Biblion Bible Commentary
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Holy, Holy, Holy
Isaiah 6:1-8
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. · WEB
A prophet already at work sees the throne and discovers he is finished, and the cure is a coal from the altar.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple Isaiah 6:1.
The date is doing work. Uzziah reigned fifty-two years, and a man of Isaiah's age had never known another king; the year he died was the year the throne of Judah was empty and everyone was frightened. In that year the prophet sees a throne that is occupied.
And his train filled the temple. The hem alone fills the building. Nothing else is described.
Above 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 Isaiah 6:2.
The name means burning ones, and they appear nowhere else in Scripture. The arithmetic of the wings is the passage's first argument: four of the six are used for covering and two for moving. Creatures who have never sinned cannot look, and the greater part of what they have is spent on not presuming.
One called to another, and said, "Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of Armies! The whole earth is full of his glory!" Isaiah 6:3.
Hebrew has no superlative and repeats a word to make one. No other attribute of God is tripled anywhere in Scripture. And the second half of the cry moves outward at once — the holiness in the room is said to fill the earth, which is what makes this vision a commission rather than a private experience.
The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke Isaiah 6:4.
The building shakes at the voice of the singers, not of God.
Then I said, "Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips" Isaiah 6:5.
The word means to be ruined or come apart. And the man saying it is a working prophet who has just spent five chapters pronouncing woe on other people; the sixth woe in the book lands on him, and he pronounces it himself.
What undoes him is specific. Not his hands or his history — his lips, which are the instrument of his trade, and he names his people's in the same breath. He does not separate himself from them.
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. He touched my mouth with it Isaiah 6:6–7.
The cleansing is applied to the part he confessed, it comes from the altar where sacrifice was made, and it is brought by someone else. He does not fetch it. And a live coal against the mouth is not a gentle remedy; the seraph needed tongs to carry it.
Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin forgiven.
I heard the Lord's voice, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here I am. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8.
The question is put to the room rather than to him, and he volunteers. The order is the chapter's whole doctrine: he sees, he is undone, he is cleansed, and only then is there anything to send.
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