Isaiah chapter six is a well-known chapter for this interesting vision that Isaiah has of God in Heaven (or is it the Temple in Jerusalem? I'm not sure...). I answered whether God can be seen in Genesis chapter twelve, and probably expanded on it elsewhere; the answer is no, but sometimes sort of. Isaiah is having a vision, and it may be not literally what God would look like, but how God allowed Isaiah to imagine him.
There is a lot of stuff that the SAB marks as absurd in this chapter, which is probably par for the course when it comes to supernatural visions. There's usually going to be strange things, and things not meant to be taken literally. While it's stated several times in the Bible that God has a throne in Heaven, since God doesn't have a physical body, it's not really clear what it means to see him sitting on it. Likewise, he doesn't likely have a robe with an enormous train as described here; it's probably simply symbolic of God's majesticness. Meanwhile, there are seraphim present ("seraphim" is already plural, so I sort of question "seraphims") which are a kind of angel, the Hebrew word meaning literally "fiery ones"; it's actually the same word translated as "fiery serpent" in Numbers 21:8! The seraphim have six wings, which, as stated, absurd or not, they only use one pair to fly with, while another pair covers their faces and the third covers their feet. This is an indication of how holy God is, as even angels hesitate to look directly at him. Also of course, as I mentioned a couple chapters back, they describe God as "Holy, holy, holy," the only instance of a word being repeated three times in the Bible other than the similar verse in Revelation. The seraphim are apparently shouting this so loudly the doorposts are shaking.
Isaiah is overwhelmed by all this glory and holiness, and expresses his unworthiness as "a man of unclean lips". This leads to an interesting moment where one of the seraphim brings a live coal and places it in Isaiah's mouth to cleanse him, and tells him his sin is gone (probably one of the oddest ways in the Bible of dealing with sin; does the SAB have a page on that?). Then God asks who he should send, which once again (although the SAB doesn't mark it here) doesn't mean God isn't omniscient, he already knows the answer, but is giving Isaiah a chance to volunteer, which he does. God tells Isaiah to tell the people of Judah that they hear but don't understand and see but don't perceive, and therefore God is going to shut their ears and eyes, and make their hearts not understand. The SAB marks this as unjust, but the idea here is that the people of Judah have been refusing to hear God for so long that he's going to let them continue to not hear to the point of destruction; this is a result of their own choices. Isaiah asks how long this will be, and God says it will be until Judah is desolate, but he will leave a tenth (I assume a tenth of the people, but it's not completely clear), which will also be somewhat desolate, but like a tree that loses its leaves, there will still be life there.
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4 comments:
Okay, so you don't believe Isaiah when he said "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne." Was he lying or hallucinating?
Did he see the seraphim - or was he lying or mistaken about them too?
Do you believe that seraphim exist?
Were they the same as the fiery serpents that bit and killed people in Numbers 21?
What do you think Isaiah meant by "feet" in verse 2?
(Many Bible scholars think feet" here is a euphemism for genitals. https://www.bibleodyssey.org/dictionary/seraphim/)
Since God is a spirit and has no body, Isaiah is either being metaphorical or he's having a vision that's not literally what God looks like. He saw the seraphim in his vision (my assumption is that it's a vision) but what exactly "seraphim" are is hard to say; I think some churches have created a lot of complicated doctrine about angels based on very limited information. I've heard there's a lot about angels in the book of Enoch, but I don't know what, as I've never read it. No, I don't think they're the same as the serpents, it just happens to be the same word used for different purposes in different contexts. I'm aware that "feet" is sometimes a euphemism for genitals, but I see no reason to assume that's the case here. Do angels even have genitals? I know the story of the nephilim in Genesis is suggestive to many that angels are capable of having sex, but that's all wild speculation.
You say: Do angels even have genitals? I know the story of the nephilim in Genesis is suggestive to many that angels are capable of having sex, but that's all wild speculation.
So Genesis 6:4 is wild speculation?
"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."
Well, I agree it is wild, but why do you think it is speculation?
But I suppose the "sons of God" who had sex with the women may not have been angels -- although the author of Jude seemed to think that they were.
"And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation ... giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh..." Jude 6-7
I don't think even Jude is 100% clear there. Verses six and seven are separate sentences; are we sure that they're on the same subject? Jude is, in my opinion, the weirdest book of the New Testament, even surpassing Revelation.
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