Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 6:2

Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

2. Above it seraphims ] better, Seraphim were standing over Him, i.e. in the attitude of service. One standing in the presence of another who is seated is always said to be over him, whatever their mutual relations may be: 1Ki 22:19; Gen 18:2; Gen 18:8; Exo 18:13, &c. The Seraphim (probably “fiery beings”) are mentioned nowhere else in Scripture as angelic beings. Their function in this vision is purely symbolical. They are the attendants of Jehovah’s court or the ministers of the invisible sanctuary; they reflect the glory of God, and by their presence and actions suggest new and fuller conceptions of His ineffable majesty. The basis of the symbol is obscure. The serpents with which the Israelites were plagued in the desert are called Seraphim (sing. Srph: Num 21:6-9; Deu 8:15), and some connexion between the two uses of the word is probable. An intermediate link would be supplied by the “flying Saraph” of ch. Isa 14:29, Isa 30:6, apparently an allusion to a widely diffused mythological notion; see Herodotus II. 75 on the winged serpents of Arabia. It is also worthy of notice that the brazen Saraph (Num 21:8) made by Moses must have been a conspicuous object in the temple at the time of Isaiah’s call (2Ki 18:4). On the other hand the analogy of the Cherubim has led to the theory that both are personifications of the phenomena of the thunder-storm, the Cherubim representing the dark cloud and the Seraphim the serpent-like lightning (see Cheyne, Comm., and art. ‘Cherubim’ in Encyc. Brit.). Different elements, in fact, seem to be combined in the conception of the Saraph; but whether it had been already incorporated in the religion of Israel, or whether Isaiah was the first who lifted it into the sphere of pure spiritual ideas it is quite impossible to say. Isaiah’s Seraphim are winged creatures, but certainly not serpentine in form, probably human, or at least partly human, like the Cherubim (Eze 1:5-14).

with twain he covered his face ] The sense is well expressed by the Targum: “With two he covered his face that he might not see; and with two he covered his body that he might not be seen.”

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Above it – Either above the throne, or above him. The Septuagint renders it, Round about him – kuklo autou. The Chaldee, The holy ministers stood on high in his presence.

The seraphims – The verb s’araph, from which this word is derived, is uniformly translated to burn, and is used frequently; see Taylor. The noun s’araph denotes, according to Bochart, the chersydros, a serpent that lives in lakes and moist places; but when those places are dried up, it becomes a land serpent, and then its bite is very fierce, and is attended with a most dreadful inflammation all over the body. Rabbi Solomon says, that serpents are called seraphim because they burn people with the poison of their teeth, perhaps because the idea of heat and poison were connected. The word is applied to the fiery flying serpents which bit the children of Israel, and in imitation of which a brass serpent was erected on a pole by Moses. It is translated a fiery serpent in Num 21:8; Isa 14:29; Isa 30:6. In Deut; Deu 8:15; Num 21:6, it is rendered fiery, and in the passage before us, seraphims.

The word s’^erephah often occurs in the sense of burning; Deu 29:23; 2Ch 16:14; 2Ch 21:19, … The Septuagint renders it seraphim, serafim; so the Vulgate and the Syriac. The Chaldee, his holy ministers. Probably it is now impossible to tell why this name was given to the representations that appeared to Isaiah. Perhaps it may have been from their burning ardor and zeal in the service of God; perhaps from the rapidity of their motion in his service – derived from the rapid motion of the serpent. Gesenius supposes that the name was derived from a signification of the word denoting noble or excellent, and that it was on this account applied to princes, and to celestial beings. Kimchi says, that the name was given with reference to their bright, shining appearance; compare Eze 1:13; 2Ki 2:2; 2Ki 6:17. The word is applied to celestial beings no where else, except in this chapter. There is no reason to think that the seraphim described here partook of the form of the serpent, as the representation seems to be rather that of a man. Thus each one Isa 6:2 is represented as covering his face and his feet with his wings – a description that does not pertain to the serpentine form. God is usually represented as surrounded or encompassed by heavenly beings, as his ministers; Psa 104:4; Dan 7:10; 1Ki 22:19; Psa 68:17; Heb 12:22. The idea is one of special magnificence and grandeur. It is derived especially from the customs of monarchs, particularly Eastern monarchs, who had numerous princes and nobles to attend them, and to give magnificence to their court.

Each one had six wings – Wings are emblematic of the rapidity of their movement; the number here, perhaps, denoting their celerity and readiness to do the will of God.

With twain he covered his face – This is designed, doubtless, to denote the reverence and awe inspired by the immediate presence of God; compare Amo 6:9, Amo 6:10. The Chaldee adds, He covered his face so that he could not see. To cover the face in this manner is the natural expression of reverence; compare the note at Isa 52:15. And if the pure and holy seraphim evinced such reverence in the presence of Yahweh, with what profouond awe and veneration should we, polluted and sinful creatures, presume to draw near to him! Assuredly their position should reprove our presumption when we rush thoughtlessly and irreverently into his presence, and should teach us to bow with lowly veneration and deep humility; compare Rev 4:9-11.

He covered his feet – In a similar description of the cherubim in Eze 1:11, it is said tha they covered their bodies. In Isaiah, the expression clearly denotes not the feet only, but the lower extremities. This was also an expression of reverence drawn from our conceptions of propriety. The seraphim stood covered, or as if concealing themselves as much as possible, in token of their nothingness and unworthiness in the presence of the Holy One.

He did fly – He was quick to execute the commands of God. It may be observed, also, that among the ancients, Mercury, the messenger of Jupiter, was always represented with wings. Milton has copied this description of the seraphim:

A seraph winged: six wings he wore to shade

His lineaments divine; the pair that clad

Each shoulder broad, came mantling oer his breast

With regal ornament; the middle pair

Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round

Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold,

And colors dipt in heaven; the third his feet

Shadowed from either heel with feathered mail,

Sky-tinctured grain.

Par. Lost, Book v.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Isa 6:2-3

Above it stood the seraphim

The seraphim

The first question that arises is, Who, or what were the seraphim?

They belong to this vision only, and must stand in vital relation to the condition and circumstances of the seer at the time. It is to be noted, further, that the time was that of the greatest crisis in the life of the greatest prophet of the ancient world. It was the time when he was struggling through the portals of spiritual agony into the temple of prophecy. Such visions have no room for superfluous adornment. If ever a picture had a meaning that is worth knowing, it is surely Isaiahs picture of the seraphim. In the whole vision, as I have said, there is no sign of drapery. It throbs in all its parts with the struggles and revelations and hopes of the prophets heart. What, then, was that crisis in the prophets life in the light of which the vision will become interpreted? It is pregnantly indicated in the first verse of this chapter–In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. These words indicate the battleground of Isaiahs soul. Around this King Uzziah, who was now dead, unusual hopes had gathered. In him many deemed that the Saviour of Israel had at length appeared. He feared God, and waxed mighty in his kingdom. On every hand he extended the realm of Judah, and made the foemen of Gods people lick the dust. But when Uzziah waxed mighty, he revealed that he was but flesh. He became arrogant, as though the strength and prowess of his own right hand had accomplished all this, Then, forgetting the fear of the Lord, he presumed to carry the sacred censer into the sanctuary, and to usurp presumptuously the holy functions of Gods anointed priesthood. Then the mighty hand of Jehovah that had upheld him so long struck him, and he fell. And with his fall a thousand hopes were shattered, and a nations faith fell headlong to the ground. This was a critical moment for the young Isaiah. Now his faith must either die or be reborn with a new and more glorious birth. Now it shall be seen whether everything falls for him with the fall of the great Uzziah. The vision is the answer. When Uzziah died, the young prophet saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. The collapse of the Jewish monarch revealed the King Eternal. Now, beyond Uzziahs shattered throne, the young seer beholds the throne of God towering high in eternal majesty and splendour. The part that the seraphim play in this new consciousness is not far to seek. They are obviously an express contradiction of the attitude of Israel as typified and exemplified in the self-confident and presumptuous king. They represent the attitude which Israel ought to learn in contradiction of the attitude in which it was now found. They represent the prophets own new ideal. Henceforth he will strive to make the attitude and the message of the seraphim his own.

So the seraphim have probably no actual existence as celestial beings. They are here the symbol of a human ideal, wrought out of the struggling heart of a prophet. From the moment that his lips are touched with the glowing stone from the altar, Isaiah also becomes one of the seraphim. So the picture of the seraphim still, remains as an ideal, not only for the ministers of the Word of God, but also for me whole Church of Jesus Christ. Let us, therefore, consider their attitude and their message.

I. In relation to THE SIGNIFICATION OF THE SERAPHIM, it seems to me that the name by which the prophet designates them is very significant. These seraphim are simply the burning ones. They stand around (not above) the throne, and partake of its burning glory. In this participation in the fires of God the seer sees the starting point of the new way that he is about to mark for himself and the nation of Israel and the peoples of the earth. He, too, will learn to stand in the presence of the glory of God until every fibre of his life is aflame with the same glory. He will learn to be a seraph, one of God a fiery ministers, one or His glorious ones. For such the true prophet must be. He was a burning and a shining light, said our Saviour concerning John the Baptist. It is not enough to be rejectors of a higher light; we must become burners, and have a veritable fire of our own. There is a vaunted morality which is only a cold reflection of the life of Christ, in which the glory of the Christ is made nothing more than a chiselled model. The Christian man should be all on fire, yea, on fire to his very fingertips. Such must be our response to the glory of Gods throne. We must receive it into our life until we catch fire, and respond to Heaven with a glory like unto its own. Note, in the next place, the perfect reverence which is here pictured: Each had six wings. With twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet. Of six wings, four are utilised for the purpose of doing reverence to the majesty of the eternal God. Here lies the central and most emphatic rebuke of the spirit of the Jewish people. Uzziah had no doubt rightly re]presented the prevailing spirit of the people when he dared presumptuously to invade the sacred offices of the temple of the Lord. Prosperity had made them arrogant, and arrogance had made them irreverent. In their own growing splendour they forget to do due homage to the glory of me Lord. The bulking throne of Uzziah had hidden the throne of Jehovah from view. The glory that made the seraphim veil their faces was not felt by the heart of the people. So as Isaiah gazes upon the veiled faces of the seraphim he passes from what is to what ought to be. Reverence is the mark of those that stand in the highest place, and henceforth will take a primary position in the life of Isaiah,. In reverence power begins. The vision of the seraphim with veiled faces and feet is sorely needed again in our day. There are those that make their boast in desecrating the sacred things of life, and in defiling the vessels of Gods temple. Yet you may be assured that all irreverence is essentially impotence. It have its little day of loud presumption, and then the Spirit of the Lord shall blow upon it, and it shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take it away as stubble. The covering of the feet as well as the face is a striking picture. It is difficult to carry the spirit of reverence into the smaller, minuter, and obscurer details of life. There are many that remember to cover the face before God, yet that forget to cover the feet. We are on our guard on great occasions and in great things. In the sanctuary, with its atmosphere of worship, we bend our into reverent homage, but we forget that the cottage and the villa, the workshop and the office, are also holy ground. There we often walk unveiled. And the world sees us uncovered, and thinks there is no God. The Christian Supper of Communion we treat as holy, but the daily meal is reduced to commonplace. The seraphim teach us also self-effacement. The prophet sees the glory that they send forth, and hears the message that they utter in never-ceasing music, but the seraphim themselves are hidden from view, covered from head to foot with their own wings. They sing the message and flash the glory, but they completely efface themselves. Here again the attitude of the Jewish people as manifested in their king is challenged and contradicted. Uzziah, instead of effacing himself before God, had thrust himself ostentatiously forward, as though his own wonderful presence were necessary to bring glory to the land. If he had learnt to efface himself, he might have done great things for God and His people. But he gave glory to himself, and the Lord smote him. Self-effacement is no easy task, but is one of the fundamental lessons that must be learnt by the prophet of the Lord. There is no sight more contemptible on earth than that of a man parading his own marvellous personality when he has the message of the Lord to proclaim. To reverence and self-effacement the seraphim add readiness for service. With twain he covered his face, with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. What a mistake! says Mr. Modern Shallowbrain. These seraphim are provided with six wings, yet they waste two pairs of them in reverence, and reserve only one pair for service, if they would only give up that other-world sort of thing which is called worship and reverence, and use all their six wings for service, what an increase of good there would be accomplished on the earth. So some simpletons talk, and act upon their own shallow creed, and for awhile you see nothing but the dust of their wings, as though they were turning the world upside down. Then they disappear, wings and all, and for all their labour nothing but a cloud of dust remains And even that Gods whirlwind soon sweeps away. With the seraphim is the secret of power. The wings that fly have the strength of ten, because face and feet are veiled by the others. Out of unceasing worship spring forth the currents of power and the energies of service. Four things go together in the life of the seraphim, and they must be found in every good and strong life–participation in Gods burning glory, profound reverence, self-effacement, and readiness for service. To divide them is disaster.

