Isaiah 6

1. I saw also the Lord (Adonai). The Divine essence is declared to be invisible (John i. 18; Exod. xxxiii. 20), yet the phrase to see God is sometimes employed in Scripture to denote either an extraordinary display of His glory, or His appearance in a human form: see Exod. xxiv. 10. It is here evidently used in the latter sense: comp. Ezek. i. 26. The vision was that of the Son of God, John xii. 41.

His train. That is, the train of His royal robe. 2 the seraphim. “Seraphim” signifies, according to some scholars, burning ones, but others translate it “exalted” or “noble ones.” The “cherubim” seen by Ezekiel, and the “four living creatures” of the Apocalypse, correspond with the delineation. Comp. ver. 11, and Heb. xii. 29. They stood “above Him” (R.V.), poised on their wings.

3 one cried unto another. They sang responsively: “the one (rank) called to the other.”

Holy, holy, holy. A repetition of this kind elsewhere indicates emphasis: see Jer. vii. 4; xxii. 29; Ezek. xxi. 27.—“The intensity of recoil from the confused religious views and low moral temper of the prophet’s generation. . . . The Trisagion rings, and has need to ring, for ever down the Church. . . . The vision of God—this is the one thing needful for worship and for conduct."—G. A. Smith.

The whole earth is full of His glory. Lit., “The fulness of the whole earth is His glory.”

4 the posts of the door. Rather, “the foundations of the thresholds.” (R.V.)

5 a man of unclean lips. See Job xl. 5, and note. The lips are mentioned probably because Isaiah felt his unworthiness in prospect of the call to declare God’s judgements.

7 purped. Or, “atoned for.” Fire here represents purifying influence (Mal. iii. 2, 3), which is shown to be connected with pardon, by the fire being taken from the altar.

9. Hear ye, etc. An idiom which probably means here, “Go on hearing,” “Go on seeing.”

11. Lord, how long? That is, “How long shall this blindness continue?” To which the answer in effect is, “Until it ruins them, and causes them to be removed from the country.”

12. And [there be] great forsaking. Or, “And great is the desolation in the midst,” etc. R.V., “the forsaken places be many.”

13 yet in it [shall be] a tenth. Rather, “Yet in it (the land) [shall be] a tenth (a remnant), and it (the tenth) shall again be consumed; but as a terebinth and an oak, in which, when felled, there is a stock (to send forth new shoots), so a holy seed is the stock of it (the land).” This is a declaration that even the remnant of the nation should be persecuted, yet should be indestructible. A “holy seed” should be the germ of God’s true Israel. See Rom. ix. 27; xi. 5.