The general mission of Isaiah shows a blessed state, and great preparedness of heart in the prophet. The vision was of the Lord in His holy character. The burning Seraphim were then celebrating it, lowly but exalting Jehovah. The prophet has the fullest sense of this, both for himself and the state of the people. No haste to go but a sense of what he was, and of what the people were, in presence of a holy yet evidently a known God. "Woe is me, I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips, and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, and I have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." The effect was subjective, and that was all—the deepest and truest place. But the moment his lips are cleansed by the coal from the altar, and Jehovah says "Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us," he offers himself—"Here am I, send me." This is very beautiful. We are apt to run (I admit the difference of the Gospel) in haste, as soon as interested, and then to shrink before the carelessness or opposition of the world. Here he does not stir till the Lord has fitted him, and calls; then he is His ready servant. Here, consequently, we get the largest scope of prophecy—the fullest scheme of the counsels and intentions of God, in connection with His plans as to His people and His glory.
1. " The Lord," so in verses 8 and 11, but in verse 5 it is "the Lord of hosts."
6. The veils do not come into question here. I suppose it was from the brazen altar.
12, 13. The language of these verses is remarkable, and much stronger than one would suppose; I am not sure that I understand it fully. "And the Lord have removed far" (as in anger or displeasure, as in other places His face) "the Adam" (eth ha Adam) "and hath multiplied forsakings" (derelictions) “in the midst of the Land" or "earth." It seems to identify the dealings of God in the Land with the whole earth, and His actings on man. The Adam (God made eth ha Adam "in his image, after his likeness"—so as a dream, when one awaketh, shall He despise his image) for then shall all the question between God, and man in power and presumption, be centered there; compare Luke 2:1414Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2:14), for now He, in whom He is well pleased, is on high, rejected of the world, and we are in Him, but the whole world lieth in wickedness. This may be pursued, for the sons are accepted in the Beloved, but, save in mystery in Him, the ha Adam is set aside. "In the midst" (rokhav, breadth) but yet "in it," i.e., I suppose, the Land, there shall be a tenth, a Remnant, and it shall return, and shall be for burning—as Lebanon shall not be sufficient to burn—"shall be to be consumed" for fuel; for her iniquity shall be purged by the Spirit of judgment and the Spirit of burning, and, as the teil-tree or oak, whose root or trunk remains in casting their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the root thereof; compare Romans 11, which is just drawn in Spirit from this, quoad that part of the image.
The translators seem to have been misled by the apparent subject matter, but it seems strange they should have gone from so simple a word as l'va-er (eaten; strictly "consumed by burning") though it mean also consumption by browsing. Further we may observe as to this, in application, it is the Spirit of Christ testifying according to the righteousness of judgment, of which fire is the symbol, for even the Remnant shall pass through the fire, but He (who has indeed passed through, so as to bear their iniquities) shall be with them. Thence the word s'raphim (burners), here only, I believe, used. One of the burners came, and touched with a coal from off the altar (typifying the consumption of sin)—the altar of burnt offering—his lips, and he spoke accordingly. He bore about the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be manifest in his mortal body. Compare the whole of chapter 27, as we have already referred to the Spirit of judgment and Spirit of burning, ba-ar (he consumed).
The Seraphim I conceive to be the agency of the power of God, according to His character, but here towards the Remnant, for every man's work shall be tried by fire; accordingly when the Lord tries the Churches His eyes are as a flame of fire. The Cherubim were the agency of God; as see observations elsewhere on Revelation. Thus he was qualified to testify, according to this, to the Jews, the special objects of the one and the other. This, accordingly, became accomplished when the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world (amongst the Jews) gathering the wheat and burning up the chaff, etc., for judgment, that they which see might be made blind. But He came for judgment because He came not for judgment, for so it is with man thus left to himself.
Note, the saint takes the message without knowing what it is, for it is of God, and the primary character of the prophet is direct association of mind with Him—it is a trust on the part of God, in which the prophet is separated into His interest from all others. That interest may indeed be the Church, or it may be the judgment of the Churches—but that is another question; it is always God. I have sometimes thought this was the meaning of "Lovest thou me more than these?" "Can you act for me, independent even of your tie to these?" I am sure the principle is necessary for efficient service for Christ in the Church.
This chapter specially puts the prophet in his prophetic place, and is deeply interesting as describing it. The prophetic place begins where the Church is withered, as it were. It is the presence of the Spirit of Christ, cognizant, by the knowledge of God's burning judgment, of what the Church ought to be, sensible in all perfect sympathy, as dwelling amongst it, of its state and necessity, and withal of the mind of God toward it, and knowing, therefore being, itself, as a word formed on the standard of God's holiness towards it, the development and depository of His mind towards it. We find it then thus exhibited. It is therefore the mind of God toward the Church, as so cognizant, and the mind of the Church towards God, both in their perfectness as in Rom. 8 Here therefore it is exhibited especially in that word, "Lord, how long?" For it knows, experimentally, the mind of God towards His Church in favor, and rests on that.
This chapter is the installation of the prophet in his office. To the end of verse 12, from the beginning of verse 7, is a substantive prophecy; what follows is detail. Verses 7-13 is the Covenant of David, in Christ, as failed in se.