II. The message of the seraphim is important, because it is clearly A MESSAGE FOR ISAIAHS OWN HEART, the message that is henceforth to be the keynote of his own teaching. The strain is two fold. The first part is, Holy, holy, holy, Jehovah of hosts. Some would have us eschew all metaphysical conceptions of God, yet Isaiah must needs begin with one, and a very profound one too. If there is to be any conception of God at all, it must be metaphysical. That the standpoint we adopt should be an ethical one does not in the least lessen its metaphysical character. The problem of the Infinite is essentially a metaphysical one, and the question that remains is simply one of little or much. Shall our conception of God be little or great, clear or obscure, definite or indefinite, true or confused? These are the alternatives. We cannot move a step in the sphere of true religion without some conception of God, and the fuller and richer that conception is, the nobler and stronger will be our religious and ethical life. Isaiah, like every true prophet, begins, not with the service of man, but with the nature of God. The source of all inspiration for him lies in the profound conception that the heart of the Infinite and Eternal is holiness, and such a conception has vast unfoldings. The Old Testament holy is a very beautiful term. George Adam Smith appears to say that its primary meaning as applied to God is simply sublimity. If he will change that into moral sublimity, I agree with him. But if not, I must dissent. I do not believe that the word, whatever its origin, is ever applied to God in the Old Testament except with a moral signification. The high place and the holy place do not mean precisely the same thing. Jehovah of hosts is a mark of sublimity. But the thrice holy involves an ethical view of the nature of God. The source of all inspiration for him lies in the profound conception that the heart of the Infinite and Eternal is holiness, and such a conception has vast unfoldings. The Old Testament holy is a very beautiful term. George Adam Smith appears to say that its primary meaning as applied to God is simply sublimity. If he will change that into moral sublimity, I agree with him. But if not, I must dissent. I do not believe that the word, whatever its origin, is ever applied to God in the Old Testament except with a moral signification. The high place and the holy place do not mean precisely the same thing. Jehovah of hosts is a mark of sublimity. But the thrice holy involves an ethical view of the nature of God. But there is another implication in holiness, which the careful student of the Old Testament cannot fail to observe, namely, that of self-communication. That which seems at first an impassable barrier reveals itself as a yearning heart and stretched out hands. Be ye holy, for I am holy, is a golden chain of link within link. Such a conception of God leads to the inspired and inspiring response, The whole earth is full of His glory. Or, to put the song of the seraphim more accurately, The fulness of the whole earth is His glory. These words mean one of two things, and perhaps they mean both. They mean that everything that is of any value on the earth is a ray from Gods glory. All the fulness of the earth, everything of beauty and of joy, all the products of thought and organisation and energy and life, all the love of human hearts, and all the achievements of the human will, everything, in fine, that is lovely and of good report, belong to Him whose glory fills the heavens, are flaming sparks from the anvil of His brightness. Akin to this, though not identical, is the other signification. The words may mean that the earth can find its fulness only in and through the glory of God. This earth wants filling, for there is now in it many a gaping void; and nothing but the glory of God can fill it. We have now a larger term for the glory of the Lord than Isaiah had, and so can give his words a higher reading. For what is the highest reading of Gods glory? Here it is: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father. Only in Him can the world receive its power, and The desert places of the earth blossom as the rose. In Him only all fulness dwells. (J. Thomas, M. A.)

The worship of the seraphim

Three times over in Holy Scripture is heaven so opened to us, and the blessed spirits shown to us adoring; in this sixth chapter of Isaiah, in the first of Ezekiel, and in the fourth of the Revelation. In each passage the vision of Godhead occurs as an introduction to the prophecy that follows. It forms the prophets warrant and commission for his work. It is his strength and preparation for entering on his ministry. The lesson is of universal application. It is when we have shut ourselves up with God; when we have cast down our sins before His throne; when we have called up the vision of His glory–from such a trance of devotion we go out into the world, indifferent to the opinions of mankind; raised above the temptations of the flesh; with grace and power to control the little tempers that arise, and to hold them in submission to our work.

1. Learn, first, to veil our eyes when we approach the glory of the Lord. We must put off curious thoughts at prayer; we are not come to inquire, but to adore, and must strive to be absorbed in the sense of the Presence. Nay, in our studies, too, of the mysteries of religion, the nature of sin, the necessity of atonement, the punishment of eternity, or the Trinity in unity–here often must we restrain our curiosity, limit our speculations. A rayor two of light is all our capacities can receive; the full naked orb of truth is often more than we can bear.

2. Our weakness will teach us to veil our eyes, and our sins to veil our bodies and our feet.

3. With twain they did fly. They exhibit to us the due union of meditative and active piety. Devotion in the temple without labour in the vineyard is not the worship of angels and is not to be the religion of men. While, on the other hand, to engage in the Churchs work without a habit of earnest prayer, is to sink ones self into a toiling slave and run the danger of becoming a self-conceited religious busybody.

4. The seraphim are our pattern for common praise and prayer. They nave suggested the antiphonal chanting of the Church, voice against voice, alternately.

5. Observe, too, that holiness is the attribute upon which they dwell, not the goodness or the greatness, but the holiness of the Lord whom they adore. There are pseudo-philanthropists who prefer to dwell entirely upon the goodness of the Lord, and would run up all His nature into benevolence. There are natural philosophers, again, who are lost in contemplation of the stupendous forces of nature and the vastness of the universe, and from them alone they draw their conceptions of the greatness of the Godhead. The Architect of all things, the Almighty, the Supreme, these are the names they know Him by and talk mostly of worshipping their Maker. But it is not Great, great, great, nor Good, goes, good which is the angels song, but Holy, holy, holy. It is in the character of moral Governor and a Judge that we are to contemplate our God.

6. The earth is full of the glory of the Lord, but the temple shakes at the proclamation of His name. The living temples are penetrated with emotion and with awe before the glory of the Most High and the sense of His presence.

7. The prophet is himself moved and disturbed before the glory of Gods presence, and under the sense of his own unworthiness. Here is the test of a genuine revelation from above. It dazzles not with vanity; it humbles to the dust under the burden of unmeetness for so great a favour from the Lord. Isaiah mentions his own sin first, and then the sin of his people. Let us always accuse ourselves the first.

8. But the sin that is thus deeply felt is thoroughly cured. The light that discovers to us our impurities is a sacred fire as well to burn them out. (C. F.Secretan.)

Who are the Seraphim?

Canon Cheynes answer in the Polychrome Bible is almost as grotesque as it is uncanny,–mythical beings, adopted instinctively by Isaiah from the folklore of Judah! On no other ground, apparently, than a disputed etymology, he sees in them only mythical, treasure guarding, serpent-like spirits, erect, gigantic, connected in some inexplicable way with the snake worship of Egypt! Wiser, more consonant with the facts as related by the seer himself, and in stricter accord with the genius of the Hebrew religion and temple service, is the suggestion of the late Professor Maurice, that they represent, not slimy, treasure-loving, serpentine worldliness, but those Divine energies and affections of which the zeal, devotion, and sympathy of man are counterparts. This is the only place in the Bible whore they are mentioned. Their Hebrew name stands for burning radiancy, and in its adjective form may apply to fiery serpents, or glowing angelic appearances, or kinsmen burning dead bodies, or iconoclastic kings who destroy objects of idolatry by fire. Though the visual shapes of these heavenly powers were symbolical, they clearly are not merely symbols, but living intelligent creatures, who perform acts of unceasing worship, and were actual agencies in conveying the prophetic inspiration to the receptive soul of the prophet. (F. Sessions.)

The service of the seraphim, contemplative and active

That perfect prayer, which our Lord bequeathed to His disciples, sets forth to us angelic service as a model which we shall do well in our services to copy. Not that the services we are called upon to render are the same with those assigned to angels. No, the sphere in which they live is heaven; ours for the present is the earth; and each of these spheres has its distinct and peculiar duties appropriate to the nature and faculties of its occupants.

I. THE TWO-FOLD LIFE OF A SERVANT OF GOD, WHETHER HUMAN OR ANGELIC, IS HERE VERY BEAUTIFULLY EXHIBITED TO US. The seraphim are represented as veiling their faces and feet with their wings while they stand in adoration before the throne of God. But though engaged in ceaselessly adoring the Divine perfections, they lead not a life of barren contemplation. The words with twain he did fly intimate to us that they are also engaged in the active execution of those errands with which God has charged them.

1. Consider, first, the devotional branch of the Christians life, that branch of it which is withdrawn from the eyes of the world, and opened only to the inspection of Him who seeth in secret. In the exercises of the closet and of the sanctuary are to be found the springs of the Christians exertions in his Masters cause. The Christians life, like that of the seraphim, branches out into the two great divisions of contemplative devotion and active exertion. It is the life of Mary, who sat at our Lords feet and heard His word, combined with that of Martha, who busied herself in outward ministrations to Him. If even the energies of angels (excelling as they do in power) would be certainly impaired unless they were ever and anon renewed by an adoring gaze on the Divine perfections, how certainly shall ours languish and die if we stir them not up by the diligent and persevering use of all those means of grace which God has put into our hands!

2. The Christian life, although as to its springs and sources hid with Christ in God, yet has an outward manifestation, discernible by the world. Care must be taken not only that the lamp shall be filled with a due supply of off, but also that there shall be a light shining before men. Here is a reproof of what may, without injustice, be termed the monastic principle–a principle which in former ages was deemed correct, and accordingly adopted into the practice of many. It is as if, in the case of animal life, a man should content himself with taking supplies of repose and nourishment, without exhibiting and improving the strength thus gained by the exercise of his limbs.

II. Having thus opened the subject generally, LET US SEEK TO ENTER MORE INTO ITS DETAILS, as the text brings them before us.

1. Let us learn from the seraphim a lesson as to the spirit which should pervade all true devotion.

(1) These bright and glorious beings are without sin, whether original or actual. Still, such is their sense of the infinite distance subsisting between themselves and Him, of whose hand they are the creatures, that they veil their faces and feet before His throne in token of adoring reverence. The first and most essential element of devotion is a feeling of deep awe, flowing from a sense of Gods transcendent excellences, and leading to a profound self-abasement.

(2) But, if there be ground for a sentiment of deep self-abasement even in the approach of unfallen creatures to the throne of God, with what intense feelings of humiliation should the members of Adams fallen family draw nigh. God hath not left man without the means of such a moral cleansing, as may make him meet to bear part in those hymns of praise which are offered by creatures who still retain their integrity. But this provision would be, to say the least, most inadequate, if it did not involve sanctifying as well as pardoning grace. And this it does involve.

2. Let us follow the Christians steps as he descends from the mount, on which he has held communion with God, once again to grapple with the difficulties and trials of time, and to bear the burden and heat of the day amidst the engagements of the vineyard. Son, go work today in My vineyard.

