Isaiah 6 Exegetical Brief

Submitted on February 15, 2011, to Anathea Portier Young in partial fulfillment of Intro to the Old Testament (OT12).

Boundaries

Chapter 6 of the book of Isaiah is a coherent and self-sustaining whole.  The commissioning of the prophet is a literary break from the surrounding chapters.  Chapters 1-5 relate differently to the reader, and have something else to say entirely.  In chapter 7, the author begins speaking in the third person, a break from the prior 6 chapters.  

Location

Strikingly, the commissioning of Isaiah occurs several chapters into the book that carries his name.  Other major prophets cite their vocational call first, in a kind of chronological order.  Isaiah waits to speak of his commissioning, perhaps to heighten suspense or cite his credentials only after he begins his writing. Because chapter 7 begins addressing the reader in the third person, Isaiah’s commission might be seen as a closure, or at least a pause, in the author’s chosen literary style after 6 chapters.  

Structure

• Intro/historical setting – the year that King Uzziah died.  
• The prophet’s vision of the heavenly court 
• Isaiah recognizes his sin and repents, which 
  • Confession of sin (“I am lost”, “unclean lips”)
  • Act of atonement (burning coal)
  • Declaration of forgiveness
• Prophetic Commissioning 
  • God’s question
    • Whom Shall I send, and Who will go for us?
  • Isaiah’s response
    • Here am I, Send me
• God’s Word for Israel through Isaiah
  • Deafening and blinding Israel of v.9
  • Chiasm of v.10
    • Heart – ears- eyes – eyes - ears – heart
  • Isaiah questions the lord, v.11-13
    • How long oh Lord?

Translation

There were a few relatively minor differences between five different translations; King James Version (KJV), New American Standard (NASB), New International Version (NIV), Revised Standard Version (RSV), and the Jewish Publication Society (JPS).  Three verses popped out at me that were rendered differently between the translations.  

Verse five was, by the JPS, NASB, and NIV, rendered “I am ruined” by the prophet for having seen the Lord of Hosts, since he expected that such a fate spelled immediate death.  However, the RSV used the word “lost,” and the KJV “undone.”  There are only slight differences in connotation between each, but the KJV might lend itself to deeper theological inquiry as well (from what state has he been undone?).  

Verse seven has one of the “fiery beings” (uniformly transliterated from the Hebrew into “seraphs” or “seraphim”, even in the JPS) touching a burning coal to the prophet’s lips to cleanse him from either “guilt” (NIV, JPS, RSV) or “iniquity” (NASB, KJV).  Again, the difference is only slight and does not offer itself to any significant debate.  

Finally, verse 13 is confusing, and possibly the most important of the lyrical differences.  As the chapter closes, God is telling Isaiah how long he must prophesy and harden the people’s hearts.  The outlook is grim, to say the least, but the final sentence is difficult to interpret.  Three translations (JPS, NIV, KJV) render the sentence in the future sense, by using the words either “shall” or “will”, such as “The holy seed SHALL/WILL be its stump.”  However, the NASB and RSV each use the present tense, translating the Hebrew as “The holy seed IS its stump.”  Furthermore, the RSV concludes God’s word to Isaiah before this line, leaving it in a weird position between the Divine oration and chapter seven, when the author begins speaking in the third person.  

Key Theme

The major theme of this pericope is biographical in nature, even though it describes a vision.  Isaiah is relaying to his audience his vocational call from God.  It is something like a theological biography, in that it relays events that have a bearing on the prophet’s ministry that he has experienced personally.

Minor themes include guilt and atonement, fear and trembling before God, and divine judgment.  Theodicy is a very difficult point to wrestle with in this selection, since God is basically telling Isaiah that He will blind and deafen Israel so that they will not “turn and be healed.” (v.10, RSV)  The entire task Isaiah is given deals with God’s justice in relation to his covenanted people, but this prophet’s purpose in particular is hard to reconcile with a God who wishes to be reconciled to the world, since God is hardening the hearts of the people.

Keywords

Many of the keywords I selected were body parts (mouth, lips, heart, ears, eyes).  Since they seemed pretty straightforward, I looked them up in a keyword study bible I use that relies on Strong’s lexicon.  

