Isaiah 6 and Overloading the Senses II

Isaiah not only sees things more deeply and more strangely than other people, he feels things, too. When the foundations of the temple shook as the seraphs called to one another, Isaiah couldn't help saying:

"Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts," (v.5).

I want to focus on one little word here, the word translated "I am lost." The Hebrew verb behind this is damah, it appears in the niphal tense, and it can be translated, "I am silenced," or "I am utterly destroyed." Damah in the niphal doesn't appear very often in Biblical Hebrew, but the following examples show that it carries a connotation of complete destruction. My point will be that Isaiah will feel as if he is a destroyed city when he hears the words "Holy, Holy, Holy." In other words, he feels deeper than we do.

The word damah appears twice in Is. 15:1.

"An oracle concerning Moab.
Because Ar is laid waste in a night, Moab is undone (damah); because Kir is laid waste in a night, Moab is undone (damah)."

What is it like when your two most prominent cities are laid waste in a night? You are devastated. You are like New York and the rest of the country as you were riveted to your TV screen on 9/11/01. You collapsed internally as the towers collapsed on your screen. That is what damah means, and that is what Isaiah felt. Or, in Jer 47, where there is an oracle against Philistia, Israel's longtime foe:

"Baldness has come upon Gaza,
Ashkelon is silenced (damah).
O remnant of their power!" (v. 5).

Thus, the word damah is appropriate in international political discourse--it is the response of the city or nation that has been fully conquered. No noise of any kind comes from the once bustling place.

But it can also refer to an internal or intellectual lack of the people. When Hosea railed against his people, his major criticism was that they lacked "knowledge."

"My people are destroyed (damah) for lack of knowledge;/ because you have rejected knowledge,/ I reject you from being apriest to me," (Hos. 4:6).

The theme of "knowledge lack" is significant because when Isaiah is actually called to speak to the people, he will be told to say, "See, see and do not understand" (Is. 6:9). The words "knowledge" and "understanding" are the same in Hebrew. Utter desolation, devastation and destruction attends those who don't have "knowledge" of God.

Finally, two other references to damah help us make the point. Hosea says: "Samaria's king shall perish (damah),/ like a chip on the face of the waters" (10:7). Or, a few verses later, "Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel shall be utterly cut off (damah)," (10:15). We see that the word is used only to describe the most extreme cases of loss or destruction. It is, indeed, the silence of death that seems to be in view with the word. When Isaiah then says, "I am lost," he is not just saying, "Well, I think I have to regroup here..." He is feeling like the besieged city, like the devastated people. His life has collapsed inside of him.

What Isaiah Heard

But Isaiah also hears things more vividly than the average person in Is. 6. He heard the priest intone "Holy, Holy, Holy," and he immediately knew it was the seraphim calling that to one another. Actually, we are not told in the text whether there were any priests at all in the temple. We just assume that Isaiah heard these words (much like Augustine hearing "take it and read,") and then imagined that he heard seraphs calling to one another. We will never know for sure, but we do know that Isaiah hears something as angelic speech. Then, he hears the seraph telling him (v. 7) that his sin has been forgiven. Then, he hears God asking for a volunteer to speak for him (v. 8). We are overwhelmed by Isaiah's hearing. We are never told how Isaiah knew that he heard God or the seraph; but he blurts out, "Here am I; send me." A person whose senses have been touched responds to that touch. Isaiah answered these divine and angelic words also by a most unusual prophetic response. Whereas Amos says that God "took him" from following the flock (Am. 7:15) or Jeremiah says that he objected to God, Isaiah puts himself right "out there." As with the Apostle Paul several centuries later, he felt that necessity was laid upon him. The message he would preach was one that reeked of devastation, even though a tiny ray of hope was appended at the end (6:13).

Conclusion

I have not exhausted all the places in the text where Isaiah's senses were engaged. We could mention, for example, the image of the coal touching lips. Lips seem to play such a big role in Is. 6. But I close by re-emphasizing the major point of these essays--and that is that they hyperaware person, the sensually-alert individual, is the one in this case who received the Word of God. Isaiah felt things more deeply than we do; he saw flying seraphs where we might just see bronzed figures; he heard angelic and divine voices where all we hear is the "noise" of the day. Take time to cultivate the senses--if, that is, you want to hear and see things that you never have witnessed before.

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