Isaiah 6:6-13
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar.
7 He touched my mouth with it. “See,” he said, “now that this has touched your lips,[a] your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”(A)
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” “Here I am,” I said; “send me!” 9 [b]And he replied: Go and say to this people:
Listen carefully, but do not understand!
Look intently, but do not perceive!(B)
10 Make the heart of this people sluggish,
dull their ears and close their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears,
and their heart understand,
and they turn and be healed.(C)
11 “How long, O Lord?” I asked. And he replied:
[c] Until the cities are desolate,
without inhabitants,
Houses, without people,
and the land is a desolate waste.
12 Until the Lord sends the people far away,
and great is the desolation in the midst of the land.
13 If there remain a tenth part in it,
then this in turn shall be laid waste;
As with a terebinth or an oak
whose trunk remains when its leaves have fallen.[d](D)
Holy offspring is the trunk.
Footnotes
- 6:7 Touched your lips: Isaiah is thus symbolically purified of sin in preparation for his mission as God’s prophet.
- 6:9–10 Isaiah’s words give evidence that he attempted in every way, through admonition, threat, and promise, to bring the people to conversion (cf. 1:18–20), so it is unlikely that this charge to “harden” is to be understood as Isaiah’s task; more probably it reflects the refusal of the people, more particularly the leaders, who were supposed to “see,” “hear,” and “understand,” a refusal which would then lead to a disastrous outcome (vv. 11–12).
- 6:11–12 The desolation described would be the result of the sort of deportation practiced by the Assyrians and later by the Babylonians. Isaiah seems to expect this as an eventual consequence of Judah’s submission as vassal to the Assyrians; cf. 3:1–3; 5:13.
- 6:13 When its leaves have fallen: the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain, and the text may be corrupt. Holy offspring: part of the phrase is missing from the Septuagint and may be a later addition; it provides a basis for hope for the future.
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