In the year of the death of king Uzziah, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple.
The year King Uzziah died, Judah's throne stood empty; Isaiah saw a throne that was not empty at all. The verse raises three questions: who is this "Lord," why is the vision dated to a leper-king's death, and what does such glory do to the man who sees it?
Commentators note that the timing matters. God showed His glory in the year of loss, not in the years of success.
The prophet did not receive this vision of glory and this solemn commission in Uzziah's prosperous days. It came in the year when the son of David, once prosperous and now struck with leprosy, breathed his last... Then, however, Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. The mere skirts of His glory filled the temple.
Why name Uzziah at all? One writer sees a contrast at the start of the chapter: the highest man in the nation was a leper who lived outside the camp.
Why is Uzziah introduced here? May it not be, among other things, to remind us of the widest possible contrast? On one side stands the very best man on earth, the highest ruler of Judah's kingdom, the most honoured man in the world. On the other stands THE KING, THE LORD OF HOSTS. King Uzziah was a leper, and lived outside the camp. This shows us that sinful man is unfit for the presence of God, however high his office and dignity. It shows that man has no resources at all for cleansing the leprosy of sin. Unless God meets him with healing mercy, he must remain unclean, unfit to be with the God of holiness.
Writers draw a warning from what happened to him: "The temple of the Lord is the place where God's glory dwells, and man in his pride and earthly glory is not to intrude there" (An Outline of Sound Words).
The word behind "Lord" in this verse is Adonai, not Jehovah. Commentators point out that the same chapter joins the two titles. The New Testament then names the Person.
Scripture uses the name Adonai where the One meant is Jehovah. Isaiah 6:1 says, "I saw the Lord (Adonai)... high and lifted up," and at the end of the vision, "Woe is me!... for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts" (Jehovah Sabaoth)... So this identifies Adonai with Jehovah. This is quite clear and simple. But it is of this passage that John 12 speaks, that the prophet saw Christ's glory, and spoke of Him. It is Adonai, but it is Jehovah.
An earlier chapter had already shown the people judged. This chapter does not soften that verdict, but it reaches it a different way.
This chapter opens a very different scene. It is not the law, but Jehovah revealed. Not that the people are one bit better... Both chapters show the people judged, but the principles of judgement are wholly different.
The train filling the temple was only the edge of the glory. The seraphim's cry tells us what that throne rests on.
He saw the Lord, high and exalted, and His is the glory that surpasses all (John 12:41). That is why the skirts of it filled the temple. Israel's kings had failed and sinned badly. Even so, the cry of the seraphim bore witness that God's throne rests on holiness.
The throne did more than impress Isaiah. Its light showed him what he was.
This was a solemn, soul-subduing sight... The light of the throne revealed to him his true condition. And what was that light? It was the moral glory of Christ. As we read in the Gospel of John, "Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him."... The law may tell me what I ought to be. Conscience may tell me I am not that. But I can form a true estimate of what I am only when the bright beams of Christ's moral glory pour themselves around me.
- Throne emptied. Judah's king ended his reign as a leper, living outside the camp. The year he died became the year Isaiah saw the Lord.
- Throne occupied. Isaiah saw no empty seat, but One "high and lifted up." The skirts of His glory filled the temple, and the seraphim's cry showed that this throne rests on holiness.
- Throne identified. "Lord" here is Adonai, joined in the same chapter with Jehovah of hosts; John 12 says the glory Isaiah saw was Christ's.
- Throne as light. The glory did not flatter the prophet. It exposed him — a standard neither the law nor conscience could supply.
- Throne as ground. Here the subject is no longer the law, but the Lord revealed. The people are still judged — but on wholly different ground.
Seraphim were standing above him each had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he flew.
Isaiah sees the Lord on His throne. Around it stand creatures named nowhere else in Scripture. Each has six wings, and that raises the question this verse turns on. Why would beings who live in God's presence use four wings to hide themselves, and only two to move?
The name itself carries meaning. Commentators trace it to a Hebrew root:
"Seraph" means a burner. It is the word for burn, and the only other thing called a seraph is the fiery serpent. The point is that they cry, "Holy, holy, holy."
That name also sets them apart from the cherubim. Writers draw the distinction like this:
The cherubim speak of God's power in government. We may call them the executors of divine righteousness. The seraphim, by contrast, stand in relation to God's nature. We may call them the guardians of His holiness. The word seraphim occurs only here in Scripture, but it is related to another word. Seraph occurs often, and it means "to burn." Our God is a consuming fire. We find seraph, for example, with the sin and trespass offerings, which were "wholly consumed" on the altar. The burnt offerings and peace offerings, by contrast, "went up to God as a pleasing aroma."
The arithmetic is the lesson. Four wings conceal; only one pair carries them anywhere.