• Mouth (peh, #6310) can be an opening, or the edge of a sword
• Lips (sapah, #8193) double as speech or language
• Heart (leb, #3820) is also conscience, mind, courage, and understanding
• Ears (ozen, #241) does not seem to have any double meaning
• Eyes (‘ayin, #5869) can also be a spring or a fountain

Biblical Book

One theme that stretches throughout First Isaiah is the presence of a saving remnant of Judah.  Particularly Jerusalem as the everlasting city, is of special importance.  However, remnancy and Jerusalem do not make much of an appearance in my pericope.  If the remnant is to be the kernel of salvation for the world, there is not much mention of it in chapter six.  Instead, as Isaiah receives his commission, his call is to harden hearts, shut up ears and eyes, and confuse hearts.  Bodies will be made useless and unable to commune with their Creator and the land (Jerusalem) will be “utterly desolate” (RSV, NASB, KJV).  The text says “though a tenth remains”, which acknowledges the remnant, it is despite them that God lays waste the land and turns away the people.

Another theme I recognized is the puritanical form of monotheism that Isaiah seems to inaugurate in/for Israel.  What I mean by this is that other prophets don’t seem to step into what actual monotheism means for the world, that other faiths worship the one true God without knowing.  This absolutist form of monotheism is not addressed so directly anywhere else in the Hebrew scriptures.  In this particular chapter, that theme is nowhere addressed.

Imagery

The imagery employed in the commissioning of Isaiah is startling and fear-inspiring.  Beginning with his vision of the divine council, including fiery beings and hot coals, there are evocations of destruction and suffering and pain.  Bodies are made to suffer and are refused their faculties (sight, hearing, speaking, understanding).  Similarly, the land suffers waste and desolation.  Humans will be estranged from the soil and their turned away from their houses.  The final image we are left with is the stump of the terebinth and the oak, from which a holy seed will emerge.  Verses 11 and 12 has somatic images (hearts, ears, eyes, etc.) followed by cultural ones (towns, places, fields).  

Literary Devices

There is a clear chiasm in v.10; heart – ears – eyes – eyes – ears – heart.  This is a kind of descent and ascent, we are instructed how heart, eyes, and ears will be stopped up (made callous, dulled, and closed) and then what that action is preventing (seeing, hearing, understanding).  I thought for a short while that there might be a second chiasm in vv.11-12 (cities – houses – fields – population – sites – land), but it doesn’t quite fit.  The form is there, but between the different translations, it is hard to make the literary connections.  

Historical Issues

The pericope opens by setting the historical stage.  “The year that King Uzziah died” (v.1, RSV) would have been sometime in the middle of the 8^th century BCE.  Around that same time, Assyria had amassed great power and Judah would have been under threat of domination or outright invasion.  The northern kingdom of Israel would fall to Assyria after a failed revolt during the time of Isaiah’s ministry in 722 BCE, providing a lesson in international politics for the southern kingdom of Judah, from which Isaiah prophesied.  Isaiah prescribes nonmilitary means of survival, to rely solely on YHWH for their protection.  

The bearing for all of this is Israel’s political alignment.  Isaiah does not favor treaties with Egypt, which has helped other nations in the area defend against Assyrian domination.  In his commissioning event, it is made clear that the people he will address in his ministry are doomed to failure.  This sets the stage for Judah’s eventual fall, “though the tenth that remain” (v.13, RSV) will not even be spared the judgment of God through the Assyrians.   

Rhetoric

In chapter six, the speech is not Isaiah’s so much as it is God’s.  In the first five chapters we hear of God being disappointed by the wild grapes that grown in God’s vineyard.  God’s people have proven to be stubborn and brash, ill-suited to be the wine they otherwise could have fermented into.  Chapter six introduces God’s judgment, which will be articulated throughout Isaiah’s ministry.  Whereas hope makes an appearance later in First Isaiah, it is merely hinted at near the conclusion of this particular pericope, in the image of the holy seed that will spring up from the oak and terebinth stumps that will be left after God acts upon the people Israel.  

The immediate audience is the prophet himself, but it would be absurd not to also conclude that the greater community will hear and be made to submit to the indicting word of God.  In the divine oracle, God does not quite appeal to any particular interest.  God is not intending to persuade Isaiah, or, by extension, Israel.  Instead the speech is a declaration, and a startling one at that.  There is no escape, no clear word of hope or concern in the diatribe.  No, the speech is what will happen regardless of the actions of the people, made especially painful, since it is God who will prevent them from understanding, hearing, and seeing, and from turning and being healed.   

Social Perspective

In this passage, it is hard to discern socially relevant language, since half of it is engaged in describing a supernatural vision state.  In vv.9-13, God’s statement to Isaiah carries with it only limited access to social reality Israel faced in Isaiah’s day.  The first verse, however, does make mention of a historical setting, which implies (more clearly to its original audience) certain social experiences, but it is not explicit in the text.  Isaiah, in his broader ministry, rails against unjust accumulation of wealth and other injustices, but none of that is mentioned in chapter six.  In fact, we don’t even get from this section the reason for God hardening the hearts of the people.  There is mention of the people being “of unclean lips”, but it does not go into much detail that would reveal more in depth about what this meant for the author.  

