Friday, October 25
Nehemiah 12: This chapter, which begins with another genealogical list of priests and Levites (verses 1-26), indicates the importance that proper and verifiable “succession” enjoys in the biblical theology of institutional ministry (as distinct from prophetic ministry).
Next comes an account of the solemn dedication of the wall (verses 27-47) and all that that wall represented by way of the symbolisms we have been discussing.
It is reasonable to understand the narrative’s return to first person singular in verse 31 as an indication that we are once again dealing with the memoir of Nehemiah, on which so much of this book is based.
According to 2 Maccabees 1:18, the event narrated in this chapter took place, not in September, but in December, falling very close in the calendar, in fact, to the date of the Maccabees’ own purification of the temple (recorded in 1 Maccabees 4:60). Both events—the dedication of the walls under Nehemiah in the fifth century and the purification of the temple under Judas Maccabaeus in the second century—are called “Hanukkah,” meaning inauguration or dedication (verse 27; John 4:22). (Only the latter event, however, was incorporated into the Jewish liturgical calendar and is celebrated by Jews each December even today.)
Nehemiah saw to it that the city was ritually circled by two simultaneous processions conducted on top of the walls, complete with trumpets. The dedication of the walls is portrayed, therefore, as an event of worship. The simultaneous procession of the two groups, marching in opposite directions, constituted what one commentator calls “a stereophonic presentation.”
Nehemiah 13: The dedication of the wall was the occasion for some more reading from the Torah, including the prescription found in Deuteronomy 23:4-5, which excluded the Ammonites and Moabites from the congregation of Israel (verse 1). As long as Nehemiah was on the local scene, such exclusions were taken seriously (verses 2-3). When he left to make a brief visit back to Babylon (verse 6), however, events turned for the worse. On his return to Jerusalem Nehemiah learned all sorts of unpleasant things.
He learned, for instance, that a member of the priestly family had become the son-in-law of his old foe, Sanballat (verse 28). In former days, when Sanballat tried to impede the construction of the wall, Nehemiah had held him off. Now, nonetheless, Sanballat was suddenly inside the walls! What he had been unable to do by force of arms, he managed to accomplish by the simple means of marrying his daughter to a priest! This serious breach in Jerusalem’s spiritual wall once again put at peril Israel’s very existence as a holy nation, a people set apart.
In addition, Nehemiah discovered that the high priest himself had provided lodging within the temple for one of those who had opposed Nehemiah’s very mission (verses 4-5). Other things had gotten out of hand, as well, such as the failure to observe the Sabbath, whether by Jews themselves or by pagans who came to sell their wares in the city (verses 15-22).
Nehemiah set himself to put everything straight again (verses 7-13). The major problem, however, continued to be the disposition of the people to intermarry with non-Jews (verses 23-27), in contravention to the Torah (Exodus 34:16; Deuteronomy 7:3). Nehemiah found it a very tough job to maintain those walls!
Recalling those great efforts, Nehemiah prayed that God would not forget them, “Remember me, O Lord” became his refrain (verses 14,22,29,30).
Saturday, October 26
James 1.12-27: The blessedness of the man who endures trial is related to that man’s love for God (verse 12). Love, that is to say, is really what is on trial; it is the reason for the endurance of the trial. This love for God, the love that is tried, is a gift of the Holy Spirit: “. . . we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).
God puts His faithful ones through trial, but He does not “tempt” them in the sense of enticing them to sin (verse 13). God does not “tempt” in that sense. When man is enticed toward sin, it has to do with his own passions, his disposition to sin (verse 14). The source of this sort of temptation is internal to man; even the world and Satan cannot get at a man except through his own inner disposition. (Thus, Jesus was not “tempted” in this sense. Jesus was certainly put to the trial, and Satan used every effort to entice Him, but Jesus had no inner disposition to sin.)
