of their persons--a practice usual in the presence of Eastern monarchs, in token of reverence (compare Eze 1:11, their bodies). Man's service a fortiori consists in reverent waiting on, still more than in active service for, God.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–3 The Inaugural Vision, Isa_6:1-4.
The Inaugural Vision, Isa_6:1-4.
[This could not be an inauguration of Isaiah to the prophetic office, for that he had filled during Uzziah’s reign, (see Isa_1:1,) and probably the last preceding four chapters (2-5) are records of some of his previous publications. It seems more properly the inauguration of a new and fearful period in Judah’s theocratic history; marking the crisis of hopelessness, the nation’s utter giving over, at the close of good Uzziah’s reign. The divine Presence is in the holy of holies, and a herald is called for, and the prophet answers. His message (Isa_6:9-13) announces that such is now the state of Judah’s mind that all preaching will harden the heart, and that the sentence of long desolation is now pronounced, its execution certain, its duration for ever, except for a remnant which will return from the banishment and produce the Messiah.]
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1. I saw — An insight into the invisible world. The prophet’s mind is in communication with heaven, but his mode of apprehension is by symbol. The holy of holies in the temple, with the veil removed, is the scene where the vision occurs. It is told us, in Joh_12:41, that the “Lord,”
=Jehovah, whom Isaiah saw in this vision, was the yet unincarnated Jesus. [Compare the much sublimer theophany of Revelation iv, where see notes. Isaiah gives the apocalypse of Jerusalem’s downfal, John of the mystical Babylon’s.] In this vision the beholder sees the sovereign Jehovah on his throne, high and lifted up, with the folds of his train, or skirts, filling all the temple. Above the throne were standing or hovering, as attendant ministers before the ineffably glorious One, seraphim, or burning ones; beings with the radiance and glory of fire — an essence, so to call it — which symbolized certain intense qualities of character. The word is here only used with this sense in Scripture. It is from שׂרŠ, (saraph,) to burn, and the being is evidently spoken of as wearing a human form, with brilliant fiery appearance, covered with wings. [This word, to burn, is often used in the Old Testament, and for some reason the noun saraph, burner, signifies a serpent. Rabbi Solomon says, (quoted by Barnes,) “serpents are called seraphim, because they burn men with the poison of their teeth.” Better, however, is perhaps the suggestion of Nagelsbach, (Lange’s Bibelwerk,) that serpents were called burners from the resemblance of their vibratory creeping to the vibrations of a flame; they were flamers. And these present holy beings are called burners, not as serpents, but as representing, or, as we may say, incarnating, the burning, consuming purity and holiness of God. Hence their ascription, holy, to God, indicates their own holy nature. They are pure flames of purity and love; and though seen in repose by the prophet — they have a radiant human form — yet we may conceive that when on the wing, sent forth by Jehovah, they may become (what the flying flamingo of the south seems to be) a darting flame. As fire they either purify or destroy, as the object they touch may be; they purified the prophet, they consumed the guilty people, all save the final remnant.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1. In the year that king Uzziah died] i.e.…
1. In the year that king Uzziah died] i.e. about 740 b.c.; see Chronological Note, pp. lxxv f. Whether the event happened before or after the king’s death cannot be determined. It lends an additional interest to the vision if we adopt the latter view, and regard this as the divine answer to the anxious foreboding thoughts which naturally arose in a susceptible mind at the death of a strong and successful ruler. The earthly king has passed away, and now Isaiah sees the true King in His glory.
I saw also the Lord] Many codices read here Jehovah, but the name in the received text is Adonai, the Sovereign (see on ch. Isa_1:24). The word “also” answers to nothing in the original. The words high and lofty apply to the throne, not to Jehovah Himself, as in ch. Isa_57:15.
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his train filled the temple] The skirts of His vesture fill the whole space, and on these alone, not on the person of Jehovah, Isaiah allows his eyes to rest.
1–4. Jehovah appears to the prophet in human form, and as a King, seated on a throne, surrounded by ministering servants who sing His praise (cf. 1Ki_22:19 ff.). The scene is the Temple (Isa_6:1), where Isaiah probably was when the vision occurred. There is no occasion to suppose that a “heavenly palace” is meant. What the prophet sees is the spiritual reality of which the Temple was a symbol, Jehovah’s presence as King in the midst of His people. Cf. ch. Isa_8:18.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 (1) In the year that king Uzziah died.—Probably before…
VI.
(1) In the year that king Uzziah died.—Probably before his death. Had it been after it, the first year of king Jotham would have been the more natural formula. The chapter gives us the narrative of the solemn call of Isaiah to the office of a prophet. It does not follow that it was written at that time, and we may even believe that, if the prophet were the editor of his own discourses, he may have designedly placed the narrative in this position that men might see what he himself saw, that all that was found in the preceding chapters was but the development of what he had then heard, and yet, at the same time, a representation of the evils which made the judgments he was commissioned to declare necessary. On the relation of the call to the prophet’s previous life, see Introduction.
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The date is obviously given as important, and we are led to connect it with the crisis in the prophet’s life of which it tells. He had lived through the last twenty years or so of Uzziah’s reign. There was the show of outward material prosperity. There was the reality of much inward corruption. The king who had profaned the holiness of the Temple had either just died or was dragging out the dregs of his leprous life in seclusion (2Ch_26:21). The question, What was to be the future of his people? must have been much in the prophet’s thoughts. The earthquake that had terrified Jerusalem had left on his mind a vague sense of impending judgment. It is significant that Isaiah’s first work as a writer was to write the history of Uzziah’s reign (2Ch_26:22). (See Introduction.)
I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne.—Isaiah had found himself in ‘the court of the Temple, probably in that of the priests. He had seen the incense-clouds rising from the censer of the priest, and had heard the hymns and hallelujahs of the Levites. Suddenly he passes, as St. Paul afterwards passed, under the influence of like surroundings (Act_22:17), into a state of ecstatic trance, and as though the veil of the Temple was withdrawn, he saw the vision of the glory of the Lord, as Moses (Exo_24:10) and Micaiah of old had seen it (1Ki_22:19), as in more recent times it had appeared to Amos (9:1). The King of kings was seated on His throne, and on the right hand and on the left were the angel-armies of the host of heaven, chanting their hymns of praise.
His train filled the temple.—The word for “temple” is that which expresses its character as the palace of the great King. (Comp. Psa_11:4; Psa_29:9; Hab_2:20.) The “train” answers to the skirts of the glory of the Lord, who clothes Himself with light as with a garment (Exo_33:22-23). It is noticeable (1) that the versions (LXX., Targum, Vulg.) suppress the train, apparently as being too anthropomorphic, and (2) that to the mind of St. John this was a vision of the glory of the Christ (Joh_12:41).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Vers. 1-4. THE VISION OF GOD SEEN BY ISAIAH.…
Vers. 1-4. THE VISION OF GOD SEEN BY ISAIAH. It is thought by some that this vision, and its sequel, constitute the original call of Isaiah to the prophetical office, and in order of time precede all the other contents of the book. But the position of the "vision" in the book is strongly against this view. Prophets who relate their original call naturally place it in the forefront of their narrative. (Jer_1:10 Eze_1:1) It is quite possible, as Bishop Lowth says, that this was "a new designation, to introduce more solemnly a general declaration of the whole course of God"s dispensations in regard to his people, and the fates of the nations." The vision itself may profitably be compared with Ezekiel"s first vision, which it much resembles. (Eze_1:4-28)
In the year that King Uzziah died. The year B.C. 759, probably. We cannot determine from the phrase used whether the vision was seen before or after Uzziah"s death. I saw also; rather, then it was that I saw . (comp. Exo_16:6) The Lord. Not "Jehovah," as in vers. 3 and 5, but "Adonay," for greater reverence. Sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. The imagery is, of course, taken from the practice of earthly kings. Elaborate thrones were affected by the great monarchs of Egypt and Assyria (Lepsius, "Deutmaler," pt. 3. pls. 2, 76, 100, 121; Layard, "Nineveh and Babylon," p. 150). Solomon"s throne was perhaps even grander than any of these. (see 1Ki_10:18-20) It was placed at the summit of six steps," so that its occupant was high and lifted up" above all his courtiers. His train. Not his train of attendants, but "the skirts of his robe." Flowing robes were commonly worn by great monarchs. Filled the temple; or, the palace. The same word is used in Hebrew for both. Dr. Kay supposes the prophet to be "in vision gazing on the actual temple to see its veils drawn aside, and instead of the Shechinah enthroned on the cherubim, to behold the King of glory, enthroned on high, the fringes of his royal robe filling the temple, so that no human priest could minister there." But, as Mr. Cheyne observes, "palace is more in harmony with the picture than temple." It is the heavenly palace of the King of kings into which the prophet"s gaze is allowed to penetrate.
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Vers. 1-4. The vision of God.
Sight is a thing of degrees. The healthy eye sees with infinite shades of distinctness and indistinctness, according to the amount of light which is vouchsafed it. The diseased eye has an equal variety of gradation in its powers of seeing, owing to the variations in its own condition. And it is with our spiritual as with our natural sight. The vision which men have of God varies infinitely with varying circumstances from extreme dimness up to perfect distinctness. Amid this infinitude of gradation, depending mainly on the internal condition of the visual power, three main varieties, depending on the circumstances under which the spiritual sight exerts itself, may be distinguished.
I THE NATURAL VISION OF GOD IN THIS LIFE. This is, even in the best men, dim and unsatisfying. "Now we see through a glass darkly". (1Co_13:12) We have to look within us and without us; and, among the confused shadows of things, as sight and memory and imagination present them to us, we have to piece together a conception of that mysterious and inscrutable Power which alone exists of itself and has brought all that is beside itself into existence. How should not the vision be unsatisfactory? Agnosticism denies that any conception which we can form can possibly bear any resemblance at all to the reality, if there be a reality.
Agnosticism, to be consistent, ought not to go so far, but should content itself with saying that we cannot tell whether there be a resemblance or no. Some conception, however, of God all men form who reflect at all; and there is so much likeness among the conceptions of men of all times and countries as to point to some basis of truth underlying them all as the only conceivable ground of the similarity. The conceptions differ less in their essential character than in their vividness and their continuousness. Most men see God" dimly and rarely by snatches, and as through a cloud or mist. A small number have a somewhat clearer and more frequent vision. To a few only is it given to "set God always before their face," and to see him with something approaching to distinctness.
II THE ECSTATIC VISION OF GOD IN THIS LIFE. It has been the privilege of some great saints to be lifted up from earth into that condition which is called ecstasy, and while in that state to have a vision of God. In ecstasy Moses saw "the glory of God" from the "cleft in the rock" on his second ascent of Sinai. (Exo_33:18-23 Exo_34:6-8) In ecstasy Isaiah now saw him. In ecstasy Ezekiel saw him "by the river of Chebar". (Eze_1:26-28) So St. John the divine beheld him in the island of Patmos. (Rev_4:2-11) The exact nature of such visions we do not know; but it is only reasonable to suppose that they were, to those favored with them, revelations of God more distinct, more vivid, more satisfying, than any which belong to the ordinary course of nature, even to those which are vouchsafed to the "pure in heart". (Mat_5:8) They fall short in respect of duration; they are transient some of them, perhaps, momentary. But their vividness seems to have so impressed them on the beholders as to have given them a quasi-permanency in the recollection, which made them possessions for life, and gave them an undying influence on the character.
III THE BEATIFIC VISION OF GOD IN ANOTHER LIFE. What this is no tongue of man can tell. "Eye hath not seen," etc. We know only what the Word of God declares. "Then shall we see him face to face; then shall we know even as we are known,". (1Co_13:12) That this vision transcends even the ecstatic one is reasonably concluded, from its being the final reward of God"s saints the beatitude beyond which there is none other. (Rev_22:4) But it is scarcely reverent to speculate on a theme so far above human imagining. Even Bishop Butler seems to overstep the just limit, when he supposes the beatific vision to include the contemplation of the scheme of the universe in the mind of him who contrived it ("Sermon on the love of God," p. 146). We shall not know what the beatific vision is until we are admitted to it. Perhaps it will not be the same to all. Probably, as on earth "the eye sees that which it brings with it the power of seeing," so, in the world beyond the grave, the vision of God will stand in a certain correlation with the seeing faculty of the beholders. All will "see his face," but all will not be capable of receiving from the sight that which it will convey to some. There are degrees of happiness in the next world no less than in the present. If we would derive from that blessed sight all that God intended man to derive from it, we must in this life cultivate the power of "seeing God" and delighting in the contemplation of him.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-13. The prophet"s call and consecration.
There are turning-points in life which give a meaning to the whole of its after-course. A light may be given to the "mind at such moments by which it may have to steer its course for years. In moments of despondency the man of God will fall back on memory, and encourage himself by the recollection that, having once received and followed Divine guidance, that guidance will not desert him in the future. Such was this moment in the history of Isaiah. Life stood before him like a crowded picture; he foresaw the difficulties with which he would have to contend, yet that picture did not dismay him. "Like Christ from the first beginning of his Messianic labors, he thought of the end, nor did he shrink flora the image of death, so that the fact as it came nearer only confirmed what had Dot seemed strange from the beginning" (Ewald). It is the sense, not of our own faithfulness, nor of our own means, but of a Divine destiny working in and through us that must be our support in weak and lonely hours. To feel that we are moving against the course of the sun, even in the midst of external comfort or popular applause, is to be weak and unnerved; while a stern yet sweet joy fills the soul in the prospect of duty and danger, in which, though we seem to fail, we must be victors forever. Every true man has his hours of prophetic revelation; and well for him whose will is strong, and who abides by the truth of that revelation through good and through evil report, unswervingly to the end.
I THE VISION OF THE DIVINE MAJESTY.
1. Its date is fixed in memory. "The year that King Uzziah died." Dates are the resting-places of memory and fancy, around which accumulates the lore of our years. The accessions and the deaths of kings, battles, peaces, revolutions, acts of parliament that wrought weal for the people, such are the dates of nations. And every soul has its epochs birth, youthful events of pleasure, love, struggle, defeat, success; and for each there must be more to him than the events recorded in the calendar. The most "uneventful" year, as we speak, is eventful for the hidden sphere of many a spirit. How hint and poor are our public memorials of history compared with those private recollections which are written in the invisible ink of memory! Let us own that history means, first and foremost to every one of us, the history of our own spirit. By a Divine providence the fragment of an Isaiah"s, a Jeremiah"s, an Ezekiel"s autobiography is preserved through the ages, to remind us that the inner life, the contact of God with the soul, is our real concern, our deepest interest. Between the two dates on the tombstone that will mark our entrance into the world, our passage from it, what a record must lie, stored in the archives of eternity of visions beheld, of voices heard, whether obeyed or disregarded! "In the year that King Uzziah died.
2. It is a vision of the sublimity of God. Seated on a high, exalted throne, God in this image is conceived under the analogy of the Ruler. Father and Ruler such is the Bible view of God; his rule based upon his fatherhood, his fatherhood imparting benignancy and tenderness to the sterner character of the Lawgiver of the universe. But here the Father seems for the moment absorbed in the awful Sovereign, whose throne is in the heights of heaven, his footstool earth. It is only his skirts that are visible to the awe-struck gaze of the prophet. Amidst the most magnificent scenes of external nature, the Alps or the Andes, we may gain a passing soul-expanding vision of the Highest still only part revealed, but much more hidden. The verdure bejeweled with flowers, the forests glancing with the luster of dazzling birds of plumage, these may represent the vesture of the great King, hinting an unutterable beauty on which none can look and live. And so in the inward or moral world. In the history of a people or of a man there are moments when God, in the still more impressive might of his holiness, sweeps by, an awakening and a purifying Spirit. Or in higher moments of devotion we may gain a momentary glimpse of that pure love, so full of terror yet so full of blessing, which burns at the core of things, and whose light is reflected in the light of every human conscience. Yet these are partial revelations, like that to the prophet; glimpses of the skirts of Jehovah"s majesty, tastes of a "burning bliss" which in its fullness could not be endured. It is this sense that there is a beauty all around us, ready at any moment to break into glowing manifestation, were not our mortal eyes too dim to look upon it; an eternal music from which this "muddy vesture of decay grossly closing us in" protects us, which otherwise might paralyze by its thunderous tones; it is this sense which does, or which should, impress a habitual reverence upon the mind. We should all be able to look back upon moments of our history when we have seen in the inner chamber of the mind something of what Isaiah saw, and to cherish the recollection as a lore never to be forgotten. For if we have never known a time when we were reduced into insignificance in the presence of God, and felt that he was all and we were naught, and that the best tradition about God must be hushed into silence before what we personally know of God, we have missed an elementary lesson which, when once obtained, adds weight and worth to all our after-experience.
3. The seraphs and their song. "Seraphs stood high around or, "above him." It is impossible to gain a true notion of the seraphic figures without consulting works of art. Like the cherubim and the griffins and the sphinxes, their origin is in the remotest fore-time. All these were, in fact, among man"s earliest efforts to represent to himself in visible art the Divine power which he felt to be working in and through nature; in the flash of the lightning, the thunder"s roar, the might of the blast, and all those mysterious sounds and sights which usher in the changes of the year. As this is the only place where the seraphim are named, their character must remain for the most part speculative. Similar winged figures are, however, found in Oriental sculpture (such as those in the British Museum) as attributes of a sovereign. And we can hardly be wrong in considering them as appropriate signs of Jehovah"s sovereignty over nature in the vision of Isaiah. Wings in art-figures generally denote the wind. If, then, we compare the passages in the Old Testament whence Jehovah"s power is described as revealed in storm and wind, e.g. Psa_18:10 ("He rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind") or Psa_104:3, 4 ("Who walketh upon the wings of the wind; who maketh his messengers spirits, his ministers a flaming fire"), we may gain a fair understanding of what is meant. The stormy winds at the turning-points of the year reveal force the force of the omnipotent Creator. And at the same time, the Creator is concealed behind, as well as revealed in, these expressions of his might. And so the seraphic figures are seen by the prophet doubly veiled by their own wings in face and feet. For we can neither look upon the face of God nor follow the viewless track of his footsteps. As the noble verse of Cowper aptly expresses it"God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.
We shall not be far wrong if we find this truth symbolically set forth by the six-winged seraphic figures of the prophet"s vision. But the wind is full of music as well as of might, and the seraphs give utterance to a solemn song, which falls into two members, sung antiphonally by these celestial choristers. "One called to the other," just as the priests in the temple-music below. Profound and weighty is the burden of this alternate chant"Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts! The fullness of the whole earth is his glory!
How shall we think of the holiness of Jehovah? As height, like that in which the seraphs sing a nature and a life so "far above" our base and groveling ways? Alas for us, if we do not ever recollect in our worship that, high as yonder empyrean above this "dim spot that men call earth," distinct as the clouds in fleeciest white from the stagnant and foul spots below, are the thoughts of Jehovah above our thoughts, and his ways above our ways! Shall we think of holiness as separation? Woe to us if we know not that purity, which, like the flame, retirees to wed with ought that is alien to itself; which, like the light, divides and discriminates the evil from the good wheresoever it comes! The thrice-holy God is none other than the supremely pure Intelligence, the perfect chastity of Love. But the infinite glory as well as the holiness of Jehovah is celebrated. It is the "fullness of the earth," teeming with life, throbbing with mysterious forces, covered with a rich robe of rare embroidery, holding rich treasures in her keeping; which embodies to our thought the nature of God in its vast extent, just as the pure sky represents the intensity of that nature as a principle of holiness. Silent and inaccessible as sun and stars, he is yet near to us in the throbbing of great nature"s heart nay, of our own. "Speak to him, then! for he hears, and spirit with spirit may meet; Closer is he than thy breathing, nearer than hands and feet.
"God in all this was the thought of Paul the apostle, as of Isaiah the prophet. Incarnate in the flower and in the stem, vocal in the "sound of many waters," or in the tinkling of brook or murmur of zephyr; there is nothing in the world in which he is not revealed. "Thou art, O God, the Life and Light Of all this wondrous world we see! Its glow by day, its smile by night, Are but reflections caught from thee: Where"er we turn, thy glories shine, And all things fair and bright are thine.
4. The yoke of God. A loud cry is heard even above the hymn of the seraphim, and it causes the thresholds to tremble. The thunder was among all ancient nations listened to as the voice of God. It is the natural expression of supreme and irresistible power, before which man, in the last height of his own intelligence and power, must bow. Instantly the smoke soars from the altar, and the temple is filled with smoke. Worship is man"s answer to God"s voice the answerer his conscience, the answer of his heart. Nor can we truly worship without the sense of being face to face with unutterable mystery. For behind the most glorious visions remains he "whom no man hath at any time seen, nor can see;" at the heart of the thunder is that Divine emotion which must slay us were it fully discharged into our souls. The rising smoke may fitly typify that sacred silence, the "offspring of the deeper heart," in which our worship should begin and end.
II THE PROPHET"S CONSECRATION.
1. The effect of the revelation on his mind. First, there is the sense of utter weakness. When the true glory of the spiritual world bursts upon us, it seems as if we must die. Every difficulty conquered brings us a new sense of strength; every human being we have fairly faced in the consciousness of our own manhood we may reduce to our own level; for one man is virtually the peer of every other, the world over. But who can look and live in the presence of the white intense light of the pure and burning Spirit of God? Already, like Abraham, (Ge 18) the man feels himself as if reduced to "dust and ashes;" or, like Moses, that he cannot see the Eternal and live, but must shelter himself in a cleft of the rock, and hide behind the hand of God; (Ex 33) or, like Manoah, forebodes a deathful doom as he gazes into the mystic altar-flame. (Jud_1:13) In Greek and other Gentile legends we read of children receiving a nightly birth of fire as the condition of immortality, the meaning of which was that none but those destined to divinity could endure the fiery ordeal Profound enigma of our nature! That we to whom has been imparted the longing for life eternal, the dim consciousness of an undying destiny, should yet know moments when we seem on the verge of "dusty death." But the man whom God calls to be mighty in word and deed must pass through the whole gamut and scale of human emotion, from the lowest mood of self-distrust to that of loftiest confidence in God. No note must be left unstruck in our own heart, if we are to make it sound in the conscience of others. There is, besides, the consciousness inefficiency. The very calling which already glimmers before Isaiah"s mind as his is that for which he finds himself unfit, lie is to be a nabi, a prophet; that is, a man of fluent lips and pure, through which the streams of Divine eloquence are to flow. Alas! how can this be? For he is a man of unclean lips," and will not the truth be muddied passing through them, and so cease to be truth? All this is a typical experience. The man who has never felt unfit will never be fit for any great thing. Jeremiah, at his call, felt that he was "a child;" and Moses that he was "slow of speech and slow of tongue"; (Exo_4:10) and John fell at the feet of the Son of man "as one dead," brain and hand paralyzed, before he took up the pen that glowed with apocalyptic fire. Who is the fit man for God"s ends? The self-confident man? It depends on what we mean by "self-confidence." Appearances deceive; the show of strength is not the same thing with strength itself, nor the demeanor of weakness a certain index of inefficiency. To read our own hearts is our business. And heart-experience may teach us that absolute confidence in our resources bodes humiliation, while trembling self-distrust may hint that something is to be done by God through us. "Do the very thing you are afraid to do," is in certain moments the voice of conscience and of God. So it proved in this instance.
2. Purification and pardon. One of the burning beings flies to the prophet"s side, bearing a herded stone (for such seems to be the meaning of the word ritzpah) forming part of the altar, and detached without difficulty from it. With this he touches the lips of the trembling seer, saying, "Lo! this hath touched thy lips, and so will thy guilt depart, and thy sin may be atoned for." More meaning can be condensed into a symbolic action than into any mere words. Fire is the enemy of all impurity; and the idea of a fire-baptism as the means of cleansing is deeply rooted in the lore of olden time. In this respect it seems nearly allied to the sprinkling of blood. And just as when Moses sprinkled all the people with the sacrificial blood, or the priests sprinkled the altar and other sacred objects, one drop seemed sufficient to diffuse ceremonial cleanness on the object on which it fell, so the mere touch of the hot coal or stone is enough to signify the completeness of the purification. It is not the quantity of the fiery element, but the quality, which does the work. A small spark may kindle a mass of fuel, or, falling on the hand, spread a keen pain through all the nervous network of the body; so a glimpse of God, a touch from his hand, may change the mood of our being for a lifetime. It may set up a glow which shall not die down till all that is selfish, sensual, base, in us shall lie in ashes. The sense of guilt lies deep in the mind; and never is it so clear and keen as in moments of bodily sickness or mental depression. The moment when we are tempted to say, I cannot help it," there rises up the thought that there is help in God, and therefore that we are not helpless. No sooner does the cry of weakness, the complaint concerning the unclean lips, escape Isaiah, than the eternal evangel, in all its supernatural strength to heal, comes homo to his heart. For this is the eternal gospel" in its essence, whether borne by lips of seraph, prophet, or Son of God: "Thy guilt will depart, thy sin may he atoned for." And in those blessed moments when we grasp this message in its fullest meaning, and believe it in its inmost truth, the heart is set free, and, despite present fetters and prisons in which fact or fancy holds us bound, we know that it will not ever be thus. Then, indeed, the yoke of duty becomes easy, the burden of toil, for the sake of the love which pardons and emancipates, light.
3. The call to service. Again the august and dominant voice of the Eternal is heard: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" A ready answer, full of devotion, full of self-abandonment, comes from that lately overwhelmed heart: "Here am I; send me." Out of weakness Isaiah has been made strong, and there is no hesitation now. There is "triumph lingering in his eyes, wide as of some swimmer"s who descries help from above in his extreme despair." The foolish imprudence which cries, "Here am I; send me," without having calculated the cost of the enterprise and the extent of the resources, is not that of Isaiah. Still less is the unfaithful trifling with one"s powers and opportunities under the excuse of modesty, or the delight in dreams of action rather than in action itself, seen in him. We see some men rashly staking their future on the cast of a die, impetuously crossing a Rubicon; others lingering on the brink, or moving superstitiously in a fancied circle, beyond which seems to lie the frowning impossible. And we see a third class who have learned the Divine magic of the word "obey," and who alone move safely and with high heart to ends greater than their dreams. The servant"s readiness, his quickness of eye and ear, is what we need. Can we allege that we have never seen our vision, heard our call from the unmistakable voice? If the plea he sound, then our mistakes and aberrations cannot be charged against us. But can we maintain such plea so long as there is any meaning in the words" truth" and" duty?" Truth is ever beckoning to us, duty"s low clear voice is ever sounding, though the paths to which they guide lie but dimly before. The call to act is for us all; the call to act greatly but for God"s elected few. Let us not mistake our wishes for Divine commands, nor in vanity create a destiny which is only our own fiction. Still less let us treat impressions which have seized us and shaken us with awe, and against which reluctant flesh and blood have struggled, as dreams to be set aside and fancies to be overcome. If, after straining eye and ear, God seems to leave you through wide tracts of life"s way to struggle with your ignorance and to work out your problems unaided, be it so. This is your call. If otherwise you are the subject of strong and extraordinary impressions, reaching into the reality behind the shows of things, hearing with open ears where others know but confused sounds, be it so. Your call is more direct. If only we will not indulge the blindness of those who will not see, the deafness of those who stop their ears, the proud weakness of those who hate to obey, all may be well.
III THE MISSION.
1. It will be thankless and disappointing. Isaiah is to go and waste, as it seems, his eloquence upon dull ears, upon intelligences sealed up, and hearts that are proof against religious feeling. The light of truth as it streams from him will encounter rocks that will not melt in the sun, natures that can neither be softened nor sweetened. It is the height of a preacher"s joy when every word comes back to him a silent echo from the conscience of the people; and his day of mourning is when he feels himself to be speaking in a valley full of dry bones, or before beings who seem to have life and conscience, set are but as specters of men. In his best moments it seems that all the eloquence is in the people, and he is gathering up in a mist" from them that which he is to "return upon them in a flood." In other moments of discouragement it seems that he is alone in the world, with a sublime cry upon his lips, now become meaningless, because there are none to whom it has a meaning. We know the legend of St. Antony preaching to the fishes; and, indeed, it seems better to talk with the dumb creatures whom we can win to silent sympathy, than to a people which does not consider." The company of the ox or the ass seems better than that or men who have become as stocks and stones, and worse than senseless filings." The preacher and teacher will know these trials, and let him recollect that it is pro uncommon experience. We find its pathos repeated in different ways in all the great prophets, in John the Baptist, the voice in the desert," and in Christ himself. Ate we to cease crying when the echo ceases? Rather let us go on until we hear once more the truth coming back to us. Let us believe that what is true to us in our inmost heart will one day be true for all the world. One of our great countrymen said that he was wont to iterate the same statement again and again until he heard it on the tongue of common talk; and this was a statesman to whom the people owed the greatest material blessings. The test of truth is not the way in which it is received, but the immediate reflection of it in our own mind.
