Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament · Isaiah Kabanata 6

The time of the occurrence here described, viz., “the year that king Uzziah ( Uzı̄yahu ) died,” was of importance to the prophet. The statement itself, in the naked form in which it is here introduced, is much more emphatic than if it commenced with “it came to pass” ( vay'hi ; cf., Exodus 16:6; Proverbs 24:17). It was the year of Uzziah's death, not the first year of Jotham's reign; that is to say, Uzziah was still reigning, although his death was near at hand. If this is the sense in which the words are to be understood, then, even if the chapter before us contains an account of Isaiah's first call, the heading to chapter 1, which dates the ministry of the prophet from the time of Uzziah, is quite correct, inasmuch as, although his public ministry under Uzziah was very short, this is properly to be included, not only on account of its own importance, but as inaugurating a new ear ( lit. “an epoch-making beginning”). But is it not stated in 2 Chronicles 26:22, that Isaiah wrote a historical work embracing the whole of Uzziah's reign? Unquestionably; but it by no means follows from this, that he commenced his ministry long before the death of Uzziah. If Isaiah received his call in the year that Uzziah died, this historical work contained a retrospective view of the life and times of Uzziah, the close of which coincided with the call of the prophetic author, which made a deep incision into the history of Israel. Uzziah reigned fifty-two years (809-758 b.c.). This lengthened period was just the same to the kingdom of Judah as the shorter age of Solomon to that of all Israel, viz., a time of vigorous and prosperous peace, in which the nation was completely overwhelmed with manifestations of divine love. But the riches of divine goodness had no more influence upon it, than the troubles through which it had passed before. And now the eventful change took place in the relation between Israel and Jehovah, of which Isaiah was chosen to be the instrument before and above all other prophets. The year in which all this occurred was the year of Uzziah's death. It was in this year that Israel as a people was given up to hardness of heart, and as a kingdom and country to devastation and annihilation by the imperial power of the world. How significant a fact, as Jerome observes in connection with this passage, that the year of Uzziah's death should be the year in which Romulus was born; and that it was only a short time after the death of Uzziah (viz., 754 b.c. according to Varro's chronology) that Rome itself was founded! The national glory of Israel died out with king Uzziah, and has never revived to this day.

In that year, says the prophet, “I saw the Lord of all sitting upon a high and exalted throne, and His borders filling the temple.” Isaiah saw, and that not when asleep and dreaming; but God gave him, when awake, an insight into the invisible world, by opening an inner sense for the supersensuous, whilst the action of the outer senses was suspended, and by condensing the supersensuous into a sensuous form, on account of the composite nature of man and the limits of his present state. This was the mode of revelation peculiar to an ecstatic vision ( ἐν ἐκστἀσει , Eng. ver. “in a trance,” or ἐν πνεὐματι , “in the spirit”). Isaiah is here carried up into heaven; for although in other instances it was undoubtedly the earthly temple which was presented to a prophet's view in an ecstatic vision (Amos 9:1; Ezekiel 8:3; Ezekiel 10:4-5; cf., Acts 22:17), yet here, as the description which follows clearly proves, the “high and exalted throne”

(Note: It is to this, and not to ‛Adonai , as the Targum and apparently the accents imply, that the words “high and exalted” refer.)

is the heavenly antitype of the earthly throne which was formed by the ark of the covenant; and the “temple” ( hēcâl : lit., a spacious hall, the name given to the temple as the palace of God the King) is the temple in heaven, as in Psalms 11:4; Psalms 18:7; Psalms 29:9, and many other passages. There the prophet sees the Sovereign Ruler, or, as we prefer to render the noun, which is formed from âdan = dūn , “ the Lord of all ” ( All-herrn , sovereign or absolute Lord), seated upon the throne, and in human form (Ezekiel 1:26), as is proved by the robe with a train, whose flowing ends or borders ( fimibrae : shūilm , as in Exodus 28:33-34) filled the hall. The Sept., Targum, Vulgate, etc., have dropped the figure of the robe and train, as too anthropomorphic. But John, in his Gospel, is bold enough to say that it was Jesus whose glory Isaiah saw (John 12:41). And truly so, for the incarnation of God is the truth embodied in all the scriptural anthropomorphisms, and the name of Jesus is the manifested mystery of the name Jehovah. The heavenly temple is that super-terrestrial place, which Jehovah transforms into heaven and a temple, by manifesting Himself there to angels and saints. But whilst He manifests His glory there, He is obliged also to veil it, because created beings are unable to bear it. But that which veils His glory is no less splendid, than that portion of it which is revealed. And this was the truth embodied for Isaiah in the long robe and train. He saw the Lord, and what more he saw was the all-filling robe of the indescribable One. As far as the eye of the seer could look at first, the ground was covered by this splendid robe. There was consequently no room for any one to stand. And the vision of the seraphim is in accordance with this.

