Isaiah Chapter 6 verse 5 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 5-7. - THE SEQUEL OF THE VISION - THE PROPHET'S SENSE OF UNWORTHINESS. The vision of God in this life, whether natural or ecstatic, cannot but produce in the beholder a deep feeling of his unworthiness. God "is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity;" even "the heavens are not clean in his sight" (Job 15:15). Man, being never wholly purged from sin while on earth, cannot but shrink from contact with the absolutely Holy. Hence Isaiah's cry (ver. 5); and hence, to comfort him, the symbolic action of the seraph (ver. 6) and his encouraging words (ver. 7). Verse 5. - I am undone; literally, cut off, destroyed (comp. Isaiah 15:1; Jeremiah 47:5; Hosea 4:5, 6, etc.). God once said himself, "There shall no man see me and live" (Exodus 33:20). Men expected to die even when they had seen angels of God (Genesis 32:30; Judges 6:22, 23; Judges 13:22). How we are to reconcile Exodus 33:20 with this passage, Job 42:5, and Ezekiel 1:26-28, is uncertain. Perhaps the ecstatic sight was not included in the "seeing" of which God spoke to Moses. I am a man of unclean lips. A man must be indeed" perfect" never to offend in word (James 3:2). Isaiah felt that he had often so offended. His lips were not "clean" in God's sight, and if not his lips, then not his heart; for "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh" (Matthew 12:34). I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Men catch up the phraseology of their time, and use wrong forms of speech, because they hear them daily. "Evil communications corrupt good manners" (1 Corinthians 15:33).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(5) Then said I, Woe is me.--The cry of the prophet expresses the normal result of man's consciousness of contact with God. So Moses "hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God" (Exodus 3:6). So Job "abhorred himself and repented in dust and ashes" (Job 42:6). So Peter fell down at his Lord's feet, and cried, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Luke 5:8). Man at such a time feels his nothingness in the presence of the Eternal, his guilt in the presence of the All-holy. No man can see God and live. (Comp. also 1Samuel 6:20.)I am a man of unclean lips.--The prophet's words present at once a parallel and a contrast to those of Moses in Exodus 4:10. The Lawgiver feels only, or chiefly, his want of the gift of utterance which was needed for his work. With Isaiah the dominant thought is that his lips have been defiled by past sins of speech. How can he join in the praises of the seraphim with those lips from which have so often come bitter and hasty words, formal and ceremonial prayers? (Comp. James 3:2; James 3:9). His lips are "unclean" like those of one stricken, as Uzziah had been, by leprosy (Leviticus 13:45). He finds no comfort in the thought that others are as bad as he is, that he "dwells in the midst of a people of unclean lips." Were it otherwise, there might be some hope that influence from without might work his purification. As it is, he and his people seem certain to sink into the abyss. To "have seen the King, the Lord of hosts," was in such a case simply overwhelming (Exodus 33:20). . . .