(1) Our own heart is a vineyard into which God hath sent every one of us, to dress it and to keep it,

(2) But surely there is an outward no less than an inward work which God has made binding upon all of us.

(a) His providence has called almost all of us to a definite sphere of duty, and assigned to us a certain position in life. Every such position involves its peculiar responsibilities, its peculiar snares, its peculiar occupations.

(b) But besides the fulfilment of the duties of our station, the Christian has many indirect opportunities offered to him–opportunities which as a Christian he cannot but arrest, and many of which we miss for lack of being on the watch for them–of promoting the cause of God in the world. (Dean Goulburn.)

The vision of God the essence of true worship

I take it that in the veiling of the head and the feet, the source of conception, the source of action, is represented the act of homage in which all true worship begins. I take it that in the outburst of song is represented the result of all the worship. All worship is meant to bring us nearer to God, and God near to us, so that if we worship truly, to us, as to them, there shall be a revelation of Gods nature and Gods truth The object of all worship is not to please God, not even to cave our own souls, though these may be incidents of worship; the object of worship is that, coming into His presence, we may be transformed into His image, as we learn of His ways and work. (Brooke Lambert, M. A.)

Commerce and science acknowledging God

The vision of Isaiah shall yet receive another fulfilment. Commerce and science shall yet bow their heads before the great Power from which they derive their true energy. And when they do, as with twain of their wings the seraphs flew, bowing the while before the Presence, there shall be an advance in knowledge and material prosperity such as the world has never known. Religion, which did stimulate the arts and the sciences to the creation of works which, with all our knowledge, we cannot rival religion, which did permeate action in days of which history tells us, and stirred men to mighty deeds, shall yet again become a mighty power. And when through the world there goes up the chant, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory, there will be days such as the world has not yet known. (Brooke Lambert, M. A.)

The cry of the seraphim

I. The first thing that strikes us respecting the seraphim is THEIR REDUNDANCE OF WINGS. They each had six, only two of which were used for flying; the others, with which they shrouded their faces and their feet, were, apparently, quite superfluous. Why should they have had them when there was no fit employment for them? Was it not sheer waste to be possessing wings that were merely employed as covering, and never spread for flight? And yet, perhaps, without this shrouding of their faces and their feet they might not have answered so well high Heavens purposes, might not have swept abroad with such undivided intentness and such entire abandonment on their Divine errands. We meet sometimes with these seemingly wasted wings in men, in the form of capabilities, knowledges, or skills, for the exercise of which there is no scope or opportunity to their lot. To what end, we ask, have they been acquired? or what a pity, we say, that the men could not be placed in circumstances in which a field would be offered them! And yet, a knowledge or skill gained may not be really wasted, though it be left without due scope and opportunity. The best, the finest use of it does not lie always in what it accomplishes, but often in what has been secretly added to us, or wrought into us, through gaining it; in the contribution which the gaining it has been to our character or moral growth.

II. THE APPARENT CONTRADICTION HERE BETWEEN THE COVERED FACES OF THE SERAPHIM AND THEIR TEMPLE-SHAKING SHOUTS. Feeble, muffled sounds are the most we should have expected to proceed from them. Fancy the posts of the Lords house quivering, and the prophets heart stirred to its depths beneath the cries of those whose heads were bowed and hid behind their wings! Here, however, is an adumbration of much truth. Great, penetrating, inspiring utterances like the utterances of the seraphim of Isaiahs vision–are they not always connected with some deep, still inwardness, with some profound withdrawal and retirement of soul? No one speaks with quickening energy, to the rousing of his fellows, who has not dwelt apart, who has not had his moments, his hours, of dumb absorption, with bent brows and folded hands, when thought and feeling have weighed upon him heavily, and held him bound. There is no life of noble activity and influence which does not rest on, and issue from, some inner, hidden life of careful self-discipline and quiet self-communion; which is not fed and sustained from behind with cherishings of faith and contemplation of ideas.

III. THE UNINTENTIONAL, UNPURPOSED EFFECT produced by the seraphim; the much commotion they created without in the least aiming at or meaning it. What were they doing, because of which the vestibule of the temple shook, and the prophet awoke to an overwhelming conviction of his unworthiness? Simply crying one to another, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. They were conscious of no audience, were making no appeal, but were entirely absorbed in adoring together, in exchanging with each other their Divine thoughts and emotions. Yet see the deep agitations they caused, the deep stir in a human breast. It reminds me of the incidental effects of intense enthusiasm; how, in pursuing its object, in accomplishing triumphantly what it contemplates and desires, it will often overflow upon spectators, disturbing the idle with new dreams of work, rousing the lethargic, reanimating the faint and weary, moving some to attempt as they had not done, or to feel aspirations which they had not felt; how sometimes, one and another standing by, dull and inert, are caught by and swept on with it, and begin, themselves, to glow!

IV. And now, concerning THE ASPECT, THE SALIENT FEATURES OF THESE BURNING ONES who proclaimed the glory of the Lord, and were such moving powers. They were creatures with six wings: with twain they covered their face, with twain they covered their feel and with twain they did fly–in which composition of them we may see imaged three things which are always involved in real greatness of character, without which no real nobility is attained. They covered their face–it was the expression of humility, the humility of awe and worship, of those who were admiringly conscious of a splendour and majesty, a sublime strength and perfection, in the presence of which they felt their own littleness, their poorness and infirmity. And no lofty excellence is ever reached where there is nothing of this. They only grow fine and do finely who know what it is to kneel in spirit, to have visions before which their heads are bowed. They covered their feet–renouncing the use of these, though they had them, because it was theirs to fly. Meaning to be wholly winged ministers of the Lord, they wrapt up their feet. And, devotion to some chosen life purpose involves always some resolute self-limiting in relation to things lawful enough, but not expedient, and always impels to it. With twain they did fly–swift, so swift, to execute the errands of Jehovah; and faithful velocity, instantaneous and vivid movement in obedience to the voice of the Lord within you, action that drags not, nor halts, that is never reluctant or slow when duty is seen, when conviction speaks, but flashes forth at once in quick and bright response–this is the third of the three essentials to real greatness of character and nobility of life which Isaiahs seraphim suggest. (S. A. Tipple.)

The six wings

I. THE WINGS THAT COVERED THE FEET. When we see the seraph spreading his wings over the feet, there comes a most useful lesson–the lesson of humility at imperfection. The brightest angels of God are so far beneath God that He charges them with folly.

II. THE WINGS THAT COVERED THE FACE. Another seraphic posture in the text. That means reverence Godward. How many take the name of God in vain, how many trivial things are said about the Almighty! Not willing to have God in the world, they roll up an idea of sentimentality and humanitarianism and impudence and imbecility and call it God. No wings of reverence over the face, no taking off of shoes on holy ground! Who is this God before whom the arrogant and intractable refuse reverence? Earthly power goes from hand to hand, from Henry I to Henry II and Henry III; from Louis I to Louis II and Louis III; but from everlasting to everlasting is God; God the first, God the last, God the only. Oh! what a God to dishonour! The brightest, the mightiest angel takes no familiarity with God. The wings of reverence are lifted. With twain he covered his face.

III. THE WINGS OF FLIGHT. The seraph must not always stand still. He must move, and it must be without clumsiness. There must be celerity and beauty, in the movement. A dying Christian not long ago cried out, Wings, wings, wings! The air is full of them, coming and going. You have seen how the dull, sluggish chrysalid becomes the bright butterfly, the dull and the stupid and the sluggish turned into the alert and the beautiful. Well, in this world we are in the chrysalid state. Death will unfurl the wings. See that eagle in the mountain nest. It looks so sick, so ragged-feathered, so worn out, and so half asleep. Is that eagle dying? No. The ornithologist will tell you it is the moulting season with that bird. Not dying, but moulting. You see that Christian, sick and worn out, on what is called his deathbed. The world says he is dying. I say it is the moulting season for his soul–the body dropping away, the celestial pinions coming on. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)

The seraphim

The seraphim are not angels; they are rather the expressions of the forces of the universe waiting there beside the throne of God. They are titanic beings, in whom is embodied everything of strength and obedience which anywhere, in any of the worlds of God, is doing His will. Since man is the noblest type of obedient power, these majestic seraphim seem to be human in their shape; but, as if further to express their meaning, there are added to each of them three pairs of wings, whose use and disposition are with particularity described. If the highest attitude of any mans life is stand waiting for what use God will choose to make of him, then we have a right to seek for something in the fullest life of consecrated manhood–of manhood standing by the throne of God–correspondent to each indication of temper and feeling which Isaiah shows us in the seraphim. How shall man stand, then, in a world where God sits in the centre on His throne? We gather so many of our impressions of humanity from poor stunted human creatures–poor wingless things who strut or grovel in their insignificance–that it will surely be good if we can turn for once and see the noblest image of consecrated power, and say to ourselves, This is what man is meant to be. This it is in me to be if I can use all my powers and let Gods presence bring out in me all that it really means to be a man. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

The wings of the seraphim

Each of the three pairs of wings has its own suggestion. Let us see how they represent the three qualities which are the conditions of a complete, effective human life.

I. With the first pair of wings, then, it is said that the living creature, standing before God, COVERED HIS FACE. There was a glory which it was not his to see. There was a splendour and exuberance of life, a richness of radiance coming from the very central source of all existence which, although to keep close to it and to bathe his being in its abundance was his necessity and joy, he could not search and examine and understand. There was the incomprehensibleness of God! We talk about Gods incomprehensibleness as if it were a sad necessity; as if, if we could understand God through and through, it would be happier and better for us. The intimation of Isaiahs vision is something different from that. It is the glory of His seraphim that they stand in the presence of a God so great that they can never comprehend Him. No man does anything well who does not feel the unknown surrounding and pressing upon the known, and who is not therefore aware all the time that what he does has deeper sources and more distant issues than he can comprehend. I know, of course, how easily corruptible the faculty of reverence has always proved itself to be. The noblest and finest things are always most capable of corruption. I see the ghosts of all the superstitions rise before me. I see men standing with deliberately blinded eyes, hiding from their inspection things which they ought to examine, living in wilfully chosen delusions which they prefer to the truth. I see all this in history; I see a vast amount of this today; and yet all the more because of this, I am sure that we ought to assert the necessity of reverence and of the sense of mystery, and of the certainty of the unknown to every life. You can know nothing which you do not reverence! You can see nothing before which you do not veil your eyes! But now take one step farther. All of the mystery which surrounds life and pervades life is really one mystery. It is God. Called by His name, taken up into His being, it is filled with graciousness. It is no longer cold and hard; it is all warm and soft and palpitating. It is love. And of this personal mystery of love, of God, it is supremely true that only by reverence, only by the hiding of the eyes, can He be seen. Isaiah says of the seraphim not merely that their eyes were covered, but that they were covered with their wings. Now the wings represent the active powers. It is with them that movement is accomplished, and change achieved, and obedience rendered; so that it seems to me that what the whole image means is this–that it is with the powers of action and obedience that the powers of insight and knowledge are veiled. The being who rightly approaches God, approaches Him with the powers of obedience held forward; and only through them does the sight of God come to the intelligence which lies behind. The mystery and awfulness of God is a conviction reached through serving Him. Behold, what a lofty idea of reverence is here! It is no palsied idleness. The figure which we see is not flung down upon the ground, despairing and dismayed. It stands upon its feet; it is alert and watchful; it is waiting for commandments; it is eager for work; but all the time its work makes it more beautifully, completely, devoutly reverent of Him for whom the work is done.