Those who suffer temptation may be plagued by the thought that God has abandoned them, that He has forgotten them, that He no longer holds them in regard. To address this erroneous thought James insists that God is unchanging toward those that love Him. Unlike the lights in the heavens, the Father of these lights, their Creator (Genesis 1:13-18), does not diminish in His gifts to those who love Him. Indeed, James has already mentioned that God “gives to all liberally and without reproach” (verse 5).
Nehemiah 13: The dedication of the wall was the occasion for some more reading from the Torah, including the prescription found in Deuteronomy 23:4-5, which excluded the Ammonites and Moabites from the congregation of Israel (verse 1). As long as Nehemiah was on the local scene, such exclusions were taken seriously (verses 2-3). When he left to make a brief visit back to Babylon (verse 6), however, events turned for the worse. On his return to Jerusalem Nehemiah learned all sorts of unpleasant things.
He learned, for instance, that a member of the priestly family had become the son-in-law of his old foe, Sanballat (verse 28). In former days, when Sanballat tried to impede the construction of the wall, Nehemiah had held him off. Now, nonetheless, Sanballat was suddenly inside the walls! What he had been unable to do by force of arms, he managed to accomplish by the simple means of marrying his daughter to a priest! This serious breach in Jerusalem’s spiritual wall once again put at peril Israel’s very existence as a holy nation, a people set apart.
In addition, Nehemiah discovered that the high priest himself had provided lodging within the temple for one of those who had opposed Nehemiah’s very mission (verses 4-5). Other things had gotten out of hand, as well, such as the failure to observe the Sabbath, whether by Jews themselves or by pagans who came to sell their wares in the city (verses 15-22).
Nehemiah set himself to put everything straight again (verses 7-13). The major problem, however, continued to be the disposition of the people to intermarry with non-Jews (verses 23-27), in contravention to the Torah (Exodus 34:16; Deuteronomy 7:3). Nehemiah found it a very tough job to maintain those walls!
Recalling those great efforts, Nehemiah prayed that God would not forget them, “Remember me, O Lord” became his refrain (verses 14,22,29,30).
Sunday, October 27
Isaiah 1: The first five chapters of this book form a sort of preface, introducing the call of the prophet in chapter 6. We note the absence of historical indicators (except for 1:1, of course) in these chapters, in striking contrast with chapters 6 and 7. The purpose of this introductory material, which was surely composed after Isaiah was called, is to provide a critical analysis of the Kingdom of Judah, in order to set that calling in the proper historical context.
The time of Isaiah, the second half of the eighth century before Christ, beginning in “the year that King Uzziah died” (6:1), was a period of rebellion against God and infidelity to His covenant. This rebellious infidelity is illustrated in the first chapter by the collapse of national life (verses 6-9), religious apostasy (verses 10-15), and social disintegration (verses 21-23).
The book’s first verse, as is usual in the prophetic books, simply provides the time frame: the second half of the eighty-century, beginning in the last year of King Uzziah, 742 B.C.
This is a book about “Judah and Jerusalem” (verse 1), a theme that joins all parts of the work. Indeed, the names “Jerusalem” and “Zion” occur 97 times in the Book of Isaiah, the occurrences spread pretty evenly in all parts of the work.
The national life of Judah has collapsed (verses 6-9). God had made this people His children through the Exodus deliverance and covenant, but who can tell it under the current conditions?
For the first time Isaiah uses the expression “Holy One of Israel” (Qadosh Israel), which expression is found 25 times in Isaiah and only 7 times in the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Found in all parts of this book, it may have been coined by Isaiah himself. Indeed, he uses the expression Qadosh, “Holy One,” to refer to God 33 times, whereas it appears only 25 times in the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. The transcendent holiness of God was revealed to the prophet by the voices of the Seraphim in Isaiah’s call in the Temple (6:1-3), where the word is tripled, or, if the term be permitted, “cubed”–holy times holy times holy. This is the holiness that fills heaven and earth. In a sense, all of the Book of Isaiah is an extension of that hymn of the Seraphim.
