8 And the voice of the Lord came to my ears, saying, Whom am I to send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I, send me.
And Moses said to the Lord, O Lord, I am not a man of words; I have never been so, and am not now, even after what you have said to your servant: for talking is hard for me, and I am slow of tongue. And the Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth? who takes away a man's voice or hearing, or makes him seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? So go now, and I will be with your mouth, teaching you what to say. And he said, O Lord, send, if you will, by the hand of anyone whom it seems good to you to send.
To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, was this grace given, so that I might make clear to the Gentiles the good news of the unending wealth of Christ:
But get up on your feet: for I have come to you for this purpose, to make you a servant and a witness of the things in which you have seen me, and of those in which you will see me; And I will keep you safe from the people, and from the Gentiles, to whom I send you,
I have been ready to give an answer to those who did not make prayer to me; I have been offering myself to those who were not searching for me; I said, Here am I, here am I, to a nation which gave no respect to my name.
Has any people ever gone on living after hearing the voice of God out of the heart of the fire as you did? Has God ever before taken a nation for himself from out of another nation, by punishments and signs and wonders, by war and by a strong hand and a stretched-out arm and great acts of wonder and fear, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes? All this he let you see, so that you might be certain that the Lord is God and there is no other. Out of heaven itself his voice came to you, teaching you; and on earth he let you see his great fire; and his words came to your ears out of the heart of the fire.
And there came to them the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the evening wind: and the man and his wife went to a secret place among the trees of the garden, away from the eyes of the Lord God. And the voice of the Lord God came to the man, saying, Where are you? And he said, Hearing your voice in the garden I was full of fear, because I was without clothing: and I kept myself from your eyes.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, like us: and let him have rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every living thing which goes flat on the earth.
And he said to me, Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.
And they went away, for there was a division among them after Paul had said this one thing: Well did the Holy Spirit say by the prophet Isaiah to your fathers, Go to this people and say, Though you give ear, you will not get knowledge; and seeing, you will see, but the sense will not be clear to you: For the heart of this people has become fat and their ears are slow in hearing and their eyes are shut; for fear that they might see with their eyes and give hearing with their ears and become wise in their hearts and be turned again to me, so that I might make them well. Be certain, then, that the salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles, and they will give hearing.
But I put no value on my life, if only at the end of it I may see the work complete which was given to me by the Lord Jesus, to be a witness of the good news of the grace of God.
And the sound of the wings of the winged ones was clear even in the outer square, like the voice of the Ruler of all.
And the Lord God said, Now the man has become like one of us, having knowledge of good and evil; and now if he puts out his hand and takes of the fruit of the tree of life, he will go on living for ever.
And he went down on the earth, and a voice said to him, Saul, Saul, why are you attacking me so cruelly?
And straight away they let go the nets and went after him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with their father, stitching up their nets; and he said, Come. And they went straight from the boat and their father and came after him.
And when they went, the sound of their wings was like the sound of great waters to my ears, like the voice of the Ruler of all, a sound like the rushing of an army: when they came to rest they let down their wings.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 6
Commentary on Isaiah 6 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 6
Hitherto, it should seem, Isaiah had prophesied as a candidate, having only a virtual and tacit commission; but here we have him (if I may so speak) solemnly ordained and set apart to the prophetic office by a more express or explicit commission, as his work grew more upon his hands: or perhaps, having seen little success of his ministry, he began to think of giving it up; and therefore God saw fit to renew his commission here in this chapter, in such a manner as might excite and encourage his zeal and industry in the execution of it, though he seemed to labour in vain. In this chapter we have,
And it was as to an evangelical prophet that these things were shown him and said to him.
Isa 6:1-4
The vision which Isaiah saw when he was, as is said of Samuel, established to be a prophet of the Lord (1 Sa. 3:20), was intended,
The vision is dated, for the greater certainty of it. It was in the year that king Uzziah died, who had reigned, for the most part, as prosperously and well as any of the kings of Judah, and reigned very long, above fifty years. About the time that he died, Isaiah saw this vision of God upon a throne; for when the breath of princes goes forth, and they return to their earth, this is our comfort, that the Lord shall reign for ever, Ps. 146:3, 4, 10. Israel's king dies, but Israel's God still lives. From the mortality of great and good men we should take occasion to look up with an eye of faith to the King eternal, immortal. King Uzziah died under a cloud, for he was shut up as a leper till the day of his death. As the lives of princes have their periods, so their glory is often eclipsed; but, as God is everliving, so his glory is everlasting. King Uzziah dies in an hospital, but the King of kings still sits upon his throne.
What the prophet here saw is revealed to us, that we, mixing faith with that revelation, may in it, as in a glass, behold the glory of the Lord; let us turn aside therefore, and see this great sight with humble reverence.
Isa 6:5-8
Our curiosity would lead us to enquire further concerning the seraphim, their songs and their services; but here we leave them, and must attend to what passed between God and his prophet. Secret things belong not to us, the secret things of the world of angels, but things revealed to and by the prophets, which concern the administration of God's kingdom among men. Now here we have,
Isa 6:9-13
God takes Isaiah at his word, and here sends him on a strange errand-to foretel the ruin of his people and even to ripen them for that ruin-to preach that which, by their abuse of it, would be to them a savour of death unto death. And this was to be a type and figure of the state of the Jewish church in the days of the Messiah, when they should obstinately reject the gospel, and should thereupon be rejected of God. These verses are quoted in part, or referred to, six times, in the New Testament, which intimates that in gospel time these spiritual judgments would be most frequently inflicted; and though they make the least noise, and come not with observation, yet they are of all judgments the most dreadful. Isaiah is here given to understand these four things:-