II. Let us pass on to the second element in Isaiahs image of a strong and consecrated life. With twain of his wings, he says, each of the seraphim COVERED HIS FEET. The covering of the feet represents the covering of the whole body. As the covering of the face means not seeing, the covering of the feet means not being seen. It signifies the hiding of ones self, the self-effacement which belongs to every effective act and every victorious life. Here is a man entirely carried away by a great enthusiasm. His heart and hands are full of it. What is the result? Is it not true that he entirely forgets himself? Whether he is doing himself credit or discredit, whether men are praising him or blaming him, whether the completion of the work will leave him far up the hill of fame or down in the dark valley of obscurity, he literally never thinks of that,. He is obliterated. Consider your own lives. Have you not had great moments in which you have forgotten yourselves, and do you not recognise in those moments a clearness and simplicity and strength which separates them from all the other moments of your life? The man who forgets himself in his work has but one thing to think of, namely, his work. The man who cannot forget himself has two things to think of–his work and himself. There is the distraction and the waste. Efface yourselves; and the only way to do it is to stand in the presence of God, and be so possessed with Him that there shall be no space or time left for the poor intrusion of your own little personality. Here, as before, it may mean something to us that the feet are not merely covered, but covered with the wings. The meaning is that the thought of ones self is to be hidden and lost behind the energy and faithfulness and joy of active work. I may determine that I will not be self-conscious, and my very determination is self-consciousness; but I become obedient to God, and try enthusiastically to do His will, and I forget myself entirely before I know it.

III. WITH TWAIN HE DID FLY. Here there comes the simpler, and, perhaps, the healthier thought of obedience purely and solely for itself–the absolute joy and privilege of the creature in doing the Creators will. There are two extremes of error. In the one, action is disparaged. The man says, Not what I do but what I am is of significance. It is not action. It is character. The result is that character itself fades away out of the inactive life. In the other extreme, action is made everything. The glory of mere work is sung in every sort of tune. Just to be busy seems the sufficient accomplishment of life. The result is that work loses its dignity, and the industrious man becomes a clattering machine. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

Reverence, an element of power

It is not only a pleasing sentiment, it is a necessary element of power–this reverence which veils its eyes before something which it may not know. What would you give for the physician who believed that he had mastered all the truth concerning our human bodies, and never stood in awe before the mystery of life, the mystery of death? What would you give for the statesman who had no reverence, who made the State a mere machine, and felt the presence in it of no deep principles too profound for him to understand What is more dreadful than irreverent art which paints all that it sees because it sees almost nothing, and yet does not dream that there is more to see; which suggests nothing because it suspects nothing profounder than the flimsy tale it tells, and would fain make us all believe that there is no sacredness in woman, nor nobleness in man, nor secret in nature, nor dignity in life. Irreverence everywhere is blindness and not sight. It is the stare which is bold because it believes in its heart that there is nothing which its insolent intelligence may not fathom, and so which finds only what it looks for, and makes the world as shallow as it ignorantly dreams the world to be. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

Reverence should be universal

To make the sentiment of reverence universal would be the truest way to keep it healthy and pure. It must not seem to be the strange prerogative of saints or cranks; it must not seem to be the sign of exceptional weakness or exceptional strength; it must be the element in which all lives go on, and which has its own ministry for each. The child must have it, feeling his little actions touch the infinite as his feet upon the beach delight in the waves out of the boundless sea that strike them. The mechanic must have it, feeling how his commonest tools are ministers of elemental forces, and raise currents in the air that run out instantly beyond his ken. The scientist needs it as he deals with the palpable and material which hangs in the impalpable and spiritual, and cannot be known without the knowledge of the mystery in which it floats. Every true scientist has it; Newton or Tyndal pauses a moment in his description of the intelligible, and some hymn of the unintelligible, some psalm of delight in the unknown, comes bursting from his scientific lips. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

A seraphs wings

This is the only mention in Scripture of the seraphim. I would notice, before I deal with the specific words of my text, the significance of the name. It means the flaming or burning ones, and so the attendants of the Divine glory in the heavens, whether they be real or imaginary beings, are represented as flashing with splendour, as full of swift energy, like a flame of fire, as glowing with fervid love, as blazing with enthusiasm. That is the type of the highest creatural being that stands closest to God. Cold religion is a contradiction in terms, though, alas! it is a reality in professors.

I. THE WINGS OF REVERENCE. He covered his face, or they covered their faces, lest they should see. As a man brought suddenly into the sunlight, especially if out of a darkened chamber, by an instinctive action shades his eyes with his hand, so these burning creatures, confronted with the still more fervid and fiery light of the Divine nature, fold one pair of their great white pinions over their shining faces, even whilst they cry, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty! And does not that teach us the incapacity of the highest creature, with the purest vision, to gaze undazzled into the shining light of God? I, for my part, do not believe that any conceivable extension of creatural faculties, or any conceivable hallowing of creatural natures, can make the creature able to gaze upon God. We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. But who is the Him? Jesus Christ. And, in my belief, Jesus Christ will, to all eternity be the medium of manifesting God. No man hath seen God at any time, nor can see Him. But my text does also suggest to us by contrast the possibility of far feebler sighted and more sinful creatures than these symbolical seraphs coming into a Presence in which God shall be manifest to them; and they will need no veil drawn by themselves across their eyes. God has veiled Himself, that we, with unveiled faces, beholding His glory, may be changed into the same image. So the seraph, with his white wings folded before his eyes, may at once stand to us as a parallel and a contrast to what the Christian may expect. We can see Jesus, with no incapacity except such as may be swept away by His grace and our will. There is no need for you to draw anything between your happy eyes and the Face in which we behold the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father. All the tempering that the Divine lustre needed has been done by Him who veils His glory with the veil of Christs flesh, and therein does away with the need for any veil that we can draw. But, beyond that, there is another consideration that I should like to suggest, as taught us by the use of this first pair of the six wings, and that is the absolute need for the lowliest reverence in our worship of God. It is strange, but true, I am afraid, that the Christian danger is to lose the sense of the majesty and splendour and separation of God from His creatures. What does that lofty chorus that burst from those immortal lips mean: Holy, holy, holy! but the declaration that God is high above and separate from all limitations and imperfections of creatures? We have need to take heed that we do not lose our reverence in our confidence, and that we do not part with godly fear in our filial love.

II. THE WINGS OF HUMILITY. With twain he covered his feet. The less comely and inferior parts of that fiery corporeity were veiled lest they should be seen by the Eyes that see all things. The wings made no screen that hid the seraphs feet from the eye of God, but it was the instinctive lowly sense of unworthiness that folded them across the feet, even though they, too, burned as a furnace. The nearer we get to God the more we shall be aware of our limitations and unworthiness. And it is because that vision of the Lord sitting on His throne, high and lifted up, with the thrilling sense of His glory filling the holy temple of the universe, does not burn before us that we can conceit ourselves to have anything worth pluming ourselves upon. Once lift the curtain, once let my love be flooded with the sight of God, and away goes all my self-conceit, and all my fancied superiority above others. Get God into your lives, and you will see that the feet need to be washed, and you will cry, Lord! not my feet only, but my hands and my head!

III. THE WINGS FOR SERVICE. With twain he did fly. That is the emblem of joyous, buoyant, easy, unhindered motion. It is strongly, sadly contrary to the toilsome limitations of us heavy creatures who have no wings, but can at best run on His service, and often find it hard to walk with patience in the way that is set before us. But service with wings, or service with lame feet, it matters not. Whosoever, beholding God, has found need to hide his face from that Light, even whilst he comes into the Light, and to veil his feet from the all-seeing Eye, will also feel impulses to go forth in His service. For the perfection of worship is neither the consciousness of my own insufficiency, nor the humble recognition of His glory, nor the great voice of praise that thrilled from those immortal lips, but it is the doing of His will in daily life. Some people say the service of man is the service of God. Yes, when it is service of man, done for Gods sake, it is so, and only then. Now, we, as Christians, have a far higher motive for service than the seraphs had. We have been redeemed, and the spirit of the old Psalm should animate all our obedience: O Lord, truly I am Thy servant. Why? The next clause tells you. Thou hast loosed my bonds.

The seraphs could not say that. The seraphim were winged for service even while they stood above the throne and pealed forth their thunderous praise which shook the temple. May we not discern in that a hint of the blessed blending of two modes of worship which will be perfectly united in heaven, and which we should aim at harmonising even on earth? His servants serve Him and see His face. There is possible, even on earth, some foretaste of the perfection of that heavenly state in which no worship of service shall interfere with the worship of contemplation. The seraphs sang Holy, holy, holy! but they, and all the hosts of heaven, learn a new song from the experience of earth, and redeemed men are the chorus leaders of the perfected and eternal worship of the heavens. For we read that it is the four-and-twenty elders who begin the song and sing to the Lamb that redeemed them by His blood, and that the living creatures and all the hosts of the angels to that song can but say Amen! (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The use of faculty

Is it not strange, that of those parts of an angels figure which seem as if they were made only for action, four out of six are used for an entirely different purpose? It is to teach us, that it is not every power which we have–and which we might think given us for public service, and for the outer life–which is really intended by God for that use. Never think that large faculties are fitted only for large enterprises, and that all your endowments are to be spent on that which is to meet the general eye. Remember that of six wings an angel uses only two to fly with. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Why is an angel so very humble?

1. An angel is very great, and therefore he grows humble.

2. An angel is always conversant with the great things of God.

3. An angel knows and is sure that he is loved. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 2. Above it stood the seraphim] seraphim, from seraph, to burn. He saw says Kimchi, the angels as flames of fire, that the depravity of that generation might be exhibited, which was worthy of being totally burnt up.

He covered his feet – “He covereth his feet”] By the feet the Hebrews mean all the lower parts of the body. But the people of the East generally wearing long robes, reaching to the ground, and covering the lower parts of the body down to the feet, it may hence have been thought want of respect and decency to appear in public and on solemn occasions with even the feet themselves uncovered. Kempfer, speaking of the king of Persia giving audience, says, Rex in medio supremi atrii cruribus more patrio inflexis sedebat: corpus tunica investiebat flava, ad suras cum staret protensa; discumbentis vero pedes discalceatos pro urbanitate patria operiens. – Amoen. Exot. p. 227. “The king sat on the floor cross-legged, as is the custom of the country. He was covered with a yellow garment, which reached down to the feet when standing, but covered the feet for decency when sitting with his slippers off.” Sir John Chardin’s MS. note on this place of Isaiah is as follows: Grande marque de respect en orient de se cacher les pieds, quand on est assis, et de baisser le visage. Quand le souvrain se monstre en Chine et a Japon, chacun se jette le visage contre terre, et il n’est pas permis de regarder le roi; “It is a great mark of respect in the East to cover the feet, and to bow down the head in the presence of the king.”

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Above it stood, as ministers attending upon their Lord, and waiting to receive and execute his commands,

the seraphims; certain holy and blessed angels, thus called from fire and burning, which this word properly signifies; to represent either,

1. Their nature, which is bright and glorious, subtile, and pure, and spiritual, like fire; or,

2. Their property, of fervent zeal for Gods service and glory; or,

3. Their office and present employment, which was to execute Gods vengeance upon the Jews, and to burn them up like dross.

Covered his face, out of profound reverence, as being so sensible of the infinite distance between God and him, that he durst not presume to look directly upon him, and judged himself neither able nor worthy to behold the brightness of his glory.

Covered his feet; either,

1. His secret parts, which sometimes come under that name, as Deu 28:57; Isa 7:20; 36:12; of which see more in my Latin Synopsis upon Exo 4:25. And so this is done for our instruction, to teach us modesty and chastity. Or,

2. Their feet properly so called, as that word is generally used; from which use we should not depart without necessity, which, with submission, seems not to be in this place. And so this may signify a sense of their own natural, though not moral infirmity, and a desire that God would not too severely examine all their ways and actions, which the feet commonly signify, because though they did not swerve from Gods commands, yet they were not worthy of the acceptation, nor suitable to the dignity of so glorious a Majesty.

