Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter 6
Isaias sees God on a lofty throne, and the Seraphim crying out to him: Holy, holy, holy. Second, verse 6, touched by the Seraphim with a burning coal, purified and enkindled, he is sent to prophesy to Juda. Third, verse 9, he is bidden to prophesy the blinding and desolation of the Jews; yet so that a holy seed may remain in them.
He could have comprised this whole chapter in three words, saying: It will come to pass that Juda will be rejected by God; but because this prophecy was grave and odious, God therefore prefaced and confirmed it by this so magnificent apparition. St. Bernard wrote five moral sermons on this vision of Isaias.
1. In the year that king Ozias died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated: and his train filled the temple.
2. Upon it stood the seraphims: the one had six wings, and the other had six wings: with two they covered his face, and with two they covered his feet, and with two they flew.
3. And they cried one to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of his glory.
4. And the lintels of the doors were moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
5. And I said: Woe is me, because I have held my peace; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King the Lord of hosts.
6. And one of the seraphims flew to me, and in his hand was a live coal, which he had taken with the tongs off the altar.
7. And he touched my mouth, and said: Behold, this hath touched thy lips, and thy iniquities shall be taken away, and thy sin shall be cleansed.
8. And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send? and who shall go for us? And I said: Lo, here am I, send me.
9. And he said: Go, and thou shalt say to this people: Hear ye indeed, and understand not; and see the vision, and know it not.
10. Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them.
11. And I said: How long, O Lord? And he said: Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man: and the land shall be left desolate.
12. And the Lord shall remove men far away, and she shall be multiplied that was left in the midst of the earth.
13. And yet there shall be a tenth part in it, and it shall return, and shall be made a show, as a turpentine tree, and as an oak that spreadeth its branches: that which shall stand therein shall be a holy seed.
1. In the year that king Ozias died,—namely in the 52nd year of the reign of Ozias or Azarias: for this was the last both of his reign and of his life. The Chaldee takes by death the separation by which Ozias, struck with leprosy because he wished to burn incense, lived in a separate house, and in his place his son Joatham reigned: for this separation is a kind of civil death. But others commonly take this of his natural death. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Origen, homily 1 on Judges chap. 3; Chrysostom on these words of Isaias, volume 1; and they give the reason why, Ozias being dead, Isaias began to prophesy, or rather resumed the prophecy that had been interrupted: that God had withdrawn the spirit from Isaias and the Prophets, because the Jews had not cast the leprous king out of the city, but had permitted him to live in a separate house: or, granting that he gave them oracles, he did not will that they be made manifest to the Jews, defiled by the sacrilege of their king; but when the king was dead, as if a hindrance were removed, he again communicated his oracles to them. But it is uncertain whether this vision befell Isaias after the death of Ozias or before his death: for Sanchez and others hold that it befell before his death; and the words suggest this more: “In the year that king Ozias died.” Again the Jews seem to have sinned little or nothing in permitting the leprous Ozias to dwell in a separate house: for though it is uncertain whether this house was within the city or outside, it is certain that this house was so separate that it could not infect the city and citizens with leprosy. Hence Scripture, when it narrates this fact, 2 Paralipomenon 26:21, in no way blames it: especially because something was to be allowed to royal dignity, and the common law in his case was to be interpreted more mildly; namely that it sufficed for a leprous king to dwell apart, lest he infect anyone, and that it was not necessary that, after the manner of commoners, he be expelled from the city: otherwise the priests who had cast the leprous king out of the temple would also have cast him out of the city. For the same intention sufficed for both.
Wherefore if it is true that prophecy ceased on account of some sin, it is more true that it was the very sin of Ozias, by which he wished to invade the rights and offices of the priests, and to burn incense: which sin of the king, as of the head, God punished in the whole body, namely in the whole people of the Jews; especially because some, chiefly nobles and courtiers, seem to have favoured the king in this daring attempt; for on this account Isaias expressly prefixes to this vision, saying: “In the year that king Ozias died.” Hence gather how pernicious to the people the sins of princes are. For so for the sins of the sons of Heli the people was slain, 1 Kings 4 and 5; and for the sin of David the whole people was struck with a great disaster by God, 2 Kings 24:15.
Tropologically, St. Gregory, homily 14 on Ezechiel: “When Ozias, a proud and presumptuous king, dies, the Lord is seen; because when the elation of this world is slain by the desire of the mind, then the mind itself contemplates the glory of God.”
I saw the Lord sitting.—Isaias here saw God sitting on a majestic throne, and that in the temple, as is plain from what follows: “And his train filled the temple.” Where note: God appears in the form and habit which the matter itself demands: so to Moses he was seen in a burning bush, to show that he was as it were pricked and burnt by the afflictions of his people oppressed by the Egyptians: so to Stephen contending he appeared standing, as though to contend together with him: so to Magdalene he appeared as a gardener; to the disciples going to Emmaus, as a pilgrim; because in a garden, and abroad, he appeared to pilgrims, and because he was a gardener and pilgrim in the mind and opinion of those who doubted of his resurrection, and, clouded by his passion and cross, wavered in the faith of Christ. So to Isaias here he appears as a king and magnificent judge sitting on a splendid and royal throne, because he wished to show the appearance of his majesty to Isaias, and through him to the unbelieving people, that they might learn to believe God and to revere him, and to dread him as judge and avenger.
You will ask first, why was this vision shown to Isaias? I answer, first, that by it, verse 7, the Prophet and Apostle might be as it were consecrated. So Nazianzen, oration 2 On Theology. Second, that he might learn from the heavenly spirits how divine things are to be handled, says St. Dionysius, chap. 13 of the Celestial Hierarchy. Third, that he might be encouraged by God to rebuke freely, verse 9, the blindness of the Jews. Fourth, Isaias here knew the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and of the incarnation of the Word (for God sitting on the throne had face and feet, as one who was to become man), and shadowed it forth to us, as will be plain from what follows.
You will ask second, how did he see God? I answer, he did not see the divine essence: for “no man hath seen God at any time,” John 1; neither Moses, nor Paul, nor Isaias. So Theophylact, Euthymius and others there. He saw, therefore, God under some form and corporeal image, as also Abraham, Jacob and Moses saw him: this form was as of a man, namely a king. Hence he is seen seated, verses 1 and 2; his feet and face are described: and so commonly God appeared in the Old Testament in human form, because he was to become man. Again this form was gloriously adorned with huge light and majesty. Hence John 12:41 calls it the glory of Christ.
4:2, note 3, thinks that Isaias saw God the Father only, not the Son nor the Holy Spirit, and cites for this view St. Athanasius, Irenaeus and Origen. On the other side, Procopius, Arias and Sanchez think that only the Son appeared here. The same is held by all those Fathers and Doctors who think that in all the apparitions of God made in the Old Testament the Son appeared, and to this end, that he might give to the fathers a specimen of his future incarnation. So think Theodoret, Justin, Tertullian, Hilary, Ambrose, Cyril and others whom I cited on Genesis 32:24, indeed the Council of Sirmium, canon 14. Where note that these Fathers do not deny that, when one person of the Holy Trinity appears.
You will ask third, whether Isaias saw these things with bodily eyes? Some probably affirm it from verse 5: