Isaiah 6 · Story · Holiness and Purity
Isaiah in the Temple
In the year King Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord on a throne in the temple and offered himself as God's messenger.
The prophet who had cried woe six times over Judah cried woe over himself once he had seen the King.
Then I said: “Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts.”
- Where
- The Temple
- Who
- Isaiah
- When
- The year King Uzziah died (Isaiah 6:1)
Summary
Isaiah 6 shows what the holiness of God does to a sinner who sees it. The seraphim cover their faces as they call the LORD holy, and the prophet can only confess that his lips are unclean. God answers the confession with a cleansing from His altar, and only the cleansed man is asked to go. The chapter holds holiness and grace together, for the holy God removes the guilt His holiness has brought to light.
- Isaiah son of Amoz prophesied in Judah under four kings, and Uzziah was the first of them (Isaiah 1:1).
- The message of Isaiah 6:9 to 10 is quoted in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts.
- John's Gospel names the glory Isaiah saw on the throne as the glory of Jesus (John 12:41).
- Isaiah calls the remnant that survives the judgment "the holy seed" (Isaiah 6:13).
The Year King Uzziah Died
Isaiah dates the vision by the death of a king who had reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem.
The sixth chapter of Isaiah is the prophet's own record of his call, written in the first person. It belongs to the value of holiness because the holiness of God stands at its centre, in the cry of the seraphim and in the confession it drew from the prophet.
The question the story answers is how the holiness the seraphim cry can reach a man of unclean lips and make him fit to speak for God. The study gives the chapter in its order, from the reign that closed in the year of the vision to the throne, the seraphim, the confession and the coal. It then gives the hard message Isaiah carried, the holy seed left in the stump, and what John's Gospel says of the King Isaiah saw.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted; and the train of His robe filled the temple.Isaiah ties his vision to a date in the history of Judah's kings.
Second Chronicles tells how Uzziah's reign ended. When he grew powerful, "his arrogance led to his own destruction," for "he entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense" (2 Chronicles 26:16).
That work belonged to the priests, and while he raged at them, "leprosy broke out on his forehead" (2 Chronicles 26:19). He lived the rest of his days "cut off from the house of the LORD" (2 Chronicles 26:21).
The king who forced his way into the temple ended his life shut out of it, and in the year of his death Isaiah saw the Lord enthroned there.
The Chapter in Eleven Steps
The vision runs from praise in the temple to a judgment that empties the land.
Praise and confession come first in Isaiah 6, and the message of judgment follows them.
- Isaiah sees the Lord on a throne"high and exalted"Isaiah 6:1
- Seraphim stand above Him"each having six wings"Isaiah 6:2
- The seraphim call to one another"Holy, holy, holy"Isaiah 6:3
- The temple shakes and fills with smoke"the temple was filled with smoke"Isaiah 6:4
- Isaiah confesses his uncleanness"Woe is me, for I am ruined"Isaiah 6:5
- A seraph takes a coal from the altar"a glowing coal"Isaiah 6:6
- The coal touches Isaiah's mouth"your iniquity is removed"Isaiah 6:7
- The Lord asks for a messenger and Isaiah answers"Here am I. Send me!"Isaiah 6:8
- The Lord gives the message"Go and tell this people"Isaiah 6:9
- Isaiah asks how long it will last"How long, O Lord?"Isaiah 6:11
- A remnant is left in the land"a tenth remains"Isaiah 6:13
A timeline of eleven steps in Isaiah 6:1 to 13, each with words of the Berean text and its verse.
The coal touches Isaiah's mouth, The Lord asks for a messenger and Isaiah answers, The Lord gives the message, Isaiah asks how long it will last, A remnant is left in the land
The Throne and the Seraphim
The first sight of the vision is the throne, the beings who served it and the song they sang.
Isaiah writes that "with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying" (Isaiah 6:2). John Wesley explained the name seraphim as taken from fire and burning, for their brightness and their zeal in God's service.
And they were calling out to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts; all the earth is full of His glory.”The cry stands at the centre of the vision, and each later step of the chapter answers it.
At the sound of the cry "the doorposts and thresholds shook" (Isaiah 6:4).
Ambrose of Milan, writing in the fourth century, read the threefold cry as a confession of the three persons of God.
“Cherubim and seraphim with unwearied voices praise him and say, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts.’ They say it not once, lest you should believe that there is but one; not twice, lest you should exclude the Spirit; they say not holies [in the plural], lest you should imagine that there is plurality, but they repeat three times and say the same word, that even in a hymn you may understand the distinction of persons in the Trinity and the oneness of the Godhead, and while they say this they proclaim God.”