Did fly; which signifies their great forwardness and expedition in executing Gods commands. Compare Dan 9:21.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

2. stoodnot necessarily theposture of standing; rather, were in attendance on Him[MAURER], hovering onexpanded wings.

thenot in the Hebrew.

seraphimnowhere elseapplied to God’s attendant angels; but to the fiery flying(not winged, but rapidly moving) serpents, which bit theIsraelites (Nu 21:6), called sofrom the poisonous inflammation caused by their bites. Seraphis to burn; implying the burning zeal, dazzling brightness(2Ki 2:11; 2Ki 6:17;Eze 1:13; Mat 28:3)and serpent-like rapidity of the seraphim in God’s service.Perhaps Satan’s form as a serpent (nachash) in hisappearance to man has some connection with his original form as aseraph of light. The head of the serpent was the symbol of wisdomin Egypt (compare Num 21:8;2Ki 18:4). The seraphim, with sixwings and one face, can hardly be identified with the cherubim, whichhad four wings (in the temple only two) and four faces (Eze1:5-12). (But compare Re 4:8).The “face” and “feet” imply a human form;something of a serpentine form (perhaps a basilisk’s head, as in thetemples of Thebes) may have been mixed with it: so the cherub wascompounded of various animal forms. However, seraph may come from aroot meaning “princely,” applied in Da10:13 to Michael [MAURER];just as cherub comes from a root (changing m into b),meaning “noble.”

twainTwo wings aloneof the six were kept ready for instant flight in God’s service; twoveiled their faces as unworthy to look on the holy God, or pry intoHis secret counsels which they fulfilled (Exo 3:6;Job 4:18; Job 15:15);two covered their feet, or rather the whole of the lower partsof their personsa practice usual in the presence of Easternmonarchs, in token of reverence (compare Eze1:11, their bodies). Man’s service a fortioriconsists in reverent waiting on, still more than in active servicefor, God.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Above it stood the seraphims,…. Not above the temple, nor above the throne, much less above him that sat upon it, but either “by him”, on the right hand and on the left, as Aben Ezra; or “near him”, as Kimchi and Ben Melech; or “before him”, as the Targum; or “round about him”, as the Septuagint; all which denote the ministering form in which they stood; by whom are meant, not the Son and Spirit, as some of the ancients thought, who imagined the Father to be the Person sitting on the throne; nor the two Testaments, as Jerom; nor angels, which is the common interpretation; but ministers of the Gospel, the same with the four beasts in Re 4:6 and the four living creatures in Eze 1:5 the Jewish commentators in general agree that these are the same with Ezekiel’s living creatures; so Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and Kimchi; and the first of these cites the Midrash Agada, as saying this is the Mercavah, which is the name they give to Ezekiel’s vision of the living creatures and wheels; and this appears by their name “seraphim”, which signifies “burning”, and so Ezekiel’s living creatures are said to be “like burning coals of fire”, Eze 1:13 and the ministers of the Gospel are so called, because of their ministerial gifts, compared to fire, as the gifts of the spirit of God are, especially those which the apostles had bestowed on them, who were baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire, Mt 3:11 and even the ordinary gifts of the spirit are signified by the same figure, 1Ti 1:6 and because of their light, which they have in the truths of the Gospel; and because of their fervent and ardent love to Christ and immortal souls; and because of their flaming zeal for his cause and interest: and this also appears by their situation near the throne, see Eze 1:26 and Christ on it; where they stand as servants waiting upon him, and in order to receive from him, and where they enjoy communion with him; or “above” it may mean the temple, the church, where they stand in the highest place in it, and are over others in the Lord; they stand as servants to Christ, but preside in the church as the rulers and governors of it; to which agrees the Targum,

“holy ministers on high before him:”

and this further appears by their wings,

each one had six wings; as Ezekiel’s living creatures, Eze 1:4 and John’s four beasts, Re 4:8:

with twain he covered his face; that it might not be seen, as the Targum adds; expressive of their modesty and humility, looking, upon themselves as less than the least of all the saints, and the chief of sinners, and as ashamed of themselves before the Lord; or that they might not look upon the divine Majesty, as Jarchi; or rather as being unable to look upon the dazzling glory and infinite perfections of his being; so Elijah wrapped his face in a mantle, when he heard the still small voice of the Lord, 1Ki 19:12 and as Moses before him did, Ex 3:6 being afraid to look upon God, conscious of creature distance, and of sinfulness and unworthiness; and therefore not so suitable to angels, who always behold the face of God, Mt 18:10:

with twain he covered his feet; or body, that it might not be seen, as the Targum; as conscious of the imperfection of their conduct, walk, and conversation, as ministers and Christians, in the sight of God, however beautiful their feet may appear to others, Isa 52:7:

and with twain he did fly: or minister, as the Targum; this denotes their readiness and swiftness in preaching the everlasting Gospel, running to and fro with it, having their feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace: see Re 14:6.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

“Above it stood seraphim: each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he did fly.” We must not render “near him;” for although or is applied to a person standing near or over against another who is sitting down (Exo 18:13; Jer 36:21; compared 2Ch 26:19, where the latter is used to signify “over against” the altar of incense), and is used in this sense to denote the attitude of spirits (Job 1:16; 1Ki 22:19; Zec 6:5), and even of men (Zec 4:14), in relation to God when seated on His throne, in which case it cannot possibly be employed in the sense of “towering above;” yet , the strongest expression for supra, cannot be employed in any other than a literal sense here; for which reason Rashi and the Targums understand it as signifying “above in the attitude of service,” and the accentuation apparently, though erroneously, implies this (Luzzatto). What Isaiah meant by this standing above, may be inferred from the use which the seraphim are said to have made of their wings. The imperfects do not describe what they were accustomed to do (Bttcher and others), but what the seer saw them do: with two of their six wings he saw them fly. Thus they stood flying, i.e., they hovered or soared (cf., Num 14:14), as both the earth and stars are said to stand, although suspended in space (Job 26:7). The seraphim would not indeed tower above the head of Him that sat upon the throne, but they hovered above the robe belonging to Him with which the hall was filled, sustained by two extended wings, and covering their faces with two other wings in their awe at the divine glory (Targ. ne videant), and their feet with two others, in their consciousness of the depth at which the creature stands below the Holiest of all (Targ. ne videantur), just as the cherubim are described as veiling their bodies in Eze 1:11. This is the only passage in the Scriptures in which the seraphim are mentioned. According to the orthodox view, which originated with Dionysius the Areopagite, they stand at the head of the nine choirs of angels, the first rank consisting of seraphim, cherubim, and throni. And this is not without support, if we compare the cherubim mentioned in Ezekiel, which carried the chariot of the divine throne; whereas here the seraphim are said to surround the seat on which the Lord was enthroned. In any case, the seraphim and cherubim were heavenly beings of different kinds; and there is no weight in the attempts made by Hendewerk and Stickel to prove that they are one and the same. And certainly the name serpahim does not signify merely spirits as such, but even, if not the highest of all, yet a distinct order from the rest; for the Scriptures really teach that there are gradations in rank in the hierarchy of heaven. Nor were they mere symbols or fanciful images, as Hvernick imagines, but real spiritual beings, who visibly appeared to the prophet, and that in a form corresponding to their own supersensuous being, and to the design of the whole transaction. Whilst these seraphim hovered above on both sides of Him that sat upon the throne, and therefore formed two opposite choirs, each ranged in a semicircle, they presented antiphonal worship to Him that sat upon the throne.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

2. And the seraphim stood upon it. Having declared that God appeared to him full of majesty and of glory, he adds, that God was attended by angels, whom the Prophet calls seraphim on account of their fervor. Though the etymology of this word is well known, yet various reasons are adduced. Some think that they are called seraphim because they burn with the love of God; others, because they are swift like fire; others, because they are bright. However that may be, this description holds out to us, as in sunbeams, the brightness of God’s infinite majesty, that we may learn by it to behold and adore his wonderful and overwhelming glory.

Many think that there were two seraphim, as there were two cherubim that encompassed the ark of the testimony. This opinion I willingly adopt, though I do not venture to make any assertion where Scripture is silent. As it is customary with the sacred writers to accommodate their descriptions of God to those outward signs which were commonly used and familiarly known among the godly, it is possible that the Prophet saw a representation of this kind. While I hold this to be a probable conjecture, I leave room for other interpretations which some may be disposed to prefer; for Daniel saw not two angels only, but thousands of thousands of angels. (Dan 7:10.)

Each one had six wings. This representation is instructive; for those wings thus arranged contained some mystery which it was the will of the Lord should not remain wholly unknown. The two wings with which the angels fly mean nothing else than their ready and cheerful performance of the commandments of God. On this point the resemblance is so clear and manifest, that it will be at once admitted by all who do not take delight in controversy. The two wings with which they cover their face show plainly enough that even angels cannot endure God’s brightness, and that they are dazzled by it in the same manner as when we attempt to gaze upon the radiance of the sun. And if angels are overwhelmed by the majesty of God, how great will be the rashness of men if they venture to intrude so far! Let us, therefore, learn that our inquiries concerning God ought never to go beyond what is proper and lawful, that our knowledge may soberly and modestly taste what is far above our capacity. And yet the angels do not cover their face in such a manner as not to be favored with beholding God in some degree; for their flight is not at random. In like manner we too ought to look at God, but only so far as our capacity shall enable us.

As to the remaining two wings, which were placed lower, the difficulty is somewhat greater. Some think that the angels covered their feet, that they might not touch the earth, and contract any defilement from it, as human beings like ourselves are wont to do; for in walking we gather filth and dust, and accordingly, so long as we dwell on earth, we are always tainted by some kind of contagion. This reminds believers that they will have no intercourse with angels till they raise themselves high, and are no longer fastened to the earth.

Such is the interpretation given by some expositors. But I rather agree with those who think that the use of those wings was opposite to that of the upper wings; for, as by the upper wings they cover their face, that they may not be overpowered by God’s brightness, so they have also lower wings to conceal them from our view. Now, if it be true that we cannot behold the small and feeble rays of the Divine brightness without being altogether overpowered, how could we gaze upon that unspeakably bright and glorious majesty which lays prostrate all our faculties? Let men learn, therefore, that they are far distant from a perfect knowledge of God, since they cannot even reach to the angels. The latter appears to me to be the more correct exposition, but I do not disapprove of the former.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE SERAPHIM

Isa. 6:2. Above it stood the seraphim [721] each had six wings, &c.

[721] As those that are nearest of a kings attendants stand behind his throne or chair of state, at his elbow.Day.

This is the only passage of Scripture in which the seraphim are mentioned. According to the orthodox view, which originated with Dionysius the Areopagite, they stand at the head of the nine choirs of angels, the first rank consisting of seraphim, cherubim, and throni. And this is not without support, if we compare the cherubim mentioned in Ezekiel, which carried the chariot of the divine throne; whereas here the seraphim are said to surround the seat on which the Lord worshipped. In any case, the seraphim and cherubim were heavenly beings of different kinds; and there is no weight in the attempts of Hendewerk and Stickel to prove that they are one and the same. And certainly the name seraphim does not signify merely spirits as such, but even, if not the highest of all, yet a distinct order from the rest; for the Scriptures really teach that there are gradations in rank in the hierarchy of heaven. Nor were they mere symbols or fanciful images, as Hvernick imagines, but real spiritual beings, who visibly appeared to the prophet, and that in a form corresponding to their own supersensuous being, and to the design of the whole transaction. Whilst the seraphim hovered on both sides of Him that sat upon the throne, and therefore formed two opposite choirs, each ranged in a semicircle, they presented antiphonal worship to Him that sat upon the throne.Delitzsch.

The cherubim in the temple represented no doubt spiritual powers and presence in the most general sense, those who look upon God and reflect His light. If we distinguish between them and the cherubim, as we do in our Te Deum, these last would seem more especially to represent those divine energies and affections of which the zeal, devotion, and sympathy of man are counterparts.F. D. Maurice.

