Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Isaiah 6:7
(7) And he laid it upon my mouth.—So Jehovah “touched the mouth” of Isaiah’s great successor (Jeremiah 1:9); but not in that case with a “coal from the altar.” That prophet, like Moses (Exodus 4:10), had felt only or chiefly the want of power (“Alas! I cannot speak), and power was given him. Isaiah desired purity, and his prayer also was answered.Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.—The clauses express the two elements of the great change which men, according to their varying... read more
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Isaiah 6:6
(6) Then flew one of the seraphims.—In presenting the vision to our mind’s eye we have to think of the bright seraph form, glowing as with fire, and with wings like the lightning-flash, leaving his station above the throne, and coming to where the prophet stood in speechless terror. The altar from which he took the “live coal “—literally, stone, and interpreted by some critics of the stones of which the altar was constructed—is commonly thought of as belonging, like that of Revelation 8:5;... read more