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“Above it stood seraphim: each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he did fly.” We must not render לו ממּעל “near him;” for although על or מעל is applied to a person standing near or over against another who is sitting down (Exodus 18:13; Jeremiah 36:21; compared 2 Chronicles 26:19, where the latter is used to signify “over against” the altar of incense), and is used in this sense to denote the attitude of spirits (Job 1:16; 1 Kings 22:19; Zechariah 6:5), and even of men (Zechariah 4:14), in relation to God when seated on His throne, in which case it cannot possibly be employed in the sense of “towering above;” yet לו ממּעל , the strongest expression for supra, cannot be employed in any other than a literal sense here; for which reason Rashi and the Targums understand it as signifying “above in the attitude of service,” and the accentuation apparently, though erroneously, implies this (Luzzatto). What Isaiah meant by this standing above, may be inferred from the use which the seraphim are said to have made of their wings. The imperfects do not describe what they were accustomed to do (Böttcher and others), but what the seer saw them do: with two of their six wings he saw them fly. Thus they stood flying, i.e., they hovered or soared (cf., Numbers 14:14), as both the earth and stars are said to stand, although suspended in space (Job 26:7). The seraphim would not indeed tower above the head of Him that sat upon the throne, but they hovered above the robe belonging to Him with which the hall was filled, sustained by two extended wings, and covering their faces with two other wings in their awe at the divine glory (Targ. ne videant), and their feet with two others, in their consciousness of the depth at which the creature stands below the Holiest of all (Targ. ne videantur), just as the cherubim are described as veiling their bodies in Ezekiel 1:11. This is the only passage in the Scriptures in which the seraphim are mentioned. According to the orthodox view, which originated with Dionysius the Areopagite, they stand at the head of the nine choirs of angels, the first rank consisting of seraphim, cherubim, and throni. And this is not without support, if we compare the cherubim mentioned in Ezekiel, which carried the chariot of the divine throne; whereas here the seraphim are said to surround the seat on which the Lord was enthroned. In any case, the seraphim and cherubim were heavenly beings of different kinds; and there is no weight in the attempts made by Hendewerk and Stickel to prove that they are one and the same. And certainly the name serpahim does not signify merely spirits as such, but even, if not the highest of all, yet a distinct order from the rest; for the Scriptures really teach that there are gradations in rank in the hierarchy of heaven. Nor were they mere symbols or fanciful images, as Hävernick imagines, but real spiritual beings, who visibly appeared to the prophet, and that in a form corresponding to their own supersensuous being, and to the design of the whole transaction. Whilst these seraphim hovered above on both sides of Him that sat upon the throne, and therefore formed two opposite choirs, each ranged in a semicircle, they presented antiphonal worship to Him that sat upon the throne.