The name cannot possibly be connected with srph, a snake (Sanscrit, sarpa, Latin, Serpens); and to trace the word to a verb srph in the sense of the Arabic sarafa (sarufa), to tower high, to be exalted, or highly honoured (as Gesenius, Hengstenberg, and others have done), yields a sense that does not very strongly commend itself. On the other hand, to follow Knobel, who reads shrthim, worshippers of God), and thus presents the Lexicon with a new word, and to pronounce the word seraphim a copyists 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, how ever, to interpret the name assignifying directly spirits of light or fire, since the true meaning of sraph 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. If the fact that a seraph absolved the seer by means of this fire of love (Isa. 6:6-7) is to be taken as an illustrative example of the historical calling of the seraphim, they were the vehicles and media of the fire of divine love, just as the cherubim in Ezekiel are vehicles and media of the fire of divine wrath. For just as in the case before us, a seraph takes the fire of love from the alter; so there, in Eze. 10:6-7, a cherub takes the fire of wrath from the throne-chariot. Consequently the cherubim appear as the vehicles and media of the wrath which destroys sinners, or rather of the divine doxa, with its fiery side turned towards the world; and the seraphim as the vehicles and media of the love which destroys sin, or of the same divine doxa with its light side towards the world. Seraphic love is the expression used in the language of the Church to denote the ne plus ultra of holy love in the creature.Delitzch.

I. With twain he covered his face [724] They bow with prostrate awe, veiling themselves in the presence of the Divine glory, as though feeling the force of those strong words, He chargeth His angels with folly, and the heavens are not clean in His sight. If the angels tremble while they gaze, what should man feel? II. With twain he covered his feet [727] Among Orientals this expresses reverence. Well may you bow in reverence before Him! The sense of pardon will humble you, even while it fills you with holy exaltation. III. With twain he did flyin readiness to execute His commands.Richard Watson: Works, vol. ix. pp. 150153.

[724] Thus expressing his profound reverence and becoming modesty in the Divine presence. We can hardly approach those who are greatly our superiors but with downcast eyes, intimating the consciousness we feel of their preeminence, and our profound respect for their excellency and dignity. We cannot look at the sun shining with meridian splendour, but we are obliged to cover our eyes with our hands. Such is the infinite glory of the eternal Jehovah, that celestial spirits around His throne appeared to our prophet covering their faces with their wings. Light inaccessible and full of glory, in which God resides, was too strong for them directly to contemplate.Macculloch.

[727] In Scripture language the feet sometimes denote all the lower parts of the body which decency requires to be concealed. In eastern countries these were generally covered by the long garments which they were accustomed to wear: hence it may have been thought want of respect to appear in public, on solemn occasions, with the feet uncovered.Macculloch.

In a similar description of the cherubim in Eze. 1:11, it is said that they covered their bodies. In Isaiah the expression clearly denotes, not the feet only, but the lower extremities.Barnes.

How little do we know of beings whose forms from their faces to their feet are covered!B. W. Newton.

A GLORIOUS EXAMPLE

Isa. 6:2. Above it stood the seraphim, &c.

The seraphim afford us a model for imitation. Our Lord has animated us in our Christian course by promising that, if we are faithful, we shall be made like the angels in heaven; but if we would hereafter resemble them in glory, we must first resemble them here in temper. Let us, therefore, prepare in time to join the concert of these holy intelligences.

I. They burn with love to God. The honourable name they bear is derived from a word signifying to burn, and denotes the fervour of that zeal for the interests of their Lord by which they are animated.

II. Notwithstanding their vast endowments, they bend with reverence and humility before the throne of the Lord.

III. They fly with rapidity to execute His commands.Henry Kollock, D.D.: Sermons, pp. 585, 586.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

THE SERAPHIM AND THEIR SONG

Isa. 6:2-4. And above it stood the seraphim, &c.

I. THE SERAPHIM.The Scriptures disclose to us the fact that there is a spiritual world, vast and variously populated, superior to this world, yet connected with it and exerting upon it powerful influences. Little beyond the fact is made known to us; few details are granted us; yet glimpses into it have been vouchsafed, and among the most interesting and instructive of them is our text.

Only here do we read of seraphim: elsewhere we read of cherubim (Gen. 3:24; Eze. 10:1-22, &c.); and of living ones (Rev. 4:6-8). From the fact that these living ones in some respects resemble both the seraphim of Isaiah and the cherubim of Ezekiel, some eminent scholars believe these are three names for one order of beings. Others, with whom we are disposed to sympathise, believe that the two names cherubim and seraphim really indicate two orders of spiritual intelligences, resembling each other, yet distinct. Whether the living ones of the Apocalypse are cherubim, or seraphim, or a third order of exalted ministers of the Most High, is a question concerning which we cannot speak confidently.

Scholars also are divided as to the significance of the name seraphim: some derive the word from a root signifying to burn, others from a root signifying to be exalted.

But there can be no question that the descriptions of the seraphim, the cherubim, and the living ones are symbolical; the terms employed are figures adapted to convey to our minds true descriptions of beings of whom a literal description would now be unintelligible by us [730] Wings are symbols of swiftness [733] here the symbol is triplicated to indicate the exceeded swiftnessthe immense energyof these messengers of God (Psa. 104:4). With twain he covered his face, in token of humility. With twain he covered his feet, in token of reverence. With twain he did fly, in token of readiness to do Gods willthree points in which we should strive evermore to resemble these exalted intelligences.

[730] Above the throne stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. The sense of awe increasing with the clearness and purity of a spirit and with the nearness of its approach to God; the face being veiled which receives its light from Him, and most covets to behold Him; the absence of all wish to display their own perfection in spirits who are perfect; the freedom and willingness to go anywhere, to do any errands of mercy; these are some of the more obvious thoughts which the study of this vision suggests. There are others which lie hidden, which we may have a glimpse of from time to time, and which words might mar. For it is true of earthly symbols, still more of heavenly visions, that they are meant to carry us out of words and above words.F. D. Maurice.

[733] Among the ancients, Mercury, the messenger of Jupiter, was always represented with wings.Barnes.

To them is granted an immediate vision of God, and the effect upon them is expressed by their song: Holy, &c.

II. Consider next THIS SONG OF THE SERAPHIM.

1. They acknowledge God as the Lord of hosts. [736] This term in its first use in human language referred to the sun, moon, and stars (Gen. 2:1; Neh. 9:6, &c.). Thus considered, how wonderful are the conceptions which are opened out to us of the Divine power and glory! (Isa. 11:10.) But it includes also those thousands of thousands of exalted intelligences who hearken to His word and do His pleasure. A great King is the Lord our God!

2. They teach us that the glory of God is co-extensive with His works. All that Isaiah saw was that Gods glory filled the temple: what they saw was that His glory filled the earth. The whole earth, &c.

1. This declaration is true, if we think of Him as the God of nature. Everything that He has made is good. Even a snowflake shows forth His glory. Science is a servant of God, and is teaching us to understand somewhat of the wondrousness and beneficence of His works.

2. It is true if we think of Him as the God of providence. Human history, comprehensively and thoughtfully considered, shows that, while men are free, they are yet under the control of One who rules over all in the interests of righteousness and truth (Psa. 76:10; Isa. 10:5-7, &c.). To angelic intelligences how profoundly interesting must be the problems which God is working out in the government of this world! (Rev. 15:3.)

3. It is true even if we think of Him as the God of redemption. Possibly (though perhaps not probably) this earth is the only sphere in which His glory in this respect is manifested. But here it is manifested in the mission and work of His Son (Eph. 3:10). Even where the Gospel has not yet been proclaimed there are senses in which His glory as the God of redemption is manifested: even there, for Christs sake, He is patient with sinners, He strives with them by His Spirit, He is preparing them for the future triumphs of the Cross. The history of our race, when it shall be seen as a whole, will all redound to His glory as the God of redemption [739]

3. In the holiness of God the seraphim find the supreme subject for adoration and song: Holy, &c. Other attributes of the Most High are the themes of their thought and worship, but it is His holiness that excites their most rapturous praise. Why?

1. They have never needed His mercy; it is reserved for us to sing the sweet song of redeeming grace. On account of our redemption they rejoice (Luk. 15:10), but doubtless they rejoice in it most because the mercy shown us is a holy mercy; it was so shown as to solve some of the profoundest moral problems, and so as to leave untouched the principle of righteousness on which Gods throne eternally abides (Rom. 3:26). Not having needed that mercy themselves, it is natural that they should rather magnify the holiness which has been shown in it and which is the need of all.

2. It is the holiness of God that gives value to all His other attributes. They are valuable only because they are directed by unswerving holiness. The holiness of God is the foundation of the peace, the joy, and the love of the moral universe. Were God not holy, even hell itself would be a more awful abode; for then to all its other woes would be added the possibility of suffering inflicted in mere vindictiveness. We also are called to join in the song of the seraphim (Psa. 30:4; Psa. 97:12): let us beseech Him so to sanctify us by His Spirit, that in our lips the song may not be a sacrilege!

[736] This title of Jehovah, with some variations, is found upwards of 260 times in the Old Testament. The meaning of the word hosts is doubtless the same as that of army in Dan. 4:35, and includes all the myriads of holy angels who people the celestial spheres, as in 1Ki. 22:19 the Host of Heaven were seen by Micaiah standing round the throne of God. So in Psa. 103:21; Psa. 148:2, the Hosts of God are His angels. (Comp. Deu. 33:2.) By a slight metonymy, or may be in a slightly different sense, the Host of Heaven designates the heavenly spheres themselves (Gen. 2:1; Deu. 4:19; Deu. 17:3; Isa. 34:4, &c.). It is probably with reference to the idolatrous worship of the Host of Heaven that the title of the Lord of hosts was given to the true God, as asserting His universal supremacy. (See Neh. 9:6.) In the New Testament the phrase occurs only once, Jas. 5:4, the Lord of Sabaoth. In Rom. 9:29, it is a quotation from Isaiah.Professor Rawlinson.

[739] Sin has already served, as all things must, to bring into view more clearly the glory of God, for had there been no sin there could have been no mercy; and in its punishment, its overthrow, and its extirpation, His glory will be yet more signally displayed. Hercules could never have been deified, if there had been no monsters to overcome. True is the seraphs song even now, but it shall be more manifestly and gloriously true in that day, so surely and swiftly drawing nigh, when Christ shall have subdued all enemies unto Him, and God shall be All in all.R. A. B.

The vision reaches its highest point in the cry, Holy, holy, holy! It is the holiness of God which the seraphim proclaim, that which cannot be represented to the eye, that of which descriptions and symbols furnish no image. It is that holiness which fills not the heaven of heavens only but the whole earth, seeing that was made very good, seeing that in its order and constitution it was still perfectly good, though men defiled it by their deeds, though the habitations of cruelty were set up in the midst of itF. D. Maurice.

III. THE EFFECTS OF THE Song of Solomon 1. The posts of the door moved at the voice of Him that cried [742] A symbol this of the constant effects of the proclamation of truth. At every new announcement of it earthly things that seem most solid shake, and many of them totter and fall and disappear (2Co. 10:4; Heb. 12:26-28).

2. And the house was filled with smoke. In response to the worship of the seraphim the temple became so completely filled with the Divine glory that the radiance overpowered the prophets vision. What he calls smoke was excess of light (1Ki. 8:10-12; Rev. 15:8) [745] So would it be with us were our craving for a fuller manifestation of God in His works and word granted. We have as much light now as we can bear. A fuller revelation would only dazzle, confuse, and blind us. The time is to come when we shall see God as He is, but this will then be possible, because we shall be like Him; and that time is not yet!

[742] The voice of the seraphim at this time was so loud and melodious, and the power of their heavenly music was so great, when extolling the holiness and glory of Jehovah, that the posts, with the lintel of the door of the temple, seemed to tremble, to be shaken in the place where they stood, or loosed from their place. This was a very surprising effect (though seen only in vision); for these posts were so large and strong, that they supported gates of brass which are said to have required twenty men to shut them, on account of their ponderous weight.Macculloch.

