Still greater changes and revolutions are frequently passing over whole nations and kingdoms. Viewed from the standpoint of a later revelation, devout thinkers have naturally seen in it an allusive reference to the glory of Jehovah as seen alike in the past, the present, and the future, which seems the leading idea in Revelation 4:8, or even a faint foreshadowing of the Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead. Assuming that that doctrine is true, it cannot be doubted, think, that the seraphs laid the foundation of their praise in that doctrine. By no means of the Incarnation. If the angels of heaven discover the brightest displays of the glory of God in this world, then all real Christians have great advantages, while they are passing through the changing scenes of life, to make constant and swift advances in Divine knowledge. Isaiah 6records the “call” of the young prophet to the difficult task of preaching a message of judgment to the nation. Compare the threefold blessing of Numbers 6:24-26 and Revelation 4:8, a threefold unity. 3. This denotes the publicness of their ministry, and their harmony and unity in it; they answered to one another, and agreed in what they said; their preaching was not yea and nay, 2 Corinthians 1:19. and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; this expresses the subject matter of the Gospel ministry, respecting the holiness of God; all the doctrines of the Gospel are pure and holy, and have a tendency to promote holiness of heart and life, and are agreeable to the holiness of God, and in them the holiness of God in each of the divine Persons is declared; particularly the Gospel ministry affirms that there is one God, who is the Lord of hosts, of armies above and below, of angels and men; that there are three Persons in the Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit; and that each of these three are glorious in holiness; there is the Holy Father, and the Holy Son, and the Holy Ghost, and the holiness of them is displayed in each of the doctrines of grace: the holiness of the Father appears in the choice of persons to eternal life, through sanctification of the Spirit; in the covenant of grace, which provides for the holiness of covenant ones; and in the justification of his people through Christ, and redemption by him, whereby the honour of his justice and holiness is secured: the holiness of the Son appears in his incarnation and life; in redemption from sin by him, and in satisfying for it, and justifying from it: and the holiness of the Spirit is seen in the doctrines of regeneration and sanctification, ascribed unto him. Biblical Commentary Isaiah 6:1-13 EXEGESIS: ISAIAH 1-5. He who now came forth to public view is God, at the sight of whom the very angels tremble, whose praises they continually and loudly utter, and whom, in a word, they serve and obey; but men, whom he had been pleased to adopt as his children, obstinately and rebelliously opposed him. But all mankind, from their birth to their death, are perpetually subject to great, sudden and unexpected changes. How much they secure, who embrace the Gospel! ... Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary. 2. whole earth — the Hebrew more emphatically, the fulness of the whole earth is His glory (Psalm 24:1; Psalm 72:19). Try it free for 30 days. That the harmony between us and the angels may be in every respect complete, we must take care not only that the praises of God may be sounded by our tongues, but likewise that all the actions of our life may correspond to our professions; and this will only be done if the chief aim of our actions be the glory of God. It is more than the particular attribute of power or wisdom; it is the entire fulness of the Godhead, visible to the eye of faith, if not to the eye of sense, in the concrete works of nature, arresting the spectator and claiming from him the tribute of praise and homage. Two of the Divine attributes form the theme of the seraphs’ hymn. B. F. Westcott, Christus Consummator, p. 163. S. R. Driver, The Anglican Pulpit of To-Day, p. 456. And said, Holy, holy, holy.] The Sending of Isaiah. Deut. Thus, in Revelation 1:4; Revelation 3:1; Revelation 4:5, the phrase, 'the seven spirits of God,' occurs as applicable to the Holy Spirit, denoting his fullness, completeness, perfection. Isaiah 6:3. The contemplation of the holiness of God should lead--. The vision of God is the call of the prophet. Holy — The threefold utterance might be supposed simply a repetition for emphasis, but the same threefoldness in Revelation 4:8 (where see notes) plainly indicates the trinity. By unity God realises Himself among men, or draws them into Himself, that He may live out His life of love in their relationships. I. GOD’S HOLINESS AS INHERENT IN HIMSELF. It has been revealed for our benefit, and in proportion to its importance and glory should be its influence on our minds and characters. 