Isaiah 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

In the year King Uzziah died, Isaiah sees the Lord seated on a high throne in the temple, with six-winged seraphim calling out that the LORD is holy and that the whole earth is full of his glory. Isaiah says he is ruined because he is a man of unclean lips, and a seraph touches his mouth with a burning coal from the altar, taking away his guilt. When the Lord asks who will go, Isaiah offers himself, and is sent to a people who will hear and see without understanding, until the cities are emptied and the land is left desolate. The chapter closes with a tenth remaining in the land, burned again, and compared to the stump left when a tree is cut down.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • Uzziah was king.
   • King Uzziah died.
   • In the year of King Uzziah's death, Isaiah saw the Lord.
   • The Lord was sitting on a throne.
   • The throne was high and lifted up.
   • The hem or skirts of the Lord's robe filled the temple.
2. 6:2
   • Seraphim stood above him.
   • Each seraph had six wings.
   • With two wings each covered his face.
   • With two wings each covered his feet.
   • With two wings each flew.
3. 6:3
   • One seraph called to another.
   • The seraph said the LORD of hosts is holy, holy, holy.
   • The seraph said the whole earth is full of his glory.
4. 6:4
   • The foundations of the thresholds shook.
   • The shaking came from the voice of the one calling.
   • The house filled with smoke.
5. 6:5
   • Isaiah said, Woe is me.
   • Isaiah said he was undone or ruined.
   • Isaiah said he was a man of unclean lips.
   • Isaiah said he dwelt in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
   • Isaiah said his eyes had seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
6. 6:6
   • One of the seraphim flew to Isaiah.
   • The seraph had a burning coal in his hand.
   • The seraph had taken the coal from the altar with tongs.
7. 6:7
   • The seraph touched Isaiah's mouth with the coal.
   • The seraph said the coal had touched Isaiah's lips.
   • The seraph said Isaiah's iniquity was taken away.
   • The seraph said Isaiah's sin was atoned for.
8. 6:8
   • Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord.
   • The Lord asked whom he should send.
   • The Lord asked who would go for us.
   • Isaiah said, Here am I.
   • Isaiah said, Send me.
9. 6:9
   • The Lord said to go.
   • The Lord said to tell this people to hear indeed but not understand.
   • The Lord said to tell this people to see indeed but not perceive.
10. 6:10
    • The Lord commanded that the heart of this people be made fat.
    • The Lord commanded that their ears be made heavy.
    • The Lord commanded that their eyes be shut.
    • The purpose was to prevent them seeing with their eyes.
    • The purpose was to prevent them hearing with their ears.
    • The purpose was to prevent them understanding with their heart.
    • The purpose was to prevent them turning back.
    • The purpose was to prevent them being healed.
11. 6:11
    • Isaiah asked the Lord how long.
    • The Lord answered, until the cities are wasted without inhabitant.
    • The Lord answered, until the houses are without a person.
    • The Lord answered, until the land is utterly desolate.
12. 6:12
    • The LORD will remove people far away.
    • There will be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
13. 6:13
    • A tenth will still remain in the land.
    • That tenth will again be consumed or burned.
    • The remnant is compared to a terebinth and an oak.
    • A terebinth and an oak have a stump remaining when they are felled.
    • The holy seed is the stump of the land.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

6:1

King Uzziah ruled Judah, the southern Israelite kingdom, for about fifty years and died around 740 BC; events were routinely dated by which king was reigning rather than by a numbered year. "The temple" is the temple in Jerusalem, the single building where sacrifice was offered; the Hebrew word can equally mean a king's palace or throne hall, and the scene draws on both. A robe with a long trailing skirt was the dress of a great monarch.

6:2

"Seraphim" is already plural in Hebrew, so the KJV's "seraphims" adds a second plural. The name comes from a root meaning "to burn." Winged attendants of this kind appear only here; the same Hebrew word is used elsewhere of fiery serpents. "Feet" is frequently a polite Hebrew substitute for the genitals, so covering them means covering nakedness.

6:3

"LORD" printed in small capitals stands for God's personal name in Hebrew, the four letters usually written Yahweh, which Jewish tradition does not pronounce aloud. "Hosts" means armies, the massed ranks of heaven. Hebrew has no word for "very" or "most"; it intensifies by repeating, and saying a word three times is the strongest emphasis the language has.

6:4

The Hebrew word behind "posts" refers to the pivots or foundations the doorway rested on, the most immovable part of the structure. Smoke filling the building recalls both the cloud and the burning incense that accompanied God's presence in Israel's sanctuary.

6:5

"Undone" translates a Hebrew verb meaning ruined or destroyed; some connect it with a root meaning "silenced," which would fit a complaint about lips. "Unclean" is not about dirt or bad language in the first instance: it is the ritual condition that barred a person from approaching holy things until purified. It was commonly assumed that a human being who saw God directly would not survive it.

6:6

The altar is the one in the temple, on which fire burned continually; the coal is a live ember from that fire. Tongs were part of the temple's bronze equipment, used for handling burning coals and tending lamps.

6:7

"Purged" in the KJV means cleansed, not burned off. The Hebrew verb is the one used in the sacrificial system for covering or wiping away guilt, often rendered "atoned for." "Iniquity" means guilt in both senses, the wrong done and the liability it creates.

6:8

"Us" is plural in the Hebrew, sitting alongside the singular "I" of "shall I send." It has been understood in different ways (as God speaking to the heavenly beings assembled in the scene, or as a plural of majesty) and the text itself does not settle which.

6:9

The Hebrew doubles each verb ("hearing, hear"; "seeing, see"), a construction that means keep at it, do it continually or thoroughly. "Perceive" here means grasp the sense of what is seen, not merely detect it.

6:10

"Make the heart fat" is a Hebrew idiom for making someone insensitive and unresponsive; in Hebrew the heart is the seat of thought and decision rather than of feeling. Hebrew also regularly phrases as a command what will in fact be the outcome, so the instruction can be read either as a task given to the prophet or as a description of the effect his message will have. "Convert" in 1611 English simply meant turn back or return; it carries no sense of changing religion.

6:11

"How long?" is the fixed opening of a lament in Hebrew, the standard way of asking God when a disaster will end.

6:12

"Removed men far away" describes deportation: the imperial practice, used by Assyria and later Babylon, of moving a conquered population out of its homeland to break its capacity to resist.

6:13

"Teil tree" is an obsolete English name for the terebinth, a large spreading tree of the region. The Hebrew verb rendered "eaten" means consumed or burned. "Seed" means offspring or descendants, as it does throughout the KJV. The Hebrew of this closing verse is difficult, and the final phrase about the holy seed is missing from the oldest Greek translation, so how much of it is original is disputed.