[745] Delitzsch thus gives the usual interpretation of this clause: The house was filled with smoke. Many compare this with the similar occurrence in connection with the dedication of Solomons temple (1Ki. 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.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

(2) Above it stood the seraphims . . .It is noticeable that this is the only passage in which the seraphim are mentioned as part of the host of heaven. In Num. 21:6, the word (the primary meaning of which is the burning ones) occurs as denoting the fiery serpents that attacked the people in the wilderness. Probably the brazen serpent which Hezekiah afterwards destroyed (2Ki. 18:4) had preserved the name and its significance as denoting the instruments of the fiery judgments of Jehovah. Here, however, there is no trace of the serpent form, nor again, as far as the description goes, of the animal forms of the cherubim of Eze. 1:5-11, and of the living creatures of Rev. 4:7-8. The burning ones are in the likeness of men, with the addition of the six wings. The patristic and mediaeval distinction between the seraphim that excel in love, and the cherubim that excel in knowledge, rests apparently on the etymology of the former word. The living creatures of Rev. 4:7-8, seem to unite the forms of the cherubim of Ezekiel with the six wings of the seraphim of this passage. Symbolically the seraphim would seem to be as transfigured cherubim, representing the flaming fire of the lightning, as the latter did the storm-winds and other elemental forces of nature (Psa. 104:4).

Each one had six wings.The thought seems to be that the human form was clothed as it were with six wings. One pair of wings covered the face in token of adoring homage (Eze. 1:11); a second, the feet, including the whole lower part of the human form, while with the third they hovered as in the firmament of heaven above the skirts of the glory of the Divine Throne. It is noticeable that the monuments of Persepolis represent the Amshashpands (or ministers of God) as having six wings, two of which cover the feet.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

2. Above it Rather, above Him; that is, as winged beings, higher than the divine Occupant of the throne, hovering around when in motion, standing like choristers in a gallery when still.

With twain Two pairs of the six wings were used as veils, the upper of the face and the lower of the lower parts of the body, extending to the feet. The face is veiled, as if to prevent the too full lustre of the divine radiance upon the eyes; the lower extremities from reverence and decency. The middle pair are for flying; but out of the divine presence, in performance of messages, doubtless the whole six are free to speed the lightning-like flight.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Isa 6:2. Above it stood The state, figure, and actions of the Seraphim are here described: The word seraphim, says Vitringa, signifies fiery and shining bodies, from seraph, to burn; (see Num 21:6.) and is in this place to be understood of persons of a bright and splendid appearance, covered with wings, and in a human form. This part of the vision seems manifestly to be taken from the representation of the Divine Glory, as it was exhibited in the Holy of Holies; where was the mercy-seat, and the cherubim representing the Divine Majesty, attended with the angelic host; and thus also the fourth verse refers to the temple, and the priest offering up the incense, more especially when he entered into the Holy of Holies. This passage, mystically understood, represents the future dominion of Christ as Mediator, and the diffusion of his gospel through the world by his messengers and ministers; the filling the earth with his glory, and spreading throughout the world the merits of his divine intercession. For a large and learned application of each particular the reader is referred to Vitringa.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

From the light thrown upon this blessed vision, in the other parts of scripture, as before shown, and all evidently, and plainly directed to prove that it is the person of Christ, who manifested himself to the prophet; we shall now be the better able to enter into an apprehension of all that follows; that is, as far at least as our capacities are enabled to go in the subject; and I hope that both writer and reader, will find cause to adore Jehovah, in his threefold character of person, in and through the only medium by which we can approach to adore him, even this glorious God-man Mediator, for such gracious and saving discoveries of himself. The seraphim, which are here said to have stood above, Paul calls the cherubim of glory: consequently they are not angels, Heb 9:15 . A reference to other scriptures, will, I think, prove that they cannot mean angels. The first account we have of a subject like this in Isaiah’s vision is Gen 3:24 , where cherubim and a flaming sword, are said to have been placed at the east of the garden of Eden. In Lev 1 ; Isa 6:2 , Jehovah saith, I will appear in the cloud on the mercy – seat. In the prophecy of Ezekiel, chap. 1 (Eze 1 ) the vision he saw of the glory of the Lord, was under the similitude of four living creatures. And as an explanation of this astonishing vision, John the beloved apostle, in the view of heaven opened, which he was favoured with, saw four beasts in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, Rev 4:6 . Now angels are nowhere said in scripture to be in the midst of the throne. What those seraphim in Isaiah’s vision are, I do not presume to say: but I humbly conceive, from the frequent mention made in scripture of them, and especially as having the face of a man joined in the representation, and this from the very opening of the word of God, at the garden of Eden, to the close of it in the Revelation; that it is intended to set forth the divine glory: and at the same time to show that the only access to Jehovah for fallen man, is in and through the person, glory and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. The word itself, Seraphim, which is plural, means Burners. And this will not be found unsuitable to the idea, that they represent the glory of the Lord, in and through a Mediator; for the Holy Ghost hath by the apostle, declared, that our God is a consuming fire, Heb 12:29 . And the hymn sung, which Isaiah heard, I humbly conceive, was not sung by the seraphim, but the heavenly host; similar to that song, which John heard, of redemption. They that sung it were neither the beasts nor the elders: for Jesus took not upon him the nature of angels. The song of redemption could only be sung by the redeemed from among men. See the words of the song itself, Rev 5:9-10 . Respecting the wings of the seraphim, it is worthy remark, that nothing is said of their form. If upon the supposition that they themselves are designed as symbols of God in Christ, there will be no difficulty in the apprehension concerning those wings. The Lord is veiled to his people in covering; and swiftness to fly to their help and salvation; and yet, in the dispensations of his providence, his path is hidden: these may be easily understood as emblematically represented. Concerning the infinite holiness of Jehovah, which the hymn celebrated, every part of scripture concurs in the testimony. And in nothing more, than by the wonders of redemption. God never took a more decided method to impress his creatures with a due sense of the holiness of his nature, than by the death of Christ. In that one act, a greater display was made of the holiness of Jehovah, than if all creation had been offered up in sacrifice. It spake in the loudest voice, that rather than the Lord’s holiness shall be tarnished, the holy child Jesus shall die. The effect wrought in heaven, by the voice of him that cried, may serve to show the infinite awfulness of the divine presence, even in mercies. Reader, think what a solemn thing it must be to have to do with God, even when God is coming forth to bless. Oh the tremendous state of unregenerated sinners, when the Lord comes forth to judgment!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

“Handfuls of Purpose”

For All Gleaners

“Above it stood the seraphims.” Isa 6:2

This is the only passage in which the seraphim are mentioned as part of the host of heaven. The primary meaning of seraphim is, the burning ones. A use of the word is made in the Book of Numbers which is alarming, referring as it does to the fiery serpents that stung the people in the wilderness. Notice that these burning ones of the text are in the likeness of men with the addition of wings. A distinction has been drawn between the seraphim that excel in love, and the cherubim that excel in knowledge. But this is of little importance. By cherubim and seraphim I understand symbols of essential life. I understand, indeed, the life of God himself. Notice how many degrees and varieties of life are known to ourselves. Take the meanest insect; then take the noblest man; pass on to angels; from angels ascend to archangels; from archangels rise higher still; and thus at the uppermost summit of the idea of life stand the cherubim and seraphim, the meaning being that God himself is the grandest expression of life. Concerning the whole universe it may be said, “Above it stood the seraphim.” Around the meanest thing that lives they stand, the seraphim. In the estimation of God there is nothing little, nor can there be anything great. Beside eternity all other duration is as nothing, though men count it by centuries or cause it to dwindle down to dying moments. Let us accustom ourselves to the thought that above our life stand the seraphim; round about all our noblest impulses, desires, and ambitions stand the seraphim; that is to say, we are cared for, watched, loved, and protected by the living God. Thoughts of this kind redeem our life from its insignificance by showing us its true suggestiveness and indicating its purposed destiny. In every little thing see some symbol of the great thing. In time see the beginning of eternity. In life, as we know it, see the type of life as God lives it. Thus the whole universe becomes a sacred temple; all life a holy worship; all destiny a sublime and beneficent decree. Set the Lord always before you; in the high noon when the sun bums in his meridian splendour see a dim emblem of the relation which God sustains to all nature, all life, all evolution.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

Isa 6:2 Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

Ver. 2. Above it stood the seraphims. ] Those heavenly salamanders that are all on a light fire with love to God and zeal of his glory. Num 21:6 Isa 30:6 Fiery serpents, full of deadly poison, are also called seraphims, the Greeks call them. That old serpent the devil can transform himself into an angel of light, At bonum erat tibi si ignifer magis esses quam lucifer, saith Bernard, in his third sermon upon this vision of Isaiah.

Each one had six wings. ] So had those four beasts or living wights; Rev 4:8 See Trapp on “ Rev 4:8 “ and observe that in the Revelation the Holy Ghost borroweth most of the elegancies and flowers found in the Old Testament to set out the story of the New in succeeding ages.

With twain he covered his face. ] As with a double scarf, before God’s surpassing brightness, that would put out their eyes else. When the lightning flasheth in men’s eyes they clap their hands on their faces, so here do the angels. The moon never casteth less light than when she is nearest the sun. Sol reliqua sidera occultat, quibus et lumen suum faenerat; a sic et Deus gloriae Act 7:2 Neither are any so humble as they who are nearest to God. Angels make their addresses with greatest self-abasements; what then should vile men do? worms and not men!

And with twain he covered his feet. ] As conscious to themselves of a kind of comparative impurity, Job 4:18 ; Job 15:15 and unworthiness so to stand before God – i.e., to minister unto him.

And with twain he did fly. ] That is, he was ready to fly; velabant, et volabant; as Gabriel came to Daniel with weariness of flight Dan 9:21 – that is, with incredible swiftness. Their six wings, say some, b might set forth a six fold motion, upward, downward, forward, backward, to the right hand or to the left – any way were they ready to fly where God would, ita ut celeritate superent ventos, falmina, solem, coelosque omnes, swifter than the wind, thunderbolt, sun, or any of the celestial orbs.

a Plin., lib. ii. cap. 6.

b A Lapide. – Perer.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Isaiah

VISION AND SERVICE

A SERAPH’S WINGS

Isa 6:2 .

This is the only mention in Scripture of the seraphim. I do not need to enter upon the much-debated, and in some respects interesting, question as to whether these are to be taken as identical with the cherubim, or as to whether they are altogether imaginary and symbolical beings, nor as to whether they are identical with the angels, or part of their hierarchy. All that may be left on one side. I would only notice, before I deal with the specific words of my text, the significance of the name. It means ‘the flaming’ or ‘burning ones,’ and so the attendants of the divine glory in the heavens, whether they be real or imaginary beings, are represented as flashing with splendour, as full of swift energy, like a flame of fire, as glowing with fervid love, as blazing with enthusiasm. That is the type of the highest creatural being, which stands closest to God. There is no ice in His presence, and the nearer we get to Him in truth, the more we shall glow and burn. Cold religion is a contradiction in terms, though, alas, it is a reality in professors.

And so with that explanation, and putting aside all these other questions, let us gather up some, at least, of the lessons as to the essentials of worship, and try to grasp the prophecy of the heavenly state, given us in these words.

I. The Wings of Reverence.

He covered his face, or they covered their faces, lest they should see. As a man brought suddenly into the sunlight, especially if out of a darkened chamber, by an instinctive action shades his eyes with his hand, so these burning creatures, confronted with the still more fervid and fiery light of the divine nature, fold one pair of their great white pinions over their shining faces, even whilst they cry ‘Holy! Holy! Holy! is the Lord God Almighty!’

