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Hitherto, it should seem, Isaiah had prophesied as a candidate, having only a virtual and tacit commission; but here we have him (if I may so speak) solemnly ordained and set apart to the prophetic office by a more express or explicit commission, as his work grew more upon his hands: or perhaps, having seen little success of his ministry, he began to think of giving it up; and therefore God saw fit to renew his commission here in this chapter, in such a manner as might excite and encourage his zeal and industry in the execution of it, though he seemed to labour in vain. In this chapter we have, I. A very awful vision which Isaiah saw of the glory of God (Isa 6:1-4), the terror it put him into (Isa 6:5), and the relief given him against that terror by an assurance of the pardon of his sins (Isa 6:6, Isa 6:7). II. A very awful commission which Isaiah received to go as a prophet, in God's name (v. 8), by his preaching to harden the impenitent in sin and ripen them for ruin (v. 9-12) yet with a reservation of mercy for a remnant, (v. 13). And it was as to an evangelical prophet that these things were shown him and said to him.

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 6 This chapter contains a vision of the glory and majesty of Christ, the mission and commission of the prophet, and the destruction of the Jews. In the vision may be observed the time of it, and the object seen; who is described by the throne on which he sat, Isa 6:1 and by his ministers about him; and these, by their name, by their situation, by their wings and the use of them, and by their employment, Isa 6:2 and by the effects their crying to one another had upon the place where they were, Isa 6:4 and next follows the effect the whole vision had on the prophet, which threw him into great distress of mind; and the relief he had by one of the seraphim, and the manner of it, Isa 6:6 upon which a question being put, concerning sending some person, the prophet makes answer, expressing his readiness to go, Isa 6:8 when a commission is given him, and the message he is sent with is declared, Isa 6:9 whereupon he asks how long it would be the case of the Jews mentioned in the message he was sent with; and he is told it would continue until the utter destruction of them, Isa 6:11 and yet, for the comfort of him and other saints, it is intimated that there would be a remnant among them, according to the election of grace, Isa 6:13.

And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried,.... That is, the posts of the door of the temple, as the Targum adds, where this vision was seen, as represented to the prophet. Some think this respects the earthquake in Uzziah's time, mentioned in Zac 14:5 and which they suppose was at the time he attempted to offer incense, and was smitten with leprosy; but, as Kimchi observes, this moving of the door posts was only in the vision of prophecy, and not in reality; this shaking therefore may denote either the shaking and removing of the temple service and worship, at the death of Christ, and through the preaching of the Gospel; or rather the shaking of the consciences of men by the word, which made them cry out, what shall we do to be saved? And the house was filled with smoke; this was a token either of the burning of the temple, or of the anger of God against the Jews, Psa 18:8 or of their superstition and will worship, the cause of it, Rev 9:1 or of the judicial blindness and darkness they were given up unto, Isa 6:9 or rather of the presence of God in his church, and with his ministers, Exo 40:3 the allusion may be to the cloud of incense that covered the mercy seat, on the day of atonement, Lev 16:13 the passage is cited on this account in the Talmud (n). (n) T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 53. 1.

(Verse 4) And the doorposts of the cardinal's palace were shaken by the voice of the one who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. The seraphim cried out, and throughout the whole earth they proclaimed the mystery of the Trinity, when the entire earth learned of the passion of the Lord and Savior. Immediately, the threshold of the Temple was either raised or lifted up, and all its hinges fell down, fulfilling the Savior's threat, saying: Your house will be left to you desolate (Matthew 23:38). And what a beautiful arrangement of words. After the earth is filled with the glory of the Lord of hosts, the Temple of the Jews is filled with the darkness of ignorance, and with darkness, and with smoke, which is harmful to the eyes. Or certainly through the smoke of the Temple the fire is revealed. For first the Gospel of the Savior was preached throughout the whole world, and after forty-two years from the Lord's passion, Jerusalem was captured, and the Temple was set on fire. The Jews believe that the Temple was filled with smoke, which signifies incense, and through this the coming of the divine majesty.

220. Third, where it says, and the lintels, he sets out the effect of their praise, namely, the punishment of sinners, below: behold my servants shall eat, and you shall be hungry: behold my servants shall drink, and you shall be thirsty . . . Behold my servants shall praise for joyfulness of heart, and you shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for grief of spirit (Isa 65:13–14). And the destruction of the temple is signified: the lintels of the hinges were moved: strike the hinges, and let the lintels be shook (Amos 9:1); and the burning of the temple: and the house was filled with smoke of burning by the Romans after the faith of Christ was known. Or by smoke the infidelity of the Jews is signified; by the movement of the hinges, the removal of their legal observances or ceremonies, which were like shadows enclosing the entrance to the truth.

Jeremiah, in the spirit of prophecy, seeing the Chaldeans on their march, bids his people set up the usual signals of distress, and spread the general alarm to betake themselves to flight, Jer 6:1. Then, by a beautiful allusion to the custom of shepherds moving their flocks to the richest pastures, Jerusalem is singled out as a place devoted to be eaten up or trodden down by the armies of the Chaldeans, who are called up against her, and whose ardor and impatience are so great that the soldiers, when they arrive in the evening, regret they have no more day, and desire to begin the attack without waiting for the light of the morning, Jer 6:2-5. God is then represented as animating and directing the besiegers against this guilty city, which sinned as incessantly as a fountain flows, Jer 6:6, Jer 6:7, although warned of the fatal consequence, Jer 6:8. He intimates also, by the gleaning of the grapes, that one invasion should carry away the remains of another, till their disobedience, hypocrisy, and other sins should end in their total overthrow, Jer 6:9-15. And to show that God is clear when he judgeth, he mentions his having in vain admonished and warned them, and calls upon the whole world to witness the equity of his proceedings, Jer 6:16-18, in punishing this perverse and hypocritical people, Jer 6:19, Jer 6:20, by the ministry of the cruel Chaldeans, Jer 6:21-23. Upon this a chorus of Jews is introduced expressing their fears and alarm, Jer 6:24, Jer 6:25; to which the prophet echoes a response full of sympathy and tenderness, Jer 6:26. The concluding verses, by metaphors taken from the process of refining gold and silver, represent all the methods hitherto used to amend them as wholly ineffectual, Jer 6:27-30.

