The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 125

of the great King, hinting an unutterable beauty on which ~one can look and, \ive, And so in the inward or moral world. In the history of a people or of a man- ther~ l\re moments when God, in the still more impressive might of his holiuoss, sweeps by, ati awakening and a purifying Spirit. Or in higher moments of devotion we may gain a moment.ary glimpse of tha.t pure love, so foll of terror yet so full of bles!ling, which burns at the core of things, and whose light is reflected in the light of every liumO:n conscience. Yet these are partial revelations, like that to the prophet; glimpses of the skirts of Jehovah's majesty, tastes of a " burning bliss" which in its fulness could not be endured. It is this sense that there is a beauty all arouncl us, ready at any moment to break into glowing manifestation, were not our mortal eyes too dim to look tipon it; an eternal music from which this " muddy vesture of decay grossly clo~ing us in" protects us, which otherwise might paralyze by i~ thunderous tones ;-it is this sense which cloes, or which should, impress an habitual reverence upon the mind. We should all be able to look back upon moments of our history when we have seen in the inner chamber of the mind something of what Isaiah saw, and to cherish the recollection as n lore never to be forgotten. For if we have never known a time when we were reduced into insignificance in the presence of God, and felt that he W/LS all and we were nought, and that the best tradition about God must be hushed into silence before what we personally know of God, we have missed an elementary lessoq which, when once obtained, adds weight and worth to all our after-experience. 3. The seraphs and theii- song. "Seraphs stood high around [or,• above'] him." It is impossible to gain a true notion of the seraphic figures without consulting works of art. Like the cherubim and the griffins and the sphinxes, their origin is in the remotest fore-time. All these were, in fact, among man's earliest efforts to represent to himself in visible art the Divine power which he felt to be working in and through nat.ure; in the flash of the lightning, the thunder's roar, the might of the blast, and aH those mysterious sounds and sights which usher in the changes of the year. As this is the only place where the seraphim are named, their character must reipain for the most part speculative. Similar winged figures are, however, found in Oriental sculpture (such as those in the British Museum) as attributes of a sovereign. And we can .hardly be wrong i!l con- sidering them as appropriate signs of J ehovab's sovereignty ove_r nature in the vision of Isaiah. Wings in art-figures generally denote the wind. If, then, we compare the passages in the Old Testament whence Jehovah's power is descrjbed as revealed iri storm and wind. e.g. Ps. xviii. 10 (" He rode upon a cherub, and _di~ fly: :yea,- he ·did fly upon the wings of the wind") or Ps. civ. 3, 4 (" W)lo ·walketn upon the wings of the wind; who maketh his messengers spirjt_s, his: ministers a flaming. ·fire_"), we may gain a fair nnderstanding of what is fueant; • The sto_rIIiy winds ~t t~e turning-points of the year reveal force-the force of the 'omnipofent Creato~. And at the same time, the Creator is concealed behind, as well as revealed in, these exp~essions of his might. And so the seraphic figures are seen by the prophet doubly_ veiled by their own wings-in face and feet. For we can neither look upon the. face of God nor follow the viewless track of his footsteps. As the· noble verse of Cowper aptly expre1i8811 it- • .. God moves in a mysterious way~ His wonders to perform; . He plant.a his footsteps in the sea, A.ud rides upon the storm." We shall not be far wrong if we find this truth symbolically: set forth by the aii- winged seraphic figures of the prophet's -vision. _ But'·the wind -ill full of music as _well as of might, and the seraphs give utterance to a solemn song, which -falls into two members, sung antiphonally by these celestial choristers. " One called -to the other'/' just as the priests in the temple-music below. Profound and weighty is the burden 'of this alternate chant- " Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts.I The fulness of the whole .e&rth is his glory I n How shall we think of the holiness of Jehovah?· As helght1 like that in_ which the seraphs sing- nature and a life so " far above". our base ana grovelling ways? Alas • • . ' . ~ '-''. OU, VL 1-13.] THE BOOK OJ.I' THE PROPHET ISAIAH, 113