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“And one cried to the other, and said, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts: filling the whole earth is His glory.” The meaning is not that they all lifted up their voice in concert at one and the same time (just as in Psalms 42:8 el is not used in this sense, viz., as equivalent to C'neged ), but that there was a continuous and unbroken antiphonal song. One set commenced, and the others responded, either repeating the “ Holy, holy, holy,” or following with “ filling the whole earth is His glory.” Isaiah heard this antiphonal or “hypophonal” song of the seraphim, not merely that he might know that the uninterrupted worship of God was their blessed employment, but because it was with this doxology as with the doxologies of the Apocalypse, it had a certain historical significance in common with the whole scene. God is in Himself the Holy One ( kâdōsh ), i.e., the separate One, beyond or above the world, true light, spotless purity, the perfect One. His glory ( C âbod ) is His manifested holiness, as Oetinger and Bengel express it, just as, on the other hand, His holiness is His veiled or hidden glory. The design of all the work of God is that His holiness should become universally manifest, or, what is the same thing, that His glory should become the fulness of the whole earth (Isaiah 11:9; Numbers 14:21; Habakkuk 2:14). This design of the work of God stands before God as eternally present; and the seraphim also have it ever before them in its ultimate completion, as the theme of their song of praise. But Isaiah was a man living in the very midst of the history that was moving on towards this goal; and the cry of the seraphim, in the precise form in which it reached him, showed him to what it would eventually come on earth, whilst the heavenly shapes that were made visible to him helped him to understand the nature of that divine glory with which the earth was to be filled. The whole of the book of Isaiah contains traces of the impression made by this ecstatic vision. The favourite name of God in the mouth of the prophet viz., “the Holy One of Israel” ( kedosh Yisrael ), is the echo of this seraphic sanctus ; and the fact that this name already occurs with such marked preference on the part of the prophet in the addresses contained in Isaiah 1:2-4:5, supports the view that Isaiah is here describing his own first call. All the prophecies of Isaiah carry this name of God as their stamp. It occurs twenty-nine times (including Isaiah 10:17; Isaiah 43:15; Isaiah 49:7), viz., twelve times in chapters 1-39, and seventeen times in chapters 40-66. As Luzzatto has well observed, “the prophet, as if with a presentiment that the authenticity of the second part of his book would be disputed, has stamped both parts with this name of God, 'the Holy One of Israel,' as if with his own seal.” The only other passages in which the word occurs, are three times in the Psalms (Psalms 71:22; Psalms 78:41; Psalms 89:19), and twice in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 50:29; Jeremiah 51:5), and that not without an allusion to Isaiah. It forms an essential part of Isaiah's distinctive prophetic signature. And here we are standing at the source from which it sprang. But did this thrice-holy refer to the triune God? Knobel contents himself with saying that the threefold repetition of the word “holy” serves to give it the greater emphasis. No doubt men are accustomed to say three times what they wish to say in an exhaustive and satisfying manner; for three is the number of expanded unity, of satisfied and satisfying development, of the key-note extended into the chord. But why is this? The Pythagoreans said that numbers were the first principle of all things; but the Scriptures, according to which God created the world in twice three days by ten mighty words, and completed it in seven days, teach us that God is the first principle of all numbers. The fact that three is the number of developed and yet self-contained unity, has its ultimate ground in the circumstance that it is the number of the trinitarian process; and consequently the trilogy ( trisagion) of the seraphim (like that of the cherubim in Revelation 4:8), whether Isaiah was aware of it or no, really pointed in the distinct consciousness of the spirits themselves to the truine God.

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When Isaiah heard this, he stood entranced at the farthest possible distance from Him that sat upon the throne, namely, under the door of the heavenly palace or temple. What he still further felt and saw, he proceeds to relate in Isaiah 6:4: “And the foundations of the thresholds shook with the voice of them that cried; and the house became full of smoke.” By ‛ammoth hassippim , the lxx, Vulgate, Syriac, and others understand the posts of the lintels, the supporting beams of the superliminaria, which closed the doorway at the top. But as saph is only used in other places to signify the threshold and porch ( limen and vestibulum ), ‛ammoth hassippim must be understood here in the (perfectly appropriate) sense of “the foundations of the thresholds” ( ammâh , which bears the same relation to עם , mother, as m atrix to m ater , is used to denote the receptive basis into which the door-steps with their plugs were inserted, like the talmudic ammetâh derēchayyâh , the frame or box of the hand-mill ( Berachoth 18 b), and ammath megērah , the wood-work which runs along the back of the saw and keeps it firmly extended ( Kelim 21, 3); compare the “ Schraubenmutter,” literally screw- mother, or female screw, which receives and holds the cylindrical screw). Every time that the choir of seraphim ( הקּורא : compare such collective singulars as hâ'oreb , the ambush, in Joshua 8:19; hechâlutz , of men of war, in Joshua 6:7, etc.) began their song, the support of the threshold of the porch in which Isaiah was standing trembled. The building was seized with reverential awe throughout its whole extent, and in its deepest foundations: for in the blessed state beyond, nothing stands immoveable or unsusceptible in relation to the spirits there; but all things form, as it were, the accidentia of their free personality, yielding to their impressions, and voluntarily following them in all their emotions. The house was also “ filled with smoke.” Many compare this with the similar occurrence in connection with the dedication of Solomon's temple (1 Kings 8:10); but Drechsler is correct in stating that the two cases are not parallel, for there God simply attested His own presence by the cloud of smoke behind which He concealed Himself, whereas here there was no need of any such self-attestation. Moreover, in this instance God does not dwell in the cloud and thick darkness, whilst the smoke is represented as the effect of the songs of praise in which the seraphim have joined, and not of the presence of God. The smoke arose from the altar of incense mentioned in Isaiah 6:6. But when Drechsler says that it was the prayers of saints (as in Revelation 5:8; Revelation 8:3-4), which ascended to the Lord in the smoke, this is a thought which is quite out of place here. The smoke was the immediate consequence of the seraphs' song of praise.