Isaiah’s criticism of religious ritual (verses 10-15) was not a condemnation of ritual worship itself. If it were, how do we explain his being called in the Temple, to which the Lord here refers as “My courts” (verse 12)? This criticism was directed, rather, to the separation of ritual from ethics (verses 16-20), two essential components of the Mosaic Law.
Isaiah’s emphasis on social ethics is of a piece with the preoccupations of other prophetic figures of the eighth century, notably Amos and Micah. Both these prophets, we observe, came from Judah, like Isaiah.
These prophets testify to the prevalent social injustices that afflicted the Holy Land, in the extended aftermath of the Solomonic prosperity. Because of the massive urbanization brought about by Solomon’s economic reforms, many Israelites, north and south, no longer owned land in the eighth century. Their ancestors had uprooted their families to the cities, to take advantage of the boon days of Solomon’s promising mercantile ventures. The tenth century saw the rise of a large urban proletariat.
The swelling of the urban work force, the result of Solomon’s economic policies and the shift of many families from the farms to the cities, inevitably led, in due course, to lower wages, while the control of agricultural production into fewer hands eventually resulted in higher prices through the dynamics of monopoly.
Farms were fewer and larger. Moreover, those farming families with extensive lands, by combining their efforts, were now in a position to control the markets, causing a rise in food prices.
Thus, in the years to come—the ninth and eighth centuries—there developed a considerable economic inequality, the juxtaposition of great wealth with grinding poverty. This situation—precluded in earlier periods by the maintenance of farms and other real estate within the inheritance of individual families—is reflected in the archaeology of the period, which shows the remains of manorial dwelling side-by-side with the hovels of the poor.
Monday, October 28
Isaiah 2: Once again Isaiah’s vision, as at the first (1:1), concerns “Judah and Jerusalem” (verse 1)
This chapter contains three oracles, none of which can be assigned with certainty to a particular date; they do seem to come, however, from early in Isaiah’s ministry.
The first of these oracles (verses 1-5) is concerned with the ideal Jerusalem, the Jerusalem to come—“it shall come to pass in the last days” (verse 2). It speaks of the future glorification of God’s holy city, that more blessed Jerusalem of promise, of which the ancient capital of David was a prefiguration and type (Galatians 4:26; Revelation 21:10).
It will be, says the prophet, a city of peace (verse 4), something that the Jerusalem on earth has never been. Isaiah will describe this Jerusalem at greater length in chapter 4.
Although the literary and historical relationship between the two texts is uncertain, verses 2-4 of this chapter are substantially identical to Micah 4:1-4.
This oracle is internally balanced by “into Zion” (verses 2-3) and “out of Zion” (verses 3-4). The image of flowing upwards indicates that this is not a natural process, so to speak; it does not follow the natural law of gravity. It suggests, rather, the divine magnetism by which God’s reverses the order of nature.
The second oracle (verses 6-9) moves from the ideal Jerusalem to the actual, unfaithful city known to Isaiah. This oracle is critical of the idolatrous pursuit of wealth in the Jerusalem of Isaiah’s time. We remember that his prophetic calling came in the last year of King Uzziah (6:1), whose reign (783-742) had restored a great deal of Judah’s prosperity. This prosperity, Isaiah saw, led to the worship of human achievement as a particularly virulent form of idolatry. It was the sin of pride, and it was Isaiah’s task to threaten its punishment.
Consequently, this second oracle offers a series of contrasts with the first. Instead of drawing the nations to the ways of God, the prophet describes the actual Jerusalem as conformed to the ways of the nations:
Thus, the first oracle says, “He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.” To which the second oracle responds, “They are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they are pleased with the children of foreigners.”
That is to say, instead of the Lord’s people teaching true wisdom to the nations, the Lord’s people have deliberately adopted the wisdom of the other nations. This disposition to conform to the expectations of the world remains, of course, a temptation for the people of God in all generations.
Likewise, instead of conferring spiritual riches on the world—“For out of Zion shall go forth the Torah and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”—the Lord’ city acquires worldly riches for itself: “Their land is also full of silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures.”