Source and Redaction Criticism

None of the commentaries I found mentioned much in the way of redaction or source criticism.  There are few sections that draw on earlier texts with any certainty, though it is clear that others draw upon this section of Isaiah for inspiration (especially the commissioning of Jeremiah and Ezekiel).  The chiasm of v.10 is not the first of its kind, but I did not find any reason to suspect a later editorial action.  God’s speech in vv.9-13 is also difficult to pin down based on the commentaries I found, which probably means I need to look more closely.  

Form Criticism

The most likely form of speech for the first half of chapter six is simple biographical narrative.  As I found earlier, chapter six is odd in that it does not open the book and introduce Isaiah’s call at the outset of his ministry.  Furthermore, chapter seven begins using the third person to refer to the prophet, further demarcating the chapter from those by which it is surrounded.  

The second half of the chapter is more likely to be a speech of judgment against Israel.  It is put in the mouth of God, and is constructed as the overall commission of Isaiah – to confuse minds, make ears heavy, and close eyes.  Basically, Isaiah will be the agent of God’s hardening of the people’s hearts.  Isaiah’s only question is how long this task will continue.  This question is frequently used to open a lament, but in this case, the speaker does not continue.  It is not really clear if Isaiah even intends it to be such (or, if he does, if God at all entertains answering the prophet in the way he expects).  The judgment speech then continues, explaining how the land will be made desolate, people will be turned away from their homes, and cities will be abandoned.  In this call, there is no hope or healing balm, only harsh indictment and stinging sentencing.  

Intertextuality

Isaiah’s commissioning account is not too dissimilar to other prophets, with slight differences.  Jeremiah, for example, had his mouth touched not by a hot coal, but by God’s hand.  Ezekiel too describes a scene of the divine council common to the prophetic visions prior, but is the only one who does not have a question for God in the ceremony.  In my readings of commentaries, there is very little of Isaiah’s commissioning that borrows from earlier works, though many other canonical books borrow from it (including, perhaps, the prior two prophetic calls mentioned earlier), as well as John’s eschatological vision described in the book of Revelation.  

There is some interplay, naturally, with historical events described in the Hebrew Scriptures, notably 2 Kings 14:21 (Uzziah appears as “Azariah”) and especially 2 Chronicles 26.  It is also interesting to note that Uzziah appears in the Matthean lineage of Jesus (Matthew 1:8-9).  

Marginal Readings

My reading of the commissioning of Isaiah is done through my history (and dissatisfaction) with youth group culture in the Protestant worldview.  “Here am I, send me” is used in song and prose, usually in the sense of missions to the developing world.  This orientation is biblically awkward, since Israel does not appear to have ever interested in proselytizing, at least not as explicitly as has Christianity.  In this sense, the prophet’s willingness to be sent is taken out of context.  Isaiah is given a heart breaking and damning vocation – he is to help God harden the hearts of God’s own chosen people.  This is a far cry from the motivation usually at the heart of contemporary missionary mentality.  

In this case, the contextual reading has been marginalized.  It is not a happy task for Isaiah, or really any prophet.  I can only imagine the next voice God raises to be from the sweatshops of South East Asia, the diamond mines of Africa, or the red light districts of Europe.  Maybe the next prophet will be one whose task is to harden our own hearts and condemn us to judgment.  It is a difficult thought to consider, especially my interest in enemy-love; how can God predetermine damnation and desolation?  Even the tenth that survives “will be burned again.” (v. 13)  This reading is one that speaks against western privilege that assumes that ‘we’ are out to teach any and all and may learn from nobody and nowhere.  Maybe our hearts have already begun to calcify… 

Theology & Preaching

This text is incredibly troubling theologically.  It challenges our notion of the justice and benevolence of God.  Here, Isaiah is told that God refuses to allow the prophet to intercede on behalf of the people.  Chapter six portrays God as estranged from his people, or vice versa.  The people have offended God so greatly that there is no recourse to repentance (which appears nowhere in this prophetic pericope).  This is no easy text, as long as it is not divorced (as it often is in churches) from the full import of the second half of the chapter, which constitutes Isiaha’s actual call to ministry – the hardening of hearts, the blinding of vision, and the deafening of hearing.  Taken by itself, outside the context of the larger corpus of First Isaiah, this text turns the great majority of the biblical canon on its head.  There is here no promise, no hope, no healing.  Only condemnation and scorn faces the reader of Isaiah 6.  Keeping in mind the opening of the chapter, it is hard to swallow the divine prerogative and eschatological vision and the harsh word Isaiah brings Israel and the Church.