This begins to throw a light upon the name seraphim, which may help us to decipher it. The name cannot possibly be connected with sârâph , a snake (Sanscr. sarpa , Lat. serpens ); and to trace the word to a verb sâraph in the sense of the Arabic 'sarafa ( 'sarufa ), to tower high, to be exalted, or highly honoured (as Gesenius, Hengstenberg, Hofmann, and others have done), yields a sense which does not very strongly commend itself. On the other hand, to follow Knobel, who reads shârâthim (worshippers of God), and thus presents the Lexicon with a new word, and to pronounce the word serpahim a copyist's error, would be a rash concession to the heaven-storming omnipotence which is supposed to reside in the ink of a German scholar. It is hardly admissible, however, to interpret the name as signifying directly spirits of light or fire, since the true meaning of sâraph is not urere (to burn), but Comburere (to set on fire or burn up). Umbreit endeavours to do justice to this transitive meaning by adopting the explanation “fiery beings,” by which all earthly corruption is opposed and destroyed. The vision itself, however, appears to point to a much more distinctive and special meaning in the name, which only occurs in this passage of Isaiah. We shall have more to say upon this point presently.

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The seer, who was at first overwhelmed and intoxicated by the majestic sight, now recovers his self-consciousness. ”Then said I, Woe to me! for I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I am dwelling among a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.” That a man cannot see God without dying is true in itself, and was an Old Testament conviction throughout (Exodus 33:20, etc.). He must die, because the holiness of God is to the sinner a consuming fire (Isaiah 33:14); and the infinite distance between the creature and the Creator is sufficient of itself to produce a prostrating effect, which even the seraphim could not resist without veiling their faces. Isaiah therefore regarded himself as lost ( nidmēthi , like ὄλωλα , perii, a preterite denoting the fact which, although not outwardly completed, is yet effected so far as a man's own consciousness is concerned), and all the more because he himself was of unclean lips, and he was also a member of a nation of unclean lips. The unholiness of his own person was doubled, in consequence of the closeness of the natural connection, by the unholiness of the nation to which he belonged. He designates this unholiness as uncleanness of lips, because he found himself transported into the midst of choirs of beings who were praising the Lord with pure lips; and he calls the King Jehovah, because, although he had not seen Jehovah face to face, he had seen the throne, and the all-filling robe, and the seraphim who surrounded and did homage to Him that sat upon the throne; and therefore, as he had seen the heavenly King in His revealed majesty, he describes the scene according to the impression that he had received. But to stand here in front of Jehovah of hosts, the exalted King, to whom everything does homage, and to be obliged to remain mute in the consciousness of deep uncleanness, excited within him the annihilating anguish of self-condemnation. And this is expressed in the confession made by the contrite seer.

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When Isaiah had been thus absolved, the true object of the heavenly scene was made apparent. ”Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Behold me here; send me!” The plural “for us” ( lânu ) is not to be accounted for on the ground that, in a case of reflection or self-consultation, the subject also stands as the object in antithesis to itself (as Hitzig supposes); nor is it a pluralis majestatis , as Knobel maintains; nor is the original abstract signification of the plural hinted at, as Meier thinks. The plural is no doubt used here with reference to the seraphim, who formed, together with the Lord, one deliberative council ( sōd kedoshim , Psalms 89:8), as in 1 Kings 22:19-22; Daniel 4:14, etc.; just as, from their very nature as “sons of God” ( b'nē Hâ - elohim ), they made one family with God their Creator (vid., Ephesians 3:15), all linked so closely together that they themselves could be called Elohim, like God their Creator, just as in 1 Corinthians 12:12 the church of believers is called Christos, like Christ its head. The task for which the right man was sought was not merely divine, but heavenly in the broadest sense: for it is not only a matter in which God Himself is interested, that the earth should become full of the glory of God, but this is also an object of solicitude to the spirits that minister unto Him. Isaiah, whose anxiety to serve the Lord was no longer suppressed by the consciousness of his own sinfulness, no sooner heard the voice of the Lord, than he exclaimed, in holy self-consciousness, “Behold me here; send me.” It is by no means a probable thing, that he had already acted as a messenger of God, or held the office of prophet. For if the joy, with which he offered himself here as the messenger of God, was the direct consequence of the forgiveness of sins, of which he had received the seal; the consciousness of his own personal sinfulness, and his membership in a sinful nation, would certainly have prevented him thereto from coming forward to denounce judgment upon that nation. And as the prophetic office as such rested upon an extraordinary call from God, it may fairly be assumed, that when Isaiah relates so extraordinary a call as this, he is describing the sealing of his prophetic office, and therefore his own first call.

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