2. The gloom of the time will deepen. "How long, O Lord?" The answer describes a prophet shut in by clouds and mist, or overhung by some all-pervading pall of gloom. Sin is to go on working out its waste, until there be an empty and depopulated land., Things bad begun to make themselves strong by ill." And there are times when evil must be left to gather to a head and run its full course. It may even be the part of the prophet to hasten it on its way. But when we say, "Things are getting worse and worse," let us remember that beyond the worst remains the best, and after last returns the first; for God is the principle of an inexhaustible and unconquerable life.
3. The gleam of hope. There is now visible at the close a gleam on the dark horizon, denoting a coming dawn. A section, an elect few, a tenth, will survive these coming disasters. The fire of judgment and purification, of which the burning seraphs are symbolic, must wither the goodly branches of the national tree, and leave the stem all blackened and charred. Still the stump will remain with its root still fastened in the earth. "Just as the trunk of terebinth or oak, deeply and ineradicably sunk in the earth, bears constantly new shoots, an image of eternity and immortality, springing from an inward "rejuvenating power," so with the spiritual life of the nation and the individual. Here, then, we see how the deepest seriousness and sadness is yet compatible with undying hope.
(1) The nation that hopes in the Eternal can never perish. That terebinth root lives on; all fresh developments of Christianity spring from its undying life.
(2) The man who hopes in the Eternal shall be saved. He may, he must, pass through the fire of trial; but if he endure to the end, he shall be saved. Amidst his ashes he will discover fresh life; for there is hope of the tree, and hope of the man, that though felled, he shall rise again.
(3) Holiness is the secret of life. It is health, it is the sanity of the mind which has made truth its portion, God its delight, and his service its eternal choice. J.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Ver. 1. The vision of God.
"I saw... the Lord," writes the prophet. These simple, strong words suggest to us
I THE VISION WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE. "NO man hath seen God at any time," our Lord declares; and his declaration is sustained by the philosophic truth that he who is a Divine Spirit must be invisible to mortal eye. So far as our apprehension by sense is concerned, God must remain, to every human being, "the King eternal, immortal, invisible." Himself, in his own essential nature, we cannot look upon.
II THE VISION WHICH IS EXTRAORDINARY. God has, on some few occasions, granted special and particular manifestations of himself such that those to whom they were vouchsafed might say, without impropriety, that they had "seen the Lord." Of this kind were the burning bush, (Ex 3) the vision granted to Moses on the mount, (Exo_34:5, Exo_34:6) that of Micaiah, (1Ki_22:19) this one narrated in the text, those of the Apocalypse. In these cases there was a manifestation of Deity in Some form, temporarily assumed, cognizable by the senses, and bringing the soul into close communion with the Eternal One himself.
III THE VISION WHICH IS CONSTANT. It is something more than poetry to think and speak of God as being in the various objects and operations in nature. It is something deeper than fanciful sentiment, and truer than Pantheistic thought, to say that "nature is the robe of God." For his power is immanent in all living things. The forces of nature, which are working everywhere and in all things, are, in truth, the out-workings of his own Divine hand, in constant and regular, and therefore in measurable and reliable activity. When we watch them, we do well to feel that we are near to him; they are directly suggestive of him, and we ought not to be able to regard them with interest without reaching and resting in him of whose presence and skill and love they continually speak to us.
IV THE VISION WHICH IS HISTORICAL. There are two manifestations of Deity which stand by themselves, the latter being transcendently the greater and more gracious of the two.
1. One was in the visible Shechinah: which remained the constant symbol of the presence of Jehovah for many generations; there in the midst of the camp, visible to any eye that looked within the veil, but only to be seen by one man on one great day in the sacred calendar.
2. The other was found in him who was able to say, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." They who looked on him in the days of his flesh, and who heard his voice, might say with peculiar meaning, "I have seen the Lord." And we, before whose eyes a once-crucified Savior has been conspicuously upheld, (see Gal_3:1) and who, in him, have presented to our spiritual vision the holy and loving One, infinitely" worthy of our reverent affection, may also say, with profound truthfulness, that we too "have seen the Lord.
V THE VISION WHICH IS OCCASIONAL. There are certain exceptional experiences which God grants to us now, when he comes very near to us and reveals himself to our souls. It may be on the occasion of some outward incident, the apparent nearness of death and the future world, or the passing of some intimate friend or relation into the unseen realm, or the powerful presentation of the truth by some faithful minister of Christ, or it may be the sudden illumination of the Spirit of God apart from all special circumstances whatsoever; but there are times in individual history when God comes to us, when he makes his person, his claims upon us, his grace to us in his Son, and with these, our highest, eternal interests, to assume to our souls their true, their grand proportions. Then is it well, indeed, for us so to act that we can thereafter say," I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Vers. 1-4. Symbolic impressions of the Divine holiness.
This is the only vision recorded in Isaiah"s prophecy. It did not come at the beginning of his labors, but as an inauguration to a higher degree of the prophetic office. From the tone of the latter part of the chapter, it is evident that he had found out the rebelliousness and obstinacy of the people, and perhaps had become, like Elijah, greatly distressed and discouraged; needing, therefore, such a reviving and encouragement as this vision was fitted to afford. It introduces the prophet as outside, near the altar in front of the temple. The doors are supposed to be open, and the veil hiding the holy of holies to be withdrawn, unfolding the sight of Jehovah as a Monarch sitting on his throne, and surrounded by his ministers of state. According to the tradition, Isaiah"s assertion that he had seen God was the pretext for sawing him asunder, in the reign of Manasseh. In the record of the vision it should be noticed that Isaiah gives only surroundings of God, no description of the Divine Being himself. If this had been the only vision recorded as granted by God to his people, its explanation would have been difficult. It is, however, but one of a long series, and it appears to illustrate a recognized mode of Divine dealings. God takes opportunities of impressing the Divine holiness and claims by symbolic manifestations. We review the principal illustrations from Bible records.
I The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, "Fear not, Abram: I am thy Shield, and thy exceeding great Reward." And Abram, by Divine direction, took a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon, killed them, divided them, and while a horror of great darkness fell upon him, "behold! a smoking furnace and a burning lamp symbols of Divine holiness between the pieces, and the Lord made a covenant with Abram.
II A vision was granted to Jacob, from which the whole tone of his life was changed, and he began a covenanted, God-fearing career. As he lay wearily on his stone pillow, under the clear-shining stars of an Eastern sky, "behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father... the land whereon thou liest, to thee and thy seed will I give it.
III Moses led the flock of Jethro, one memorable day, to the back side of the desert, and "came to the mount of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And God called unto him out of the midst of the bush symbol of the holiness that consumes and purifies said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I
IV When commencing his arduous life-work, a similar impression was wrought upon Joshua. One day he looked towards Jericho, and lo! "there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand." In answer to Joshua"s question he said, "As Captain of the Lord"s host have I come... Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.
V In the times of the judges Gideon and Manoah beheld angels who delivered messages, and ascended in the smoke of sacrificial fires. Samuel, when a little lad, heard the very voice of God speaking his own name, and entrusting him with prophetic messages. Solomon was honored by God"s appearing to him in a night-dream, and offering the bestowment of the best blessings upon him. Elijah, after the lightning, and thunder, and earthquake, and wind had passed, heard God in the still small voice." Job exclaims, as in the rapture of a vision, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself." Jeremiah was directly set apart for his prophetic work. "The Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.
VI In the New Testament records we find similar scenes. Manifestations of angels to shepherds. A wonderful scone of transfiguration for our Lord himself. The descending sheet, and its strange contents, for Peter. The overwhelming light and voice on the road to Damascus, and the elevation into the third heavens, to see the unspeakable, for St. Paul. And the apocalyptic vision for St. John. Isaiah"s vision is in fullest sympathy with all these. For its explanation, see the exegetical portion of the Commentary. It bore upon the prophet, through its symbols, overwhelming impressions
(1) of the holiness,
(2) of the direct claims of God. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–3 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw…
Isa_6:1-13
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord
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The story of the prophets call--why inserted here
Why the narrative of the prophets call was not, as in the cases of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, allowed to occupy the first place in the book, is a question which cannot be certainly answered.
One conjecture is that chaps. 1-5 were placed first for the purpose of preparing the reader of the book for the severity of tone which marks the end of chap. 6, and of acquainting him with the condition of things in Judah which led to such a tone being adopted. Or, again, it is possible that chap. 6 may have been placed so as to follow chaps. 1-5, because, though describing what occurred earlier, it may not have been actually committed to writing till afterwards--perhaps as an introduction Isa_7:1-25; Isa_8:1-22; Isa_9:1-7. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)
Why did Isaiah publish this account of his call?
Why was it needful to publish a private transaction between God and Isaiah? The only reason we can conceive of is that the prophet needed to give a justification of his public assumption of prophetic work. And that implies in the community a suspicion of prophetic men, and in the young prophets mind struggles and hesitation such as we can easily conceive. This picture of his call he holds up half before himself, as the answer to all the timid fears of his own heart, and half before his countrymen, as his reply to all the objections they might raise against his prophetic commission. This is strongly confirmed when we proceed to look at the message which the prophet is sent to deliver (verses 9, 10). (P. Thomson, M. A.)
The circumstances of the vision
Let us try, if we can, and present to our imaginations some idea of this extraordinary scene. The shades of evening are closing in, and all is still within the sacred precincts of the temple. The daily ritual has been duly observed, and priests and worshippers have withdrawn from the hallowed fane. The noise and stir of the great city, hard by is subsiding; a solemn hush and stillness pervades the place. One solitary worshipper still lingers within the sacred courts absorbed a reverie of prayer. He is a religions and devout man; probably a member of the school of the prophets, well instructed in the faith of his fathers, and familiar with the sacred ritual of the temple, and the lessons that it inculcated. There he is, looking forward possibly to a prophets career, yet feeling keenly the responsibilities which it will involve, and perhaps pleading earnestly to be fitted for his mission. He cannot be blind to the unsatisfactory condition of his people. Amidst much outward profession of religiousness and readiness to comply with the ceremonial demands of the faith, he cannot but discern the presence of barren formalism and hypocrisy, and of a latent superstition that might at any moment, were the restraints of authority removed, blossom out into open idolatry. And who shall say what heart searchings may have occupied his own mind as he knelt there in the temple all alone with God. Was he more spiritual than those around him? Was he sufficiently pure and devout to stand up in protest against a nations sins? One moment all is silence and stillness as he kneels in prayer; the next, and lo! a blaze of glory and a burst of song! Startled and awe-stricken, the lonely worshipper raises his head to find himself confronted with a sublime and dazzling spectacle. His bewildered vision travels up through ranks of light till it finds itself resting for a moment, but only for a moment, on an Object too august for human gaze. I saw also, the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Around that dread Presence the forms of vast and wondrous intelligences of glory, the attendant ministers of the Majesty Divine, seem bending in adoration, and the voice of their worship falls like the roll of thunder on his ear, shaking the very pillars of the temple porch with its awe-inspiring resonance, as they echo and re-echo with answering acclamations the antiphon of heaven--Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
The vision
Isaiah might probably have said, as St. Paul did on a like occasion, Whether I was in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, but he would undoubtedly have confirmed the plain meaning of his words that the vision was a reality and a fact. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
The Symbolism of Isaiahs vision
There is a variety of opinion among the commentators as to the basis of the symbolism of this vision. Some assert that the imagery by which the prophet sets forth the wealth and splendour of the heavenly kingdom is taken entirely from the scenery and ritual of the temple; that when the worshippers had left, and the sacrifices had been offered, and only a few of the most devout remained for prayer and vigil, Isaiah, lingering with the few, unsatisfied and perplexed, beheld this vision, and consecrated himself to his prophetic activity: In this view the picture presented of the celestial world is the inner features and ritual of the temple idealised and expanded. Dr. Cheyne casts doubt upon this interpretation, and leans to the opinion that not the temple but the palace is the point from which the prophets inspired imagination takes its departure. The figures, the messengers, and the throne are from the court, not from the temple. It is impossible wholly to accept either of these views. There is no reason why we should not blend both in our exposition of Isaiahs vision. There are certainly some references to the temple in the altar, the purging away of sin, and the smoke-filled house. In the throne and the train filling the temple there are suggestions of the court. As Isaiah was an attendant on both, it is probable that the ideas under which he sets forth the kingship of Christ, as priestly and yet regal, were drawn from his own observation of the centres of government and worship in his own country. Ideas of righteousness, and sympathy, and sacrifice unite in his conception of the invisible kingdom. (J. Matthews.)
Isaiahs vision of God
Some of you may have been watching a near and beautiful landscape in the land of mountains and eternal snows, till you have been exhausted by its very richness, and till the distant hills which bounded it have seemed, you knew not why, to limit and contract the view; and then a veil has been withdrawn, and new hills, not looking as if they belonged to this earth, yet giving another character to all that does belong to it, have unfolded them selves before you. This is a very imperfect likeness of that revelation which must have been made to the inner eye of the prophet, when he saw another throne than the throne of the house of David, another King than Uzziah or Jotham, another train than that of priests or minstrels in the temple, other winged forms than those golden ones which overshadowed the mercy seat. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)
The inaugural vision of Isaiah
The inaugural vision of Isaiah contains in brief an outline of his prophetic teaching. The passage besides this has a singular psychological and religious interest of a kind personal to the prophet. It consists of a series of steps, each one of which naturally follows upon the other.
I. There is first A VISION OF THE LORD, THE KING, surprising and majestic, with a singular world of beings and activities around Him (cars. 1-4).
II. THIS VISION OF JEHOVAH REACTS UPON THE MIND OF THE PROPHET and makes him think of himself in relation to this great King, the Holy One, whom he had seen; and one thought succeeds another, so that in a moment he lives a history (vats. 5-7).
III. Having passed through this history, the beginning of which was terror, but the end peace, AN ALTOGETHER NEW SENSATION FILLED HIS MIND, as if the world, which was all disorder and confusion before, and filled with a conflict of tendencies and possibilities, had suddenly, in the light felling on it from the great King whom he had seen, become clear and the meaning of it plain, and also what was his own place in it; and this was accompanied with an irresistible impulse to take his place. This is expressed by saying that he heard the voice of the great Sovereign who had been revealed to him proclaiming that He had need of one to send, to which he replied that he would go.
IV. Finally, there comes THE SERVICE WHICH HE HAS TO PERFORM, which is no other than just to take his place in the midst of that world, the meaning of which his vision of the Sovereign Lord had made clear to him, and state this meaning to men, to hold the mirror up to his time and declare to it its condition sad its tendencies, and what in the hand of the great King, God over all, its issue and the issue of all must be (verses 8-13). (A. B.Davidson, D. D.)
Isaiahs vision
I. We have to contemplate A REMARKABLE MANIFESTATION OF GOD.
II. WHAT WAS ITS EFFECT ON THE PROPHET?
III. THE MEANS BY WHICH THE PENITENT PROPHET WAS PURIFIED.
IV. THE CALL OF THE PROPHET.
V. HIS COMMISSION. (T. Allen, D. D.)
Realising God
A mans realisation of the character of God does not depend altogether on his religious experience; it depends also on original capacity, temperament, and on suitable physiological conditions both of body and of mind. (T. Allen, D. D.)
An anticipation of the Incarnation
This vision was an anticipation of the Incarnation of our Lord. St. John tells us distinctly that the glory which the prophet saw was the glory of the Redeemer. No man hath seen God at any time. God is a spiritual being, and therefore He does not appeal to sense. He reveals Himself to faith, to conscience, and to love. But sense is an avenue through which the soul is reached and influenced, and Almighty God, in revealing Himself to man, has not overlooked this constitutional fact. The Incarnation was a tribute of respect paid to our senses. What the prophet saw only in symbol we realise in the form of a glorious historic Presence. (T. Allen, D. D.)
Vision and service
I. THE PROCESSION OF THE DEAD FROM EARTH BRINGS US FACE TO FACE WITH THE ETERNAL KINGDOM. We cannot look upon any visible forms, and note their changefulness and yet the permanence of the ideas they illustrate, and not infer the existence of the world of thought, and law, and reality from which they proceed. But while all life is based on the unseen, and witnesses to its presence ever, the procession of the generations of men on the earth more powerfully still reveals the higher kingdom. Think of the populations that have lived in this planet, and received their first schooling and drill here. After a brief preparation and teaching in the knowledge of the laws and facts of existence, they depart. The procession into the pale kingdoms is endless and crowded. The majority the other side becomes greater each day. It is impossible to think of that succession and deny the celestial world. The law of continuity suggests a life beyond. The principle which secures the completion of all great work rightly begun, speaks of it. Our sense of the justice at the heart of things assures us of a realm of compensation for unrequited labour and unexplained sorrow. The union with God that begins here must be consummated elsewhere. Such facts as these would be forced upon the thought of Isaiah as all Israel mourned the death of their leader and king.
II. THE SUPREME FACT OF THE CELESTIAL KINGDOM IS THE SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST. After Johns statement (Joh_12:41) that Isaiah saw His glory, and spake Of Him, there can be no question with any Christian mind as to the Messianic reference of the manifestation. Isaiah may not have known of the sacrifice and resurrection by which that throne was gained, but the general outlines of the mediatorial kingdom are fully recognised here. I saw the Lord, high and lifted up. All else in heaven was subordinated to that central fact.
1. The supremacy of our Lords rule over heaven and earth, over angels, monarchs, events, the great and the little, the present and the future.
2. The absorbing attraction of that rule. For as prophet, and angels, and men, discern the glory of His love, and mercy, and power, they are constrained to praise.
3. The perfect serenity and sufficiency of His rule are indicated here. Beneath is storm and tumult. He sits above the flood.
4. The universality of His rule is clear. His train fills the temple. Those who went before, and those who came after, cried Hosanna!
5. The design of Christs rule on earth is to bestow pardon and purity.
6. The King who confers cleansing and peace demands service.
7. He does not hesitate to discipline His unfaithful servants until their loyalty is assured.
III. THE EFFECT OF THE VISION OF CHRISTS LORDSHIP ON THE BEHOLDER.
1. A deep sense of personal sinfulness.
2. A deep sense of insufficiency for the work of God.
3. The vision that humbles, clothes with power, fills with certitude, directs our steps, inspires with invincible heroism, and makes us partakers of its glory and its resources. (J. Matthews.)
The vision of God
No truth is more familiar than that God cannot be seen by mortal eye. But God has so manifested Himself that we may say, without impropriety or mistake, that we have seen Him. He did so--
I. OCCASIONALLY, BEFORE THE CHRISTIAN ERA. We have illustrations of this in the case of the burning bush (Exo_3:1-22), of Moses on the mount of God (Exo_34:1-35), of Micaiah, the Hebrew prophet (1Ki_22:1-53), and in that before us in the text. In such experiences, each one of which may have been unlike the others, a very special privilege was granted to these men; so special and peculiar that they felt, and had a right to feel, that they stood in the very near presence of the High and Holy One Himself.
II. PERMANENTLY, IN THE TEMPLE. The religion of the people of Israel differed from that of the surrounding nations in that there was not to be found in their sacred places any image or statue or visible representation of God. If any such were found it was a marked violation of law, a distinct apostasy. Only one visible indication of the Divine presence was permitted, and that was as immaterial as it could be, and was only beheld by one man once in the year--the Shechinah in the Holy of holies. Once a year the high priest might use the words of our text; for when he entered within the veil, on the great day of atonement, he stood in the presence of manifested Deity.
III. ONCE FOR ALL IN THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST. All previous historical manifestations were lost in the presence of the Son of God. He manifested the Divine so that those who saw Him did in truth see God. They saw nothing less than--
1. Divine power, including control over the body and the spirit of man, over the elements of nature, over disease and death.
2. Divine wisdom, reaching to all those truths that concern the nature and will of God, and also the character, life, and destiny of man.
3. Divine purity, shown in an absolutely blameless life.
4. Divine love, shining forth in tender, practical sympathy with men in all their sufferings and sorrows; showing itself in compassion for men in their spiritual destitution (Mar_6:34); culminating in the agony of the garden and the death of the Cross. Well might the Master say that His disciples were privileged beyond kings and prophets, for as they walked with Him they saw the Lord. Conclusion--We can see God in nature, in history, in the outworkings of His providence, in the human conscience and human spirit. But the way in which to seek His face is by acquainting ourselves with, and uniting ourselves to, Jesus Christ, His Son. (W. Clarkson B. A.)
The empty throne filled
I. THE VISION ITSELF. The centre truth is that the Lord of hosts is the King--the King of Israel
II. THE MINISTRATION OF LOSS AND SORROW IN PREPARING THE VISION. If the throne of Israel had not been empty, the prophet would not have seen the throned God in the heavens. And so it is with all our losses, with all our sorrows, with all our disappointments, with all our pains; they have a mission to reveal to us the throned God.
III. THE TEXT SUGGESTS THE COMPENSATION THAT IS GIVEN FOR ALL LOSSES. The one God will become everything and anything that every man, and each man, requires. He shapes Himself according to our need. The water of life does not disdain to take the form imposed upon it by the vessel into which it is poured. The Jews used to say that the manna in the wilderness tasted to each man as each man desired, of dainties or of sorrows. And the God who comes to us all, comes to us each in the shape that we need; just as He came to Isaiah in the manifestation of His kingly power, because the throne of Judah was vacated. So when our hearts are sore with loss the New Testament manifestation of the King, even Jesus Christ, comes to us and says, the same is my mother and sister and brother, and his sweet love compensates for the love that can die, and that lass died. When losses come to us He draws near, as durable riches and righteousness. In all our pains He is our anodyne, and in an our griefs He brings the comfort; He is all in all, and each withdrawn gift is compensated, or will be compensated, to each in Him. So let us learn Gods purpose in emptying heart and chairs and homes. He empties that He may fill them with Himself. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The rectal and mediatorial dominion of God
I. PECULIARITIES OF THIS DOMINION.
1. The law of belief, or what we may otherwise phrase, the law of intellectual humility. Revelation was never intended to be a revelation to our comprehension or to our reason. The revelation of the Bible is made to faith.
2. The law of evangelical faith.
3. The law of holiness. You will find a great difference between the nature of the obedience which God in the Gospel requires and that which earthly governments require.
(1) Earthly governments take cognizance of the outward act, but none at all of the motives, the affections, or the tempers: but God in the Gospel government controls these.
(2) Earthly governments are usually backward in interfering with the private arrangements of commercial and domestic life, and with the personal property of their subjects. But Christianity puts everything under law. Its sway is universal, all-pervading, absolute.
(3) Earthly governments, earthly systems of ethics, either fail to inculcate, or are at positive variance with, much of the more elevated and spiritual morality of the Bible. The great peculiarity of the government of Jehovah the Saviour in this respect is, that He requires men to be holy and not merely to be moral.
4. The law of disciplinary suffering.
II. EXCELLENCIES OF THIS DOMINION.
1. It is a spiritual government.
2. It us a mediatorial government--a government, therefore, of mercy.
3. The supremacy of this dominion might be adverted to. It is a throne high and lifted up above all the thrones and dynasties of the earth. Let this comfort the people of God.
4. It is eternal. (W. M. Bunting.)
The dead king; the living God
Israels king dies, but Israels God still lives. From the mortality of great and good men we should take occasion, with the eye of faith, to look up to the King eternal, immortal, invisible. (M. Henry.)
Government human and Divine
I. THE CHANGE IN CIVIL SOCIETY TAKE PLACE UNDER THE DIRECTION AND GOVERNMENT OF THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD.
II. THE PERMANENCY OF THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT AFFORDS A STRIKING CONTRAST TO THE FADING CHARACTER OF EARTHLY GOVERNMENTS.
III. THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM IN THE HANDS OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST PROCEEDS WITH MAJESTIC PROGRESS NOTWITHSTANDING, AND EVEN BY MEANS OF, THESE VARIOUS CHANGES. (R. Winter, D. D.)
Seeing God
Isaiah saw God: do men see Him today? Was He any nearer to Jerusalem than He is to London and New York? Did that old Hebrew possess faculties different from ours?
1. God can be seen and known. He has been seen and known. Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, Paul, John--all saw Him. He has been seen and known in all lands and among all religions.
2. What do we mean by seeing and knowing God? A spirit cannot be seen with physical eyes. We mean that we are so convinced of the nearness and reality of God that our thinking and living are all determined by that conviction--so sure of Him that we live as if we saw Him by physical sight.
3. But have not men seen their own imaginings, and thought that those were God! Is not a perfect God the noblest work of man! It has not been proved that any have actually known God. It would, in the nature of things, be impossible to demonstrate that to anyone who did not himself possess the same knowledge; but it has been proved that these whom the world always heeds when they speak concerning other things have believed that they had this knowledge; and that faith has been the inspiration of dauntless heroism, most patient endurance, and most sacrificing service.
4. How is God known! Many answers are given. Probably all are partially correct. As each individual sees natural objects from his own standpoint, so must he approach the highest knowledge. We are not asking whether men have known about God, but whether they have known Him. We know about Caesar, but we do not know him; we about the Mikado of Japan, but we do not know him. Many know about God who show no signs of knowing Him. I think that no one has been able to tell how this knowledge is attained: Some say, We are conscious of Him; others, We see Him with the inner eye; others, Reason leads to Him; and others still, He is seen and known in the things which are made. But after all, the most that any can say is, I know Him. Isaiah said, I saw the Lord, but all is hazy and indistinct when he comes to detail
5. All who have learned to love man in the spirit of Christ never can fail of coming to the knowledge of God, for whosoever loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Love is the new life; and love secures knowledge.
6. When we want to know about God we stand before the majesty of an ocean in a storm, before the terrible splendour of Alpine crests and glaciers, beneath the host of the heavens that in solemn silence thread the mazes of the sky, and say: Behold the greatness of God! We study the movement of history, and see how the dispersion of the Jews sent true spiritual ideas into all lands; how the triumphs of Alexander gave a common language to the world; how the supremacy of Rome made nations one; how the carnival of blood called the French Revolution overthrew more abuses than it worked; how the American Civil War ended in the proclamation of freedom, and we say, God is revealing Himself in history. We read the story of the life and death of Jesus, and say, if that is a revelation of God, then He is the One for whom our souls long. But all these revelations may be accepted without personal knowledge. The Father, who is a Spirit, comes to us in spirit; speaks in a still voice in the chambers of memory, conscience, aspiration; and we know Him and yet may not be able to explain that knowledge to those who do not have it. I know my Father; He knows His child. That is the highest human experience. That is eternal life.
7. If eternal life is not a question of dates, of the succession of months and years, but knowing God, then no question is more imperative than, Is it possible for me to know Him? It is a great thing to claim that knowledge. It should never be done irreverently or lightly, but always humbly and with great joy. The mission of the pulpit and the Church is primarily to help men to know God. How, then, may we know Him? However many answers are possible, only one need be given. All who follow Jesus Christ are sure, sooner or later, to realise that, like Him, they, too, are sons of God. (Amory H. Bradford, D. D.)
Removing the veil
1. A king must die! There almost seems to be something incongruous in the very phrase. The very word king means power. The king is the man who can--the man who is possessed of ability, dominions, sovereignty; and the shock is almost violent when we are told that the range of kingship is shaped and determined by death. How the one word suffices for all sorts and conditions of men! The registrar deals with us very summarily! We look through his books. His vocabulary is very limited. He has two words, born and died, and between the two he Can fit in all mankind; there is no exception to disturb his little printed form; we all take our place in it, prince and peasant, emperor and slave. And all this irrespective of character.
2. As kings went in those days, Uzziah had proved himself an admirable king, a wise ruler, a good man. He was distinctly a progressive man, a man of action and enterprise. His energies were not absorbed in merely foreign affairs, nor shaped by the lust of mere dominion. He proceeded upon the principle that a successful foreign policy must be based upon a wise domestic policy; that an efficient and stable rulership must begin at home. I like the way in which the chronicler sums up the kings motives and gives us the very spirit of his home policy, he loved husbandry? He loved husbandry, and therefore you find him hedging his people about with security as they go about their daily life. He digged many wells, he attended to the requirements of irrigation, he laid the hand of protection and favour upon husbandmen and vine dressers, and in every way he showed that he regarded agriculture as the fundamental and primary pursuit of national life. Upon that home policy he built his foreign policy. If you have peace, security, and contentment at the centre it is easier to extend and widen the bounds of your circumference; and with order and prosperity at home, Uzziah was able to enlarge the borders of his empire. He could raise from his devoted people an army of mighty power. The limits of his kingdom were being continually expanded. His name spread far abroad. He was marvellously helped, till he was strong. Such was the nations king; loved by all his people, feared by all his foes. Is it, then, any wonder that King Uzziah--skilled organiser in home affairs, subtle strategist in foreign affairs--became the pillar of the nations hopes, the repository of her trust, the ultimate security of her prosperity and permanence?