Instead of being a city of peace—“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks”—Jerusalem is now allied with the forces of war: “Their land is also full of horses, and there is no end to their chariots.”
Whereas the first oracle spoke of the knowledge of the true God—“Many people shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob”— the second oracle speaks of the worship of false gods: “Their land is also full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.”
Isaiah is exhorting the Jerusalem of the mid-eighth century, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
This punishment of these evils is the theme of the third oracle (verses 10-22).
Isaiah refers to the Holy Land’s many limestone caves that provided shelter and concealment on occasions of danger: “Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust . . . They shall go into the holes of the rocks, / And into the caves of the earth . . . To go into the clefts of the rocks, / And into the crags of the rugged rocks” (verses 10, 19, 21). These natural formations, in which men sought escape from their enemies (1 Samuel 13:6; 14:11; 22:1; 1 Kings 14:8; Hosea 10:8), will offer scant protection for those who flee from the wrath of God. Such meager refuge for the frightened stands in strong contrast to the pride of spirit that evokes God’s anger.
Tuesday, October 29
Isaiah 3: Israel’s leadership is in a state of collapse (verses 2-3), and with it all societal support and structure, including the basic technical crafts, such as carpentry. The leadership is immature (verse 4), so all of society disintegrates (verses 5,12). Indeed, this leadership is, itself, an expression of God’s judgment: When the Lord wants to punish a nation, He permits them to have unwise and inexperienced men as its leaders: “I will give children to be their princes, / And babies shall rule over them.”
And again, Youths oppress my people, / women rule over them. / O my people, your guides lead you astray; / they turn you from the path.” The reference to the rule of “women” is justified by the disastrous example of Athalia in the previous century.
If this oracle is to be dated early in Isaiah’s ministry, it refers to King Jotham (742-735), who was by no means a young man. It may be, however, that Isaiah had in mind King Ahaz (735-716), who was the very embodiment of the problems that the prophet speaks of here.
Since leadership is not taken seriously, says, Isaiah, serious men refuse to assume it (verses 6-7): “Do not make me a ruler of the people.” Thus, the nation is deprived of those governmental ministries on which its very preservation depends—namely, “the mighty man and the man of war, / the judge and the prophet, / and the diviner and the elder; / the captain of fifty and the honorable man, / the counselor and the skillful artisan, / and the gifted composer.” Such men, so essential to a nation’s prosperity, are loath attach themselves to the likes of Ahaz.
Meanwhile, in Judah’s sister kingdom to the north, Israel’s own puny monarchy was on its last legs, destined to fall to the Assyrians in 722. This kingdom is soon to pay the price for its folly.
The Lord will be the Judge for His oppressed and badly governed people (verses 12-15; cf. Psalms 50 [49] and 82 [81], perhaps the liturgical texts on which Isaiah relies).
The mention of women in leadership leads to a sarcastic description of the arrogant clothing styles for women in vogue at the time (verses 16-26). Isaiah’s description is bound to remind a modern reader of a contemporary fashion show, in which a line of pretentious young ladies come strutting across a walkway, walking in ridiculous gyrating strides that have no purpose except to draw meretricious and lascivious attention to themselves: “the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, making a jingling with their feet” (verse 16). Isaiah goes on with an obvious relish for sarcasm, listing the various articles of clothing and jewelry, all the way to purses and hand mirrors.
Isaiah is not the only 8th century prophet to express concern about the female half of the population. Amos writes in unflattering tones: “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, / Who oppress the poor, / Who crush the needy, / Who say to your husbands, ‘Bring us something to drink!’” (4:1)
Whereas Isaiah’s sarcasm expresses concerns about modesty in clothing and adornment, the words of Amos look to another problem: alcoholism. The upper-class women of that period had a great deal of time on their hands, and the prophet did not think they were using it very well. Their financial and social status liberated them from the daily burdens borne by most women, and there was scant opportunity for women to study. What were these ladies to do with themselves?