16.). It is not probable that the Jews so understood it; but applying to the expressions the fuller revelations of the New Testament, it cannot be doubted that the words will express that. This Divine love, I repeat, as being the very nature of God, was felt by the prophets of Israel to be dwelling in them, immanent in their nation. In this sense it is that the whole earth is full of the glory of the Holy One. The heart alone can speak to the heart. God"s glory fills the earth in that the revelation of God"s attributes fills the earth (cf. xix. Isaiah 6:3 And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, [is] the LORD of hosts: the whole earth [is] full of his glory. They are “ministering” spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. They have been friendly to God, and taken pleasure in contemplating the displays of His glory. He who has inspired human nature with true impulses of justice and generosity, of sympathy and love, with admiration for the heroic and noble, with scorn for the ignoble and the mean, cannot but be possessed of a kindred character Himself. If it was Isaiah's call to the prophetic office, why should it have been placed this deep into the prophecy? Isaiah 6:4.—S. Take as illustrations Romans 8:9; Romans 8:16-17; 2 Corinthians 3:3; Ga Ephesians 2:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; Titus 3:4-6; Hebrews 9:14; Revelation 22:1. Above it — Or, rather, above him, as ממעל לו might be better rendered; stood the seraphim — As ministers attending upon their Lord, and waiting to receive and execute his commands. The word seraphim, which, like cherubim, is plural, signifies burning, or flaming ones, from the verb שׂר Š, seraph, to burn or flame. Jehovah was separate or withdrawn from the world--not as a material world, but as a sinful world. It is that the Divine nature of love is the soul of man’s social life, that this is the binding power which draws men together. It is more than the particular attribute of power or wisdom; it is the entire fulness of the Godhead, visible to the eye of faith, if not to the eye of sense, in the concrete works of nature, arresting the spectator and claiming from him the tribute of praise and homage. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ", To report dead links, typos, or html errors or suggestions about making these resources more useful use the convenient, Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament, The Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. 2 Seraphim * were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they hovered. 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. Infinitis vicibus iterant, saith Procopius; the holy angels "have no rest," and yet they have no unrest either, "day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty which was, and is, and is to come." (Job 42:5-6) If such impressions were made on the minds of these eminent saints by the discovery of Jehovah’s holiness, what effects should it produce on us? But the more simple and natural interpretation is, that the glory of God fills the whole world, or is spread through every region of the earth. We find the doctrine underlying every truth, every hope of the Gospel. BY APPEALING TO THE EXPRESS TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 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. Section 822-824. He is in a different category. Holiness denotes, fundamentally, a state of freedom from all imperfection, specially from all moral imperfection; a state, moreover, realised with such intensity as to imply not only the absence of evil, but antagonism to it. Words in boxes are from the Bible. In this world God has been constantly increasing the number of His moral subjects. The loving embrace of the heavenly Bridegroom has taken the human nature into God. Gram.” Section 822-824. (where see notes) plainly indicates the trinity. Not the land of Judea only, but the wide world, {as Psalms 97:6; Psalms 97:8 Isaiah 40:5} shall be full of God’s glory, when the gospel shall be preached to all nations. 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). These beautiful words from Isaiah 6:3 have inspired countless songs, poems, and sermons. When he associates us with angels, it is in order that, while we sojourn on earth, we may resemble and be joined to the inhabitants of heaven. 28:1–14). It is natural to conjecture that many of them continually reside here, while others are alternately employed on great and extraordinary occasions. “The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one.” And surely it is a worthy conception of the Divine nature which the doctrine of the Trinity presents to us, when it makes us think of the Godhead not as chiefly glorious because of certain abstract qualities which a lonely individual nature might possess within itself, but rather as a fellowship which was self-involved and self-embraced in mystic, eternal love. We refer to the original state of all rational and immortal beings. The whole earth is full of his glory; as it was when Christ dwelt in it, wrought his miracles, and manifested forth his glory, and when his Gospel was preached everywhere by his apostles; and as it will be, more especially in the latter day, when it will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord; when the kingdoms of this world will become his, and his kingdom will be everywhere, even from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth; and this is what Gospel ministers declare will be: or "the fulness of the whole earth is his glory" (m); the earth is his, and all that is in it, and all declare his glory; see Revelation 4:8. 