VISION OF JEHOVAH IN HIS TEMPLE. (Isa 6:1-13) In . . . year . . . Uzziah died--Either literal death, or civil when he ceased as a leper to exercise his functions as king [Chaldee], (Ch2 26:19-21). 754 B.C. [CALMET] 758 (Common Chronology). This is not the first beginning of Isaiah's prophecies, but his inauguration to a higher degree of the prophetic office: Isa 6:9, &c., implies the tone of one who had already experience of the people's obstinacy. Lord--here Adonai, Jehovah in Isa 6:5; Jesus Christ is meant as speaking in Isa 6:10, according to Joh 12:41. Isaiah could only have "seen" the Son, not the divine essence (Joh 1:18). The words in Isa 6:10 are attributed by Paul (Act 28:25-26) to the Holy Ghost. Thus the Trinity in unity is implied; as also by the thrice "Holy" (Isa 6:3). Isaiah mentions the robes, temple, and seraphim, but not the form of God Himself. Whatever it was, it was different from the usual Shekinah: that was on the mercy seat, this on a throne; that a cloud and fire, of this no form is specified: over that were the cherubim, over this the seraphim; that had no clothing, this had a flowing robe and train.

posts of . . . door--rather, foundations of the thresholds. house--temple. smoke--the Shekinah cloud (Kg1 8:10; Eze 10:4).

When Isaiah heard this, he stood entranced at the farthest possible distance from Him that sat upon the throne, namely, under the door of the heavenly palace or temple. What he still further felt and saw, he proceeds to relate in Isa 6:4 : "And the foundations of the thresholds shook with the voice of them that cried; and the house became full of smoke." By ‛ammoth hassippim, the lxx, Vulgate, Syriac, and others understand the posts of the lintels, the supporting beams of the superliminaria, which closed the doorway at the top. But as saph is only used in other places to signify the threshold and porch (limen and vestibulum), ‛ammoth hassippim must be understood here in the (perfectly appropriate) sense of "the foundations of the thresholds" (ammâh, which bears the same relation to עם, mother, as matrix to mater, is used to denote the receptive basis into which the door-steps with their plugs were inserted, like the talmudic ammetâh derēchayyâh, the frame or box of the hand-mill (Berachoth 18b), and ammath megērah, the wood-work which runs along the back of the saw and keeps it firmly extended (Kelim 21, 3); compare the "Schraubenmutter," literally screw-mother, or female screw, which receives and holds the cylindrical screw). Every time that the choir of seraphim (הקּורא: compare such collective singulars as hâ'oreb, the ambush, in Jos 8:19; hechâlutz, of men of war, in Jos 6:7, etc.) began their song, the support of the threshold of the porch in which Isaiah was standing trembled. The building was seized with reverential awe throughout its whole extent, and in its deepest foundations: for in the blessed state beyond, nothing stands immoveable or unsusceptible in relation to the spirits there; but all things form, as it were, the accidentia of their free personality, yielding to their impressions, and voluntarily following them in all their emotions. The house was also "filled with smoke." Many compare this with the similar occurrence in connection with the dedication of Solomon's temple (Kg1 8:10); but Drechsler is correct in stating that the two cases are not parallel, for there God simply attested His own presence by the cloud of smoke behind which He concealed Himself, whereas here there was no need of any such self-attestation. Moreover, in this instance God does not dwell in the cloud and thick darkness, whilst the smoke is represented as the effect of the songs of praise in which the seraphim have joined, and not of the presence of God. The smoke arose from the altar of incense mentioned in Isa 6:6. But when Drechsler says that it was the prayers of saints (as in Rev 5:8; Rev 8:3-4), which ascended to the Lord in the smoke, this is a thought which is quite out of place here. The smoke was the immediate consequence of the seraphs' song of praise. This begins to throw a light upon the name seraphim, which may help us to decipher it. The name cannot possibly be connected with sârâph, a snake (Sanscr. sarpa, Lat. serpens); and to trace the word to a verb sâraph in the sense of the Arabic 'sarafa ('sarufa), to tower high, to be exalted, or highly honoured (as Gesenius, Hengstenberg, Hofmann, and others have done), yields a sense which does not very strongly commend itself. On the other hand, to follow Knobel, who reads shârâthim (worshippers of God), and thus presents the Lexicon with a new word, and to pronounce the word serpahim a copyist's error, would be a rash concession to the heaven-storming omnipotence which is supposed to reside in the ink of a German scholar. It is hardly admissible, however, to interpret the name as signifying directly spirits of light or fire, since the true meaning of sâraph is not urere (to burn), but Comburere (to set on fire or burn up). Umbreit endeavours to do justice to this transitive meaning by adopting the explanation "fiery beings," by which all earthly corruption is opposed and destroyed. The vision itself, however, appears to point to a much more distinctive and special meaning in the name, which only occurs in this passage of Isaiah. We shall have more to say upon this point presently.