This social problem, too, sounds very modern: the extensive use of drugs—especially antidepressants—among older and more affluent women is well documented in contemporary epidemiological and clinical literature and remains a source of grave concern to the medical profession. It is instructive to find the identical problem in the 8th century before Christ.
The prophets of that period, however, saw the problem to be spiritual, not simply social or psychological. Women’s exaggerated adornment and their recourse to chemical stimulants were symptoms of a far deeper quandary.
Wednesday, October 30
James 3:13-18: Perhaps following up his comment about the dangers of teaching (verse 1), James goes on to contrast two kinds of wisdom, one demonic and the other godly. These two kinds of wisdom are distinguishable in three ways.
First, they may be distinguished by their immediate fruits. Like faith, says James, wisdom is manifest in its works. Demonic wisdom is marked by bitter envy (zelon pikron) and contention in the heart (eritheian en te kardia), boasting, and lying against the truth (verse 14). Godly wisdom, on the other hand, is manifest in “good conduct and works in the meekness of wisdom” (verse 13). That is to say, a truly wise man is a humble man, readily distinguished from the arrogant, contentious blusterer who is full of himself. Both the Gospels (Matthew 5:5; 11:29) and the Epistles (2 Corinthians 10:1; Galatians 5:23) commend the spirit of meekness. Not all meek people are wise, but all wise people are meek.
A second difference between the two kinds of wisdom is found in their differing origins. Evil wisdom is earthly, animal, and diabolical (verse 16). It is the wisdom of death. It comes from below, not from above. Godly wisdom is “from above” (anothen—verses 15,17).
Third, these two types of wisdom are distinguished by where they lead. The wisdom of envy and strife leads to confusion and “every evil work” (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:20). Godly wisdom, however, leads to purity, peace, gentleness, deference, mercy, sincerity, and a reluctance to pass judgment (verse 17). We recognize here some of St. Paul’s “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-23).
James’ teaching on wisdom, then, is of a piece with his teaching on faith. If a person claims to have faith, let him show his works. If someone claims to be wise, let us see his works. The truth is always in the deeds, not the talk.
Isaiah 4: The previous chapter described the degenerate leadership of Judah, inasmuch as “children are their oppressors, / and women rule over them” (3:12). Now, however, “the Branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious; / And the fruit of the earth excellent and appealing / for those of Israel who have escaped” (verse 2).
The “Branch of the Lord” is the future Davidic king who will gather the Lord’s elect remnant. He is the fulfillment of the promises made to David. He is portrayed as both human, the fruit of the earth, and divine, as branching forth from the Lord. This is Isaiah’s first explicit prophecy of the Incarnation. Compare Isaiah 11:1—“There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, / And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.”
This remnant, preserved and gathered by the Messiah (verses 2-3), has been transformed by the divine purging. Consequently, it is “holy” (verse 3), marked by a quality proper to God. These survivors have been purged by the spirit of judgment and burning (verse 4), a theme later to be taken up in the preaching of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:11-12).
The guidance of this remnant evokes the imagery of pillar of the Exodus, when the people were overshadowed by the divine shadow and fire (verses 5-6).
Described here as a wedding canopy, the huppa, the marriage chamber is indicated (Psalms 19 [18]:6; Joel 2:16). This rich metaphor evokes the Lord’s espousal of His people (cf. 49:17-18; 54:1-13), who will find shelter under that canopy: “And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain” (verse 6).
Thursday, October 31
Isaiah 5: This final chapter of the Isaian preface is the most melancholy, as the divine judgment now looms most unmistakably over Jerusalem. What more can the Lord do (verse 4)?
This chapter breaks into two unequal parts: the parable of the vineyard (verses 1-7) and a description of its terrible harvest (verses 8-30).
Isaiah begins with the description of the vineyard, which is an image much favored in the Book of Isaiah (3:14-15; 27:2-6; 63:1-6; 65:8-10). The poetry of the first verse is most striking: ’ashírah n’a lidídi shírat dódi lekármo / kérem hayáh lidídi beqéren ben shámen–“let me sing for my beloved my darling’s song of his vineyard; a vineyard my beloved had on a very fertile hill.”