Ambrose of Milan · On the Holy Spirit 3.16.110 · on Isaiah 6:3Patristic
Ruined, Cleansed and Sent
The prophet's confession names his lips and his people, and the seraph's coal goes to the same place.
Matthew Henry tied the word unclean to the song the seraphim had just sung.
“The angels had celebrated the purity and holiness of God; and therefore the prophet, when he reflects upon sin, calls it uncleanness; for the sinfulness of sin is its contrariety to the holy nature of God, and upon that account especially it should appear both hateful and frightful to us.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Isaiah 6:5Puritan
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And with it he touched my mouth and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for.”The seraph answers the confession at the very point Isaiah named, his lips.
Isaiah 6:6 says only "the altar", and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown took it as the altar of burnt offering in the court of the priests, the place where the sacrifices burned.
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for Us?” And I said: “Here am I. Send me!”Isaiah offers himself before he has heard the message he will carry.
The Hard Commission
Isaiah was sent to a people who would hear him and not understand.
And He replied: “Go and tell this people, ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the hearts of this people calloused; deafen their ears and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”These are the words the volunteer of Isaiah 6:8 was given to carry.
Jesus took up the passage in Matthew 13:14 to 15, Mark 4:12 and Luke 8:10, when He explained why He taught in parables. John set it beside the unbelief that met Jesus' signs (John 12:40), and Paul spoke it in the last chapter of Acts (Acts 28:25 to 27).
Augustine read the hardening as a judgment on those who were blinded, and Wesley set a prediction and a judgment side by side in one note on Isaiah 6:10.
“This making of their hearts fat, is here ascribed to the prophet, as it is ascribed to God in the repetition of this prophecy, John xii, 40, because God inflicted this judgment upon them by the ministry of the prophet, partly by way of prediction, foretelling that this would be the effect of his preaching; and partly by withdrawing the light and help of his Spirit.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament · on Isaiah 6:10Evangelical
The Holy Seed in the Stump
Isaiah's last question drew an answer of exile, and a remnant that would come through it.
The Lord's answer to "How long, O Lord?" was "Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant" and "the land is utterly forsaken" (Isaiah 6:11 to 12).
And though a tenth remains in the land, it will be burned again. As the terebinth and oak leave stumps when felled, so the holy seed will be a stump in the land.”The verse turns the felled nation into a stump that can grow again.
The word holy, which the seraphim cried over the LORD, is given here to what remains of His people. Five chapters later the felled tree returns: "a shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots will bear fruit" (Isaiah 11:1).
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown carried the remnant forward into the later chapters of the book.
“According to Isaiah, not all Israel, but the elect remnant alone, is destined to salvation. God shows unchangeable severity towards sin, but covenant faithfulness in preserving a remnant, and to it Isaiah bequeaths the prophetic legacy of the second part of his book (the fortieth through sixty-sixth chapters).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible · on Isaiah 6:13Reformed
Isaiah Saw His Glory
The Gospel of John reads the throne vision as a sight of Jesus.
Isaiah said these things because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about Him.John has just quoted Isaiah 53:1 and Isaiah 6:10, and this verse tells why the prophet could speak of Jesus.
The sentence closes John's account of the crowd that "still did not believe in Him" although Jesus "had performed so many signs in their presence" (John 12:37).
Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Proof of the Gospel (book 9, chapter 16), read the vision of Isaiah 6:1 as a sight of Christ and of His glory.
The Song Around the Throne
The last book of the Bible hears the seraphim's cry again in heaven.
And each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around and within. Day and night they never stop saying: “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”The cry Isaiah heard once in the temple is sung without pause before the throne in John's vision.
Cyril of Jerusalem gave the reason the church joins the seraphim's words in its own worship.
“We make mention also of the seraphim, whom Isaiah in the Holy Spirit saw standing around the throne of God, and with two of their wings veiling their face, and with two their feet, while with two they flew, crying, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.’ For the reason of our reciting this confession of God, delivered down to us from the seraphim, is this, that so we may be partakers with the hosts of the world above in their hymn of praise.”
Cyril of Jerusalem · Catechetical Lecture 23:6 · on Isaiah 6:3Patristic
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
- Eusebius of Caesarea, Proof of the Gospel, book 9, chapter 16 (fourth century)
- Augustine of Hippo, On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 6 (430)
- Ambrose of Milan, On the Holy Spirit 3.16.110 (397)
- Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 23:6 (386)
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