What does Isaias Chapter 6 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The chapter’s images and exact conditions retain their admitted wording. Prophetic words and separately labeled edition material remain distinct. The account preserves sequence without invented scenes or universal outcome guarantees.

Chapter breakdown

Isaias 6 dates the vision to Ozias's death year: Lord on elevated throne, train filling temple, seraphims each six-winged covering face and feet with two each and flying with two. They cry threefold Holy, Lord God of hosts, earth full of glory; door lintels move and house fills smoke. Isaias cries woe because he held peace, has unclean lips among unclean-lipped people and has seen King Lord of hosts. Incense, immediate mortal death and psychological motives are not specified.

A seraph flies with live altar coal taken by tongs, touches his mouth and says iniquities shall be removed and sin cleansed. Lord asks whom to send and who goes for us; Isaias offers himself. Commanded message tells people to hear without understanding and see without knowing, blind heart, heavy ears and shut eyes lest they perceive, understand, convert and be healed. The command is represented without inserting a causal doctrine explaining its full meaning.

Asked how long, Lord answers until empty cities, manless houses and desolate land, men removed far away and she left amid earth multiplied. A tithing still remains, turns and becomes a show like turpentine and an oak spreading branches; what stands is holy seed. Admitted wording is not substituted with a stripped living stump, nine-tenths killed, fire-surviving tenth, indestructibility or an explicit Messiah prediction.

The story inside

Opening: The chapter’s images and exact conditions retain their admitted wording. Development: Prophetic words and separately labeled edition material remain distinct. Conclusion: The account preserves sequence without invented scenes or universal outcome guarantees.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The chapter’s images and exact conditions retain their admitted wording.
2
Prophetic words and separately labeled edition material remain distinct.
3
The account preserves sequence without invented scenes or universal outcome guarantees.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 79007–79008
6:1. In the year that king Ozias died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated: and his train filled the temple.
Lines 79014–79015
6:3. And they cried one to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of his glory,
Lines 79020–79022
6:5. And I said: Woe is me, because I have held my peace; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King the Lord of hosts.
Lines 79027–79029
6:7. And he touched my mouth, and said: Behold this hath touched thy lips, and thy iniquities shall be taken away, and thy sin shall be cleansed.
Lines 79031–79032
6:8. And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send? and who shall go for us? And I said: Lo, here am I, send me.
Lines 79037–79040
6:10. Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes: lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and I heal them.
Lines 79049–79052
6:13. And there shall be still a tithing therein, and she shall turn, and shall be made a show as a turpentine tree, and as an oak that spreadeth its branches: that which shall stand therein, shall be a holy seed.