Isaiah 6:1

1. I saw An insight into the invisible world. The prophet’s mind is in communication with heaven, but his mode of apprehension is by symbol. The holy of holies in the temple, with the veil removed, is the scene where the vision occurs. It is told us, in John 12:41, that the “Lord,”

=Jehovah, whom Isaiah saw in this vision, was the yet unincarnated Jesus. [Compare the much sublimer theophany of Revelation iv, where see notes. Isaiah gives the apocalypse of Jerusalem’s downfal, John of the mystical Babylon’s.] In this vision the beholder sees the sovereign Jehovah on his throne, high and lifted up, with the folds of his train, or skirts, filling all the temple. Above the throne were standing or hovering, as attendant ministers before the ineffably glorious One, seraphim, or burning ones; beings with the radiance and glory of fire an essence, so to call it which symbolized certain intense qualities of character. The word is here only used with this sense in Scripture. It is from שׂר Š , ( saraph,) to burn, and the being is evidently spoken of as wearing a human form, with brilliant fiery appearance, covered with wings. [This word, to burn, is often used in the Old Testament, and for some reason the noun saraph, burner, signifies a serpent. Rabbi Solomon says, (quoted by Barnes,) “serpents are called seraphim, because they burn men with the poison of their teeth.” Better, however, is perhaps the suggestion of Nagelsbach, (Lange’s Bibelwerk,) that serpents were called burners from the resemblance of their vibratory creeping to the vibrations of a flame; they were flamers. And these present holy beings are called burners, not as serpents, but as representing, or, as we may say, incarnating, the burning, consuming purity and holiness of God. Hence their ascription, holy, to God, indicates their own holy nature. They are pure flames of purity and love; and though seen in repose by the prophet they have a radiant human form yet we may conceive that when on the wing, sent forth by Jehovah, they may become (what the flying flamingo of the south seems to be) a darting flame. As fire they either purify or destroy, as the object they touch may be; they purified the prophet, they consumed the guilty people, all save the final remnant.