2. It is interwoven throughout with the living realities of faith; presented to the heart for affectionate embrace, rather than to the head for intellectual apprehension. BY APPEALING TO THE CONDUCT OF GOD AS IT IS RECORDED IN THE SCRIPTURES. And one cried to another.] 1. Hebr. In like manner, the number “seven” is used by the Hebrews to denote a great, indefinite number; then a full or complete number; and then perfectness, completion. A similar impression was made on the mind of Job. Indications of plurality in unity meet us in the first chapter of the Bible (Genesis 1:26-27), “Our image.” “His image.” This becomes more definite as we advance (Numbers 6:22-27). I. They go with Him, so to speak, into the place into which He is withdrawn, that He may abide among them. Wherein does the world so reflect the being of God as to be the expression of His glory? Threefold mention of Jehovah, yet “My name” (see Isaiah 61:1). And as all these are ordered and Drought about by God, so He here gives peculiar displays of His glory, which are not to be seen in any other part of the universe. That there was a distinct reference to the second person of the Trinity, is clear from what John says, John 12:41. God‘s holiness is the keynote of Isaiah‘s whole prophecies. This is best seen when we look at the Divine working in nature, and especially in that human life which is the crown of nature and which He has united with His own. “The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them.” Observe what this teaching or this consciousness implies. 1. Humbled and purified in his humiliation, he could have but one answer when the voice of the Lord required a messenger: "Here am I send me.". The Hebrews usually expressed the superlative degree by the repetition of a word. [Note: Oswalt, p180.] Everything too that has the slightest relation to Him is said to be holy, as partaking of this essential perfection of His nature: hence, His name is said to be holy. Can we trace any evidence of the moral character of God, or is the earth full merely of the tokens of His power? 3. 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. It came out most distinctly in the New Testament. But there is another side to this teaching. Isaiah saw God as absolutely upright, correct, and true. Glory - Of the effects and demonstrations of his glorious holiness, as well as of his power, wisdom, and goodness. Most commentators, however, have supposed that there is here a reference to the doctrine of the Trinity. If angels see and admire the glory of God in His conduct towards mankind in this world, then there can be no doubt but they will see and admire the glory of God in His conduct towards them, in their eternal state. Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible. 2. No "argument" can be drawn directly from this in favor of the doctrine of the Trinity, for the repetition of such phrases thrice in other places, is merely "emphatic," denoting the superlative degree. Ezra 3:11. Isaiah 5:8-24. 1. It is visible, 2. 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. Nowhere else in the Old Testament is there another threefold repetition of God"s holiness, but there is in the New ( Revelation 4:8). The form was used, therefore, among the Jews, to denote "emphasis;" and the expression means in itself no more than 'thrice holy;' that is, supremely holy. An EasyEnglish Bible Version and Commentary (2800 word vocabulary) on Isaiah chapters 1 to 6. www.easyenglish.bible. I. 3. (1-8) The Lord declares the blindness to come upon the Jewish nation, and the destruction which would follow. What is the glory of God? 3. If angels discover the brightest displays of the glory of God in this world, then it is certain that He treats all mankind perfectly right, in all His conduct towards them in the dispensations of providence and grace. Each had u six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. Thus, Jeremiah 22:29 : 'O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord;' Ezekiel 21:27 : 'I will overturn, overturn, overturn;' see also 1 Samuel 18:23 : 'O my son Absalom! He speaks of Judeans as rebellious children (1:2) and "people loaded with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! 1 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. The prophet's teaching must be the translation of his experience. xix., at the beginning. I. — If more than two, then they stood in opposite rows, each side the throne, and responded each singly to his opposite fellow, after the manner of an antiphonal service. (i) His glory not only appears in the heavens but through all the world, and therefore all creatures are bound to praise him. II. 2. A. Holiness is originally in God. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. Isaiah 6:2. It may be presumed that they have explored the whole circle of creation, which, though widely extended, is certainly limited, and capable of being surveyed by finite beings. 4. A.). The whole earth is full of his glory. The very mark of time by which the history is introduced has a pathetic significance. 6. 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