As in our Lord’s parable of the vineyard (Matthew 21:33-44, with parallels in Mark and Luke), Isaiah builds his case gradually, not showing his hand until after the judgment is reached. He describes the vineyard’s construction, his friend’s care for it, and finally the failure of the vineyard to bring forth the fruit that was expected (verses 1-2). Then he calls, once again, on “Jerusalem and Judah” to pass judgment on the vineyard (verses 3-4). Having enumerated the punishments that will be inflicted on the faithless vineyard (verses 5-6), Isaiah at last identifies the vineyard as God’s own people (verse 7), but only after the judgment has been pronounced.
In the preparation of His vineyard, God spared neither effort nor expense (verse 2). The list of His labors signifies the various stages of His intervention in the history of salvation. Nonetheless, what did the vineyard produce? It brought forth be’ushim, a word that appears nowhere else in the Bible outside of this text (verses 2,4). Derived from the verb ba’ash, meaning “to stink,” the word may be translated as “stinky fruit.”
The fault, of course, lies on those charged with the cultivation of the vineyard—that is, the spiritual and political rulers of Judah. They are the reason the vineyard has produced stinky fruit. In this respect our Lord’s own corresponding parable is more explicit, laying the blame on Israel’s leadership.
The punishment of the vineyard, recognized by Israel to refer to Jerusalem’s destruction by Babylon in 587, involves the “briars and thorns” (verse 6) associated with man’s original fall (Genesis 3:18).
To God the realm of Judah has become a complete disappointment. In place of just judgment (mishpat) there is bloodshed (mispah). Instead of righteousness (tsidaqah) there is a distressful cry (tse‘aqah) (verse 7).
In the chapter’s long second part, Isaiah begins by enumerating the “stinky fruit” is a series of seven “woes” (verses 8-25). This list of woes bears comparison with the list in Matthew 23.
First, “Woe to those who join house to house.” The monopoly of real estate (verse 8), a special evil of the eighth century before Christ (cf. Amos 2:6-8; 3:10,15; Micah 2:2,9), violated the ancient rules of inherited property contained in the Mosaic Law (cf. Leviticus 25; Numbers 27:1-11; 36:1-2; Ruth 4:1-4).
Second, “Woe to those who rise early in the morning, / That they may follow intoxicating drink.” Alcoholism was a notable problem of the 8th century before Christ. Amos also testifies to this. This vice is not only evil in itself and in its social consequences. It also serves as a symptom of deeper spiritual problems.
Third, “Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, / And sin as if with a cart rope; / That say, ‘Let Him make speed and hasten His work, / That we may see; / And let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, / That we may know.’” Here we have the moral skeptic, who mocks the idea of a final judgment, in which they will have to render an account.
Fourth, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; / Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness.” This is the radical moral perversity, of which St. Paul complains in Romans 1. It is worth remarking that this particular “woe,” which involves the confusion of darkness and light, stands fourth in the sequence. This confusion of light and darkness is a parody of the fourth day of Creation, in which God appointed the heavenly bodies to govern the day and the night.
Fifth, “Woe to those wise in their own eyes, / And prudent in their own sight!” The peril of self-deception is recognized.
Sixth and seventh, “Woe to men mighty at drinking wine, / Woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink, / Who justify the wicked for a bribe, / And take away justice from the righteous man!” As in Amos, so here in Isaiah, alcoholism is the vice of the unjust.
In the final section of this chapter (verses 25-30) Isaiah pictures the coming of the Assyrian invader, who will deport the ten northern tribes in 722, two decades after the prophet’s calling.
Friday, November 1
Isaiah 6: Having arranged several of his oracles as a preface, to set the historical and religious context for his call to prophesy (chapters 1-5), the Book of Isaiah now comes to the call itself. In this account the prophet hints at a paradigm for the entire religious reform of his own times, inasmuch as the revelation of God’s “triple” holiness brings him to a sense of his sinfulness and to a repentant obedience to the Lord’s summons.