And does not that teach us the incapacity of the highest creature, with the purest vision, to gaze undazzled into the shining light of God? I, for my part, do not believe that any conceivable extension of creatural faculties, or any conceivable hallowing of creatural natures, can make the creature able to gaze upon God. I know that it is often said that the joy of the future life for men is what the theologians call ‘the beatific vision,’ in which there shall be direct sight of God, using that word in its highest sense, as applied to the perceptions of the spirit, and not of the sense. But I do not think the Bible teaches us that. It does teach us ‘We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.’ But who is the ‘Him’? Jesus Christ. And, in my belief, Jesus Christ will, to all eternity, be the medium of manifesting God, and there will remain, to all eternity, the incapacity which clogs creatures in time-’ No man hath seen God at any time, nor can see Him.’

But my text, whilst it thus suggests solemn thoughts of a Light that cannot be looked at with undazzled eyes, does also suggest to us by contrast the possibility of far feebler-sighted and more sinful creatures than these symbolical seraphs coming into a Presence in which God shall be manifest to them; and they will need no veil drawn by themselves across their eyes. God has veiled Himself, that ‘we, with unveiled faces, beholding His glory, may be changed into the same image.’ So the seraph, with his white wings folded before his eyes, may at once stand to us as a parallel and a contrast to what the Christian may expect. We, we can see Jesus, with no incapacity except such as may be swept away by His grace and our will. And direct vision of the whole Christ is the heaven of heaven, even as the partial vision of the partially perceived Christ is the sweetest sweetness of a life on earth.

There is no need for us to draw any screen between our happy eyes and the Face in which we ‘behold the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father.’ All the tempering that the divine lustre needed has been done by Him who veils His glory with the veil of Christ’s flesh, and therein does away the need for any veil that we can draw.

But, beyond that, there is another consideration that I should like to suggest, as taught us by the use of this first pair of the six wings, and that is the absolute need for the lowliest reverence in our worship of God. It is strange, but true, I am afraid, that the Christian danger is to weaken the sense of the majesty and splendour and separation of God from His creatures. And all that is good in the Christian revelation may be so abused as that there shall come, what I am sure does in effect sometimes come, a terrible lack of due reverence in our so-called worship. What does that lofty chorus of ‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’ that burst from those immortal lips mean but the declaration that God is high above, and separate from, all limitations and imperfections of creatures? And we Christians, who hear it re-echoed in the very last Book of Scripture by the four-and-twenty elders who represent redeemed humanity, have need to take heed that we do not lose our reverence in our confidence, and that we do not part with godly fear in our filial love. If one looks at a congregation of professing Christians engaged in their worship, does not one feel and see that there is often a carelessness and shallowness, a want of realisation of the majesty and sanctity and tremendousness of that Father to whom we draw near? Brethren, if a seraph hides his face, surely it becomes us to see to it that, since we worship a God who is a consuming fire,’ we serve Him with far deeper ‘reverence and godly fear’ than ordinarily mark our devotions.

II. The Wings of Humility.

‘With twain he covered his feet.’ The less comely and inferior parts of that fiery corporeity were veiled lest they should be seen by the Eyes that see all things. The wings made no screen that hid the seraph’s feet from the eye of God, but it was the instinctive lowly sense of unworthiness that folded them across the feet, even though they, too, burned as a furnace. The nearer we get to God, the more we shall be aware of our limitations and unworthiness, and it is because that vision of the Lord sitting on ‘His throne, high and lifted up,’ with the thrilling sense of His glory filling the holy temple of the universe, does not burn before us that we can conceit ourselves to have anything worth pluming ourselves upon. Once lift the curtain, once let my eye be flooded with the sight of God, and away goes all my self-conceit, and all my fancied superiority above others. One little molehill is pretty nearly the same height as another, if you measure them both against the top of the Himalayas, that lie in the background, with their glittering peaks of snow. ‘Star differeth from star in glory’ in a winter’s night, but when the great sun swims into the sky, they all vanish together. If you and I saw God burning before us, as Isaiah saw Him, we should veil ourselves, and lose all that which so often veils Him from us-the fancy that we are anything when we are nothing. And the nearer we get to God, and the purer we are, the more shall we be keenly conscious of our imperfections and our sins. ‘If I say I am perfect,’ said Job in his wise way, ‘this also should prove me perverse.’ Consciousness of sin is the continual accompaniment of growth in holiness. ‘The heavens are not pure in His sight, and He chargeth His angels with folly.’ Everything looks black beside that sovereign whiteness. Get God into your lives, and you will see that the feet need to be washed, and you will cry, ‘Lord! not my feet only, but my hands and my head!’

III. Lastly-The Wings for Service.

‘With twain he did fly.’ That is the emblem of joyous, buoyant, unhindered motion. It is strongly, sadly contrary to the toilsome limitations of us heavy creatures who have no wings, but can at best run on His service, and often find it hard to ‘walk with patience in the way that is set before us.’ But-service with wings, or service with lame feet, it matters not. Whosoever, beholding God, has found need to hide his face from that Light even whilst he comes into the Light, and to veil his feet from the all-seeing Eye, will also feel impulses to go forth in His service. For the perfection of worship is neither the consciousness of my own insufficiency, nor the humble recognition of His glory, nor the great voice of praise that thrilled from those immortal lips, but it is the doing of His will in daily life. Some people say the service of man is the service of God. Yes, when it is service of man, done for God’s sake, it is so, and only then. The old motto, ‘Work is worship,’ may preach a great truth or a most dangerous error. But there is no possibility of error or danger in maintaining this: that the climax and crown of all worship, whether for us footsore servants upon earth, or for these winged attendants on the throne of the King in the heavens, is activity in obedience. And that is what is set before us here.

Now, dear brethren, we, as Christians, have a far higher motive for service than the seraphs had. We have been redeemed, and the spirit of the old Psalm should animate all our obedience: ‘O Lord, truly I am Thy servant.’ Why? The next clause tells us: ‘Thou hast loosed my bonds.’ The seraphs could not say that, and therefore our obedience, our activity in doing the will of the Father in heaven, should be more buoyant, more joyful, more swift, more unrestricted than even theirs.

The seraphim were winged for service even while they stood above the throne and pealed forth their thunderous praise which shook the Temple. May we not discern in that a hint of the blessed blending of two modes of worship which will be perfectly united in heaven, and which we should aim at harmonising even on earth? ‘His servants serve Him and see His face.’ There is possible, even on earth, some foretaste of the perfection of that heavenly state in which no worship in service shall interfere with the worship in contemplation. Mary, sitting at Christ’s feet, and Martha, busy in providing for His comfort, may be, to a large extent, united in us even here, and will be perfectly so hereafter, when the practical and the contemplative, the worship of noble aspiration, of heart-filling gazing, and that of active service shall be indissolubly blended.

The seraphs sang ‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’ but they, and all the hosts of heaven, learn a new song from the experience of earth, and redeemed men are the chorus-leaders of the perfected and eternal worship of the heavens. For we read that it is the four-and-twenty elders who begin the song and sing to the Lamb that redeemed them by His blood, and that the living creatures and all the hosts of the angels to that song can but say ‘Amen!’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

it: i.e. the throne. seraphims = burning ones. No Art. Celestial beings, named but unexplained. Name used of the serpents (Num 21:6) because of the burning effect produced by them, just as nachash was used of a snake because of its shining skin (Num 21:9), as well as of the shining one of Gen 3:1. See notes on Gen 3:1. Num 21:6, Num 21:9, and App-19. Septuagint reads “and seraphs stood round about Him”.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

seraphims

Heb. Burners. The word occurs only here. (See Scofield “Eze 1:5”). The Seraphim are, in many respects, in contrast with the Cherubim, though both are expressive of the divine holiness, which demands that the sinner shall have access to divine presence only through a sacrifice which really vindicates the righteousness of God.

(See Scofield “Rom 3:24”) See Scofield “Rom 3:25” See Scofield “Rom 3:26” and that the saint shall be cleansed before serving. Gen 3:22-24 illustrates the first; Isa 6:1-8 the second. The Cherubim may be said to have to do with the altar, the Seraphim with the laver. See Scofield “Psa 51:7” See Scofield “Joh 13:10”. The Seraphim appear to be actual angelic beings.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

stood: 1Ki 22:19, Job 1:6, Dan 7:10, Zec 3:4, Luk 1:10, Rev 7:11

seraphims: Psa 104:4, Eze 1:4, Heb 1:7

wings: Exo 25:20, Exo 37:9, 1Ki 6:24, 1Ki 6:27, 1Ki 8:7, Eze 1:6, Eze 1:9, Eze 1:24, Eze 10:21, Rev 4:8

covered his face: Gen 17:3, Exo 3:6, 1Ki 19:13, Psa 89:7

his feet: Job 4:18, Job 15:15, Eze 1:11

did fly: Isa 6:6, Psa 18:10, Psa 103:20, Eze 10:16, Dan 9:21, Rev 8:13, Rev 14:6

Reciprocal: 1Ki 18:42 – put his face Neh 9:6 – the host Job 2:1 – Again Psa 84:1 – O Lord Psa 113:6 – humbleth Psa 148:2 – all his angels Luk 2:13 – a multitude Luk 11:2 – Thy will Eph 3:10 – intent Heb 1:14 – ministering

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Isa 6:2. Above it Or, rather, above him, as might be better rendered; stood the seraphim As ministers attending upon their Lord, and waiting to receive and execute his commands. The word seraphim, which, like cherubim, is plural, signifies burning, or flaming ones, from the verb , seraph, to burn or flame. The expression here means spiritual beings, qui a claritate et aspectus splendore, quasi flammantes et ignei visi sunt, who, from their brightness, and the splendour of their aspect, appeared as if they were fiery and flaming. It is probable that both their name and their fiery, burning appearance were intended to signify, 1st, Their nature, which is bright and glorious, subtle and pure; and, 2d, Those qualities of fervent love to God, and zeal for his glory and service, which they possess. Each one had six wings For the purpose immediately mentioned. With twain he covered his face Out of profound reverence, as being sensible of the infinite distance between God and him, so that he durst not presume to look directly upon him, and judged himself neither able nor worthy to behold the brightness of his glory. And with twain he covered his feet To signify the sense he had of his own natural, though not moral, infirmity; and his desire that God would not too severely examine all his ways and actions, commonly signified by the feet; because, though they did not swerve from Gods commands, yet they were not worthy of the acceptance, nor suitable to the dignity of so glorious a majesty. And with twain he did fly Which implies his great readiness and alacrity, his activity and celerity in executing Gods commands. We may infer from this description of the seraphim, that they appeared in a human form: but whether that is the form they always bear, or whether it was only assumed on this occasion, cannot be determined.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

6:2 Above it stood the {d} seraphims: each one had six wings; with two he covered his {e} face, and with two he covered his {f} feet, and with two he {g} flew.

(d) They were angels so called because they were of a fiery colour, to signify that they burnt in the love of God, or were light as fire to execute his will.

(e) Signifying that they were not able to endure the brightness of God’s glory.

(f) By which it was declared that man was not able to see the brightness of God in them.

(g) Which declares the prompt obedience of the angels to execute God’s commandment.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Fiery angels attended the Lord. "Seraphim," a transliteration of the Hebrew word, probably means "burning ones." (cf. Num 21:6). This is the only reference to seraphim as angelic beings in Scripture. Usually this Hebrew word describes snakes (cf. Num 21:6; Deu 8:15; Isa 14:29; Isa 30:6). What John saw may have been dragon-like creatures. They covered their faces, as we do when we are in the presence of something extremely brilliant, to hide and protect themselves from the superlative glory of God. They covered their feet for the same reason and perhaps as an indication that they renounced going anywhere on their own. One writer suggested that the feet may be euphemisms for the genital areas (cf. Isa 7:20; Exo 4:25). In this case the creatures may have been expressing modesty. [Note: Watts, p. 74.] They used their third pair of wings to fly, namely, to carry out the orders of their sovereign.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)