Isaiah 6:5-7
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
5 Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed![a] For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips,(A) and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 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,[b] your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”(B)
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- 6:5 Doomed: there are two roots from which the verb here could be derived; one means “to perish, be doomed,” the other “to become silent,” and given Isaiah’s delight in puns and double entendre, he probably intended to sound both notes. “I am doomed!” is suggested by the popular belief that to see God would lead to one’s death; cf. Gn 32:31; Ex 33:20; Jgs 13:22. “I am struck silent!” is suggested by the emphasis on the lips in vv. 5–6, and such silence is attested elsewhere as the appropriate response to the vision of the Lord in the Temple (Hb 2:20).
- 6:7 Touched your lips: Isaiah is thus symbolically purified of sin in preparation for his mission as God’s prophet.
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