3. Now, there is a strange tendency in human nature to deify any person who gives evidence of possessing any kind of extraordinary power. We place them on the hearts throne--the throne on which are centred the souls hopes and which carries with it the ultimate sovereignty and apportionment of life. Extraordinary power of any kind appeals to the godlike within us, and upon the object evincing the extraordinary power we too often fix our trust. Watch the principle in the narrative before us. Here is Isaiah. Before his call and consecration he had lived on the political plane of life. His thought was ever moving among the forces of diplomacy and statecraft. How intensely absorbed he was in the game of national politics! The national problem was to Isaiah a political problem. The ultimate foundation of national prosperity was stable government. The wise handling of political forces was the one essential for the continuity and grandeur of the nations life. That was the plane of thought and life on which Isaiah moved, and on that plane he must find his heroes. He found the hero in Uzziah. What then? He had won Isaiahs admiration. Next, he won his confidence, next his love, next his devotion; then Uzziah became Isaiahs god! Uzziah filled the whole of Isaiahs vision. How now did Isaiahs reasoning run? Thus--What will become of the world when Uzziah dies? When the master of statecraft is gone, in whose hands will the rulership rest? When the political nave is removed, will not all the spokes of the national wheel be thrown into the direst confusion? That was Isaiahs fear, begotten by his hero worship. Well, Uzziah died. What then! Says Isaiah, In the year that King Uzziah died--what?--All my worst fears were abundantly realised? No, no! In the year that King Uzziah died I had my eyes opened; I saw there was a greater, kingdom with a greater King--I saw the Lord. The hero died to reveal the heros God. What, then, did the revelation do for Isaiah? It gave him an enlarged conception of all things. It gave him a new centre for his thoughts and life.
It taught him this, that the ultimate security for all national greatness is not kings and crowns but God. It taught him this, that big armies, and walled cities, and quiet husbandry, and subtle diplomacy, and complex civilisations am not the fundamental forces on which mankind rests. The eternal centre of all true life, the centre which time cannot weaken and which death cannot corrupt, is not diplomacy, but holiness--not Uzziah, but the Lord. The earthly king had come between Isaiah and his God, and it was only when the earthly king was taken away that Isaiah saw the King of kings. I saw the Lord high and lifted up--a limited interest replaced by a larger one, a low standard supplanted by a loftier one, a loom monarch stepping aside to reveal the universal King.
4. This teaching has a most pertinent application to the life of today. Which is the most prominent in English national life today--King Uzziah or King Jesus, the representative of diplomacy or the representative of holiness? Which are we most concerned about--the science of politics or the science of holy living? What are the forces on which we are chiefly depending for the continuity of our national supremacy? The eternal forces are not material, but spiritual, proceeding not from the earth, but coming down from heaven. Material forces must be kept secondary, because they are transient; spiritual forces must be primary, because they are eternal. What is the conclusion of the whole matter? Dont let us lay the stress and emphasis of life upon secondary things--not upon Uzziah, but upon the Lord. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
The Uzziahs of history and the Lord
History tells us the stories of nations who have looked no further than King Uzziah, and who have been accustomed to use the temporal and earthly forces which Uzziah represents. And how has it fared with them? Ancient Phoenicia looked no further than King Uzziah. She built her national temple upon the foundation of commerce, and the only binding force among her people was the relationships of trade. Ancient Greece looked no further than King Uzziah. She raised a palatial national structure upon the foundation of literature and art, and the structure was exceeding beautiful, the wonder and admiration of all time. Ancient Rome looked no further than King Uzziah. She raised an apparently solid masonry, compact and massive, upon a political foundation, and all the stones in the building were clamped together by a tie of patriotism, such as the world has elsewhere never known. Now what has become of them--Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome! How has it fared with the nations so constituted, the houses so built? This is the record. They stood for a time, proud, august, radiant with imperial splendour, fair with the smile of fortune, and reflecting the sunny light of the prosperous day. But the rains descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon those nations, and they fell, and great was the fall of them! Surely that is a lesson for today, that national foundations must not be laid by Uzziah but by the Lord. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
The material fleeting: the spiritual enduring
I spent a little time in the old castle at Stifling, and in one of the rooms of the tower were two curiosities which riveted my attention. In one corner of the room was an old time worn pulpit. It was John Knoxs pulpit, the pulpit from which he used to proclaim so faithfully the message of the King: In the opposite corner were a few long spears, much corrupted by rust, found on the field of Banncokburn, which lies just beyond the castle walls. John Knoxs pulpit on the one hand, the spears of Bannockburn on the other! One the type of material forces, forces of earth and time; the other the type of spiritual forces, forces of eternity and heaven. The spears, representative of King Uzziah; the pulpit, representative of the Lord. Which symbolises the eternal? The force and influence which radiated from that pulpit will enrich and fashion Scottish character when Bannockburn has become an uninfluential memory, standing, vague and indefinite, on the horizon of a far distant time. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
Gain through loss
God puts out our little light that we may see Him the better. When you are looking out of the window at night, gazing towards the sky, you will see the stare more clearly if you put out your gaslight. That is what God has to do for us. He has to put out the secondary lights in order that we may see the eternal light. Uzziah has to die, in order that we may see it is God who lives. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
The compensations of life
I know a little cottage which is surrounded by great and stately trees, clothed with dense and massy foliage. In the summer days, and through all the sunny season, it just nestles in the circle of green, and has no vision of the world beyond. But the winter comes, so cold and keen. It brings its sharp knife of frost, cuts off the leaves, until they fall trembling to the ground. There is nothing left but the bare framework on which summer hung her beauteous growths. Poor little cottage, with the foliage all gone! But is there no compensation? Yes, yea Standing in the cottage in the winter time and looking out of the window, you can see a mansion, which has come into view through the openings left by the fallen leaves. The winter brought the vision of the mansion! My brother, you were surrounded by the summer green of prosperity. It had become your king. There your vision ended. But the Lord wished to give your thought a further reach. He wanted your soul to see the mansion which the Father hath prepared for them that love Him. So He took away your little king. He sent the winter and stripped your trees; and in the year that the little king died you saw the Lord. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
Isaiahs call
I. THE MEDIUM THROUGH WHICH IT WAS GIVEN A VISION. Why was it recorded? Not to indulge the conceit of the prophet, nor even chiefly to certify him to the Jews; but because of the messages to them which it so vividly conveys, and the representative interest of the experience to all spiritual minds.
II. THE STATE OF MIND THE VISION PRODUCED. (verse 5.) Fear, dejection, self-humiliation. Both personally and as representative of the Jewish nation he was convicted of sin is the invariable result of close intercourse with God. Our inborn sin is brought to light and rebuked. And the more Christlike we are the more will our brothers sin likewise weigh upon our hearts. It is in this very experience that our preparation for service begins.
III. HOW THIS WAS DEALT WITH. The fact of sinfulness is not denied by Him to whom it is confessed. It is tacitly confirmed by what takes place. Yet how tender and considerate is the silence of the Judge of all the earth! At once He institutes and sets in operation a mediatorial agency. Such guilt and impurity no water can cleanse: fire is needed, fire from the Consuming Fire.
IV. THE CALL.
I. Couched first in a universal question,--Whom shall I send? etc.
2. After the prophets response the call is more direct and personal: Go, and tell this people, etc the more general call to us consists, as it did to Isaiah, in the sense of our neighbours need and our own duty with regard to supplying it. But if a Christian It in earnest, and willing to surrender himself to the commandment of his Lord, more specific direction will not be wanting.
V. THE RESPONSE. (verse 8) Then said I, Here am I; send me. A sacrifice and a petition. (Homiletic Magazine.)
Isaiahs vision
I. THE INEFFABLE MAJESTY OF GOD.
1. His Supreme authority. Sitting upon a throne, high and lifted ups He is the high and lofty One. He ruleth over all, matter and mind, the evil and the Good.
2. His magnificent upset. His train filled the temple. This is an allusion to the flowing robes of Oriental monarchs, which signalise their stately grandeur, What is the costume of the Infinite? Thou clothest Thyself with light as with a garment. The flowing robes of His majesty filled the temple of immensity.
3. His illustrious attendants. Above it stood the seraphim. Eastern monarchs had numerous princes and nobles as their attendants; but these fiery ones are the ministers of the eternal King.
4. His absolute holiness. One cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The repetition indicates the intensity of their conviction.
II. THE LOFTY SERVICES OF CELESTIAL INTELLIGENCES. Their services are--
1. Reverential.
2. Alert. They do not move with a tardy reluctance in the service of their Lord; but with wings expanded they stand ever ready to execute His behest.
3. Individual. One cried unto another. Each was intensely alive to his own responsibility and duty.
4. Harmonious. After the separate cries there was a blending of all in one grand chorus, The whole earth is full of His glory.
5. Enthusiastic. As the peal of a majestic organ sometimes shakes the cathedral, the voice of one worshipper in heaven is represented as moving the posts of the door. The grand solo sends a tremor through the temple.
III. THE AMAZING CAPACITY OF THE HUMAN SOUL. Isaiah saw all this, not with the outward eye, but with the eye of his mind. Unlike all other creatures on this earth, man has a capacity to see God. He can see God enthroned in the universe.
1. Sin has injured this capacity. Whilst all men have the power to see God, few men do.
2. The Gospel restores this capacity. It opens the spiritual eye, sweeps away the carnal atmosphere, and shows God filling the temple. (Homilist.)
The Trinity in unity
(for Trinity Sunday):--
I. AS TO THE UNIVERSAL PREVALENCE OF BELIEF IN THE DOCTRINE. The doctrine of the Trinity has always been one of those things, to use the language of St. Luke, which have been most surely believed among us.
II. THE SCRIPTURAL PROOF OF THE DOCTRINE. It underlies the whole Bible, and is inextricably interwoven with its fabric and its structure.
III. THE NATURE OF THIS DOCTRINE. We grant at once that it is mysterious, and that it is inexplicable. We walk by faith, not by sight. This great doctrine in its inner being is hidden from us; but it presents a countenance to us full of beauty and loveliness, the features of which are discerned by the eye of faith. It is a golden casket, containing a most precious jewel; locked, if you like, which we cannot open, but enriching us nevertheless. It is a song in a strange language, the meaning of it in a great degree unintelligible, but the melody most exquisite. Practical application of the doctrine--
1. It is bound up with our duty to God. We have duties to pay to each of the three Persons if we would perfectly know our glorious God, if we would worthily magnify His holy name.
2. It is bound up with our hope of salvation.
3. It is bound up with the fulness of Gospel blessings. Take the apostolic benediction; what more can you conceive of spiritual life and blessing than is contained within that? (R. W. Forrest, M. A.)
The command and encouragement to communicate the Gospel
The communication of the will of God to others is connected with the manifestation of the excellency of all the perfections of the Deity, but appears in the passage before us in more especial relation to the glory of the Divine holiness.
I. THE REVELATION WHICH GOD HAS MADE TO HIS INTELLIGENT CREATURES MANIFESTS HIS SUPREME AND PERFECT HOLINESS. The great lesson which the vision taught was the holiness of Jehovah, and that by the manifestation of this the whole earth was to be filled with His glory. This, if not the source and end, has always formed a part, and has often been preeminent in the manifestations God has made to His intelligent creatures. Although inseparably blended with the infinite benevolence and perfect rectitude, we find this perfection more frequently associated with the name, and employed to qualify the attributes of Jehovah, than any other. The arm of the Lord, the emblem of His power, is called His holy arm; His eyes, emblems of omniscience, the eyes of His holiness; His presence, Holy of holies; His majesty, the throne of His holiness; His name, the holy name; Himself, the Holy One. This is equally applicable to the Father, Holy Father,--the Son, Holy Child,--the Spirit, Holy Ghost. All the manifestations God has ever made of Himself, so far as our limited and imperfect knowledge extends, have been those of His holiness. He is holy in all His works. It was because they beheld a new impress of the moral image of Jehovah that the sons of God shouted together for joy. The Divine holiness was also exhibited, under a new aspect, to all orders intelligent creation, in the contrast between the state of the first human pair and that of fallen spirits. All the manifestations which, since the fall the Divine Being has condescended to make to our race, either of His dominion over the affairs of men, the intimations of His will, or the operations of His grace and Spirit on the soul, have been revelations of the Divine holiness. In the human nature of Christ, the glory of Divine holiness was enshrined in a temple more pure than that in which the Shekinah had appeared; here was an altar that sanctified both the giver and the gift; a sacrifice in which Omniscience saw no imperfection; a Priest who needed not to offer sacrifice for His own sins, for He was holy, harmless, and undefiled. The purity of God had been shown in the creation; in the consequences of the fall: the destruction of the old world; and the giving of the law: but on Calvary, though softened by the veil of humanity through which it was revealed, it beamed forth with an intensity and effulgence which rendered it at once the most stupendous and sublime display of the Divine equity and holiness that ever has, or, we have reason to believe, ever will take place. The design of the sacrifice displays more vividly this glorious perfection. It was not simply to redeem from sin, but to redeem to holiness. The dispensation which terminated with the return of the Redeemer to the bosom of the Father, has been followed by another, less imposing, but equally clear and more extensive, manifestation of the Divine holiness, the descent of the Holy Spirit. The volume of inspiration is a revelation of the Divine holiness; all its precepts and promises are holy. With what superiority in moral excellency does this view of the connection between the diffusion of the Gospel and the glorious holiness of Jehovah invest this sacred cause; what impressive instruction does it impart to all engaged in its varied departments, at home or abroad; and how imperative its requirement, that, on every order of agency in its support, direction, and application, holiness unto the Lord should ever be distinctly inscribed!
II. THE COMMUNICATION TO OTHERS OF THE REVELATION WHICH GOD HAS MADE, IS ENJOINED BY DIVINE AUTHORITY. Whatever motives may engage the people of God to communicate to others what He has revealed to them, the Divine command constitutes the foundation, augments the force of every other, and must give vitality and efficiency to all This commission has been either special or ordinary; but the authority has been the same in all, and the obligation equal.
III. KNOWLEDGE OF THE DIVINE WILL, AND EXPERIENCE OF THE DIVINE MERCY, DEMAND AND ENCOURAGE PROMPT AND CHEERFUL OBEDIENCE. This is strongly and beautifully shown in the vision of the prophet. Many of the communications of the Divine will appear to have been preceded by peculiar manifestations of the Divine glory. Thus Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel; the disciples, after the resurrection, and on the mountain in Galilee; Saul, on his way to Damascus; and the beloved disciple in Patmos, were favoured. This was probably designed to strengthen their minds with vivid and solemn impressions of the greatness and majesty of that God whose message they were to declare, and to encourage their fidelity. It is a humiliating fact, that, with authority equally distinct, motives more numerous and strong, and facilities greater than at any former time, discouragements and difficulties still keep many at home, who ought to be on the broad plains of moral death, pointing the nations to the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. These difficulties principally arise from the views which are taken of the nature of the work and the qualifications it requires.
1. Physical unfitness.
2. Deficiency of natural or acquired abilities.
3. Moral unfitness.
4. Attachment to home, and the privations and perils of the work.
5. The magnitude and importance of the work.
Let us glance at the encouragements to obedience.
1. The dominion and omnipotence of the Redeemer.
2. The grateful import of the message.
3. The measure of success, though not the rule of duty, is cheering.
4. The spirit of the times and the aspect of the world. (W. Ellis.)
The idea of God
I. ISAIAHS VISION OF GOD. This was, in all probability, the greatest incident in his whole life, and it left an indelible mark on his thinking, lust as the thinking of St. Paul, and, in fact, his whole activity, sprang out of what happened to him on the way to Damascus. That day he saw God. That is his own account of the matter. Now, as he prophesies through three reigns after the death of Uzziah, Jothams, Ahazs, and Hezekiahs, and probably lived sixty years after this date, he must at the time have been a very young man, and I am strongly inclined to think that this was not only the commencement of his activity as a prophet, but the beginning of his own religious life. It was what, in modern language, would be called his conversion. He says that he saw the Lord, and what better account could anyone give of the crisis by which real religion commences? Before this, Isaiah had heard plenty about God, because he seems to have been the son of a wealthy family living in Jerusalem; but, as another eminent Old Testament writer indicates, there is a vast difference between hearing about God and seeing Him. I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye sooth Thee. It is really just the transition from the religion of tradition to the religion of experience. Religion comes to us all first as a tradition. It is the tradition of our home, the tradition of our Church, the tradition of our country, and so on; but as long as it is merely that, it is vague, unreal, and remote. But some day this God of whom we have heard is realised by us to be here; and this Christ, of whom we have heard that He has saved others, comes seeking for entrance into our own soul; and if we let Him in, our religion passes into an entirely new stage. Now, this was what happened to Isaiah.
II. THE EFFECT OF THE VISION ON HIS WORK. One of the seraphim cried to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. That is to say, two attributes of God overawed and overwhelmed these supernal beings--His holiness and His omnipotence. The one of these is the inner glory of God; the other is the outer glory. He is holy, holy, holy inwardly--that is perfectly, unspeakably, uncompromisingly holy; and then outwardly, the whole earth is full of His glory; or rather, to put it quite literally, the fulness of the universe--that is to say, all the variety of suns and stars, of heaven and earth, of land and sea--all that is His glory, or the garment by which He is made visible. We are wont in secular things to say that the child is father of the man, and if any man does anything very remarkable in the world it will usually be found that he has seen by the instinct of genius very early what he was intended to do. And this is true of Isaiah in the spiritual sphere. What he saw that day in a moment it took a whole lifetime to write out. Manifold as is the truth in the Book of Isaiah, it may all be deduced from these two things--the holiness of God and the omnipotence of God. The one half of his prophecies may be summed up in this word which I borrow from one part of his writings: Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. The book opens with an extraordinary description of the sins of the nation, and this theme occurs all through. And what is all that but just an echo of holy, holy, holy? If God is what the seraphim said that day He was, then sin must be such as Isaiah represents it to be. Then, the other great note of his writings is that which is expressed in the first verse of the opening of the second part of the book: Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God. Isaiah is among all the prophets the prophet of comfort. He was indeed a prophet of calamity, and perhaps in no other book of the Old Testament do we see so clearly as in his the cruel and the irresistible might of the great world monarchs by which the people of that age were surrounded; but mighty as these were, a Mightier was known to Isaiah; One to whom they were just like the dust; One that could call them like dogs to His feet, and wield them as the woodman in the woods wields his axe; and therefore those people whose God is the Lord do not need to fear these great monarchs; let them only trust and hope. That was the Gospel of Isaiah, and who does not see that it is merely an echo of what he heard the seraphim say: The whole earth is full of His glory. For these two ideas about God, Isaiah has two names that recur all through his writings. To denote the holiness of God, he calls Him the Holy One of Israel; and to denote His omnipotence he calls Him the Lord of hosts.
III. THE EFFECT OF THE VISION ON HIMSELF. The revelation made to him that day about God, namely, that He is the Holy One, had an immediate and transforming effect on himself. My idea is that up to this time Isaiah was a man of the world, perhaps indulging in the vices which the young nobility of Jerusalem of that day were famous for; but now, in a moment, in the light of God, he sees the error of his ways and the putridity of his heart, and hence there bursts from him the exclamation: Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. You see he felt his sin chiefly on his lips--i.e., it was sins of speech he became conscious of. I should think that few will doubt that when he says, I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, he means to refer to a prevalence of profanity amongst his companions. Well, is it not the most natural explanation to believe that he had in his previous life given way to that sin, and now that is the sin that burns in on his conscience? But he learned at this point also something very precious about the holy God. As soon as he had confessed his sin, one of the seraphim, doubtless obeying a secret hint from Jehovah, flew to the altar, and, seizing the tongs, lifted from the altar a hot stone, and laid it on the lips of the prophet--on the place where his sin was. The meaning was that his sin was burned away. And this became to Isaiah the cause of one of the greatest features of his work as a prophet in his subsequent life. There is no writer in the Bible that in language more tender and convincing speaks about Gods willingness to forgive. And where did Isaiah learn that! He learnt it that day when the seraph laid the burning stone upon his own lips and burned his sin away. The other half of the revelation, the omnipotence of God, had its immediate practical effect also. But it was the Maker of Isaiah that was playing on his mind on this occasion for His own purpose. He was playing as an artist might play on an exquisite instrument, and in point of fact the mind of Isaiah was one of the most exquisite instruments that have ever existed in this world. There has hardly ever been a mind in this world, in its native structure, so perfect, and the Maker of it was now touching it to splendid issue. He was needing a messenger to that generation, and He had fixed on Isaiah to be His messenger, and He was making him ready. Isaiah had just realised that God was the Omnipotent, to whom all creatures and he himself belonged, and now that the relief and joy of forgiveness were thrilling through him, he realised in a still higher sense he belonged absolutely to the God who had pardoned. (James Stalker, D. D.)
Isaiahs vision in the temple
God often prepares His servants for special work by special grace.
I. The views with which this vision furnishes us concerning GOD.
1. His sovereignty.
2. His holiness.
3. His mercy.
II. The views with which this vision furnishes us concerning ANGELS.
1. Their humility.
2. Their obedience.
3. Their devotion.
III. The views with which this vision furnishes us respecting MAN.
1. His sinful condition.
2. His gracious recovery.
3. His exalted calling. (G. T. Perks, D. D.)
Preparation for the Lords work
I. SPECIAL PREPARATION IS NECESSARY FOR A SPECIAL WORK OF GRACE, WHETHER IT BE IN THE INDIVIDUAL HEART, OR IN THE CHURCH.
II. THE BLESSED RESULTS OF THE WORK WILL BE LARGELY PROPORTIONED TO THE CHARACTER AND DEGREE OF THE PREPARATION. (J. Sherwood.)
The three-fold vision
I. A VISION OF GOD. This can only come to us in our present state indirectly, parabolically, or as here, symbolically. It will include a conception of Gods--
1. Authority: a throne high and lifted up.
2. Glory: His train filled the temple.
3. Holiness: seraphic action and seraphic tones proclaimed Him as the Thrice Holy.
II. A vision OF SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE. Just as the prophet came to understand that there was a vast spiritual universe behind and beyond the material, and of which the material was but the hint and type, so must we. He saw in the seraphim a revelation of the existence of spiritual beings.
III. A VISION OF SELF. There is a vision of his--
1. Own individuality. The right use of the pronouns I and me, is a lesson worth learning, he finds.
2. Relationship to others: I dwell among a people, etc.
3. Sinfulness. To this--
(1) The vision of God as holy;
(2) The vision of spiritual beings as pure; and
(3) The consciousness of his own condition, all contributed.
4. Possible purification. Here we have--
(1) The supernatural means of this purification. A seraph.
(2) The connection of these means with sacrifice. From off the altar, etc.
5. Life mission. Here we note--
(1) Gods care for the world. It is He who cries Who will go for us?
(2) The godly mans response. It is for him eagerly, obediently, loyally to cry, Here am I, send me.--In Isaiah, in Paul, in every godly man, the vision of God leads to unselfish consecration to the good of others. (U. R. Thomas, B. A.)
Isaiahs vision
I. THE VISION WHICH THE PROPHET BEHELD (verses 1-4).
1. Of the Divine supremacy.
2. Of the Divine attendants. Their name signifies fiery ones. There is a remarkable analogy between what is said here, and what is stated of the mysterious beings in the Book of Revelation--They rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. The holiness of God is the great burthen of the celestial songs.
3. The vision connects holiness with the Divine greatness--The whole earth is full of His glory. All His creatures speak His praise.
4. A remarkable effect is stated to have been produced by this celebration of the Divine majesty and holiness--The posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. This may be intended to show the terrors of the Divine holiness, when it is kindled and brought into exercise by human transgression. Smoke is connected in Scripture with the tokens of rising wrath in the Almighty. Deu_29:20; Psa_18:7-8; Rev_15:8.) And the sequel informs us that He had determined to waste the cities, and depopulate the habitations, until there should be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. Observe from the vision here granted to the prophet, how necessary it is that those who go out on the work of the Lord should have a vision of His glory and greatness that they may have a proper sense of the work in which they are engaged. How can he speak of the glory of God, who has not seen it? Or how can he speak of the holiness of God, of the terrors of me Almighty, who has himself no true idea of either?
II. THE EFFECT WHICH THIS VISION PRODUCED UPON THE PROPHETS MIND. Then said I, Woe is met for I am undone. etc. The vision of the glory of God which he beheld, became the means of filling him with reverence, humility, and fear. The prophet was filled with an awful sense of his own depravity in two respects--
1. As a man. Why are the lips mentioned! Not because the depravity, is merely superficial, or resting on the surface; but because the depravity of the heart rends and rages without, and finds vent in the tongue. The vision of the Divine holiness is the best way of impressing our minds with a sense of our own defects and vileness.
2. As an intended messenger of God. He saw how unworthy he was to receive messages from God and go out to the people. If private Christians should feel their depravity and unworthiness, how much more should those who are ministers. He who has not been humbled under a sense of his own unworthiness before God has no right at all to go out to speak to others.
III. THE SUSTAINING VISITATION WHICH WAS MADE IN CONNECTION WITH THE EFFECT PRODUCED. To prevent the prophet from sinking into despair, Divine consolation was given. Notice--
1. The agent sent. One of the seraphim. These are often employed in messages of goodness to man. Observe his celerity--he flew. These celestial beings take an especial interest in the fulfilment of the designs of God.
2. The assurance communicated. Thine iniquity is taken away, etc.
3. The manner in which the assurance is testified. Then flew one, etc. Fire is symbolical of purity. The Spirits influence is compared to fire. This transaction signifies--
(1) The purity of the ministry.
(2) The fervour of the ministry.
IV. THE COMMISSION WHICH, IN CONNECTION WITH THIS VISITATION, WAS PROPOSED AND ACCEPTED. Whom shall I send, etc. Observe--
1. That the messenger who goes out, God sends by His own power.
2. Such messengers are fully devoted to God. They may indeed say Corban with respect to all they have. What an honourable work is this! It is also a work of responsibility.
3. The messenger of God must proceed without debate as to the object of his mission. (J. Parsons.)
Isaiahs vision
The scene is Messianic. Christ is in it.
I. WHAT THE PROPHET SAW AND HEARD. There is no special stress to be laid on the term Lord, as used here. It is not the incommunicable name of essence, Jehovah; but the title of dominion, of mastership and ownership. The awe of His appearance is in the circumstances or surroundings.
1. He is upon a throne, high and lifted up. It is the throne of absolute sovereignty; of resistless, questionless, supremacy over all.
2. He is in the temple, where the throne is the mercy seat, between the cherubim, over the ark of the Covenant, which is the symbol and seal of reconciliation and friendly communion. And He is there in such rich grace and glory that the whole temple is filled with the overflowing robe of His redeeming majesty.
3. Above, or upon, that ample overflowing train of so magnificent a raiment stood the seraphim. These are not, as I take it, angelic or super angelic spirits, but the Divine Spirit Himself, the Holy Ghost; appearing thus in the aspect and attitude of gracious ministry. In that attitude He multiplies Himself, as it were, according to the number and exigencies of the churches and the individuals to whom He has to minister. He takes up, moreover, the position of reverential waiting for His errand, and in an agency manifold, but yet one, readiness to fly to its execution. The cherubim are on almost all hands admitted to be representative emblems of redeemed creation, or of the redeemed Church on earth. And I cannot think it wrong to give to the seraphim in this, the only passage in which the name occurs, a somewhat corresponding character as representative emblems of the active heavenly agency in redemption. Nor is the plural form any objection. I find a similar mode of setting forth the multiform and multifarious agency of the Spirit in the opening salutation of the
Apocalypse--the seven Spirits which are before His throne Rev_1:4). It is the Holy Ghost, waiting to go forth from the Father, to apply and carry forward the threefold work of the Son, as Prophet, Priest, and King; and to do so as if He were becoming seven Spirits in accommodation to the seven churches; as if each church was to have Him as its own; yes, and each believer, too.
4. With this great sight, voice and movement are joined. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. It is not necessarily the voice of the seraphim, though that is the ordinary I would rather take the words abstractly and indefinitely. There is an antiphonic cry or song. It is not said among whom. Of course, the readiest reference is come seraphim. But the text does not require that; it is literally this cried to this. And the attendance of an angelic choir, of all hosts of heaven, may be assumed. Assuredly Christ is here. He is here as revealing the Father. And He is here, not merely outwardly, in outward manifestation; but inwardly, in the deepest inward contact and converse of the soul with God.
II. HOW THE PROPHET FELT (verse 5). It is a thorough prostration.
III. HOW THE PROPHETS CASE IS MET. Lo! an altar; the altar of propitiation, on which lies the ever freshly bleeding victim. One of the seraphim--the Holy Spirit in one of His varied modes of operation--flies, as if in haste, with what is as good as the entire altar and its sacrifice to apply it all effectually. And the effect is as immediate as the touch. Nothing comes in between. There is no waiting, as for a medicine to work its cure; no bargaining, as if a price were to be paid; no process to be gone through; no preparation to be made.