No vision more glorious had ever burst on human eyes. These attending burning spirits took in the whole earth as the scene of His glory. Even so, His holiness was their first care and chief cry. Activity, even in the winged seraphim, is not everything, nor the main thing. Each one did not need all six wings for flight, but only two. "With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet." One shows awe toward God, the other shame about himself. Both show the reverence that suits them in His presence.
Another writer puts the same point as a question every servant of God must answer:
In the presence of His glory, the creature must take its place of nothingness before Him. Without that, can there be any true work for God, or any wisdom for it?
Why cover the feet at all? One writer points to what filled their attention instead:
Each one had six wings. With one pair he covered his face — their reverence was profound. With another he covered his feet: their ways were perfect, yet they refused to look at them. One Object only absorbed their attention.
One writer sets the three pairs in order and draws a lesson from it:
They used only two of their six wings for flight. First came the covering of the face in the presence of glory that cannot be searched out. Then came the covering of their own way from their eyes. Last came their activity in the service of their God — a suitable lesson for ourselves. A spirit of worship and self-forgetfulness comes before service.
Applied to praise, the picture becomes a rebuke of self-promotion. One writer urges believers to copy what happens above the throne:
May we then do now what the seraphim do above. With two wings they cover their face, as a token of their confusion before the holy presence of the Lord. With two they cover their feet, as if to hide their steps from themselves and from others. And with the remaining two they fly to carry out their Lord's will.
Holiness does not stay at the throne. One writer traces where the flying pair takes a seraph:
What a scene! One of those very seraphim stood above the Lord's throne with veiled face, crying "Holy, holy, holy." He passes from that throne to the altar, and from the altar down to the deep depths of a convicted sinner's heart. There he applies the healing power of a divine sacrifice. No sooner had the arrow from the throne wounded the heart than the seraph from the altar "flew" to heal the wound.
- Burners. The name means "to burn." These creatures guard God's holiness; the cherubim carry out His righteous government.
- Four to hide. Four of the six wings hide face and feet. That is awe toward God, and shame or self-forgetfulness about themselves.
- Two to fly. Only one pair moves them. Service is the smallest share of what these creatures do, not the largest.
- The order. Worship first. Self out of sight second. Activity last. Writers offer that order as the pattern for our own service.
- The flight. Those two wings carry a seraph from the throne to the altar, and from the altar to a convicted sinner's heart — holiness moving toward a sinner in grace.
And one called to the other and said, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!
In the year King Uzziah died, Isaiah sees the Lord on a throne, and burning creatures above Him cry out three times that He is holy. Two questions follow: why does holiness come first in heaven's worship, and how can the earth be full of God's glory in a chapter that also announces judgment?
Each seraph has six wings, but only two of them are for flying. One writer asks what the other four are doing.
No vision more glorious had ever burst on human eyes. The burning spirits standing there took in the whole earth as the scene of His glory. Even so, His holiness was their first care and chief cry. Activity even in the winged seraphim is not everything, nor the main thing. Each needed only two wings for flight, not all six. "With one pair he covered his face, and with another he covered his feet." That is awe toward God and shame about himself. Both show the reverence that suits them in His presence.
Their name carries meaning, and it appears nowhere else in Scripture.
The cherubim speak of God's power in government, and we may call them the executors of divine righteousness. The seraphim, by contrast, stand in relation to God's nature, and we may call them the guardians of His holiness. The word seraphim occurs only here in Scripture, but a related word, seraph, occurs often, and it means "to burn." Our God is a consuming fire.
The seraphim name the one quality God repeats to His people again and again — and the one people least want to hear about.
Holiness has first place in this cluster of God's glories. It is, we may say, one of the essential attributes of God; and without it, who could adore or even reverence Him? Yet it is the very trait of His nature that men are most averse to, and most likely to overlook. He has therefore reminded us over and over again in His Word that He is holy. In this attribute of His being He is incomparable.
One writer traces where the New Testament picks up this chapter, and what the number three points to.
It is instructive to note the New Testament references to this scene. In John 12:41, the blind rejection of Jesus is the theme, and we discover that Isaiah "saw His glory and spoke of Him." Then in Acts 28:26, Paul refers to our chapter and says, "The Holy Spirit was right in saying…" So here is one of those allusions to the Trinity embedded in the Old Testament. In verse 3 we have "Holy," repeated, not twice nor four times but three; and the LORD of hosts is before us. In verse 5, "the King, the LORD of hosts," whom we find to be the Lord Jesus. In verse 8, "the voice of the Lord," which is claimed as the voice of the Holy Spirit. God is One and yet Three: Three and yet One. Hence, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for US?"
Moments later God sends Isaiah to make this people's heart dull until the land is a ruin. That looks like a contradiction, and one writer meets it head-on.