Two kings are contrasted, the dying Uzziah and “the Lord, high and lifted up.” Corresponding to this contrast, two kinds of people are implied. There are those that place their trust in earthly monarchs, such as Uzziah, who reigned for more than half a century in Judah, or, in context, Tiglath Pileser III, who began his reign over Assyria and most of the Fertile Crescent three years earlier, in 745. In contrast to these worldlings, there are those that place not their trust in men, but in the Lord.
Uzziah was exactly the kind of monarch desired by the worldly. In every way by which the world assesses the success of a king, Uzziah was successful. Isaiah, however, speaks only of his death, and this twice (here and in 14:28). For the prophet the only thing finally significant about Uzziah was that he died. Thus, he represents the dead and decaying order constructed on rebellion against God.
The Lord is “high and lifted up” (here and in 57:15), the same expression that will describe God’s Servant (52:13).
He is manifest in His Temple, the locus of sacrifice, the place where heaven and earth are joined. About Him are the Seraphim, “the fiery ones,” each with six flame-like wings. They cover their eyes, not their ears, for they remain attentive to do God’s bidding. Before Him they cover their feet in humility, as though waiting for Him to dispatch them to do His will (verse 2). Meanwhile they chant to one another, in antiphonal responses, announcing the holiness and glory of God. Holiness is God’s glory hidden and unseen. Glory is God’s holiness revealed.
The revelation of God’s holiness in this vision of His glory causes Isaiah great consternation and fear. It is not simply the disquietude of the creature before the Creator, but the terror of the sinner in the presence of the All Pure. Isaiah now knows himself to be contaminated (verse 5; cf. Job 42:5-6; Luke 5: 8). He is “undone,” reduced to silence, recognizing himself at one with the world of sinners. He is part of a society that has polluted language at its source (cf. Psalms 12 [11]: 1-4). His own lips are unclean, unworthy to participate in the seraphic hymn to God’s holiness. He is unable to do more than confess his vileness before the God to whom he will henceforth refer as “the Holy One of Israel.”
Because man cannot cleanse himself, a Seraph is dispatched to purge the prophet’s lips with a burning coal from the altar, the place of sacrifice (verse 6). This coal from the altar represents the purging power of that Sacrifice, of which all the biblical sacrifices are types and preparations, that Sacrifice that takes away the sins of humanity. This coal is so hot that even the Seraph, the “fiery one,” must handle it with tongs. The fire itself, burning perpetually (Leviticus 6:12-13), represents the divine holiness (Exodus 3:2-6; 19:18-25).
Isaiah’s sins are purged away by the sacrificial fire (verse 7). That is to say, his confession leads immediately to his purging, and this purging leads immediately to his calling as a prophet. The chapter’s remaining verses concern the conditions and purpose of Isaiah’s ministry.
If we took too literally and simply the Lord’s instructions to Isaiah (verses 9-10), we might imagine that the prophet was to speak in very obscure words, impossible to understand. In fact, however, his contemporaries thought his words so simple that they amounted to baby talk (28:9-10). And this is precisely the point. Isaiah is to speak with such utter clarity as to leave his hearers without excuse. Hardness of heart will be the only explanation of their failure to understand. His words will harden their hearts, in the same sense that the heart of Pharaoh was hardened by the repeated divine signs that Moses works in his presence.
It was to the present verses of Isaiah that the writers of the New Testament had recourse in order to explain the tragic mystery to which they bore witness—namely, Israel’s rejection of the Messiah in spite of the utter clarity of His manifestation (Matthew 13:14-15; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; Acts 28:26-27).
Indeed, when John appeals to this Isaian text in reference to the Jews’ rejection of Jesus, he goes on to mention that Isaiah wrote these words in the context of his inaugural vision. In doing so, he identifies Jesus as the Lord whose glory Isaiah had beheld: “Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: ‘He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, / Lest they should see with their eyes, / Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, / So that I should heal them.’ These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory and spoke of Him” (John 12:39-41).