IV. THE SUBSEQUENT OFFER AND COMMAND (verses 8, 9). Two things are noticeable here.
1. The grace of God in allowing the prophet, thus exercised, to be a volunteer for service. The Lord might issue a peremptory command. But His servant has the unspeakable privilege of giving himself voluntarily to the Lord who willingly gave Himself for him.
2. The unreservedness of the prophets volunteering. It is no half hearted purpose conditional on circumstances; but the full, single-eyed heartiness of one loving much, because forgiven much, that breaks out in the frank, unqualified, unconditional self-enlistment and self-enrolment in the Lords host, Here am I, send me. Hence, accordingly, the crowning proof and pledge of his conversion, his cleansing, his revival, his commission. He now learns for the first time, after he has committed himself beyond the possibility of honourable retraction or recall, what is the errand darkly indicated by the heavenly voice, Whom shall I send? At first there may be secretly the feeling that any mission on which such a master may send me must have in it the elements of intrinsic glory and assured triumph. But as it turns out it is far otherwise than that. The case is altogether the reverse. The mission is to be a mission of judgment. But what then? Does the freshly quickened volunteer withdraw his offer? or qualify it? or raise any question at all about it? No; he simply asks one question; a brief one; comprised in three words--Lord, how long? It is a question indicating nothing like reluctance or hesitation; no repenting of his offer; no drawing back. For himself he has nothing more to say. It is only in the interest of his people, and out of deepest sympathy with them, that the irrepressible cry of piety and of patriotism bursts from his lips--Lord, how long? how long? (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)
Isaiahs vision
I. THE LIGHT IN WHICH THE SON OF GOD APPEARS TO THOSE WHO ENJOY AN INTIMATE UNION WITH HIM AND A NEAR CONTEMPLATION OF HIM. He is represented--
1. As seated on a lofty throne.
2. As attended by celestial spirits.
3. As receiving their homage and praise.
(1) The matter of it.
(2) The manner of it.
II. THE EFFECT WHICH THIS INTIMATE UNION AND NEAR CONTEMPLATION WILL PRODUCE.
1. Humility. It is ignorance of God that is the parent of pride. True knowledge of Him tends to humility. Qualities are never seen so clearly as by contrast. The application of a straight rule marks the obliquity of a crooked line.
2. Purification.
3. Self-devotion. As eyes dazzled by the sun see not the glittering of drops of dew upon the earth, so the glory of worldly objects ceases to interest a soul that is taken up with the contemplation of God; while he will be led, by a regard to Him whose word has been the instrument of his purification and encouragement, to devote himself unreservedly to His will. (R. Brodie, M. A.)
Isaiahs vision of Gods glory
I. The first view of the Divine glory in the text is that of RULE AND DOMINION. The Lord is King--this is the first character under which to approach Him whenever we engage in worship.
II. The second view of the majesty and glory of God is that IN HIS NATURE AND PERFECTION HE IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE.
III. The third view of the Divine Majesty is HOLINESS.
IV. The fourth view is that of A PENITENT, ABASED MAN SINKING BEFORE THIS OVERPOWERING MANIFESTATION.
V. The fifth view we have is that of THIS HUMBLE, SILENCED MAN OBTAINING MERCY. (J. Summerfield, M. A.)
Isaiahs vision of Christs glory
He who sat upon the throne Isaiah saw is none other than God Himself. But in his Gospel (Joh_12:41) John tells us, these things said Esaias, when he saw Christs glory, and spake of Him. It is the throne of Jesus. Let us examine the manner in which they who actually saw the vision were affected by it, and this will best show us at once its consummate splendour and the sentiments it should awaken.
I. It was seen by ANGELS AND THE SPIRITS OF THE JUST MADE PERFECT, AND HOW WERE THESE AFFECTED.
1. They were astonished.
2. They were filled with joy. Because Gods grace runs in the channel of justice.
3. They celebrate it with songs.
4. They were ready to advance the cause of redemption, for with their wings they were ready to fly.
II. Let us understand from the experience of Isaiah HOW BELIEVERS ARE AFFECTED BY THE VISION OF OUR TEXT.
1. Isaiah was overwhelmed at the first. He sees in himself nothing but the dry stubble of guilt, and in God an insatiable fire, approaching to devour it. He sees no fitness for heaven, either in himself or those he loved.
2. But he is immediately revived.
3. Then called to active duty.
III. We would now consider HOW THE WORLD IS AFFECTED BY THE VISION THAT ISAIAH SAW. Isaiah preaches the Gospel, but his message is rejected. So now. (J. J. Bonar.)
The enthroned Lord
The Lord is always upon a throne, even when He is nailed to the Cross; this Lord and His throne are inseparable. There are dignitaries that have to study how to keep their thrones; but the Lord and HIS throne are one. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Isaiahs vision of God
I. THE OCCASION OF THE VISION. The emptied throne is the occasion for the manifestation of the true King. Gods purpose in all His withdrawals is the same as His purpose in all His gifts, that we may be led to see Him more clearly as the one foundation of all things, the anchor of our lives and the hope and stay of our hearts. The text not only teaches us the purpose of all withdrawals, but comes to us heavy-freighted with the blessed thought that God is able to fill every place that He empties. This King of Judah was followed by another, a decent enough young man in his way, who on the whole went straight and did Gods will. But that was no comfort to the prophets heart. It did not avail to show him a Jotham behind an Uzziah. What he needed, and what you and I need, to fill the empty places in our hearts and lives, is the vision that flamed upon his inward eye; and the conviction that the Lord, the King Himself, had come when the earthly shadow passed away.
II. THE CONTENTS OF THE VISION. The temple here is, of course, not the mere earthly house, but that higher house of the Lord, of which the temple of earth is a shadow. Isaiahs vision was none the less objective, none the less distinguishable from an imagination of his own, none the less manifestly and marvellously, a revelation from God, because if we had been there we should have seen nothing, any more than the Sanhedrim shared in the vision of the opened heavens which gladdened Stephens dying eyes. Mark, how there is no word of description here of what the prophet saw in the centre of the light. But if we listen to the description given to us, there are two great thoughts in it. I saw the Lord sitting on the throne, high and lifted up--the infinite exaltation of that Divine nature which separates Him from all the lowness of creatures, and makes Him the blessed and incomprehensible infinite foundation of good and of blessedness and the source of life. Correspondent and parallel to this thought of the sovereign exaltation is the song that is put into the mouth of the seraphim. The same idea is expressed by Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, as is expressed by high and lifted up. The holiness of God means the infinite separation of the infinite nature from the finite creature; and that separation is manifest both in the incomprehensible elevation of His being and in the perfect purity of His nature. But whilst thus a great gulf is fixed between us and Him, and we, like the seraphs, have to veil our faces that we see not, and our feet that we be not seen, there is another side to the thought, His skirts filled the temple, and that is paralleled with the other number of the seraphs song, the whole earth is full of His glory. For the glory of God is the manifestation of His holiness. And just as the trailing skirts of that great robe spread over the whole floor of the temple, so through the whole earth go flashing the manifold manifestations of His glory. These twin thoughts, never to be separated from each other, of the infinite separation and the immeasurable self-communication of our Father-God, are all as true for us today as they ever were. That vision is as possible to us as it was to Isaiah. It was no prerogative of the prophets office. Our eyes too, if we will, may behold the King in His beauty. It is Christ that explains to us by His Incarnation how it ever came to pass that to mans inward or outward eyes there was granted a manifestation of Deity in the form of humanity as here; and His permanent revelation of God to us puts us more than on a level with any of those of old to whom were granted the foreshadowings of that historical fact of God manifest in the flesh. He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.
III. THE EFFECTS OF SUCH A VISION ON THE LIFE. A man that sees God will know his own impurity. Where there is a sense of sin roused by the sight of God there will come the fiery coal from the altar that purifies; and where there is a sense of sin, and the taking away of it, by the sacrifice not brought by the prophet, but provided for the prophet by God, there will follow the glad surrender of self for all service, and any mission. Here am I, send me. So this vision of God is the foundation of all nobleness of life. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Isaiah a typical prophet
This is not a story of individual experience only. Isaiah was a typical prophet with special duties, and, consequently, with special qualifications for their right discharge. But in many respects he is also representative of the faithful preacher of the Gospel and worker for Christ. In its inspirations, its aims and motives, its responsibilities and difficulties, the prophets office was like that of Christs servant everywhere, and from this record we may gather lessons of universal application.
1. The prophet must be a man whose soul is possessed with God, to whom God is a reality, not an abstraction, a living and present Friend, not a distant and unknown Ruler. There must be visions of God in the glory of His holiness as well as in the tenderness of His condescension, or there will be neither desire nor capacity to testify of Him. It is the pure in heart who thus see God, and even as Isaiah needed that the live coal from the altar should touch his lips and he should be cleansed from all iniquity, so must Christs messenger know for himself the blessedness of that salvation which he preaches to others. This does not supersede the necessity for intellectual qualifications for the work. Impulse, however pure and noble, cannot fit a man for even the humblest work, much less for the noblest, the most difficult, the most responsible of all. God does lay His hands upon some whom the wisdom of this world would pronounce incompetent for the work. As in the case of Bunyan, the working of His grace in the heart may develop gifts of fancy or of eloquence which might else have lain dormant.
2. Of the special gift of inspiration which Isaiah enjoyed suffice it to say that if that is to be reduced to a genius for righteousness which he shared in common with the rest of the Jewish race, the unique character and supreme authority of the Bible are gone. Define inspiration how men will, it must, at all events, imply that God revealed His will to these prophets and seers by whom the Sacred Volume was penned, as He did not to the great poets and writers of the world, or this Book has no distinctive value.
3. The prophet must be a consecrated servant--one who lives not to do his own pleasure, but to glorify God. (J. G. Rogers, B. A.)
The making of a prophet
1. The experience that made Isaiah a prophet took the form of a vision. It happened in a period of distressing perplexity and gloom. Wrestling passionately with the darkness, craving wistfully for light, the yearning to see God in the mans soul became so intense and sensitive, that the great Heart in heaven answered the longing of the heart on earth, and aspiration leapt into realisation, and faith flashed into vision That sight of God--the living, holy, loving God--made Isaiah a prophet. Preachers and teachers of today! if we are to be prophets, we need lust such a sight of God.
2. The vision of God made Isaiah a prophet; but the immediate result was something different. The first effect of contact with God was to produce in his soul an intolerable sense of sin. Had Isaiah been Pharisee, he would have seized the opportunity of his sudden vicinity to the Almighty to direct the Divine attention to his virtues and superiority over other men. Had he been one of those philosophers in whom the heart has been overlaid by the intellect, he would have calmly proceeded to make observations of the Divine for a new theory of the absolute and unconditioned, in sublime insensibility to the deepest problem of existence, the awful antithesis of human sin and of Divine holiness. Because Isaiah was a good man, his new proximity to God woke within him a crushing horror of defilement and undoneness. And it was so, precisely because, he had never been so near to God before, and had never felt himself of so much importance. Away down here, sinning among his fellow men, the blots and blemishes of his soul seemed of little moment. But up there, in the stainless light of heaven, with Gods holy eyes resting on him, every spot of sin within him grew hot and horrible, every defiling stain an insult and a suffering inflicted on the sensitive holiness of God. These two things are linked together, and no man can divorce them--the dignity of humanity and the damnableness of sin.
3. The ethical process by which, in the imagery of the vision, Isaiahs sense of sinfulness came home to him, is finely natural and simple. It was at his lips that the consciousness of his impurity caught him. I am a man of unclean lips. That, judged by our formulas and standards, might seem a somewhat superficial conviction of sin. We should have expected him to speak of his unclean heart, or the total corruption of his whole nature. But actual conviction of sin is very regardless of our theories, and is as diverse in its manifestations as are the characters and records of men. Sin finds out one man in one place, and another in a quite different spot, and perhaps the experience is most real when it is least theological.
4. Isaiah, in the presence of God, felt within him the pang of that death, which must be the end of unpardoned sin in contact with the Divine holiness. He felt himself as good as dead, yet never in all his life had he so longed to live as now, in sight of God and heaven and holiness. He did not ask to escape. He was too overwhelmed to pray or hope. But to Gods heart that cry of despair was an infinitely persuasive prayer for mercy. Pagan sages and Christian saints alike unite in proclaiming the overmastering strength of sin.
5. Is there, then, no possibility of recovery? no way of cleansing? One there is, and one alone. Aye, if only God so loves our sin-stained race as that His stainless purity enters really into our humanity, and wrestles with our impurity in a contact that must be suffering to the Divine holiness, and is sin cleansing to us--that were salvation surely; that were redemption. But is it a reality! Jesus Christ has lived, and died, and lives again, and we know that His Holy Spirit dwells in us and in our world. That, and that alone, is salvation; not any theories nor any rites, but Gods Holy Spirit given unto us.
6. It was at Isaiahs lips that the sense of sin had stung him, and it was there that he received the cleansing. He, too, might now join in heavens praise and service; no more an alien, but a member of the celestial choir and a servant of the King. That act of Divine mercy had transformed him.
7. He was a new creature, and instantly the change appeared. The voice of God sounds through the temple, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And the first of all heavens hosts to offer is Isaiah A moment before, he had shrunk back, crushed and despairing, from Gods presence, feeling as if the Divine gaze were death to him. Now he springs forward, invokes Gods attention on himself, and before all heavens tried and trusty messengers proposes himself as Gods ambassador. Was it presumption! was it self-assertion? I think, if ever Isaiah was not thinking of himself at all, and was conscious only of God and goodness and gratitude, it was then, when his heart was running over with wonder, love, and praise for Gods unspeakable mercy to him. It was not presumption; it was a true and beautiful instinct that made him yearn with resistless longing to do something for that God who had shown such grace to him. (Prof. W. G. Elmslie, D. D.)
Christian missions
I. WHAT ISAIAH SAW.
II. WHAT HE SAID. Woe, etc.
III. WHAT HE FELT. The assurance of pardon.
IV. WHAT HE HEARD. The pardoned sinner is all ear, all eye. I heard the voice of the Lord, etc.
V. WHAT HE DID. He made consecration. (Richard Knill.)
Isaiahs vision
1. Inasmuch as sitting upon a throne implies a human form, we are inclined to agree with those expositors who speak of Isaiahs vision as a vision of Jehovah-Jesus.
2. The vision rebukes those who entertain the notion that, so far as Divine superintendence is concerned, the universe is in a state of orphanage.
3. The vision likewise rebukes those who picture God as absorbed in the contemplation of His own excellence, and as existing in solitary grandeur. God is of a social nature. Like earthly kings He has a court, as much superior to theirs as He is Himself above them.
3. Isaiahs vision further teaches us, that the creatures referred to, and represented by the seraphim, possess such a knowledge of God, are in such sympathy with Him, and have such confidence in Him, that their lives are spent in an element of worship.
4. The vision was designed to qualify Isaiah for the fulfilment of his course as one of the prophets of Judah; and nobly it answered its purpose. (G. Cron, M. A.)
Isaiahs vision
(for Trinity Sunday):--We have here the proper inauguration of the great evangelical prophet to his future work; and one which, in its essential features, resembles very closely the inauguration which other eminent servants of God, alike under the Old Covenant and under the New, obtained;--Moses (Exo_3:6); Jeremiah Jer_1:6-9); Paul; Joshua (Jos_1:1); Gideon (Jdg_6:12-24); Ezekiel (Eze_1:3); Peter (Luk_5:4-10). Gods messengers go mot until they are sent, and presume not to deliver a message which they have not received directly from the Sender.
1. And, first, he gives the date of the vision. What meaning may there sometimes be in a thing which seems so simple as a date! What significance, what solemnity may it sometimes have, as surely it has here. How simply and yet how grandly are earth and heaven here brought together, and the fleeting phantoms of one set over against the abiding realities of the other.
2. But if Gods throne is in heaven, the skirts of His glory reach even to the earth: His train filled the temple.
3. The glimpse afforded here to the Church of the elder dispensation of that great crowning mystery which the Church of the newer dispensation throughout all the world is celebrating today. In this Trisagion we have, it is true, no more than a glimpse of the mystery; even as in the Old Testament more is nowhere vouchsafed. More, in all likelihood, the Church could not then, nor until it had been thoroughly educated into a confession of the unity of the Godhead, with safety have received; while yet it was a precious confirmation of the faith, when, in a later day, this mystery was fully made known, to discover that the rudiments of it had been laid long before in Scripture.
4. But what is the first impression which this glorious vision makes upon the prophet? His first cry is not of exultation and delight, but rather of consternation and dismay. Woe is me, etc. Even the heathen, as more than one legend in their mythology declares, could apprehend something of this truth. If Jupiter comes to Semele arrayed in the glories of deity, she perishes, consumed to ashes in a brightness which is more than mortality can bear. So, too, it must have fared with Moses, if to him, still clothed in flesh and blood, that over-bold request of his, Show me Thy glory, had been conceded; if it had not been answered to him, Thou canst not see My face; for there shall no man see Me and live. We shall perish, for we have seen the Lord of hosts, was the ever recurring cry of those saints of old; and even such is the voice of the prophet here.
5. Yet that moment with all its dreadfulness is a passage, in some sense the only passage, into a true life. And such the prophet found it. Observe the manner in which sin, the guilt of sin, is here, as evermore in Holy Scripture, spoken of as taken away by a free act of God, an act of His in which man is passive; in which he has, so to speak, to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord; an act to which he can contribute nothing, save indeed only that Divinely awakened hunger of the soul after the benefit which we call faith.
6. Behold in the prophet the fruit of iniquity taken away, and sin purged. Behold the joyful readiness with which he now offers himself for the service of his God. (Abp. Trench.)
The triune Name a call, a message, a chastening
The contemplation of the majesty of God is the source of the largest hope for all His creatures. For beings pure and holy that vision is the call to unfaltering adoration and limitless faith; for men of unclean lips--sin-stained, and labouring in a sin-stained world--it is the reassuring call to the prophets work
I. The vision of God THE CALL OF THE PROPHET.
1. Nowhere is the thought presented to us in the Bible with more moving force than in this record of Isaiahs mission. The very mark of time by which the history is introduced has a pathetic significance. It places together in sharp contrast the hasty presumption of num and the unchanging love of God. The king died an outcast and a leper because he had ventured to take to himself the function of a priest in the house of God; and in close connection with that tragic catastrophe an access to God, far older than that which the successful monarch had prematurely claimed, was foreshown to the prophet in s heavenly figure. Isaiah, a layman, was, it a appears, in the heavenly court, and he saw in a trance the way into the holiest place laid open. The veils were removed from sanctuary and shrine, and he beheld more than met the eyes of the high priest, the one representative of the people, on the one day on which he was admitted, year by year, to the dark chamber which shrouded the Divine presence. For an eternal moment Isaiahs senses were unsealed. He saw that which is and not that which appears. For him the symbol of God dwelling in light unapproachable, was transformed into a personal presence; the chequered scene of human labour and worship was filled with the train of God; the marvels of human skill were instinct with the life of God. The spot which God had chosen was disclosed to his gaze as the centre of the Divine revelation; but, at the same time, he was taught to acknowledge that the Divine presence is not limited by any bounds, or excluded by any blindness, when he heard from the lips of angels that the fulness of the whole earth is His glory. Now, when we recall what Judaism was at the time--local, rigid, exclusive--we can at once understand that such a revelation taken into the soul was for Isaiah an illumination of the world. He could see all creation in its true nature through the light of God.
So to have looked upon it was to have gained that which the seer, cleansed by the sacred fire, was constrained to declare. Humbled, and purified in his humiliation, he could have but one answer when the voice of the Lord required a messenger: Here am I; send me.
2. Isaiahs vision and call are for us also, and they await from us a like response. When he looked upon that august sight, he saw Christs glory; he saw in figures and far off that which we have been allowed to contemplate more nearly and with the power of closer apprehension. He saw in transitory shadows that which we have received in a historic Presence. By the Incarnation God has entered, and empowered us to feel that He has entered, into fellowship with humanity and men. As often as that truth rises before our eyes, all heaven is indeed rent open, and all earth is displayed as God made it. For us, then, the vision and the call of Isaiah find a fuller form, a more sovereign voice in the Gospel than the Jewish prophet could know
3. What does the mystery, the revelation of God, even Christ Col_2:2), mean, the mystery of which we are ministers and prophets, the mystery which brings the eternal within the forms of time, the mystery which shows to us absolute love made visible in the Incarnate Word? It means that the outward, the transitory, is a yell woven by the necessities of our weakness, which half hides and half reveals the realities with which it corresponds; that the changing forms in which spiritual aspirations are clothed from generation to generation and from life to life, are illuminated, quickened, harmonised in one supreme fact; that beyond the temples in which it is our blessing to worship, and beyond the phrases which it is our joy to affirm, there is an infinite glory which can have no local circumscription, and an infinite Truth which cannot be grasped by any human thought; that man, bruised and burdened by sorrows and sins, was made for God, and that through His holy love he shall not fail of his destiny; that all creation is an expression of Gods thought of wisdom brought within the reach of human intelligence; that Gods Spirit sent in His Sons name will interpret little by little, as we can read the lesson, all things as contributory to His praise; that we also, compassed with infirmities and burdened with sins, may take, up the song of the redeemed creation, the song of the unfallen angels, and say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the fulness of the earth is His glory. It means this, and more than this.
II. The vision of God THE MESSAGE OF THE PROPHET. It is this vision which the prophet has to proclaim and to interpret to his fellowmen, not as an intellectual theory, but as an inspiration of life. The prophets teaching must be the translation of his experience. The Gospel of Christ Incarnate, the Gospel of the Holy Trinity in the terms of human life, covers every imaginable part of life to the end of time, and is new now as it has been new in all the past; as it will be new, new in its power and in its meaning, while the world lasts. True it is that such a vision of God--Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier--entering into fellowship with the beings whom He has made, gathering up all things to Himself, making peace through the blood of the Cross, shows life to us, as Isaiah saw it, in a most solemn aspect: that it must fill us, as it filled Isaiah, with the sense of our immeasurable unworthiness in the face of Christs majesty and Christs love: that it must touch us also with something of a cleansing power. And because it is so we can take heart again. For such emotion, such purification of soul, is the beginning of abiding strength.
III. The vision of God THE CHASTENING OF THE PROPHET. In the fulfilment of our prophetic work we need more than we know the abasing and elevating influences which the vision of Isaiah and the thoughts which it suggests are fitted to create or deepen. In the stress of restless occupation we are tempted to leave too much out of sight the inevitable mysteries of life. We deal lightly with the greatest questions. We are peremptory in defining details of dogma beyond the teaching of Scripture. We are familiar beyond apostolic precedent in our approaches to God. We fashion heavenly things after the fashion of earth. In all these respects then for our strengthening and for our purifying, we must seek for ourselves aria strive to spread about us the sense of the awfulness of being, as those who have seen God at Bethlehem, Calvary, Olivet, and on the throne encircled by a rainbow as an emerald: the sense, vague and imperfect at the best, of the illimitable range of the courses and issues of action; the sense of the untold vastness of that life which we are bold to measure by our feeble powers; the sense of the majesty of Him before whom the angels veil their faces. If we are cast down by the meannesses, the sorrows, the sins of the world, it is because we dwell on some little part of which we see little; but let the thought of God in Christ come in, and we can rest in that holy splendour. At the same time let us not dare to confine at our will the action of the light. It is our own irreparable loss if in our conceptions of doctrine we gain clearness of definition by following out the human conditions of apprehending the Divine, and forget that every outline is the expression in terms of a lower order of that which is many-sided; if in our methods of devotion we single out the human nature of the Lord, or rather the manifestation of His unascended manhood, as the object of our thoughts, and forget that He leads us to the Father; if we rest in things visible and do not rather strive to read ever more clearly the spiritual lessons to which they point; if we concentrate our worship in isolated rites and fail to bear to the world of daily thought and action the teaching and the promises of sacraments. (B. F. Westcott, D. D.)
Uzziah and Isaiah: George III and John Wesley
The year in which King Uzziah died must have appeared a very noteworthy one to the Jewish contemporaries of Isaiah, most of whom, in all probability, regarded the death of one king and the accession of another as the most important events which occurred in it. Yet to us, who know that this was the year in which Isaiah was called to the prophetic office, these occurrences shrink into insignificance when compared with the last named fact, although that would take place without attracting the notice of any one besides the prophet himself . . . In the year 1738, on May 24 th, the prince was born who was afterwards known as George III. The event would soon be proclaimed all through England. On the evening of the same day, in a quiet meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, another event took place, known only to one man: John Wesley believed to the saving of the soul, and obtained assurance of sins forgiven. In a few years George III will become to all but a few a name, and nothing more; but John Wesley will become more illustrious, and the influence of his work will be more widely felt, as the ages roll on. (B. Hellier.)
The elevating presence of God
How well I remember when first I visited Switzerland that my bedroom window, perched in Les Avants, looked across the blue of the Lake of Geneva towards that noble line of snow-capped mountains that border its southern shore. It seemed for the brief fortnight that I lived there as though the spell of that mighty vision held me enthralled. I slept and awoke and wrote and conversed as one on whom a new dignity had fallen. Could I ever be mean or selfish in the presence of that mystery of purity and solemnity? This and much more shall be the temper of the soul which by the grace of the Holy Spirit has learnt habitually to recognise and cultivate the presence of God as revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1
CHAPTER IV
ISAIAHS CALL AND CONSECRATION
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740 B.C.
written 735? or 727?
Isaiah 6
IT has been already remarked that in chapter 6 we should find no other truths than those which have been unfolded in chapters 2-5: the Lord exalted in righteousness, the coming of a terrible judgment from Him upon Judah and the survival of a bare remnant of the people. But chapter 6 treats the same subjects with a difference. In chapters 2-4 they gradually appear and grow to clearness in connection with the circumstances of Judahs history; in chapter 5 they are formally and rhetorically vindicated; in chapter 6 we are led back to the secret and solemn moments of their first inspiration in the prophets own soul. It may be asked why chapter 6 comes last and not first in this series, and why in an exposition attempting to deal, as far as possible, chronologically with Isaiahs prophecies, his call should not form the subject of the first chapter. The answer is simple, and throws a flood of light upon the chapter. In all probability chapter 6 was written after its predecessors, and what Isaiah has put into it is not only what happened in the earliest moments of his prophetic life, but that spelt out and emphasised by his experience since. The ideal character of the narrative, and its date some years after the events which it relates, are now generally admitted. Of course the narrative is all fact. No one will believe that he, whose glance penetrated with such keenness the character of men and movements, looked with dimmer eye into his own heart. It is the spiritual process which the prophet actually passed through before the opening of his ministry. But it is that, developed by subsequent experience, and presented to us in the language of outward vision. Isaiah had been some years a prophet, long enough to make clear that prophecy was not to be for him what it had been for his predecessors in Israel, a series of detached inspirations and occasional missions, with short responsibilities, but a work for life, a profession and a career, with all that this means of postponement, failure, and fluctuation of popular feeling. Success had not come so rapidly as the prophet in his original enthusiasm had looked for, and his preaching had effected little upon the people. Therefore he would go back to the beginning, remind himself of that to which God had really called him, and vindicate the results of his ministry, at which people scoffed and his own heart grew sometimes sick. In chapter 6 Isaiah acts as his own remembrancer. If we keep in mind that this chapter, describing Isaiahs call and consecration to the prophetic office, was written by a man who felt that office to be the burden of a lifetime, and who had to explain its nature and vindicate its results to his own soul-grown somewhat uncertain, it may be, of her original inspiration-we shall find light upon features of the chapter that are otherwise most obscure.
I. THE VISION
(Isa_6:1-4)
Several years, then, Isaiah looks back and says, "In the year King Uzziah died." There is more than a date given here; there is a great contrast suggested. Prophecy does not chronicle by time, but by experiences, and we have here, as it seems, the cardinal experience of a prophets life.
All men knew of that glorious reign with the ghastly end-fifty years of royalty, and then a lazar-house. There had been no king like this one since Solomon; never, since the son of David brought the Queen of Sheba to his feet, had the national pride stood so high or the nations dream of sovereignty touched such remote borders. The peoples admiration invested Uzziah with all the graces of the ideal monarch. The chronicler of Judah tells us "that God helped him and made him to prosper, and his name spread far abroad, and he was marvellously helped till he was strong"; he with the double name-Azariah, Jehovah-his-Helper; Uzziah, Jehovah-his-Strength. How this glory fell upon the fancy of the future prophet, and dyed it deep, we may imagine from those marvellous colours, with which in later years he painted the king in his beauty. Think of the boy, the boy that was to be an Isaiah, the boy with the germs of this great prophecy in his heart-think of him and such a hero as this to shine upon him, and we may conceive how his whole nature opened out beneath that sun of royalty and absorbed its light.