He says, "I saw the Lord"; and what did he hear? He heard this: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory." Yet at that very moment God tells Isaiah to go and make the heart of this people dull and to shut their eyes. This lasts until the cities lie waste with no one in them, the houses empty, and the land completely desolate. How then could the whole earth be full of His glory? Only because God is what He is. He has a purpose concerning His beloved Son, whether in connection with an earthly people or a heavenly people.
Isaiah does not join the song. The cry breaks him, and one writer says we need the same breaking.
What effect does this vision of glory have on the prophet? It withers all the pride and beauty of human nature. In the presence of this glory the prophet sees deepest into his own sinful, wretched condition, and into the condition of the people he lives among… We need this as much as the prophet did.
That has a plain consequence for how anyone approaches God today.
The seraphim covered their faces and their feet while they cried, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory." Surely, then, those who worship the Father in spirit and in truth should be no less reverent than they.
- Burning. The name seraphim comes from a word meaning "to burn"; they stand in relation to God's nature, and we may call them the guardians of His holiness.
- Covered. Only two of six wings are for flight — service is not the main thing; awe toward God and shame about self come first.
- First. Holiness has first place among God's glories, and it is the very trait people are most averse to and most likely to overlook.
- Threefold. The cry says "holy" three times, and the New Testament ties this chapter to the LORD of hosts, to Jesus, and to the Holy Spirit — one God, so "who will go for us?"
- Filled. The earth does not yet look full of that glory; the seraphim can say it because God is what He is and has a purpose concerning His Son.
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
Isaiah sees the Lord on His throne, and then the building itself reacts: one cry shakes it, and smoke fills the house. Commentators find two things in that moment — the majesty of God's presence, and the way judgment hides that presence.
God gave Isaiah this vision as He sent him out with a message of judgment. (Older translations say "the posts of the door moved," where the ESV says "the foundations of the thresholds shook.")
God called Isaiah to go out as the prophet of judgment against Israel. At that time the Lord showed Himself in His temple in such terrible majesty that the very doorposts moved at His voice, and smoke filled the house.
The verse traces the shaking to a voice — the cry of the burning attendants around God's throne. What did that cry put first?
No vision more glorious had ever burst on human eyes. But if the attendant burning spirits took in the fullness of the earth as the scene of His glory, His holiness was their first care and chief cry.
The smoke has one parallel in Scripture, and that parallel fixes its meaning.
The other place where smoke fills the temple is Revelation 15. There God is about to make good His righteous and holy claims, and the seven angels appear with the seven last plagues. No one could approach God at that moment, for He was acting as judge. So it is striking that when smoke filled the house — that is, when God showed Himself as judge because of His holiness — it had the right effect on Isaiah.
Another writer traces the picture back further, to the mountain where God gave the law.
So Isaiah had seen the earthly temple, when the Lord came to announce the desolation of Israel (Isa. 6:4). So God had shown Himself to His people at the giving of the law, when "Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly" (Ex. 19:18). God dealing with man in righteous judgment is necessarily "a consuming fire."
Smoke both shows God and hides Him.
Smoke from the glory — the solemn darkness in which God is shut up before active judgment, so that man cannot find Him.
So why is smoke called glory?
The glory of God is the display of what He is. Any showing forth of what God is — whether in grace, in power, or in holiness — is a display of His glory. Here, where power in judgment is the subject, it is the display of what He is as judge, according to what His own nature requires. (Compare Isa. 6:1-4.) This at once explains why no one could enter the temple until God had completed these judgments. For who indeed could stand before a God of judgment?
The building shook first. Then something moved inside the man who was watching.
The Divine presence moved the very door of the temple, and a spiritual movement in Isaiah followed. It produced deep conviction of sin and uncleanness. He had just pronounced six woes upon others in the name of the Lord; now he called for a woe upon himself.
So the test was not how Isaiah compared with other people.
The light of the throne revealed to him his true condition… Christ is the perfect standard by which everyone must be measured. It does not matter what I may think of myself, nor what others may think about me: the question is, What am I as seen in the presence of Christ? … Then the hidden chambers of my heart are laid open, the secret springs of action are revealed, the real condition is laid bare.
- Voice. The house shakes at a voice — the cry of God's burning attendants, whose first care is His holiness.
- Smoke. Smoke filling the house means God is acting as judge — the same sign appeared at Sinai and again in Revelation 15.
- Barrier. Smoke is glory shown in judgment, so no one can come near while it lasts. God is shut up in solemn darkness.
- Tremor. The doorposts shake, and then Isaiah shakes. The man who had just announced woes on others turns the woe on himself.
- Exposure. In that light Isaiah measures himself against Christ, not against his neighbours, and his real condition comes to light.