Tell the Story
Isaiah’s Vision of the Lord
6 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train1 of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”2
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
Isaiah’s Commission from the Lord
8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” 9 And he said, “Go, and say to this people:
“‘Keep on hearing,3 but do not understand;
keep on seeing,4 but do not perceive.’
10 Make the heart of this people dull,5
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
11 Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”
And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is a desolate waste,
12 and the LORD removes people far away,
and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
13 And though a tenth remain in it,
it will be burned6 again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains
when it is felled.”
The holy seed7 is its stump.
When God had something important to say in the Old Testament, he usually told the prophets first. The prophets were God’s messengers. They had a really cool job—they got to speak for God! They also had a really hard job—most people didn’t want to listen to God.
Isaiah was one of the most famous prophets in Israel’s history. He saw some things no one had ever seen before. Like the time he saw the Lord sitting way up in the air on a throne. (Now, we really can’t see God—he’s invisible, after all—but sometimes people in the Bible got to see things that showed what God is like.) Isaiah saw a big robe filling up the temple. He saw angels covering their eyes because God was too wonderful to look at.
And even more amazing than what he saw was what Isaiah heard. If you want to get people’s attention while speaking to them, you might raise your voice. If you want to get their attention while writing to them, you might make everything bold or underlined. But if you didn’t have a computer and you didn’t want to scream, you would repeat yourself. That’s how they did things in the Bible. When something is extra special in the Bible, it often gets repeated.
Only one thing about God in the Bible is said not just once or twice, but three times in a row. It’s what Isaiah heard from the angels: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” That means God is the best, the biggest, and the brightest in the whole world. It means he’s better than you can imagine. It means when we really get to know God, we’ll know how much we are not God.
Which is why Isaiah said, “Woe is me! I have seen the King! I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” One glimpse of God was all it took to convince Isaiah of two things: he was a sinner, and he needed a Savior. After Isaiah saw what no one had seen before, he saw in himself what all of us need to see over and over: we’re not holy in ourselves, but God is.
Thankfully, God is also gracious. He sent an angel to touch Isaiah’s lips and make him clean. “Your guilt is taken away,” the angel said, “and your sin has been covered.” The God who is holy can make us holy too.