Suddenly the glory was eclipsed, and Jerusalem learned that she had seen her king for the last time: "The Lord smote the king so that he was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several house, and he was cut off from the house of the Lord." Uzziah had gone into the temple, and attempted with his own hands to burn incense. Under a later dispensation of liberty he would have been applauded as a brave Protestant, vindicating the right of every worshipper of God to approach Him without the intervention of a special priesthood. Under the earlier dispensation of law his act could be regarded only as one of presumption, the expression of a worldly and irreverent temper, which ignored the infinite distance between God and man. It was followed, as sins of wilfulness in religion were always followed under the old covenant, by swift disaster. Uzziah suffered as Saul, Uzzah, Nadab, and Abihu did. The wrath, with which he burst out on the opposing priests brought on, or made evident as it is believed to have done in other cases, an attack of leprosy. The white spot stood out unmistakably from the flushed forehead, and he was thrust from the temple-"yea, himself also hasted to go out."
We can imagine how such a judgment, the moral of which must have been plain to all, affected the most sensitive heart in Jerusalem. Isaiahs imagination was darkened, but he tells us that the crisis was the enfranchisement of his faith. "In the year King Uzziah died"-it is as if a veil had dropped, and the prophet saw beyond what it had hidden, "the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up." That it is no mere date Isaiah means, but a spiritual contrast which he is anxious to impress upon us, is made clear by his emphasis of the rank and not the name of God. It is "the Lord sitting upon a throne-the Lord" absolutely, set over against the human prince. The simple antithesis seems to speak of the passing away of the young mans hero-worship and the dawn of his faith; and so interpreted, this first verse of chapter 6 is only a concise summary of that development of religious experience which we have traced through chapters 2-4. Had Isaiah ever been subject to the religious temper of his time, the careless optimism of a prosperous and proud people, who entered upon their religious services without awe, "trampling the courts of the Lord," and used them like Uzziah, for their own honour, who felt religion to be an easy thing, and dismissed from it all thoughts of judgment and feelings of penitence-if ever Isaiah had been subject to that temper, then once for all he was redeemed by this stroke upon Uzziah. And, as we have seen, there is every reason to believe that Isaiah did at first share the too easy public religion of his youth. That early vision of his, {Isa_2:2-5} the establishment of Israel at the head of the nations, to be immediately attained at his own word {Isa_5:5} and without preliminary purification, was it not simply a less gross form of the kings own religious presumption? Uzziahs fatal act was the expression of the besetting sin of his people, and in that sin Isaiah himself had been a partaker. "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." In the person of their monarch the temper of the whole Jewish nation had come to judgment. Seeking the ends of religion by his own way, and ignoring the way God had appointed, Uzziah at the very moment of his insistence was hurled back and stamped unclean. The prophets eyes were opened. The king sank into a lepers grave, but before Isaiahs vision the Divine majesty arose in all its loftiness. "I saw the Lord high and lifted up." We already know what Isaiah means by these terms. He has used them of Gods supremacy in righteousness above the low moral standards of men, of Gods occupation of a far higher throne than that of the national deity of Judah, of Gods infinite superiority to Israels vulgar identification of His purposes with her material prosperity or His honour with the compromises of her politics, and especially of Gods seat as their Judge over a people, who sought in their religion only satisfaction for their pride and love of ease.
From this contrast the whole vision expands as follows.
Under the mistaken idea that what Isaiah describes is the temple in Jerusalem, it has been remarked that the place of his vision is wonderful in the case of one who set so little store by ceremonial worship. This, however, to which our prophet looks is no house built with hands, but Jehovahs own heavenly palace (Isa_6:1 -not temple); only Isaiah describes it in terms of the Jerusalem temple which was its symbol. It was natural that the temple should furnish Isaiah not only with the framework of his vision, but also with the platform from which he saw it. For it was in the temple that Uzziahs sin was sinned and Gods holiness vindicated upon him. It was in the temple that, when Isaiah beheld the scrupulous religiousness of the people, the contrast of that with their evil lives struck him, and he summed it up in the epigram "wickedness and worship." {Isa_1:13} It was in the temple, in short, that the prophets conscience had been most roused, and just where the conscience is most roused there is the vision of God to be expected. Very probably it was while brooding over Uzziahs judgment on the scene of its occurrence that Isaiah beheld his vision. Yet for all the vision contained the temple itself was too narrow. The truth which was to be revealed to Isaiah, the holiness of God, demanded a wider stage and the breaking down of those partitions, which, while they had been designed to impress Gods presence on the worshipper, had only succeeded in veiling Him. So while the seer keeps his station on the threshold of the earthly building, soon to feel it rock beneath his feet, as heavens praise bursts like thunder on the earth, and while his immediate neighbourhood remains the same familiar house, all beyond is glorified. The veil of the temple falls away, and everything behind it. No ark nor mercy-seat is visible, but a throne and a court-the palace of God in heaven, as we have it also pictured in the eleventh and twenty-ninth Psalms. The Royal presence is everywhere. Isaiah describes no face, only a Presence and a Session: "the Lord sitting on a throne, and His skirts filled the palace."
"No face; only the sight
Of a sweepy garment vast and white
With a hem that I could recognise."
Around (not above, as in the English version) were ranged the hovering courtiers, of what shape and appearance we know not, except that they veiled their faces and their feet before the awful Holiness, -all wings and voice, perfect readinesses of praise and service. The prophet heard them chant in antiphon, like the temple choirs of priests. And the one choir cried out, "Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts"; and the other responded, "The whole earth is full of His glory."
It is by the familiar name Jehovah of hosts-the proper name of Israels national God-that the prophet hears the choirs of heaven address the Divine Presence. But what they ascribe to the Deity is exactly what Israel will not ascribe, and the revelation they make of His nature is the contradiction of Israels thoughts concerning Him.
What, in the first place, is holiness? We attach this term to a definite standard of morality or an unusually impressive fulness of character. To our minds it is associated with very positive forces, as of comfort and conviction-perhaps because we take our ideas of it from the active operations of the Holy Ghost. The original force of the term holiness, however, was not positive, but negative, and throughout the Old Testament, whatever modifications its meaning undergoes, it retains a negative flavour. The Hebrew word for holiness springs from a root which means to set apart, make distinct, put at a distance from. When God is described as the Holy One in the Old Testament it is generally with the purpose of withdrawing Him from some presumption of men upon His majesty or of negativing their unworthy thoughts of Him. The Holy One is the Incomparable: "To whom, then, will ye liken Me, that I should be equal to him? saith the Holy One." {Isa_40:25} He is the Unapproachable: "Who is able to stand before Jehovah, this holy God?". {1Sa_6:20} He is the Utter Contrast of man: "I am God, and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee". {Hos_11:9} He is the Exalted and Sublime: "Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place". {Isa_57:15} Generally speaking, then, holiness is equivalent to separateness, sublimity-in fact, just to that loftiness or exaltation which Isaiah has already so often reiterated as the principal attribute of God. In their thrice-repeated Holy the seraphs are only telling more emphatically to the prophets ears what his eyes have already seen, "the Lord high and lifted up." Better expression could not be found for the full idea of Godhead. This little word Holy radiates heavens own breadth of meaning. Within its fundamental idea-distance or difference from man-what spaces are there not for every attribute of Godhead to flash? If the Holy One be originally He who is distinct from man and mans thoughts, and who impresses man from the beginning with the awful sublimity of the contrast in which He stands to him, how naturally may holiness come to cover not only that moral purity and intolerance of sin to which we now more strictly apply the term, but those metaphysical conceptions as well, which we gather up under the name "supernatural," and so finally, by lifting the Divine nature away from the change and vanity of this world, and emphasising Gods independence of all beside Himself, become the fittest expression we have for Him as the Infinite and Self-existent. Thus the word holy appeals in turn to each of the three great faculties of mans nature, by which he can be religiously exercised-his conscience, his affections, his reason; it covers the impressions which God makes on man as a sinner, on man as a worshipper, on man as a thinker. The Holy One is not only the Sinless and Sin-abhorring, but the Sublime and the Absolute too.
But while we recognise the exhaustiveness of the series of ideas about the Divine Nature, which develop from the root meaning of holiness, and to express which the word holy is variously used throughout the Scriptures, we must not, if we are to appreciate the use of the word on this occasion, miss the motive of recoil which starts them all. If we would hear what Isaiah heard in the seraphs song, we must distinguish in the three-fold ascription of holiness the intensity of recoil from the confused religious views and low moral temper of the prophets generation. It is no scholastic definition of Deity which the seraphim are giving. Not for a moment is it to be supposed, that to that age, whose representative is listening to them, they are attempting to convey an idea of the Trinity. Their thrice-uttered Holy is not theological accuracy, but religious emphasis. This angelic revelation of the holiness of God was intended for a generation some of whom were idol-worshippers, confounding the Godhead with the work of their own hands or with natural objects, and none of whom were free from a confusion in principle of the Divine with the human and worldly, for which now sheer mental slovenliness, now a dull moral sense, and now positive pride was to blame. To worshippers who trampled the courts of the Lord with the careless feet and looked up the temple with the unabashed faces, of routine, the cry of the seraphs, as they veiled their faces and their feet, travailed to restore that shuddering sense of the sublimity of the Divine Presence, which in the impressible youth of the race first impelled man, bowing low beneath the awful heavens, to name God by the name of the Holy. To men, again, careful of the legal-forms of worship, but lawless and careless in their lives, the song of the seraphs revealed not the hard truth, against which they had already rubbed conscience trite, that Gods law was inexorable, but the fiery fact that His whole nature burned with wrath towards sin. To men, once more, proud of their prestige and material prosperity, and presuming in their pride to take their own way with God, and to employ like Uzziah the exercises of religion for their own honour, this vision presented the real sovereignty of God: the Lord Himself seated on a throne there- just where they felt only a theatre for the display of their pride, or machinery for the attainment of their private ends. Thus did the three-fold cry of the angels meet the threefold sinfulness of that generation of men.
But the first line of the seraphs song serves more than a temporary end. The Trisagion rings, and has need to ring, forever down the Church. Everywhere and at all times these are the three besetting sins of religious people-callousness in worship, carelessness in life, and the temper which employs the forms of religion simply for self-indulgence or self-aggrandisement. These sins are induced by the same habit of contentment with mere form; they can be corrected only by the vision of the Personal Presence who is behind all form. Our organisation, ritual, law, and sacrament-we must be able to see them fall away, as Isaiah saw the sanctuary itself disappear, before God Himself, if we are to remain heartily moral and fervently religious. The Church of God has to learn that no mere multiplication of forms, nor a more aesthetic arrangement of them, will redeem her worshippers from callousness. Callousness is but the shell which the feelings develop in self-defence when left by the sluggish and impenetrative soul to beat upon the hard outsides of form.. And nothing will fuse this shell of callousness but that ardent flame, which is kindled at touching of the Divine and human spirits, when forms have fallen away and the soul beholds with open face the Eternal Himself. As with worship, so with morality. Holiness is secured not by ceremonial, but by a reverence for a holy Being. We shall rub our consciences trite against moral maxims or religious rites. It is the effluence of a Presence, which alone can create in us, and keep in us, a clean heart. And if any object that we thus make light of ritual and religious law, of Church and sacrament, the reply is obvious. Ritual and sacrament are to the living God but as the wick of a candle to the light thereof. They are given to reveal Him, and the process is not perfect unless they themselves perish from the thoughts to which they convey Him. If God is not felt to be present, as Isaiah felt Him to be, to the exclusion of all forms, then these will be certain to be employed, as Uzziah employed them, for the sake of the only other spiritual being of whom the worshipper is conscious-himself. Unless we are able to forget our ritual in spiritual communion with the very God, and to become unconscious of our organisation in devout consciousness of our personal relation to Him, then ritual will be only a means of sensuous indulgence, organisation only a machinery for selfish or sectarian ends. The vision of God-this is the one thing needful for worship and for conduct.
But while the one verse of the antiphon reiterates what Jehovah of hosts is in Himself, the other describes what He is in revelation. "The whole earth is full of His glory." Glory is the correlative of holiness. Glory is that in which holiness comes to expression. Glory is the expression of holiness, as beauty is the expression of health. If holiness be as deep as we have seen, so varied then will glory be. There is nothing in the earth but it is the glory of God. "The fulness of the whole earth is His glory," is the proper grammatical rendering of the song. For Jehovah of hosts is not the God only of Israel, but the Maker of heaven and earth, and not the victory of Israel alone, but the wealth and the beauty of all the world is His glory. So universal an ascription of glory is the proper parallel to that of absolute Godhead, which is implied in holiness.
II. THE CALL
(Isa_6:4-8)
Thus, then, Isaiah, standing on earth, on the place of a great sin, with the conscience of his peoples evil in his heart, and himself not without the feeling of guilt, looked into heaven, and beholding the glory of God, heard also with what pure praise and readiness of service the heavenly hosts surrounded His throne. No wonder the prophet felt the polluted threshold rock beneath him, or that as where fire and water mingle there should be the rising of a great smoke. For the smoke described is not, as some have imagined, that of acceptable incense, thick billows swelling through the temple to express the completion and satisfaction of the seraphs worship; but it is the mist which ever arises where holiness and sin touch each other. It has been described both as the obscurity that envelops a weak mind in presence of a truth too great for it, and the darkness that falls upon a diseased eye when exposed to the mid-day sun. These are only analogies, and may mislead us. What Isaiah actually felt was the dim-eyed shame, the distraction, the embarrassment, the blinding shock of a personal encounter with One whom he was utterly unfit to meet. For this was a personal encounter. We have spelt out the revelation sentence by sentence in gradual argument; but Isaiah did not reach it through argument or brooding. It was not to the prophet what it is to his expositors, a pregnant thought, that his intellect might gradually unfold, but a Personal Presence, which apprehended and overwhelmed him. God and he were there face to face. "Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because a man unclean of lips am I, and in the midst of a people unclean of lips do I dwell; for the King, Jehovah of hosts, mine eyes have beheld."
The form of the prophets confession, "uncleanness of lips," will not surprise us as far as he makes it for himself. As with the disease of the body, so with the sin of the soul; each often gathers to one point of pain. Every man, though wholly sinful by nature, has his own particular consciousness of guilt. Isaiah being a prophet felt his mortal weakness most upon his lips. The inclusion of the people, however, along with himself under this form of guilt, suggests a wider interpretation of it. The lips are, as it were, the blossom of a man. "Grace is poured upon thy lips, therefore God hath blessed thee forever. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also." It is in the blossom of a plant that the plants defects become conspicuous; it is-when all a mans faculties combine for the complex and delicate office of expression that any fault which is in him will come to the surface. Isaiah had been listening to the perfect praise of sinless beings, and it brought into startling relief the defects of his own peoples worship. Unclean of lips these were indeed when brought against that heavenly choir. Their social and political sin-sin of heart and home and market-came to a head in their worship, and what should have been the blossom of their life fell to the ground like a rotten leaf beneath the stainless beauty of the seraphs praise.
While the prophet thus passionately gathered his guilt upon his lips, a sacrament was preparing on which God concentrated His mercies to meet it. Sacrament and lips, applied mercy and presented sin, now come together. "Then flew unto me one of the seraphim, and in his hand a glowing stone-with tongs had he taken it off the altar-and he touched my mouth and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and so thy iniquity passeth away and thy sin is atoned for."
The idea. of this function is very evident, and a scholar who has said that it "would perhaps be quite intelligible to the contemporaries of the prophet, but is undoubtedly obscure to us," appears to have said just the reverse of what is right; for so simple a process of atonement leaves out the most characteristic details of the Jewish ritual of sacrifice, while it anticipates in an unmistakable manner the essence of the Christian sacrament. In a scene of expiation laid under the old covenant, we are struck by the absence of oblation or sacrificial act on the part of the sinner himself. There is here no victim slain, no blood sprinkled; an altar is only parenthetically suggested, and even then in its simplest form, of a hearth on which the Divine fire is continually burning. The "glowing stone," not "live coal" as in the English version, was no part of the temple furniture, but the ordinary means of conveying heat or applying fire in the various purposes of household life. There was, it is true, a carrying of fire in some of the temple services, as, for example, on the great Day of Atonement, but then it was effected by a small grate filled with living embers. In the household, on the other hand, when cakes had to be baked, or milk boiled, or water warmed, or in fifty similar applications of fire, a glowing stone taken from off the hearth was the invariable instrument. It is this swift and simple domestic process which Isaiah now sees substituted for the slow and intricate ceremonial of the temple-a seraph with a glowing stone in his hand, "with tongs had he taken it off the altar." And yet the prophet feels this only as a more direct expression of the very same idea with which the elaborate ritual was inspired-for which the victim was slain, and the flesh consumed in fire, and the blood sprinkled. Isaiah desires nothing else, and receives no more, than the ceremonial law was intended to assure to the sinner-pardon of his sin and reconciliation to God. But our prophet will have conviction of these immediately, and with a force which the ordinary ritual is incapable of expressing. The feelings of this Jew are too intense and spiritual to be satisfied with the slow pageant of the earthly temple, whose performances to a man in his horror could only have appeared so indifferent and far away from himself as not to be really his own nor to effect what he passionately desired. Instead, therefore, of laying his guilt in the shape of some victim on the altar, Isaiah, with a keener sense of its inseparableness from himself, presents it to God upon his own lips. Instead of being satisfied with beholding the fire of God consume it on another body than his own, at a distance from himself, he feels that fire visit the very threshold of his nature, where he has gathered the guilt, and consume it there. The whole secret of this startling nonconformity to the law, on the very floor of the temple, is that for a man who has penetrated to the presence of God the legal forms are left far behind, and he stands face to face with the truth by which they are inspired. In that Divine Presence Isaiah is his own altar; he acts his guilt in his own person, and so he feels the expiatory fire come to his very self directly from the heavenly hearth. It is a replica of the fifty-first Psalm: "For Thou delightest not in sacrifice, else would I give it; Thou hast no pleasure in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit." This is my sacrifice, my sense of guilt gathered here upon my lips: my "broken and contrite heart," who feel myself undone before Thee, "Lord, Thou wilt not despise."
It has always been remarked as one of the most powerful proofs of the originality and Divine force of Christianity, that from mans worship of God, and especially from those parts in which the forgiveness of sin is sought and assured, it did away with the necessity of a physical rite of sacrifice; that it broke the universal and immemorial habit by which man presented to God a material offering for the guilt of his soul. By remembering this fact we may measure the religious significance of the scene we now contemplate. Nearly eight centuries before there was accomplished upon Calvary that Divine Sacrifice for sin, which abrogated a rite of expiation, hitherto universally adopted by the conscience of humanity, we find a Jew, in the dispensation where such a rite was most religiously enforced, trembling under the conviction of sin, and upon a floor crowded with suggestions of physical sacrifice; yet the only sacrifice he offers is the purely spiritual one of confession. It is most notable. Look at it from a human point of view, and we can estimate Isaiahs immense spiritual originality; look at it from a Divine and we cannot help perceiving a distinct foreshadow of what was to take place by the blood of Jesus under the new covenant. To this man, as to some others of his dispensation, whose experience our Christian sympathy recognises so readily in the Psalms, there was granted afore-time boldness to enter into the holiest. For this is the explanation of Isaiahs marvellous disregard of the temple ritual. It is all behind him. This man has passed within the veil. Forms are all behind him, and he is face to face with God. But between two beings in that position, intercourse by the far off and uncertain signals of sacrifice is inconceivable. It can only take place by the simple unfolding of the heart. It must be rational, intelligent, and by speech. When man is at such close quarters with God what sacrifice is possible but the sacrifice of the lips? Form for the Divine reply there must be some, for even Christianity has its sacraments, but like them this sacrament is of the very simplest form, and like them it is accompanied by the explanatory word. As Christ under the new covenant took bread and wine, and made the homely action of feeding upon them the sign and seal to His disciples of the forgiveness of their sins, so His angel under the old and sterner covenant took the more severe, but as simple and domestic form of fire to express the same to His prophet. And we do well to emphasise that the experimental value of this sacrament of fire is bestowed by the word attached to it. It is not a dumb sacrament, with a magical efficacy. But the prophets mind is persuaded and his conscience set at peace by the intelligible words of the minister of the sacrament.
Isaiahs sin being taken away, he is able to discern the voice of God Himself. It is in the most beautiful accordance with what has already happened that he hears this not as command, but request, and answers not of compulsion, but of freedom. "And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? and who will go for us? And I said, Here am I; send me." What spiritual understanding alike of the will of God and the responsibility of man, what evangelical liberty and boldness, are here! Here we touch the spring of that high flight Isaiah takes both in prophecy and in active service for the State. Here we have the secret of the filial freedom, the life-long sense of responsibility, the regal power of initiative, the sustained and unfaltering career, which distinguish Isaiah among the ministers of the old covenant, and stamp him prophet by the heart and for the life, as many of them are only by the office and for the occasion. Other prophets are the servants of the God of heaven; Isaiah stands next the Son Himself. On others the hand of the Lord is laid in irresistible compulsion; the greatest of them are often ignorant, by turns headstrong and craven, deserving correction, and generally in need of supplementary calls and inspirations. But of such scourges and such doles Isaiahs royal career is absolutely without a trace. His course, begun in freedom, is pursued without hesitation or anxiety; begun in utter self-sacrifice, it knows henceforth no moment of grudging or disobedience. "Esaias is very bold," because he is so free and so fully devoted. In the presence of mind with which he meets each sudden change of politics during that bewildering half-century of Judahs history, we seem to hear his calm voice repeating its first, "Here am I." Presence of mind he always had. The kaleidoscope shifts: it is now Egyptian intrigue, now Assyrian force; now a false king requiring threat of displacement by Gods own hero, now a true king, but helpless and in need of consolation; now a rebellious people to be condemned, and now an oppressed and penitent one to be encouraged:-different dangers, with different sorts of salvation possible, obliging the prophet to promise different futures, and to say things inconsistent with what he had already said. Yet Isaiah never hesitates; he can always say, "Here am I." We hear that voice again in the spontaneousness and versatility of his style. Isaiah is one of the great kings of literature, with every variety of style under his sway, passing with perfect readiness, as subject or occasion calls, from one to another of the tones of a superbly endowed nature. Everywhere this man impresses us with his personality, with the wealth of his nature and the perfection of his control of it. But the personality is consecrated. The "Here am I" is followed by the "send me." And its health, harmony, and boldness are derived, Isaiah being his own witness, from this early sense of pardon and purification at the Divine hands. Isaiah is indeed a king and a priest unto God-a king with all his powers at his own command, a priest with them all consecrated to the service of Heaven.
One cannot pass away from these verses without observing the plain answer which they give to the question, What is a call to the ministry of God? In these days of dust and distraction, full of party cries, with so many side issues of doctrine and duty presenting themselves, and the solid attractions of so many other services insensibly leading men to look for the same sort of attractiveness in the ministry, it may prove a relief to some to ponder the simple elements of Isaiahs call to be a professional and lifelong prophet. Isaiah got no "call" in our conventional sense of the word, no compulsion that he must go, no articulate voice describing him as the sort of man needed for the work, nor any of those similar "calls" which sluggish and craven spirits so often desire to relieve them of the responsibility or the strenuous effort needed in deciding for a profession which their conscience will not permit them to refuse. Isaiah got no such call. After passing through the fundamental religious experiences of forgiveness and cleansing, which are in every case the indispensable premises of life with God, Isaiah was left to himself. No direct summons was addressed to him, no compulsion was laid on him; but he heard the voice of God asking generally for messengers, and he on his own responsibility answered it for himself in particular. He heard from the Divine lips of the Divine need for messengers, and he was immediately full of the mind that he was the man for the mission, and of the heart to give himself to it. So great an example cannot be too closely studied by candidates for the ministry in our own day. Sacrifice is not the half-sleepy, half-reluctant submission to the force of circumstance or opinion, in which shape it is so often travestied among us, but the resolute self-surrender and willing resignation of a free and reasonable soul. There are many in our day who look for an irresistible compulsion into the ministry of the Church; sensitive as they are to the material bias by which men roll off into other professions, they pray for something of a similar kind to prevail with them in this direction also. There are men who pass into the ministry by social pressure or the opinion of the circles they belong to, and there are men who adopt the profession simply because it is on the line of least resistance.
From which false beginnings rise the spent force, the premature stoppages, the stagnancy, the aimlessness and heartlessness, which are the scandals of the professional ministry and the weakness of the Christian Church in our day. Men who drift into the ministry, as it is certain so many do, become mere ecclesiastical flotsam and jetsam, incapable of giving carriage to any soul across the waters of this life, uncertain of their own arrival anywhere, and of all the waste of their generation, the most patent and disgraceful. God will have no drift-wood for His sacrifices, no drift-men for His ministers. Self-consecration is the beginning of His service, and a sense of our own freedom and our own responsibility is an indispensable element in the act of self-consecration. We-not God-have to make the decision. We are not to be dead, but living, sacrifices, and everything which renders us less than fully alive both mars at the time the sincerity of our surrender and reacts for evil upon the whole of our subsequent ministry.
III. THE COMMISSION
(Isa_6:9-13)
A heart so resolutely devoted as we have seen Isaiahs to be was surely prepared against any degree of discouragement, but probably never did man receive so awful a commission as he describes himself to have done. Not that we are to suppose that this fell upon Isaiah all at once, in the suddenness and distinctness with which he here records it. Our sense of its awfulness will only be increased when we realise that Isaiah became aware of it, not in the shock of a single discovery, sufficiently great to have carried its own anaesthetic along with it, but through a prolonged process of disillusion, and at the pain of those repeated disappointments, which are all the more painful that none singly is great enough to stupefy. It is just at this point of our chapter that we feel most the need of supposing it to have been written some years after the consecration of Isaiah, when his experience had grown long enough to articulate the dim forebodings of that solemn moment. "Go and say to this people, Hearing, hear ye, but understand not; seeing, see ye, but know not. Make fat the heart of this people, and its ears make heavy, and its eyes smear, lest it see with its eyes, and hear with its ears, and its heart understand, and it turn again and be healed." No prophet, we may be sure, would be asked by God to go and tell his audiences that in so many words, at the beginning of his career. It is only by experience that a man understands that kind of a commission, and for the required experience Isaiah had not long to wait after entering on his ministry. Ahaz himself, in whose death-year it is supposed by many that Isaiah wrote this account of his consecration-the conduct of Ahaz himself was sufficient to have brought out the convictions of the prophets heart in this startling form, in which he has stated his commission. By the word of the Lord and an offer of a sign from Him, Isaiah did make fat that monarchs heart and smear his eyes. And perverse as the rulers of Judah were in the examples and policies they set, the people were as blindly bent on following them to destruction. "Every one," said Isaiah, when he must have been for some time a prophet, "every one is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly."
But if that clear, bitter way of putting the matter can have come to Isaiah only with the experience of some years, why does he place it upon the lips of God, as they give him his commission? Because Isaiah is stating not merely his own singular experience, but a truth always true of the preaching of the word of God, and of which no prophet at the time of his consecration to that ministry can be without at least a foreboding. We have not exhausted the meaning of this awful commission when we say that it is only a forcible anticipation of the prophets actual experience. There is more here than one mans experience. Over and over again are these words quoted in the New Testament, till we learn to find them true and always everywhere that the Word of God is preached to men, -the description of what would seem to be its necessary effect upon many souls. Both Jesus and Paul use Isaiahs commission of themselves. They do so like Isaiah at an advanced stage in their ministry, when the shock of misunderstanding and ejection has been repeatedly felt, but then not solely as an apt description of their own experience. They quote Gods words to Isaiah as a prophecy fulfilled in their own case-that is to say, as the statement of a great principle or truth of which their own ministry is only another instance. Their own disappointments have roused them to the fact, that this is always an effect of the word of God upon numbers of men-to deaden their spiritual faculties. While Matthew and the book of Acts adopt the milder Greek version of Isaiahs commission, John gives a rendering that is even stronger than the original. "He hath blinded," he says of God Himself, "their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes and perceive with their hearts." In Marks narrative Christ says that He speaks to them that are outside in parables, "for the purpose that seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand, lest haply they should turn again and it should be forgiven them." We may suspect, in an utterance so strange to the lips of the Lord of salvation, merely the irony of His baffled love. But it is rather the statement of what He believed to be the necessary effect of a ministry like His own. It marks the direction, not of His desire, but of natural sequence.
