Passage

Isaiah 6.5

Book: Isaiah · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

3. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. 4. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

5. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.

Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: 7. and he touched my mouth with it, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin forgiven. (Isaiah 6:3-7, ASV)

WEB

3. One called to another, and said, “Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of Armies! The whole earth is full of his glory!” 4. The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

5. Then I said, “Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of Armies!”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. 7. He touched my mouth with it, and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin forgiven.” (Isaiah 6:3-7, WEB)

KJV

3. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. ^{one: Heb. this cried to this} ^{the whole: Heb. his glory is the fulness of the whole earth} 4. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. ^{door: Heb. thresholds}

5. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. ^{undone: Heb. cut off}

Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: ^{having: Heb. and in his hand a live coal} 7. And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. ^{laid: Heb. caused it to touch} (Isaiah 6:3-7, KJV)

YLT

3. And this one hath called unto that, and hath said: 'Holy, Holy, Holy, [is] Jehovah of Hosts, The fulness of all the earth [is] His glory.' 4. And the posts of the thresholds are moved by the voice of him who is calling, and the house is full of smoke.

5. And I say, 'Woe to me, for I have been silent, For a man, unclean of lips [am] I, And in midst of a people unclean of lips I am dwelling, Because the King, Jehovah of Hosts, have my eyes seen.'

And flee unto me doth one of the seraphs, and in his hand a burning coal, (with tongs he hath taken [it] from off the altar,) 7. and he striketh against my mouth, and saith: 'Lo, this hath stricken against thy lips, And turned aside is thine iniquity, And thy sin is covered.' (Isaiah 6:3-7, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: Isaiah, responding to the throne vision
Audience: the reader; the response is uttered within the vision
Location: the temple, within the vision of Isaiah 6
Time period: the year King Uzziah died, c. 740 BC

Theological reading

The reaction that tells you the vision was not self-generated. "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."

The response is undoing, not elation. This is worth dwelling on because it is the opposite of what a constructed religious experience would be expected to produce. Isaiah's first reaction to the throne is a verdict against himself, and the specific charge is about speech, which is precisely the faculty a prophet is about to be commissioned to use.

The stated ground for the woe is the seeing: ki ("because") my eyes have seen. The logic of Exodus 33:20 is presupposed. Isaiah expects to die, and says so.

What happens next matters for how the passage is used. The uncleanness is not argued away, minimized, or reframed. A seraph takes a coal from the altar and touches his mouth, and the guilt is declared taken away. The commissioning follows the cleansing and does not precede it. The order is encounter, self-knowledge, atonement, call, and inverting any two of those produces a different religion.

Apologetic use, and its limit. Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy (1917) built its analysis of the mysterium tremendum substantially on this passage, and the phenomenological description is genuinely useful: the encounter presents itself as an encounter with something wholly other, before which the subject is not enlarged but exposed. That is a description of the structure of the experience and it is good evidence about what the text is reporting.

What it is not is proof that the experience was veridical. A skeptic can grant the whole phenomenology and attribute it to psychology, and the honest reply is that the description constrains what kind of thing is being reported rather than settling whether it occurred. See Argument from Religious Experience for where the argument actually lives, and Phenomenology for the method Otto was using.

Key words

tame (H2931), unclean, the cultic term Isaiah applies to himself.
saphah (H8193), lip, speech, the specific faculty named.
damah (H1820), to be silenced, ruined, cut off; the verb behind "I am ruined."
ra'ah (H7200), to see, the stated cause of the woe.

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

H6635 - tzevaot, tzevaot, Strong's H6635
H3068 - YHWH, YHWH, Strong's H3068

Cross-references

Isaiah 6:1, the vision this responds to
Exodus 33:20, the expectation of death on seeing God
Job 42.5, another encounter that ends in self-abasement rather than vindication
Argument from Religious Experience, where the phenomenological description does apologetic work
Phenomenology, the method behind Otto's analysis

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

Angels, via Isaiah 6.1-8
Christ is God, via Isaiah 6.1-5
Christs Deity, via Isaiah 6.1-10
Old Testament Christology, via Isaiah 6.1-10
Old Testament Witness to the Deity of Christ, via Isaiah 6.1-10
Two Powers in Heaven, via Isaiah 6.1-10

People:

Isaiah the Prophet, via Isaiah 6.1-10

Lexicon:

H3068 - YHWH, via Isaiah 6.1-10

Passages:

Notes

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Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.