With these instances we can go back to Isaiah and understand why he should have described the bitter fruits of experience as an imperative laid upon him by God. "Make fat the heart of this people, and its ears make heavy, and its eyes do thou smear." It is the fashion of the prophets grammar, when it would state a principle or necessary effect, to put it in the form of a command. What God expresses to Isaiah so imperatively as almost to take our breath away; what Christ uttered with such abruptness that we ask, Does He speak in irony? what Paul laid down as the conviction of a long and patient ministry, is the great truth that the Word of God has not only a saving power, but that even in its gentlest pleadings and its purest Gospel, even by the mouth of Him who came, not to condemn, but to save the world, it has a power that is judicial and condemnatory.
It is frequently remarked by us as perhaps the most deplorable fact of our experience, that there exists in human nature an accursed facility for turning Gods gifts to precisely the opposite ends from those for which He gave them. So common is mans misunderstanding of the plainest signs, and so frequent his abuse of the most evident favours of Heaven, that a spectator of the drama of human history might imagine its Author to have been a Cynic or Comedian, portraying for His own amusement the loss of the erring at the very moment of what might have been their recovery, the frustration of love at the point of its greatest warmth and expectancy. Let him look closer, however, and he will perceive, not a comedy, but a tragedy, for neither chance nor cruel sport is here at work, but free will and the laws of habit, with retribution and penalty. These actors are not puppets in the hand of a Power that moves them at will; each of them plays his own part, and the abuse and contradiction of which he is guilty are but the perogative of his freedom. They are free beings who thus reject the gift of Divine assistance and so piteously misunderstand Divine truth. Look closer still, and you will see that the way they talk, the impression they accept of Gods goodness, the effects of His judgments upon them, are determined not at the moment of their choice, and not by a single act of their will, but by the whole tenor of their previous life. In the sudden flash of some gift or opportunity, men reveal the stuff of which they are made, the disposition they have bred in themselves. Opportunity in human life is as often judgment as it is salvation. When we perceive these things, we understand that life is not a comedy, where chance governs or incongruous situations are invented by an Almighty Satirist for His own sport, but a tragedy, with all tragedys pathetic elements of royal wills contending in freedom with each other, of mens wills clashing with Gods: men the makers of their own destinies, and Nemesis not directing, but following their actions. We go back to the very fundamentals of our nature on this dread question. To understand what has been called "a great law in human degeneracy," that "the evil heart can assimilate good to itself and convert it to its nature," we must understand what free will means, and take into account the terrible influence of habit.
Now there is no more conspicuous instance of this law, than that which is afforded by the preaching of the Gospel of God. Gods Word, as Christ reminds us, does not fall on virgin soil; it falls on soil already holding other seed. When a preacher stands up with the Word of God in a great congregation, vast as Scripture warrants us for believing his power to be, his is not the only power that is operative. Each man present has a life behind that hour and place, lying away in the darkness, silent and dead as far as the congregation are concerned, but in his own heart as vivid and loud as the voice of the preacher, though he be preaching never so forcibly. The prophet is not the only power in the delivery of Gods Word, nor is the Holy Spirit the only power. That would make all preaching of the Word a mere display. But the Bible represents it as a strife. And now it is said of men themselves that they harden their hearts against the Word, and now-because such hardening is the result of previous sinning, and has therefore a judicial character-that God hardens their hearts. "Simon, Simon," said Christ to a face that spread out to His own all the ardour of worship, "Satan is desiring to have you, but I have prayed that your faith fail not." God sends His Word into our hearts; the Mediator stands by, and prays that it make us His own. But there are other factors in the operation, and the result depends on our own will; it depends on our own will, and it is dreadfully determined by our habits.
Now this is one of the first facts to which a young reformer or prophet awakes. Such an awakening is a necessary element in his education and apprenticeship. He has seen the Lord high and lifted up. His lips have been touched by the coal from off the altar. His first feeling is that. nothing can withstand that power, nothing gainsay this inspiration. Is he a Nehemiah, and the hand of the Lord has been mighty upon him? Then he feels that he has but to tell his fellows of it to make them as enthusiastic in the Lords work as himself. Is he a Mazzini, aflame from his boyhood with aspiration for his country, consecrated from his birth to the cause of duty? Then he leaps with joy upon his mission; he has but to show himself, to speak, to lead the way, and his country is free. Is he-to descend to a lower degree of prophecy-a Fourier, sensitive more than most to how anarchic society is, and righteously eager to settle it upon stable foundations? Then he draws his plans for reconstruction, he projects his phalanges and phalansteres, and believes that he has solved the social problem. Is he-to come back to the heights-an Isaiah, with the Word of God in him like fire? Then he sees his vision of the perfect state; he thinks to lift his people to it by a word. "O house of Jacob," he says, "come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord!"
For all of whom the next necessary stage of experience is one of disappointment, with the hard commission, "Make the heart of this people fat." They must learn that, if God has caught themselves young, and when it was possible to make them entirely His own, the human race to whom He sends them is old, too old for them to effect much upon the mass of it beyond the hardening and perpetuation of evil. Fourier finds that to produce his perfect State he would need to re-create mankind, to cut down the tree to the very roots, and begin again. After the first rush of patriotic fervour, which carried so many of his countrymen with him, Mazzini discovers himself in "a moral desert," confesses that the struggle to liberate his fatherland, which has only quickened him to further devotion in so great a cause, has been productive of scepticism in his followers, and has left them withered and hardened of heart, whom it had found so capable of heroic impulses. He tells us how they upbraided and scorned him, left him in exile, and returned to their homes, from which they had set out with vows to die for their country, doubting now whether there was anything at all worth living or dying for outside themselves. Mazzinis description of the first passage of his career is invaluable for the light which it throws upon this commission of Isaiah. History does not contain a more dramatic representation of the entirely opposite effects of the same Divine movement upon different natures. While the first efforts for the liberty of Italy materialised the greater number of his countrymen, whom Mazzini had persuaded to embark upon them, the failure and their consequent defection only served to strip this heroic soul of the last rags of selfishness, and consecrate it more utterly to the will of God and the duty that lay before it.
A few sentences from the confessions of the Italian patriot may be quoted, with benefit to our appreciation of what the Hebrew prophet must have passed through.
"It was the tempest of doubt, which I believe all who devote their lives to a great enterprise, yet have not dried and withered up their soul-like Robespierre-beneath some barren intellectual formula, but bare retained a loving heart, are doomed, once at least, to battle through. My heart was overflowing with and greedy of affection, as fresh and eager to unfold to joy as in the days when sustained by my mothers smile, as full of fervid hope for others, at least, if not for myself. But during these fatal months there darkened round me such a hurricane of sorrow, disillusion, and deception as to bring before my eyes, in all its ghastly nakedness, a foreshadowing of the old age of my soul, solitary in a desert world, wherein no comfort in the struggle was vouchsafed to me. It was not only the overthrow for an indefinite period of every Italian hope; it was the falling to pieces of that moral edifice of faith and love from which alone I had derived strength for the combat; the scepticism I saw arising round me on every side; the failure of faith in those who had solemnly bound themselves to pursue unshaken the path we had known at the outset to be choked with sorrows; the distrust I detected in those most dear to me, as to the motives and intentions which sustained and urged me onward in the evidently unequal struggle When I felt that 1 was indeed alone in the world, I drew back in terror at the void before me. There. in that moral desert, doubt came upon me. Perhaps I was wrong, and the world right? Perhaps my idea was indeed a dream? One morning I awoke to find my mind tranquil and my spirit calmed, as one who has passed through a great danger. The first thought that passed across my spirit was, Your sufferings are the temptations of egotism, and arise from a misconception of life I perceived that although every instinct of my heart rebelled against that fatal and ignoble definition of life which makes it to be a search after happiness, yet I had not completely freed myself from the dominating influence exercised by it upon the age. I had been unable to realise the true ideal of love-love without earthly hope. Life is a mission, duty therefore its highest law. From the idea of God I descended to faith in a mission and its logical consequence-duty the supreme rule of life: and having reached that faith, I swore to myself that nothing in this world should again make me doubt or forsake it. It was, as Dante says, passing through martyrdom to peace-a forced and desperate peace I do not deny, for I fraternised with sorrow, and wrapped myself in it as in a mantle; but yet it was peace, for I learned to suffer without rebellion, and to live calmly and in harmony with my own spirit. I reverently bless God the Father for what consolations of affection-I can conceive of no other-He has vouchsafed to me in my later years; and in them I gather strength to struggle with the occasional return of weariness of existence. But even were these consolations denied me, I believe I should still be what I am. Whether the sun shine with the serene splendour of an Italian noon, or the leaden, corpse-like hue of the northern mist be above us, I cannot see that it changes our duty. God dwells above the earthly heaven and the holy stars of faith and the future still shine with n our souls, even though their light consume itself unreflected as the sepulchral lamp."
Such sentences are the best commentary we can offer on our text. The cases of the Hebrew and Italian prophets are wonderfully alike. We who have read Isaiahs fifth chapter know how his heart also was "overflowing with and greedy of affection," and in the second and third chapters we have seen "the hurricane, of sorrow, disillusion, and deception darken round him." "The falling to pieces of the moral edifice of faith and love," "scepticism rising on every side," "failure of faith in those who had solemnly bound themselves," "distrust detected in those most dear to me" - and all felt by the prophet as the effect of the sacred movement God had inspired him to begin:-how exact a counterpart it is to the cumulative process of brutalising which Isaiah heard God lay upon him, with the imperative "Make the heart of this people fat!" In such a morally blind, deaf, and dead-hearted world Isaiahs faith was indeed "to consume itself unreflected like the sepulchral lamp." The glimpse into his heart given us by Mazzini enables us to realise with what terror Isaiah faced such a void. "O Lord, how long?" This, too, breathes the air of "a forced and desperate peace," the spirit of one who, having realised life as a mission, has made the much more rare recognition that the logical consequence is neither the promise of success nor the assurance of sympathy, but simply the acceptance of duty, with whatever results and under whatever skies it pleases God to bring over him.
"Until cities fall into ruin without an inhabitant
And houses without a man,
And the land be left desolately waste.
And Jehovah have removed man far away,
And great be the desert in the midst of the land;
And still if there be a tenth in it,
Even it shall be again for consuming.
Like the terebinth, and like the oak.
Whose stock when they are felled remaineth in them,
The holy seed shall be its stock,"
The meaning of these words is too plain to require exposition, but we can hardly over-emphasise them. This is to be Isaiahs one text throughout his career. "Judgment shall pass through; a remnant shall remain." All the policies of his day, the movement of the worlds forces, the devastation of the holy land, the first captivities of the holy people, the reiterated defeats and disappointments of the next fifty years-all shall be clear and tolerable to Isaiah as the fulfilling of the sentence to which he listened in such "forced and desperate peace" on the day of his consecration. He has had the worst branded into him; henceforth no man nor thing may trouble him. He has seen the worst, and knows there is a beginning beyond. So when the wickedness of Judah and the violence of Assyria alike seem most unrestrained-Assyria most bent on destroying Judah, and Judah least worthy to live-Isaiah will yet cling to this, that a remnant must remain. All his prophecies will be variations of this text; it is the key to his apparent paradoxes. He will proclaim the Assyrians to be Gods instrument, yet devote them to destruction. He will hail their advance on Judah, and yet as exultingly mark its limit, because of the determination in which he asked the question, "O Lord, how long?" and the clearness with which he understood the until, that came in answer to it. Every prediction he makes, every turn he seeks to give to the practical politics of Judah, are simply due to his grasp of these two facts-a withering and repeated devastation, in the end a bare survival. He has, indeed, prophecies which travel farther; occasionally he is permitted to indulge in visions of a new dispensation. Like Moses, he climbs his Pisgah, but he is like Moses also in this, that his lifetime is exhausted with the attainment of the margin of a long period of judgment and struggle, and then he passes from our sight, and no man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day. As abruptly as this vision closes with the announcement of the remnant, so abruptly does Isaiah disappear on the fulfilment of the announcement-some forty years subsequent to this vision-in the sudden rescue of the holy seed from the grasp of Sennacherib.
We have now finished the first period of Isaiahs career. Let us catalogue what are his leading doctrines up to this point. High above a very sinful people, and beyond all their conceptions of Him, Jehovah, the national God, rises holy, exalted in righteousness. From such a God to such a people it can only be judgment and affliction that pass; and these shall not be averted by the fact that He is the national God, and they His worshippers. Of this affliction the Assyrians gathering far off upon the horizon are evidently to be the instruments. The affliction shall be very sweeping; again and again shall it come; but the Lord will finally save a remnant of His people. Three elements compose this preaching-a very keen and practical conscience of sin; an overpowering vision of God, in whose immediate intimacy the prophet believes himself to be; and a very sharp perception of the politics of the day.
One question rises. In this part of Isaiahs ministry there is no trace of that Figure whom we chiefly identify with his preaching; the Messiah. Let us have patience; it is not time for Him; but the following is His connection with the prophets present doctrines.
Isaiahs great result at present is the certainty of a remnant. That remnant will require two things-they will require a rallying-point, and they will require a leader. Henceforth Isaiahs prophesying will be bent to one or other of these. The two grand purposes of his word and work will be, for the sake of the remnant, the inviolateness of Zion, and the coming of the Messiah. The former he has, indeed, already intimated (chapter 4); the latter is now to share with it his hope and eloquence.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1–2 Isa_6:1-2; Isa_6:5-7. I saw also the Lord, &c.
THE SERVICE OF THE SERAPHIM
Isa_6:1-2; Isa_6:5-7. I saw also the Lord, &c.
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In that perfect prayer which our Lord bequeathed to His disciples we are taught to ask that God’s will may be done in earth as it is done in heaven. Thus angelic service is set before us as a model and pattern. Not that the services we are called upon to render are the same with those assigned to angels. Their sphere is heaven, ours for the present is the earth; and each of these spheres has its distinct and peculiar duties, appropriate to the nature and faculties of its occupants. But the spirit in which the employments of angels and men should be prosecuted is the same. One common sentiment—the sentiment of adoration and devotedness—should animate and govern them all. Hence the passage before us, although containing a record of the transactions of another sphere, contains a lesson, if not respecting the nature of our duties, yet respecting the method in which we should seek to fulfil them.
I. The twofold life of a servant of God, whether human or angelic, is here very beautifully exhibited to us. The seraphim are represented as veiling their faces and feet with their wings while they stand in adoration before the throne of God. But although engaged in ceaselessly adoring the Divine perfections, they do not lead a life of barren contemplation. The words, “with twain he did fly,” intimate to us that they are also engaged in the active execution of those errands with which God has charged them. The Christian’s life, like that of the seraphim, branches out into the two great divisions of contemplative devotion and active exertion. It is the life of Mary combined with that of Martha (P. D. 2417).
1. The devotional branch of the Christian’s life. In the exercises of the closet and of the sanctuary are to be found the springs of the Christian’s exertions in his Master’s cause. These exercises are not originating sources of grace, but they are channels and vehicles through which God’s Spirit conveys Himself to the soul—pitchers in which may be drawn up the waters of the River of Life to refresh and recruit the energies of him whom a painful resistance to evil within and without has rendered weary and faint in his mind (H. E. I. 3426, 4107, 4108, and 3438–3448). If devotion be essential to the perfection of a seraph’s service, how much more essential must it be to ours, our necessities being so immensely greater than those of the bright inhabitants of heaven! The exigencies of our time make devotion especially needful now. The present is emphatically a period of the world’s history in which “many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased.” Moreover, there is a revival of outward energy and activity in the cause of religion. This is a blessing. But remember, days of excitement are not days of deep devotion. There may be much of rapid movement abroad in the world without a corresponding adoration of God in the secret chamber of the heart—much of flying without veiling of the face [1303]
[1303] If this be the case with any of us, if, with the busy occupation of the hands in the furtherance of religious objects, we have allowed the inward life of communion with God to decline, how painfully do we resemble those virgins who took no heed to provide for their dying lamps a continual supply of oil! The profession which we have made before men, however bright its blaze, will one day be shown to have been delusive—to have been destitute of those animating principles of faith and love from which alone can flow an acceptable service.—Goulburn.
2. The outward manifestation of the Christian life discernible by the world. Care must be taken not only that the lamp shall be filled with oil, but that there shall be a light shining before men (Mat_5:16; H. E. I. 1042, 1044, 3906). The seraphim are not so wrapt up in adoration of God that they are forgetful of active service. “With twain they did fly” for the execution of the errands on which they were commissioned.
Here is a reproof of the monastic principle, that seclusion from the society of our fellow-men and from the active duties of life is necessary in order to secure an uninterrupted period of leisure for solitary spiritual exercises. Undue predominance is thus given to one branch of God’s service, to the prejudice and neglect of the other and no less important branch. Exercise as well as nourishment and repose is essential to the health of the body, and so toil in the vineyard—earnest endeavour to advance the kingdom of God in our own hearts and the hearts of others—is no less essential to the health of the soul. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;” but for what purpose? That they may walk in good works, and run with patience the race that is set before them (chap. Isa_40:31; H. E. I. 1736–1742).
II. Some practical lessons concerning the maintenance and manifestation of the twofold Christian life.
1. A lesson as to the spirit which should pervade all devotion. These bright and glorious beings are without sin. Still, such is their sense of the infinite distance between themselves and their Creator, that they veil their faces and their feet before His throne in token of adoring reverence. The first and most essential element of devotion is a feeling of deep awe flowing from a sense of God’s transcendent excellences and leading to profound self-abasement (H. E. I. 3798, 3799, 5074). If reverence was befitting in the seraphim, how much more is it necessary in sinful men! (Luk_18:13; Ezr_9:6).
The vision of God wrought in Isaiah a feeling almost akin to despair. It seemed to him as if the perfect holiness of God was engaged to banish for ever every creature possessing the slightest taint of moral evil (Isa_6:5). In Isa_6:6-7 we have the glorious remedy. What is the significance of the symbols? By the work of the Son of God a mighty Altar of Propitiation has been reared up, and thence there comes to the penitent sinner cleansing as well as pardon. The “live coal” is an emblem of that love and zeal in God’s service with which the Holy Spirit imbues the souls of those who flee to the Altar of Atonement as their only refuge from the wrath to come. A participation in that Spirit’s influence is absolutely essential to our true participation in the chorus of the angelic host (H. E. I. 2887).
2. A few words on that active service which is the outward manifestation of the principles nourished by devotion.
(1.) We must prepare for it by the care and culture of our own heart [1306]
(2.) There is also an outward work which God has made binding on all of us. He has assigned to each of us a certain position in life. Every such position involves its peculiar responsibilities, snares, and occupations. The responsibilities must be cheerfully and manfully met, the occupations diligently fulfilled, as a piece of taskwork allotted to us by the Lord of the vineyard (Eph_6:7). Besides, God has intrusted to us, in various measures, substance, time, abilities, influence, and these we are diligently to use for the promotion of the cause of God in the world. In our busy path through life, which brings us in contact with so many individuals, opportunities are ever and anon presented to us of being useful to our fellow-men; and to watch for, seize, and improve such opportunities is not the least important of these branches of active service (P. D. 40, 3567, 3569).
[1306] God requires us to set a strict watch over its outgoings—a watch such as sentinels keep over the persons and goods which pass out of a city whose allegiance to the sovereign is suspected—to curb and quell at its earliest outbreak every rising of vanity, temper, bitterness, passion, and just—to drag forth from its dark recesses and to slay every cherished iniquity which has found there a harbour and a hiding-place. Our own heart is a vineyard over which God hath set every one of us to dress it and to keep it. We are to extirpate the soil’s poisonous produce, and to implore upon the soil of this vineyard the precious dews of the Divine Spirit, which may remedy its native barrenness and turn it from a desert into the garden of the Lord.—Goulburn. See also H. E. I. 1841, 1 42, 2695–2708.
CONCLUSION.—
1. It is not the intrinsic dignity of our duties, nor the large result of our fulfilment of them, which renders the diligent performance of them an acceptable work in God’s eyes. The great design of our being placed in this world is not that we may do some signal service, or large amount of service, to our Creator, but rather that we may execute the service (be it great or small) allotted to us in a spirit of fidelity, zeal, and love. The spirit which is thrown into and pervades the work is everything—the work itself (comparatively) nothing. Be the sphere what it may which Divine Providence has assigned us, let the duties of it be executed in a seraphic spirit (P. D. 1484).
2. We have overwhelming motives, if we did but rightly appreciate them, to devotedness of our every faculty to the service of our God. The redeemed sinner owes to God far more of allegiance than the angel who has retained his integrity. Angels no such Fall have known, “angels no such Love have known,” as we.—E. M. Goulburn, D.C.L.: Sermons, pp. 77–99,
THE TRINITY IN UNITY
(For Trinity Sunday.)
Isa_6:1-3. In the year that King Uzziah died, &c.
Scene of this sublime vision, the Temple; time, “the year that King Uzziah died.” Why is this fact mentioned? Uzziah had profaned the Temple (2Ch_26:16-21); his son and successor was Jotham, the only king of the house of Judah whose character has not one dishonouring blot; was it not appropriate that, when the disobedient king was removed, and a king who honoured God and His house had succeeded him, there should have been this glorious revelation of the King of kings—not merely as a preparation of the prophet for his mission, but as an encouragement to the monarch to persevere in his loyalty towards God and His truth?
That which was granted to the prophet was a vision of the Triune God. Proofs: Isa_6:3, which shows the plurality of persons in the Divine unity; Joh_12:41, where it is asserted that that which the prophet saw was the glory of Christ; Act_28:25, where it is asserted that the voice which the prophet heard was the voice of the Holy Ghost; Isa_6:3, the threefold repetition of “holy.” I purpose, therefore, to make some observations on this important subject of the Trinity.
I. The doctrine of the Trinity has been believed by the Church of Christ in all ages. This is at least a presumption that it is taught in Scripture, successive generations of devout men could scarcely have been mistaken on such a vital point.
II. This doctrine of the Trinity underlies the whole Bible, and is inextricably interwoven with its fabric and structure. The Old Testament testifies to the Divine unity, as contrasted with the polytheism which prevailed among heathen nations; the Gospels record the manifestation of the Incarnate Son of God; the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles set forth the work of the Third Person in the Church. There is direct testimony to this doctrine, such as Mat_28:19, 2Co_13:14. But just as circumstantial evidence when it is clear and complete is even more satisfactory and decisive than the very best direct testimony, still more valuable is the indirect testimony to this doctrine underlying the whole Bible; like a threefold cord, it runs through the whole book, and binds the whole of Divine revelation together.
III. This doctrine of the Trinity, while it is clearly taught in Scripture, is mysterious and inexplicable. We can no more comprehend it with the unaided human understanding than by uplifting the fingers we can touch the starry firmament [694] This is no reason for refusing to accept it [697] for we accept many other facts which we cannot explain (we cannot explain even the familiar fact of sight), but it is a reason for not insisting dogmatically that other men should accept our explanations of it.
[694] See Article: THE TRINITY, in my Homiletic Encyclopædia of illustrations, and section 1501 in my Dictionary of Poetical Illustrations.
[697] See Article: THE TRINITY, in my Homiletic Encyclopædia of illustrations, and section 1501 in my Dictionary of Poetical Illustrations.
As we cannot stay to consider the effect of this vision upon the mind of the prophet, I shall conclude with just three words of practical application of the doctrine itself.
1. It is bound up with our duty to God. We are bound to accept it, because He has revealed it; and accepting it, we are bound to yield to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost the homage and love of our souls.
2. It is bound up with our hope of salvation. If it is not true that the Everlasting Son came forth from the bosom of the Father, and took upon Him to deliver man; and if it is not true that the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son raises men from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, and restamps upon their souls the lost lineaments of our Maker’s image, what foundation is there left for our hope of everlasting life?
3. It is bound up with the fulness of the Gospel blessings. These are all summed up in the Apostolic benediction, 2Co_13:14. If these be ours, we “have all and abound.”—R. W. Forrest (Christian World Pulpit, i. 492).
REVELATIONS OF GOD
Isa_6:1-5. In the year that King Uzziah died I saw, &c. [700]
[700] The scene of the Vision is the Temple, and its features will have been the same whether we suppose them to have risen before Isaiah’s imagination while he was absent from the spot, in the solitude of his chamber or his house-top, or assume (as I myself prefer to do), that he was actually praying in the Temple at the time.
Though it is unlikely that any of the successors to what was but a small remnant of Solomon’s kingdom perfectly restored the Temple after it was deprived of its original splendour by Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam, yet we see the worthier princes from time to time repairing the structure when it had been suffered to fall into decay, and replacing, as far as they could, the treasures and the costly decorations of which it was repeatedly despoiled to buy off foreign invaders; and probably there was no period in which the restoration would be more complete than in the reign of Uzziah, who in his power, wealth, and magnificence, came nearer than any other to Solomon. And there will be much more of fact than of fancy in the picture, if, for the clearer understanding of the scene of this vision, we figure to ourselves the youthful prophet in his rough hair or woollen garment (probably not unlike that of the Capuchin friar as we now see him in the streets or churches of Rome), going up to the Temple to worship;—and if we look with him at the Temple as, at the end of 300 years from its building, it must have presented itself to his eyes, with its ample courts, and colonnades, and porch, and its holy house, and holy of holies, well-proportioned, and of the most elaborate workmanship, though rather massive than large according to our notions. As he crossed the variegated pavement of “the great court of the congregation,” and stopped—for we have no reason to suppose him a Levite—at the entrance to the inner, or “priests’ ” court, on each hand would rise one of the tall pillars which Solomon set up in token that the kingdom was constituted by Jehovah, and would be upheld by His might (1Ki_7:21; 2Ch_3:17), and which, once of “bright brass,” but now mellowed into bronze, had their square capitals richly wreathed with molten lilies, chain-work, and pomegranates; before him, resting on the back of the twelve oxen, and cast like them in brass, would appear the “molten sea,” a basin of thirty cubits in circumference, and containing two or three thousand baths of water, its, brim wrought “like the brim of a cup with flowers of lilies,” and under these a double row of ornamental knobs; while on each side stood five smaller lavers, the bases of which rested on wheels, and were most elaborately ornamented with oxen, lions, cherubims, and palm-trees engraved upon them; and beyond these again he would see the great brazen altar of burnt-offering, with its never-extinguished fire; and overhead the roof of thick cedar beams resting on rows of columns. These were the courts of the palace of the divine King of Israel, for the reception of His subjects and His ministers.[Compare the description of Solomon’s own house, which besides its inner porch had another where he sat to judge the people, 1Ki_7:7. The arrangement of the Temple is plainly that of a palace.] The house itself again consisted of two parts, the outer of which, the holy place, was accessible to those priests who were in immediate attendance on their unseen Sovereign, while the inner, or holiest place, was the very presence-chamber of the Monarch who dwelt “between the cherubims,” which spread their golden wings over the ark containing the covenant He had vouchsafed to enter into with His people, and itself forming a “mercy-seat,” where was “the place of His throne and the place of the sole of His feet.” In the position which I have, following the requirements of the narrative in the chapter before us, supposed Isaiah to be placed, he would see through the open folding-doors of cypress, carved “with cherubims, and palm-trees, and open flowers,” and “covered with gold upon the carved work,” into the holy place, which he could not enter; and the light of the golden lamps on either side would show him the cedar panelling of the walls, carved with knobs and open flowers, with cherubims and palm-trees, festooned with chain-work, and richly gilt; the mosaics of precious stone; the cypress floor; the altar of incense; the table with the shew-bread; the censers, tongs, and other furniture of “pure and perfect gold;” and before the doorway at the further end, and not concealed by the open leaves of the olive-wood doors (carved and gilded like the others), would be distinguishable the folds of the vail “of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen,” embroidered with cherubims. In the East the closed vail, or purdah, declares the presence and secures the privacy of the monarch, into which no man may intrude and live; and in the Temple at Jerusalem it was the symbol of the awful presence and unapproachable majesty of the King Jehovah, Lord of hosts.… Perhaps on this occasion, or certainly on many others, Isaiah had been joining in the public daily sacrifice and worship and had afterwards brought his own free-will offering—a bullock or a lamb without blemish. Such an offering, the symbol of his dedication of himself to Jehovah’s service, would be the natural expression of his earnest desire for some token that at last it was permitted him to enter on the actual functions of the prophetic office for which he had been so long preparing; and that this vision was the answer to such beautiful prayerful desire—itself an inspiration from on high—we may well believe.—Strachey.
Some of you may have been watching a near and beautiful landscape in the land of mountains and eternal snows, till you have been exhausted by its very richness, and till the distant hills which bounded it have seemed, you knew not why, to limit and contract the view,—and then a vail has been withdrawn, and new hills not looking as if they belonged to this earth, yet giving another character to all that does belong to it, have unfolded themselves before you. This is an imperfect, very imperfect, likeness (yet it is one), of that revelation which must have been made to the inner eye of the prophet, when he saw another throne than the throne of the house of David, another king than Uzziah or Jotham, another train than that of priests or minstrels in the Temple, other winged forms than those golden ones which overshadowed the mercy-seat. Each object was the counterpart of one that was then or had been at some time before his bodily eyes.… The symbols and service of the Temple were not, as priests and people often thought, an earthly machinery for scaling a distant Heaven; they were witnesses of a Heaven nigh at hand, of a God dwelling in the midst of His people, of His being surrounded by spirits which do His pleasure, hearkening to the voice of His words.—F. D. Maurice.
I. Earthly powers fade and perish, but the Eternal Power that uses them all lives on (Isa_6:1). Comfort here, when a great king or statesman is taken away from the head of a nation; when a great leader of an arduous reformatory movement, such as Luther, is laid low; when an eloquent preacher or wise pastor is summoned to his rest; or even when the head of a household is cut off just when his family most need his care. He who has wrought by their instrumentality can work without it (Psa_68:5, &c.)
II. In God’s temples there is room only for God. “His train filled the Temple.” Ahaz could build in the courts of the Lord’s house an altar to the god of Damascus (2Ki_16:10-16), but he could not worship two gods there, for the only living and true God departed when His sanctuary was thus profaned. God will have all, or none (Isa_42:8). All His earthly temples must be counterparts of the one heavenly temple, where He reigns alone. In no church will God divide His empire with the State or with popular opinion: we must choose between Him and all other authorities. In no heart will He reign along with any other principle or passion (Mat_6:24.)
III. Until we reach the land where there is no temple, we cannot see God as He is [703] To Isaiah a vision of God was granted, and yet it was but a symbolic vision. He saw a throne, and on it seated? Being of indescribable majesty; but who imagines that he saw God as He is? Does God sit on a throne, after the fashion of kings, such as Uzziah, who fade and die? The vision was a condescension to the human faculties of the seer, and served its purpose, that of impressing upon him the majesty and holiness of the Most High. And he tells us more of the ministers who surround the throne than of its Occupant! Him no words can describe; of Him no absolute disclosure is now possible; He can but give us revelations—visions—administrations of Himself. And this He has done.
1. In nature. The purpose of the manifold and wondrous universe is not accomplished if we look only at the creation, and do not discern in it veils not thickly hiding, but helping to re veal the Creator (Rom_1:19-20) [706]
2. In Providence. The manner in which the world is governed is, to the man who studies it comprehensively, earnestly, and reverently, a revelation of the character of the Ruler.
3. In His Word. That man miserably mistakes, who studies the Bible as anything less than a many-sided disclosure of God.
4. In Christ [709] a familiar thought this, yet how seldom do we enter into its depths! We do not worship an un known God, yet we cannot see Him as He is until we have entered into that light which is inaccessible and which no mortal can approach unto, until we have been ourselves trans formed into “children of Kght,” and so rendered capable of looking on “the Father of lights.”
[703] See my Dictionary of Poetical Illustrations, No. 1501; and my Homiletic Encyclopædia of Illustrations, Nos. 2229–2240.
[706] D. P. I., 1489, 1493, 1496, 1502, 1504–1506, 1508, 1509, 1511, 1514, 1519, 1526, 2545, 2552, 2563; H. E. I., 2242.
[709] H. E. I., 854–857, 2241, 2243.
IV. Those to whom He reveals Himself most fully are most humble, and those whom He most exalts are most ready to serve. We have both these truths illustrated in the seraphim and in Isaiah.
ISAIAH’S VISION
Isa_6:1-7. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord, &c. [712]
[712] God is invisible; yet in that heavenly world in which He has His special and eternal residence He manifests Himself in ineffable glory, dwelling in what the Scriptures call “the light which no man can approach unto.” Of that heavenly world, the tabernacle and temple were splendid emblems; they were “patterns of heavenly things.” But why the astonishing fact, that when sinful creatures erected a tent in the wilderness, and a temple subsequently at Jerusalem, the visible glory of God descended, taking possession of the place? God thus came down from heaven to earth, with all these impressive circumstances of visible majesty, to teach His creatures that He was awfully glorious, and fearful even in His praises; that even in His acts of grace His holiness is solemnly declared; and thus to show with what reverence and purity man ought to approach to Him. So when Isaiah was to be appointed to an office in which he was to fear God, and not the face of man, and which, to give it weight and authority, required an entire sanctity, a scene similar to that which had been displayed in the temple at its consecration, but greatly heightened and magnified, was disclosed to him in vision. The space of this visionary temple appears to have been far more ample than that of the one at Jerusalem; the throne was greatly elevated, it was “high, and lifted up;” the “train,” the “skirts” (as in the margin) of the cloud of the Divine presence filled the whole place; instead of the carved representations of the cherubim of glory fixed on the mercy-seat, the prophet beholds the cherubim themselves, living, and all ardour, activity, and adoration; they are not represented in the vision as the cherubim in the holiest of all, silently gazing on the glory of God and the mysteries of His covenant, but as hymning His praises, proclaiming His spotless purity, and declaring “the whole earth to be full of His glory.” The prophet, beholding the wondrous scene, sinks oppressed and self-abhorred, until a coal from the altar touches his lips, and he is thus sanctified to the service of God, and put among His ministers.—Watson.
Behold, in these temple scenes, both what the Lord your God is, and what He requires from you.
I. The first of these temple scenes presents to our view the majesty of God: “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high, and lifted up.” One of the first and most important truths for us to learn is the absolute rule of God—over nature, man, the principalities of heaven. Mark the scenic circumstances. He sitteth upon His throne: this is the attitude,
1. Of supremacy and dignity; He sitteth while all other beings stand before Him to receive His commands, bow in adoration, or are prostrate in abasement.
2. It is the attitude of ease and perfect security [715] But, above all, mark the place of His throne as displayed in this wonderful vision. It stands in the temple; it has been sprinkled with the blood of propitiation; it is now the mercy-seat. To the truly penitent all its terror appears softened with grace.
[715] No rebellions shake the throne of God; though “the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing,” yet “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.” The throne of God is a rock in the midst of the ever-rolling ocean of created existence, that heaves and swells with ceaseless change; but, in comparison of Him, its mightiest billows have but their moment of existence, and sink into the mass at the base of the immovable throne of the Everlasting One.—Watson.
II. The second of these temple scenes displays to us the ineffable and incomprehensible nature of God. Let not man suppose that he can by searching find out God, or know the Almighty unto perfection. This is scenically, but most impressively, represented to us in the vision before us: “His train”—the skirts of the shekinah—“filled the temple,” its fainter rays beaming from the central blaze in the holiest of all, and irradiating the more distant objects. But even that was too much for man, and it is therefore added, “And the house was filled with smoke;” a veil was thus drawn over what was too bright and dazzling for mortal vision; and though God dwelt in the light, yet it was light involving itself in thick darkness (Psa_97:2; Exo_16:10). Revelation has not superseded mystery (Job_26:14). As to His dispensations, we are all still to walk by faith rather than by sight; and as to the depths of His nature, rather to adore than reason. An infinite being is necessarily incomprehensible by finite beings [718] He must be mysterious. If we could fully know God, we must either be equal to Him, or He must lose the glory of His nature and come down to ourselves (1Co_13:9; Rom_11:33).
[718] An observer on a mountain-cliff may be able to survey the whole circumference of a lake that lies beneath him, but no man can see the whole of the ocean, simply because it is the ocean, and not a lake.—Watson.
III. The third view presented by this vision is that of the adorable and awful holiness of God (Isa_6:3). This is seen in His titles (Psa_71:22; Deu_32:4); in His acts; in His law; in His visible image on earth, His Son incarnate; in His Gospel; in His judgments; in the reward of the righteous.
IV. In the next scene which the vision presents we behold a sinful man convicted and laid prostrate before this holy God (Isa_6:5).
V. In the final scene we behold a convicted, self-abased, and penitent man pardoned and consecrated to the service of God (Isa_6:6-7). What are we taught by this wondrous representation? That for guilty man there is pardon, that for unholy men there is purification, and that lips, once unclean, but now sanctified, may join in the hymns of seraphim, and, without dread, approach to God, and celebrate the glories even of His holiness. This we are taught, but not this only; not merely is the fact, but the manner of it, brought before us. See, then, the means. The instrument of purification is fire; but not any kind of fire, fire from any place; it is fire from the altar, the altar where atonement is made for sin; fire, therefore, both of divine origin, and coming to us through the great Propitiation. We can be at no loss for an interpretation of the symbols thus employed. Our altar is the cross; the propitiatory sacrifice, the spotless Lamb of God; by the merit of His death, and the baptizing fire of His Spirit, are the guilty and polluted pardoned and sanctified to God.—Richard Watson: Works, vol. iv. pp. 143–153.
THE PROPHET’S CALL
Isa_6:1-13. In the year that King Uzziah died, &c.
We have here the history of Isaiah’s call to his great life-work. Perhaps in a modern biography this chapter would have been placed first. But there was wisdom in placing it where it stands; it was well to give us some insight into the real character of the men among whom Isaiah was called to labour, for thus we are enabled more easily to understand the nature of the mission on which he was sent [688] Studying this chapter as a history of the prophet’s call, I learn—
[688] This vision evidently contains the designation of Isaiah to his work as a prophet. It does not follow that he may not himself have put his book together in the form, or nearly in the form, in which we have received it. The early chapters as they describe the state of the people, not at one particular moment but through a course of years, announcing the punishments which must follow from that state with the blessings which could come out of them, are a living index to the subsequent prophecies and history. The place which they occupy, supposing it was assigned by Isaiah, cannot hinder us from accepting his own express words as a proof, that the year in which King Uzziah died was the critical year of his life, that which explained to him why he was sent into the world and what task he had to perform in it.—F. D. Maurice.
I. That a threefold spiritual preparation is needed for effective service of God [691] It is generally admitted that some kind of preparation is needed, e.g., for the ministry of the Gospel; but it is not generally recognised that a merely professional preparation is of no avail whatever. A man may pass through the whole routine of college life, both literary and theological, and yet not be a prophet of the Lord. Such preparation is not merely not enough, it is not even essential. “Schools of the prophets” may exist without sending forth a single prophet, and God calls many prophets who have never been inside a school door. This is true of every kind and form of God’s service, e.g., the Sunday-school, the home, Christian literature. In every case a threefold spiritual preparation is necessary. Without it we may pretend to be God’s servants; but the disguise will always be imperfect, and we shall always be betraying what we really are. Even the old blind Isaacs whom we deceive will not be sure about us: we may have on Esau’s garments, but we shall never perfectly imitate Esau’s voice. What, then, is this preparation?
1. A vision of God. Before we can serve God effectively, we must to some extent see Him as He is. In all departments of human activity, knowledge of the person served is essential to perfect service. Those who have never seen an earthly king cannot serve him as do those who are in daily intercourse with him; their loyalty is at the most a sentiment, not a constraining power. The biographies of God’s most eminent servants in all ages make it plain that the first and indispensable stage in preparation for His service is a vision of God Himself—a revelation of His majesty and holiness (Isa_6:1-4).
2. What a man needs before he can effectively serve God is a vision of himself. The great hindrance to such service is self-satisfaction and self-sufficiency. But when a man really sees God as He is, he straightway sees himself as he is (Isa_6:5). Job’s experience (Job_42:5-6). Peter’s experience (Luk_5:8). He sees himself to be utterly unfit and unable to serve God, and so attains to the second indispensable qualification for such service (Eph_3:8; 1Co_15:9, &c.)
3. The third thing which a man needs before he can effectively serve God is participation in God’s salvation. This is a rule that needs to be stated with wisdom. As a matter of fact, God has used the ministry of unconverted men. Such men may be guide-posts, though not guides. How much better to be a guide! How much more useful is a guide! But we cannot thus serve our generation unless we have been made a partaker of God’s salvation. By a sanctifying process,—a process involving in some cases terrible pain (Isa_6:6-7),—we must have been made “separate from sinners.”
[691] Once for all must he who was to be a prophet have become absolutely certain of the true relation of the world and Jehovah,—must have beheld, as in a distinct form, the sublime and holy character of Jehovah, and felt that he was directed by Him alone; once for all must he have recognised the divine power of truth against the whole world, and himself as living and moving in it alone; once for all must he have entered, with the effectual energy and act of his whole inner being, into the counsels of God, and found himself for ever bound by them, and endowed by these bonds with true power and freedom:—this was the first condition and the true beginning of all the work of the prophet, the holy consecration and the inner call, without which none can become a true prophet.—Ewald.
II. Those who have undergone this preparation will devote themselves unreservedly to God’s service.
1. There will spring up spontaneously within them a desire to serve God. They will not need to be pressed into this service; they will volunteer (Isa_6:8).
2. They will not be deterred by the difficulty or painfulness of the service to which they are called. It was a hard and distasteful service that was demanded of Isaiah—to prophesy to an unbelieving and scoffing generation (Isa_5:18-19); to enter upon a ministry that would leave men worse than it found them (Isa_6:9-10). Nor was this ministry to be brief; it was to be prolonged through many years (Isa_6:11-12). Note: in sending Isaiah on such a ministry there was nothing inconsistent with the Divine righteousness or goodness. God’s truth must be proclaimed, whether men will heed or reject it; and the inevitable effect of such proclamation of the truth is to render those who reject it more stupid and wicked than they were before (2Co_2:16; Joh_9:39). But, painful as it was, Isaiah did not shrink from it. Nor do any who have passed through such a preparation as his. They do not ask concerning a work or duty, “Is it easy?” “Is it pleasant?” but, “Does God call me to it?” Paul: (Act_21:13).
III. There is great encouragement for those who have unreservedly devoted themselves to the service of God.
1. What God demands from them is not success, but faithfulness. He did not require Isaiah to convert his fellow-countrymen, but to prophesy to them faithfully. There his responsibility began and ended. So is it with preachers, teachers, and priests to-day. Men measure by success, but God by faithfulness. What a difference is the result, e.g., in such a case as that of Carey, who laboured for years without making one convert! or in such a case as Isaiah’s!
2. No faithful servant of God will ever labour without some success. Isaiah was not to toil altogether in vain. There was to be a wide-spread apostacy of his countrymen, but not a universal apostacy; a small remnant would still cleave to the Lord (Isa_6:13); and doubtless Isaiah’s ministry did much to keep them in the paths of righteousness. So is it with us; much of our seed may be wasted, but not all of it (Psa_126:6; 1Co_15:58).
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. "I saw the Lord," etc. Some of you…
Isa 6:1
I. "I saw the Lord," etc. Some of you may have been watching a near and beautiful landscape in the land of mountains and eternal snows, till you have been exhausted by its very richness, and till the distant hills which bounded it have seemed, you knew not why, to limit and contract the view; and then a veil has been withdrawn, and new hills, not looking as if they belonged to this earth, yet giving another character to all that does belong to it, have unfolded themselves before you. This is a very imperfect likeness of that revelation which must have been made to the inner eye of the prophet, when he saw another throne than the throne of the house of David, another King than Uzziah or Jotham, another train than that of priests or minstrels in the temple, other winged forms than those golden ones which overshadowed the mercy-seat.
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II. "Above the throne stood the seraphim," etc. The sense of awe increasing with the clearness and purity of a spirit, and with the nearness of its approach to God; the face being veiled which receives its light from Him, and most covets to behold Him; the absence of all wish to display their own perfections in spirits that are perfect; the freedom and willingness to go anywhere, to do any errands of mercy,—these are some of the more obvious thoughts which the study of this vision suggests.
III. The vision reaches its highest point in the cry, Holy, holy, holy. It is the holiness of God which the seraphim proclaim, that which cannot be represented to the eye, that of which descriptions and symbols offer no image. It was this which led the prophet to say, "Woe is me! for I am undone."
IV. The live coal on the altar is a substance dead and cold in itself, which has been kindled from above, and therefore is capable of imparting life and warmth. That warmth and life, communicated to the prophet, take away his iniquity and purge his sin.
V. "Here am I; send me." The mighty change which has been wrought in him is soon apparent. He is sure that God cares for Israelites, and has a message to them; he is sure that a man is to be the bearer of that message. The new fire which has entered into him makes him ready to offer himself as that man.
VI. The most awful lesson which Isaiah had to teach his people was that God’s own ordinances, the regular sequence of sovereigns, the duties and symbols of the temple, were contributing to make their eyes dim, and their ears deaf, and their hearts fat. They were seeing all the outward tokens of an invisible King, but they perceived not Him.
VII. "Yet in it shall be a tenth." The nation will be preserved; the remnant, the tenth, would be a pledge and witness of its preservation. Their preservation would prove that the nation was a sacred and immortal thing, because the holy seed was in the midst of it, because it did not derive its life or its unity from this or that believing man, or from a multitude of believing men; but from Him in whom they believed; from that Divine King who lived, though king Uzziah and all other kings died,—nay, though the whole land should seem to die.
F. D. Maurice, Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, p. 218.
Reference: Isa 6:1.—J. W. Lance, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 244.
Isa 6:1-2
I. The spiritual or angelic life on earth consists not only of devotion. The seraph himself, though indeed the spirit of adoration is upon him always, is not always engaged in direct acts of praise. "With twain he did fly," speed forth, like lightning, upon the errands on which God sends him. There is a deep-seated necessity for work in the constitution of our nature. One of the greatest thinkers of antiquity defined happiness to be "an energy of the soul." The reason why activity fails in numberless instances to secure happiness is that it is separated from God, that it is not in His service and interests.
II. There is a contemplative element in the service of the seraphim—their activity is fed from the springs of their devotion. And so it must be with God’s human servants. The activity which flows from ambition, the diligence which is purely mechanical and the result of habit, is not angelic diligence and activity. To attempt to lead the spiritual life without devotion is even a greater mistake than to go apart from our duties in order to lead it. Our flying on God’s errands will be an unhallowed flight, if we do not first secretly adore Him in our hearts.
E. M. Goulburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion, p. 30.
Isa 6:1-3
We have here in this wondrous vision the proper inauguration of the great evangelical prophet to his future work.
I. First, he gives the date of the vision. "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord." What would he say but this: "In the year when the crowned monarch of the earth went down into the dust and darkness of the tomb, and all the pomp and pageantry which had surrounded him for a little while dissolved and disappeared, I saw another king, even the King Immortal, sitting upon His throne, which is forever and ever"? How simply and yet how grandly are earth and heaven here brought together, and the fleeting phantoms of one set over against the abiding realities of the other!
II. What is the first impression which this glorious vision makes upon the prophet? His first cry is not that of exultation and delight, but rather of consternation and dismay. "Woe is me! for I am undone." He who had uttered this cry was one who had kept himself from his iniquity, holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience; and yet in that terrible light he saw and avowed himself as a man undone, saw stains in himself which he had not imagined before, discovered impurities which he had not dreamt of before, saw his own sin and his people’s sin, till that mighty cry of anguish was wrung from him. Yet that moment, with all its dreadfulness, was a passage into a true life.
III. Observe the manner in which the guilt of sin is here, as evermore in Holy Scripture, spoken of as taken away by a free act of God,—an act of His in which man is passive; in which he has, so to speak, to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,—an act to which he can contribute nothing, save indeed only that divinely awakened hunger of the soul after the benefit which we call faith. It is quite another thing with the power of sin. In the subduing of the power of sin we must be fellow-workers with God; all the faculties of our renewed nature will need to be strained to the uttermost.
IV. Behold the joyful readiness with which the prophet now offers himself for the service of His God. "Here am I; send me." He stops not to inquire whereunto the Lord would send him, to undertake what painful labour, to drink what cup of suffering, to be baptized with what baptism of blood. Be the task what it may, he is ready for it.
R. C. Trench, Sermons New and Old, p. 98 (see also Sermons Preached in Ireland, p. 166).
References: Isa 6:1-3.—M. Nicholson, Communion with Heaven, p. 57; R. W. Forrest, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 492. Isa 6:1-4.—Homilist, Excelsior series, vol. ii., p. 347.
Isa 6:1-8
I. Consider what the prophet saw. He sees Jehovah as Ruler, Governor, King; He is upon a throne, high and lifted up. It is the throne of absolute sovereignty: of resistless, questionless supremacy over all. He is in the temple where the throne is the mercy-seat, between the cherubim; over the ark of the covenant, which is the symbol and seal of friendly communion. His train, the skirts of His wondrous garment of light and love, filled the temple. Above, or upon, that train stood the seraphim. These are not, as I take it, angelic or super-angelic spirits, but the Divine Spirit Himself, the Holy Ghost, appearing thus in the aspect and attitude of gracious ministry. With this great sight voice and movement are joined. A voice of adoring awe fills the august temple with the echoing sound. The voice occasions commotion, excitement, shaken door-posts, the smoke of the glorious cloudy fire filling all the house.
II. How the prophet felt. It is a thorough prostration. He falls on his face as one dead. He cannot stand that Divine presence—that living, personal, Divine presence—abruptly confronting him in the inmost shrine of the Lord’s sanctuary, and the sanctuary of his own heart. What the Lord really is, thus flashing on his conscience, shows him what he is himself. Undone! unclean! Unclean in the very sphere and line of living in which I ought to be most scrupulously clean!
III. How the prophet’s case was met. There, full in his view, is an altar with its sacrifice; present to him then, though future; with a living coal from that living altar, the blessed Spirit touches him at the very point of his deepest self-despair. And the effect is as immediate as the touch. Nothing comes in between. Enough that there are, on the one side, the unclean lips, and on the other the live coal from off the altar. To the one let the other be applied, graciously, effectually, by the sevenfold, myriadfold, agency of the Spirit who is ever before the throne on high. The prophet asks nothing more. He hears the voice, as of Him who said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee." "Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged."
IV. The subsequent offer and command. Two things are noticeable here: the grace of God in allowing the prophet, thus exercised, to be a volunteer for service; and the unreservedness of the prophet’s volunteering. It is no half-hearted purpose, conditional on circumstances; but the full, single-eyed heartiness of one loving much, because forgiven much, that breaks out in the frank, unqualified, unconditional self-enlistment and self-enrolment in the Lord’s host,—"Here am I; send me."
R. S. Candlish, Sermons, p. 86.
References: Isa 6:1-8.—H. F. Burder, Sermons, p. 115; S. Cox, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. ii., pp. 18, 21. Isa 6:1-10.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 283. Isa 6:1-11.—Ibid., vol. iv;, p. 274.
Isa 6:2
Is it not strange, that of those parts of an angel’s figure, which seem as if they were made only for action, four out of six are used for an entirely different purpose? It is to teach us, that it is not every power which we have—and which we might think given us for public service, and for the outer life—which is really intended by God for that use. Never think that large faculties are fitted only for large enterprises, and that all your endowments are to be spent on that which is to meet the general eye. Remember that of six wings an angel uses only two to fly with.
I. "With twain he covered his face." Similarly did Abraham, when he talked with God; and Moses in the bush, and Elijah and John. For the face is the expression of a man. His intellect, his heart, are there, and therefore the "covering of the face" is the confession of the weakness and unworthiness of the mind. It is the acknowledgment of the infinite distance of God. It is the sense of His exceeding glory.
II. "And with twain he covered his feet." In order, I suppose, that his very form and motion might not be seen; and therefore it is mentioned before the flight. He did not set out until, as far as possible, himself was concealed. There shall be simply the fact of a mission, and the message; so that if an angel were to bring God’s embassy to you, you would not see the angel.
III. "And with twain he did fly." We are taught that angels are always interchanging some nearer worship, or some further ministry. An angel’s being gives four parts to humility, and two to service. Be it with us the same. All life, humility and service; but still to humility the largest share.
IV. Why is an angel so very humble? (1) An angel is very great, and therefore he grows humble. (2) An angel is always conversant with the great things of God. (3) An angel knows and is sure that he is loved.
V. Why could an angel fly so well? (1) Because he rests. (2) Because he is disencumbered of self.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 4th series, p. 34.
References: Isa 6:2.—W. G. Forbes, Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iii., p. 239. Isa 6:2, Isa 6:3.—B. Lambert, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 168.
Isa 6:2-4
I. The seraphim, or burning ones—these strange mystic creatures whom Isaiah beheld hovering above Jehovah’s throne, and whose resounding cries pierced his soul. The first thing that strikes us is their redundance of wings. They each had six, only two of which were used for flying; the others, with which they shrouded their faces and their feet, were, apparently, quite superfluous. Was it not sheer waste to be possessing wings that were merely employed as covering, and never spread for flight? And yet, perhaps, without this shrouding of their faces and their feet, they might not have answered so well high Heaven’s purposes, might not have swept abroad with such undivided intentness, and such entire abandonment on their Divine errands.
We meet sometimes with these seemingly wasted wings in men, in the form of powers or capabilities, knowledges or skills, for the exercise of which there is no scope or opportunity in their lot, which they are not called on or able to apply. And yet a gift or capacity for which our position affords no adequate application may, nevertheless, be a secret serviceable force in us, rendering us all the wiser or mightier in the position that is below our abilities. We may be moving there more beautifully and more sufficiently on account of the wings that hang motionless.
II. Look at the apparent contradiction here between the covered faces of the seraphim and their loud temple-shaking shouts. Fancy the posts of the Lord’s house quivering, and the prophet’s heart stirred to its depths beneath the cries of those whose heads were bowed and hid behind their wings! Here to me, however, is an image or adumbration of much truth. Great, penetrating, and inspiring utterances, like the utterances of the seraphim of Isaiah’s vision, are they not always connected with some deep, still inwardness, with some profound withdrawal and retirement of soul? Is it not always from such as have held their breath that they come? from such as have brooded oft in solitude and sighed, being burdened?
III. Notice the unintentional, unpurposed effect produced by the seraphim; the much commotion they created without in the least aiming at or meaning it. Earnestness and enthusiasm in a cause will generally effect more than it seeks or thinks of.
IV. In the composition of the seraphim we may see imaged three things, which are always involved in real greatness of character, without which no real nobility is attained. (1) "They covered their faces"—it was the expression of humility. (2) "They covered their feet"—it was theirs to fly, and they would not be tempted to walk. Devotion to some chosen life-purpose involves always some resolute self-limiting in relation to things lawful enough, but not expedient, and always impels to it. (3) "With twain they did fly"—swift, so swift to execute the errands of Jehovah; and faithful velocity, instantaneous and vivid movement in obedience to the voice of the Lord within you,—this is the third of the three essentials to real greatness of character and nobility of life which Isaiah’s seraphim suggest.
S. A. Tipple, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 24.
Isa 6:3
I. The vision of God is the call of the prophet. Nowhere is the thought presented to us in the Bible with more moving force than in the record of Isaiah’s mission. The very mark of time by which the history is introduced has a pathetic significance. It places together in sharp contrast the hasty presumption of man and the unchanging love of God. Isaiah, a layman, was, it appears, in the temple court, and he saw in a trance the way into the holiest place laid open. He beheld not the glory resting upon the symbolic ark, but the Lord sitting upon the throne, high and lifted up; not the carved figures of angels, but the seraphim standing with outstretched wings, ready for swift service; not the vapour of earthly incense, but the cloud of smoke which witnessed to the majesty which it hid. This opening of "the eyes of his heart" was God’s gift, God’s call to him. For an eternal moment Isaiah’s senses were unsealed. He saw that which is, and not that which appears when we recall what Judaism was at the time,—local, rigid, exclusive. We can at once understand that such a vision, such a revelation taken into the soul, was for Isaiah an illumination of the world. He could at last see all creation in its true nature through the light of God. Humbled and purified in his humiliation, he could have but one answer when the voice of the Lord required a messenger: "Here am I; send me."
II. As the vision of God is the call of the prophet, so it is this vision which the prophet has to proclaim and to interpret to his fellow-men, not as an intellectual theory, but as an inspiration of life. The prophet’s teaching must be the translation of his experience. He bears witness of that which he has seen. His words, are not an echo, but a living testimony. The heart alone can speak to the heart. But he who has beheld the least fragment of the Divine glory, he who has spelt out in letters of light on the face of the world one syllable of the Triune Name, will have a confidence and a power which nothing else can bring. Only let him trust what he has seen, and it will become to him a guiding star till he rests in the unveiled presence of Christ.
III. The vision of God is also the chastening of the prophet. And in the fulfilment of our prophetic work we need more than we know the abasing and elevating influences which the vision of Isaiah and the thoughts of today are fitted to create or deepen. For our strengthening and for our purifying, we must seek for ourselves, and strive to spread about us the sense of the awfulness of being, as those who have seen God at Bethlehem, Calvary, Olivet, and on the throne encircled by a rainbow as an emerald; the sense, vague and imperfect at the best, of the illimitable range of the courses and issues of action; the sense of the untold vastness of that life which we are content to measure by our feeble powers; the sense of the majesty of Him before whom the angels veil their faces.
B. F. Westcott, Christus Consummator, p. 163.
I. Two of the Divine attributes form the theme of the seraphs’ hymn: God’s holiness as inherent in Himself; His glory as manifested in the earth. Holiness, the first of these, denotes, fundamentally, a state of freedom from all imperfection, specially from all moral imperfection; a state, moreover, realised with such intensity as to imply not only the absence of evil, but antagonism to it. It is more than goodness, more than purity, more than righteousness; it embraces all these in their ideal completeness, but it expresses besides the recoil from everything which is their opposite.
II. But not only does the seraphic hymn celebrate the Divine nature in its own transcendent purity and perfection, it celebrates it as it is manifested in the material world: "the fulness of the whole earth is His glory." By "glory" we mean the outward show or state attendant upon dignity or rank. The glory, then, of which Isaiah speaks, is the outward expression of the Divine nature. Pictured as visible splendour, it may impress the eye of flesh; but any other worthy manifestation of the being of God may be not less truly termed His glory. It is more than the particular attribute of power or wisdom; it is the entire fulness of the Godhead, visible to the eye of faith, if not to the eye of sense, in the concrete works of nature, arresting the spectator and claiming from him the tribute of praise and homage.
III. Wherein does the world so reflect the being of God as to be the expression of His glory? It is visible (1) in the fact, as such, of creation; (2) in the means by which an abode has been prepared for the reception of life and intelligence, and the majestic scale upon which the process has been conceived and carried out; (3) in the rare and subtle mechanism which sustains the world in every part, and the intrinsic adequacy and beauty of the results.
IV. Can we trace any evidence of the moral character of God, or is the earth full merely of the tokens of His power? It is difficult to think that we are mistaken in tracing it in the constitution of human nature, in the affections and aspirations which it displays, in the conditions upon which social life is observed to depend. He who has inspired human nature with true impulses of justice and generosity, of sympathy and love, with admiration for the heroic and noble, with scorn for the ignoble and the mean, cannot but be possessed of a kindred character Himself. Though the rays are broken and the image is obscured, the moral glory of the Creator shines in the world; it is reflected in the verdict of the individual conscience; it is latent in the ethical sanctions upon which the permanence and welfare of society depends.
S. R. Driver, The Anglican Pulpit of To-Day, p. 456.
References: Isa 6:3.—B. F. Westcott, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. v., p. 363; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 336, and vol. xviii., p. 280; F. Godet, Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 110; J. Keble, Sermons from Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 364; J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. vi., p. 362. Isa 6:4.—S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii., p. 33.
Isa 6:5
The vision of Isaiah is a true symbol of the soul’s progress.
I. The first stage of the vision is the revelation of God in His glory and in His holiness. The spiritual being of man truly begins when he has seen God. This vision of God must be a moral vision, that is, the apprehension of God as a King and Lawgiver, and therefore, as in relation to ourselves, our duty, and our affection. There is no true vision of God which embraces the entire vision of man until the eye of the spirit has been opened, and we gaze at God, not an idea or a fancy, but a Being great, majestic, holy, sitting upon a throne with law and claim even upon ourselves.
II. The second stage of the vision is the effect of this revelation upon the heart of the prophet. The sight of God is followed by the consciousness of personal sin. The claim of God is seen in the kingship which the throne symbolises. To know God is also to know duty, and to know duty is to know failure and disobedience, and the miserable deflections from duty which mock our human lives.
III. The next change of the vision is the purifying act of the seraph, who flies with a coal from the altar, and touches the lips of the penitent prophet. And here we recognise the sanctifying of the aroused soul by a relation to sacrifice; the confession of previous guilt is followed by the removal of the sin through a Divine act. (1) To the consciously guilty, there is a means of forgiveness. (2) The coal is from the altar. The purification is associated with sacrifice, and the means of that purifying follows and depends upon the burnt offering. Does not this point us to the grand Christian doctrine that sin is taken from the confessing soul by the sacrifice of the Lamb of God?
IV. The last change in the vision is the reply of the sanctified spirit to the requirement of God; and this points to the further stage of spiritual growth, that which follows upon the reception of saving power—acceptance and obedience to the Divine will.
L. D. Bevan, Penny Pulpit, No. 364.
Reference: Isa 6:5.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 280.
Isa 6:5-8
These verses teach us the essentials of true worship and of acceptable approach to God. And they seem to indicate these essentials as threefold, involving:—
I. A sense of personal wretchedness. To worship truly, there must be a sense of our own nothingness and need. The sense of wretchedness is first induced by the contemplation of the holiness and majesty of God. It is relieved by the condescension and mercy of the King. He is not only holy. "Mercy and truth meet together; righteousness and peace embrace each other;" and in that embrace the man who is undone is folded, and invited to bring forth his offering.
II. A sense of pardon. "Our God is a consuming fire," and our first contemplation of Him thus is one which appals and overcomes us. But a little further prostration before the Holy One shows that the fire is a purging fire, not to consume the man, but only to erase the confessed uncleanness from his lips. With the anointing of the holy fire on the lip, there comes the new life into the heart, and now the mortal may mingle his praises with the seraphim themselves.
III. But worship is not complete without service. To the ascription of the heart and lip there must be added the alacrity and obedience of the life. There was service for the seraphim: to fly with the live coal. And there is service for the seer: to fly with the living message. "Here am I; send me." Here is the alacrity of obedience. There is no curious inquiry about the nature of the service. The man becomes as winged as the seraph.
A. Mursell, Lights and Landmarks, p. 72.
References: Isa 6:5-8.—H. T. Edwards, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 353. Isa 6:6-7.—J. M. Neale, Sermons on Passages from the Prophets, vol. i., p. 17.
Isa 6:6-8
There must be a relation between prayer and action: between prayer, which is the soul of the inward life; and action, which is the substance of the outward.
I. Prayer is the preparation for action. What prayer is to preaching, that is action to prayer, its end and goal. That sermon is successful which makes men pray; that prayer is successful which makes men act. (1) It is necessary to remember that action has a spiritual field as well as an outward. There is an action of the soul, which is the highest of all practical workings. That living energy of conscious and fervent love—love to God, and love to man—which goes forth in holy aspirations, charitable feelings, and benevolent designs, is action, and the noblest action. (2) Prayer, which is the arming of the soul, must have respect to the items of the conflict even more than to the sum. The prayer which would affect action must be minute and detailed, as well as earnest.
II. Action is the working out of prayer. Even as the prophet, when the live coal had touched his lips, purging iniquity, heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" and answered, "Here am I; send me," so will the man of prayer, and the man to whom Christ is all, go forth in the spirit of prayer and in the strength of faith, to do the work of God, inward and outward, in his vocation. (1) In prayer he has received power; (2) he has anticipated trial; (3) he acts in the spirit of prayer; (4) he looks forward to the prayer of evening. The prospect of prayer is powerful with him, like its retrospect. He would fain be able to close the day, not in depression, but in thankfulness; not as a vanquished man, but as one who has done all and stands.
C. J. Vaughan, Voices of the Prophets, p. 194.
Isa 6:8
I. God often chooses marked seasons for His greatest self-manifestations; makes individual souls associate eventful days with their own more personal history. It was so with Isaiah. In that memorable year, naturally speaking, he himself was to see God.
II. It is the sight of the King which works conviction. One half-hour of Divine communion, one resolute determined entering of the Holy of Holies, that we may see the Lord seated upon His throne, and the holy angels veiling face and feet as they sing His praise, will do more for us in the wholesome work of self-abasement and self-abhorrence, because it will bring us into the light which alone makes manifest, and show us, in the very act of condemning, the beauty of the holiness which condemns.
III. Yet even the sense of sin might paralyse being alone. The man who is to do God’s work must not only see himself in God’s light, but see also how the light which exposes is a light also to purify and to transform. There is an altar of Divine sacrifice kindled from heaven—it stands not within, but in front of the Divine dwelling—and each coal of it is for the purging of the conscience. God sends His messenger to fetch from that altar—which is, being interpreted, the Cross of Jesus—a live coal to touch the unclean lips, and take away the iniquity which would else preclude the service.
IV. God asks, Whom shall I send? God wants a person. He cannot send a thing, nor a machine, nor a sound,—no, nor even a book. God wants us not to aid Him in guiding the stars in their courses, or in giving growth to the vegetable or life to the animal. For us, God’s business is with human lives, human souls. That which God has in view, that which God is perpetually taking counsel upon, is the welfare, the happiness, and, if either have been disturbed, then the restoration, the rectification, the redemption, the salvation, of the lives which He created, of the souls which He has made. When He says, Whom shall I send? He inquires, in other words, Who among the living will lend a hand to this work? Be jealous to be the one sent.
C. J. Vaughan, Half-Hours in the Temple Church, p. 177.
References: Isa 6:8.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., No. 687, and vol. xxiii., No. 1351; A. Maclaren, Old Testament Outlines, p. 169.
Isa 6:8-10
I. This, in all seeming, was the thankless office to which Isaiah was called, to be heard, to be listened to, by some with contempt, by others with seeming respect, and to leave things in the main worse than he found them. His office was towards those, in part at least, who were ever hearing, never doing, and so never understanding. The more they heard and saw, the farther they were from understanding, from being converted, from the reach of healing. And what said the prophet? Contrary as the sentence must have been to all the yearnings of his soul, crushing to his hopes, he knew that it must be just, because "the Judge of the whole world" must do right. He intercedes, but only by these three words: "Lord, how long?" This question implied a hope that there would be an end; the answer "until" implied that there would be an end.
II. Where there is desolation for the sake of God, there is also consolation. Isaiah had not seen the Beatific Vision. Not with his bodily eyes did he behold God, nor with his bodily ears did he hear His words; but to his inward sight did God disclose some likeness, whereby he should understand the nature of the Divine Essence, how God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, in-exists in Himself; although the Beatific Vision, as He is, was reserved for the life to come. So God prepared him to be—above all others, even of the goodly company of the prophets—the evangelic prophet, in that he had seen the glory of the Lord. This, then, is ever his consolation, this his joy in trouble, this his life in death. The surges of this world, higher and higher as they rose, only bore his soul upward toward his God. He, too, was a man of longing. In the darkness of the world God ever brings this light before him,—his darkest visions are the dawn-streaks of the brightest light.
E. B. Pusey, Lenten Sermons, p. 466.
References: Isa 6:8-13.—S. Cox, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 217. Isa 6:9.—J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii., p. 48. Isa 6:9, Isa 6:10.—M. Nicholson, Redeeming the Time, p. 125; E. W. Shalders, Expositor, 1st series, vol. vii., p. 471. Isa 6:13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii.,. No. 121. 6—P. Thomson, Expositor, 1st series, vol. xl., p. 119. Isa 7:6.—E. H. Plumptre, Ibid., 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 236. Isa 7:9.—I. Williams, Sermons on the Epistles and Gospels, vol. ii., p. 353.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1–3
Isaiah
VISION AND SERVICE
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THE EMPTY THRONE FILLED
Isa 6:1.
Uzziah had reigned for fifty-two years, during the greater part of which he and his people had been brilliantly prosperous. Victorious in war, he was also successful in the arts of peaceful industry. The later years of his life were clouded, but on the whole the reign had been a time of great well-being. His son and successor was a young man of five-and-twenty; and when he came to the throne ominous war-clouds were gathering in the North, and threatening to drift to Judah. No wonder that the prophet, like other thoughtful patriots, was asking himself what was to come in these anxious days, when the helm was in new hands, which, perhaps, were not strong enough to hold it. Like a wise man, he took his thoughts into the sanctuary; and there he understood. As he brooded, this great vision was disclosed to his inward eye. ‘In the year that King Uzziah died’ is a great deal more than a date for chronological purposes. It tells us not only the when, but the why, of the vision. The earthly king was laid in the grave; but the prophet saw that the true King of Israel was neither the dead Uzziah nor the young Jotham, but the Lord of hosts. And, seeing that, fears and forebodings and anxieties and the sense of loss, all vanished; and new strength came to Isaiah. He went into the temple laden with anxious thoughts; he came out of it with a springy step and a lightened heart, and the resolve ‘Here am I; send me.’ There are some lessons that seem to me of great importance for the conduct of our daily life which may be gathered from this remarkable vision, with the remarkable note of time that is appended to it.
Now, before I pass on, let me remind you, in a word, of that apparently audacious commentary upon this great vision, which the Evangelist John gives us: ‘These things said Esaias, when he had beheld His glory and spake of Him.’ Then the Christ is the manifest Jehovah; is the King of Glory. Then the vision which was but a transitory revelation is the revelation of an eternal reality, and ‘the vision splendid’ does not ‘fade but brightens, into the light of common day’; when instead of being flashed only on the inward eye of a prophet, it is made flesh and walks amongst us, and lives our life, and dies our death. Our eyes have seen the King in as true a reality, and in better fashion, than ever Isaiah did amid the sanctities of the Temple. And the eyes that have seen only the near foreground, the cultivated valleys, and the homes of men, are raised, and lo! the long line of glittering peaks, calm, silent, pure. Who will look at the valleys when the Himalayas stand out, and the veil is drawn aside?
I. Let me say a word or two about the ministration of loss and sorrow in preparing for the vision.
It was when ‘King Uzziah died’ that the prophet ‘saw the Lord sitting upon the throne.’ If the Throne of Israel had not been empty, he would not have seen the throned God in the heavens. And so it is with all our losses, with all our sorrows, with all our disappointments, with all our pains; they have a mission to reveal to us the throned God. The possession of the things that are taken away from us, the joys which our sorrows smite into dust, have the same mission, and the highest purpose of every good, of every blessing, of every possession, of every gladness, of all love-the highest mission is to lead us to Him. But, just as men will frost a window, so that the light may come in but the sight cannot go out, so by our own fault and misuse of the good things which are meant to lead us up to, and to show us, God, we frost and darken the window so that we cannot see what it is meant to show us. And then a mighty and merciful hand shivers the painted glass into fragments, because it has been dimming ‘the white radiance of Eternity.’ And though the casement may look gaunt, and the edges of the broken glass may cut and wound, yet the view is unimpeded. When the gifts that we have misused are withdrawn, we can see the heaven that they too often hide from us. When the leaves drop there is a wider prospect. When the great tree is fallen there is opened a view of the blue above. When the night falls the stars sparkle. When other props are struck away we can lean our whole weight upon God. When Uzziah dies the King becomes visible.
Is that what our sorrows, our pains, losses, disappointments do for us? Well for those to whom loss is gain, because it puts them in possession of the enduring riches! Well for those to whom the passing of all that can pass is a means of revealing Him who ‘is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever’! The message to us of all these our pains and griefs is ‘Come up hither.’ In them all our Father is saying to us, ‘Seek ye My face.’ Well for those who answer, ‘Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not Thy face far from me.’
Let us take care that we do not waste our griefs and sorrows. They absorb us sometimes with vain regrets. They jaundice and embitter us sometimes with rebellious thoughts. They often break the springs of activity and of interest in others, and of sympathy with others. But their true intention is to draw back the thin curtain, and to show us ‘the things that are,’ the realities of the throned God, the skirts that fill the Temple, the hovering seraphim, and the coal from the altar that purges.
II. Let me suggest how our text shows us the compensation that is given for all losses.
As I have pointed out already, the thought conveyed to the prophet by this vision was not only the general one, of God’s sovereign rule, but the special one of His rule over and for, and His protection of, the orphan kingdom which had lost its king. The vision took the special shape that the moment required. It was because the earthly king was dead that the living, heavenly King was revealed.
So there is just suggested by it this general thought, that the consciousness of God’s presence and work for us takes in each heart the precise shape that its momentary necessities and circumstances require. That infinite fulness is of such a nature as that it will assume any form for which the weakness and the need of the dependent creature call. Like the one force which scientists now are beginning to think underlies all the various manifestations of energy in nature, whether they be named light, heat, motion, electricity, chemical action, or gravitation, the one same vision of the throned God, manifest in Jesus Christ, is protean. Here it flames as light, there burns as heat, there flashes as electricity; here as gravitation holds the atoms together, there as chemical energy separated and decomposes them; here results in motion, there in rest; but is the one force. And so the one God will become everything and anything that every man, and each man, requires. He shapes himself according to our need. The water of life does not disdain to take the form imposed upon it by the vessel into which it is poured. The Jews used to say that the manna in the wilderness tasted to each man as each man desired. And the God, who comes to us all, comes to us each in the shape that we need; just as He came to Isaiah in the manifestation of His kingly power, because the throne of Judah was vacated.
So when our hearts are sore with loss, the New Testament Manifestation of the King, even Jesus Christ, comes to us and says, ‘The same is my mother and sister and brother,’ and His sweet love compensates for the love that can die, and that has died. When losses come to us He draws near, as durable riches and righteousness. In all our pains He is our anodyne, and in all our griefs He brings the comfort; He is all in all, and each withdrawn gift is compensated, or will be compensated, to each in Him.
So, dear friends, let us learn God’s purpose in emptying hearts and chairs and homes. He empties them that He may fill them with Himself. He takes us, if I might so say, into the darkness, as travellers to the south are to-day passing through Alpine tunnels, in order that He may bring us out into the land where ‘God Himself is sun and moon,’ and where there are ampler ether and brighter constellations than in these lands where we dwell. He means that, when Uzziah dies, our hearts shall see the King. And for all mourners, for all tortured hearts, for all from whom stays have been stricken and resources withdrawn, the old word is true: ‘Lord shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.’
Let me recall to you what I have already insisted on more than once, that the perfecting of this vision is in the historical fact of the Incarnate Son. Jesus Christ shows us God. Jesus Christ is the King of Glory. If we will go to Him, and fix our eyes and hearts on Him, then losses may come, and we shall be none the poorer; death may unclasp our hands from dear hands, but He will close a dearer one round the hand that is groping for a stay; and nothing can betaken away but He will more than fill the gap it leaves by His own sweet presence. If our eyes behold the King, if we are like John the Seer in his rocky Patmos, and see the Christ in His glory and royalty, then He will lay His hands on us and say, ‘Fear not! Weep not; I am the First and the Last,’ and forebodings, and fears, and sense of loss will all be changed into trustfulness and patient submission. ‘Seeing Him, who is invisible,’ we shall be able to endure and to toil, until the time when the vision of earth is perfected by the beholding of heaven. Blessed are they who with purged eyes see, and with yielding hearts obey, the heavenly vision, and turn to the King and offer themselves for any service He may require, saying, ‘Here am I; send me.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Prophet's Call
The Prophet's Call
This c., which recounts the prophet's call and commission, would stand first in a chronological arrangement of the book. The opening words remind us of the vision of Micaiah (1Ki_22:19), and we should compare the visions of Jeremiah and Ezekiel which inaugurated their prophetic activity. In St. John's vision (Revelation 4) the same anthem, 'Holy, holy, holy,' is sung by the six-winged living creatures round about the throne. Isaiah's vision foreshadows such leading elements of his thought as, (1) the majesty of God, (2) the uncleanness of the people, (3) his conviction that he had a divine message for them, (4) their stubbornness and heedlessness, (5) the necessity of judgment, (6) the idea of the remnant.
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1-4. Isaiah's vision of Jehovah enthroned and the worship of heaven. 5-7. He confesses his sin and is absolved. 8-13. He receives his prophetic commission.
1. The year that king Uzziah died] 740 b.c. See Intro. The prophet, when meditating perhaps on the condition of the nation and its gloomy prospects, is favoured with a vision of the glory of God. Train] i.e. the skirts (RM) of his royal robes.
2. Above it] RV 'above him.' The seraphims] here only in OT. the word denotes supernatural beings, It is derived from the verb 'to burn,' and may simply indicate the fiery or glowing appearance of Jehovah's attendant angels (Eze_1:13-14). Elsewhere, however, the same word stands for venomous serpents (Num_21:6; Isa_14:29; Isa_30:6) and it may here be intended to convey the meaning that the guardians of Jehovah's throne are of serpentine form. This is scarcely borne out by the context (Isa_6:6-7), though in Ezekiel's vision of heaven animal forms are introduced (Eze_1:10.)
Covered his face] in reverence.
3. Holy, holy, holy] The threefold repetition denotes emphasis or intensity (Jer_7:4). It is significant that the title of Jehovah most characteristic of Isaiah's prophecies is 'the Holy One of Israel.' In the light of later revelation Christians have not unnaturally seen here a foreshadowing of the Holy Trinity: cp. Rev_4:8.
4. The posts of the door moved] RV 'the foundations of the thresholds were moved.' Smoke] a symbol of the divine presence, as in Exo_19:9, Exo_19:18; 1Ki_8:10, 1Ki_8:11.
5. Lips] the pure praises of the seraphim made Isaiah think by contrast of his own sins of the lips. For mine eyes have seen, etc.] No man could see God and live (Exo_33:20).
6. Live coal] Fire is the symbol of purification: cp. Mal_3:2; Mat_3:11.
8. For us] the plural in the mouth of God as in Gen_1:26; Gen_3:22; Gen_11:7. Jehovah consults with the angels around His throne; similarly in Micaiah's vision (1Ki_22:19-20 : cp. Psa_89:7).
10. The result of the prophet's preaching described as though it were the purpose. Most of his hearers will stubbornly reject his message, with the result that they will become dead to all impressions. The heart] regarded by the Hebrews as the seat of the understanding: cp. Hos_7:11. Convert] RV 'turn again.'
11, 12. Isaiah feels that such a state of things cannot be allowed to continue, and is assured that Jehovah will interpose with a terrible judgment of war and exile.
12. There he a great forsaking] RV 'the forsaken places be many.'
13. RV 'And if there be yet a tenth in it, it shall again be eaten up: as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stock remaineth, when they are felled; so the holy seed is the stock thereof.' The meaning is that the coming judgment is not a single one but a series. Yet as when an evergreen tree is cut down the stump remains from which new shoots may grow, so there will be a faithful remnant of Israel left, to be the germ of a renewed people. This doctrine of the remnant is characteristic of Isaiah: cp. Isa_4:3; Isa_7:3; Isa_10:20, Isa_10:21.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v2 Heb. Burners. The word occurs only here. (See Scofield…
seraphims
Heb. Burners. The word occurs only here. (See Scofield "Eze 1:5"). The Seraphim are, in many respects, in contrast with the Cherubim, though both are expressive of the divine holiness, which demands that the sinner shall have access to divine presence only through a sacrifice which really vindicates the righteousness of God.
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(See Scofield "Rom 3:24") See Scofield "Rom 3:25" See Scofield "Rom 3:26" and that the saint shall be cleansed before serving. Gen 3:22-24 illustrates the first; Isa 6:1-8 the second. The Cherubim may be said to have to do with the altar, the Seraphim with the laver. See Scofield "Psa 51:7" See Scofield "Joh 13:10". The Seraphim appear to be actual angelic beings.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 The Prophet’s Vision and New Commission
CHAPTER 6
The Prophet’s Vision and New Commission
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1. The time of the vision (Isa 6:1) 2. Jehovah of hosts (Isa 6:2-4) 3. The prophet’s woe (Isa 6:5) 4. The cleansing (Isa 6:6-7) 5. “Here am I. Send me.” (Isa 6:8) 6. The new commission (Isa 6:9-10) 7. The limitation of the judgment (Isa 6:11-13)Note the eight steps: vision, conversion, self-judgment, cleansing, self-surrender, communion, commission, intercession. This vision is the glory of Christ Joh 12:41. The fulfillment of the hardening judgment of the nation, the blinding of their eyes did not set in completely in Isaiah’s day. Study carefully Mat 13:14-15;Joh 12:39-50;Act 28:25-31. However, Israel’s blindness is not permanent.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Jehovah Revealed in his Glory
Jehovah Revealed in his Glory
v. 1. In the year that King Uzziah died, that is, in the last year of this king’s successful reign, 2Ki 15:1-7; 2 Chronicles 26, in the year 758 B. C. I saw also the Lord, the All-powerful, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, the prophetic vision, beyond the range of the normal ability of human senses, permitting the prophet to see the revelation of God, not face to face, -for God dwells in an inaccessible light,—but in a manner which uncovered the divine glory to his inner mind, and his train filled the Temple, that is, His kingly robe with its majestic train, fitting emblem of the divine glory, covered and filled the heavenly Sanctuary.
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v. 2. Above it stood the seraphim, heavenly spirits of the highest rank, ministers of the Lord serving as guardians of the throne. Each one had six wings, in accordance with their nature as heavenly beings; with twain he covered his face, for even the seraphim cannot endure the sight of the essential holiness of God, and with twain he covered his feet, for even the angels, with a proper feeling of humility and modesty, prefer to keep their forms covered before the eyes of the Most Holy One, and with twain he did fly, floating about the throne of the Lord.
v. 3. And one cried unto another, in a wonderful antiphonal chorus, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, thrice holy not only on account of the supreme excellence of His essential holiness, but also on account of the Trinity of persons, each of which is the possessor of the divine holiness in its fullness and glory; the whole earth is full of His glory, literally, "filling the whole earth is His glory"; for all men on earth will see the revelation of His divine majesty, all His works, in creation, redemption, sanctification, will serve to magnify Him as the supreme and only God. Cf Rev 4:8.
v. 4. And the posts of the door, the foundations of the sills, or thresholds, the heavenly temple with its portals down to the lowest foundation, moved at the voice of him that cried, the powerful sound of the entire chorus, and the house was filled with smoke, as from the incense of all the prayers of the saints, uniting with the angels above to give praise and adoration to the great Lord of heaven, Rev 5:8; Rev 8:3-4.
v. 5. Then said I, overcome with awe and terror at the tremendous impressiveness of the scene, Woe is me! for I am undone, lost, threatened with death and destruction, because I am a man of unclean lips, the feeling of his own sinfulness coming over him all the more strongly in view of the perfect holiness which he had just seen, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, descendant and member of a generation of sinners; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, between whom and man is not only the gulf separating the Creator from His creatures, but the greater abyss between the holy God and the world of sinners. Cf Exo 33:20.
v. 6. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar, the altar of incense evidently being referred to;
v. 7. and he laid it upon my mouth, he caused the glowing coal to come into contact with the prophet’s lips, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged, atoned for. The act of the angel evidently had a symbolical meaning, first of all with reference to the atonement made in and through the person of Jesus Christ, the work of redemption carried out in accordance with the Triune God’s counsel. Not only, however, is the prophet, sinful man as he was, assured of the grace of God, but the Lord also imparts special strength to him and fits him to be the instrument of His inspiration.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 he was high and elevated
he was high and elevated
The words "high" and "elevated" emphasize that the throne was very high and above everything around it. The height of the throne represents how great and powerful the Lord is. (See: Doublet)
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filled the temple
"filled the palace." The word used for temple here is often used to refer to the palace of kings.
Above him were the seraphim
The word "seraphim" is the plural of seraph. This means the Lord was seated on the throne and the seraphim were standing or flying near the Lord ready to serve him.
seraphim
This word suggests that the creatures might have a fiery appearance or resemble snakes. Because we do not know exactly what "seraphim" means, you could translate this as "winged creatures" or "winged living things." Or, you can borrow the word and use it in your language. (See: Translate Unknowns and Copy or Borrow Words)
each one had six wings
"each seraph had six wings" or "each creature had six wings"
with two each covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew
The words "wings" and "seraph" are understood. AT: "with two wings each seraph covered his face, and with two wings he covered his feet, and with two wings he flew" (See: Ellipsis)
translationWords
king
Uzziah
lord
throne
robe
temple
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–3 6:1-13 Isaiah’s marvelous vision of God as King on…
6:1-13 Isaiah’s marvelous vision of God as King on his throne served as a pivotal event in the life of the prophet. The historical circumstances surrounding this event can be interpreted in two ways: (1) Some see ch 6 as Isaiah’s original call to ministry, meaning that chs 1–5 and 7–12 fit into the reign of Ahaz, who came to rule after the death of Uzziah (6:1). If this were so, why was Isaiah’s call not at the beginning of the book? Perhaps his call was put in ch 6 for literary reasons, serving as a conclusion to chs 1–5 and an introduction to chs 7–12. The prophet’s own transformation and commissioning symbolizes the entire nation’s need for conversion if it wants to fulfill its mandate to be God’s light to the world. (2) Others understand chs 1–12 as chronological; Isaiah’s call in ch 6 would then serve as a recommissioning of the prophet to minister in a new way in a different period (the time of Ahaz) when his words would be rejected. Those who hold this interpretation point to 2:7-9; 3:16-24; and 5:8-14, contending that these passages reflect a time of prosperity, military strength, pride, and splendor; these conditions existed during Uzziah’s reign but not during Ahaz’s reign.
6:1 At the time of King Uzziah’s death, the Assyrians had begun to reassert their dominance in the ancient Near East. It marked the beginning of an era dominated by major world powers—Assyria, then Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome. • I saw the Lord: “Lord” (Hebrew ’adonay) is used to describe human rulers as well as God. God is the supreme King. • on a lofty throne: The apostle John also had a vision of God’s heavenly throne (see Rev 4:2; 7:10; 21:5). • If just the train of the Lord’s robe filled the Temple, how great and majestic must have been the robe itself and the one wearing it.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.