Isaiah 6:2-3 Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet… I. The first thing that strikes us respecting the seraphim is THEIR REDUNDANCE OF WINGS. They each had six, only two of which were used for flying; the others, with which they shrouded their faces and their feet, were, apparently, quite superfluous. Why should they have had them when there was no fit employment for them? Was it not sheer waste to be possessing wings that were merely employed as covering, and never spread for flight? And yet, perhaps, without this shrouding of their faces and their feet they might not have answered so well high Heaven's purposes, might not have swept abroad with such undivided intentness and such entire abandonment on their Divine errands. We meet sometimes with these seemingly wasted wings in men, in the form of capabilities, knowledges, or skills, for the exercise of which there is no scope or opportunity to their lot. To what end, we ask, have they been acquired? or what a pity, we say, that the men could not be placed in circumstances in which a field would be offered them! And yet, a knowledge or skill gained may not be really wasted, though it be left without due scope and opportunity. The best, the finest use of it does not lie always in what it accomplishes, but often in what has been secretly added to us, or wrought into us, through gaining it; in the contribution which the gaining it has been to our character or moral growth. II. THE APPARENT CONTRADICTION HERE BETWEEN THE COVERED FACES OF THE SERAPHIM AND THEIR TEMPLE-SHAKING SHOUTS. Feeble, muffled sounds are the most we should have expected to proceed from them. Fancy the posts of the Lord's house quivering, and the prophet's heart stirred to its depths beneath the cries of those whose heads were bowed and hid behind their wings! Here, however, is an adumbration of much truth. Great, penetrating, inspiring utterances like the utterances of the seraphim of Isaiah's vision — are they not always connected with some deep, still inwardness, with some profound withdrawal and retirement of soul? No one speaks with quickening energy, to the rousing of his fellows, who has not dwelt apart, who has not had his moments, his hours, of dumb absorption, with bent brows and folded hands, when thought and feeling have weighed upon him heavily, and held him bound. There is no life of noble activity and influence which does not rest on, and issue from, some inner, hidden life of careful self-discipline and quiet self-communion; which is not fed and sustained from behind with cherishings of faith and contemplation of ideas. III. THE UNINTENTIONAL, UNPURPOSED EFFECT produced by the seraphim; the much commotion they created without in the least aiming at or meaning it. What were they doing, because of which the vestibule of the temple shook, and the prophet awoke to an overwhelming conviction of his unworthiness? Simply crying one to another, saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory." They were conscious of no audience, were making no appeal, but were entirely absorbed in adoring together, in exchanging with each other their Divine thoughts and emotions. Yet see the deep agitations they caused, the deep stir in a human breast. It reminds me of the incidental effects of intense enthusiasm; how, in pursuing its object, in accomplishing triumphantly what it contemplates and desires, it will often overflow upon spectators, disturbing the idle with new dreams of work, rousing the lethargic, reanimating the faint and weary, moving some to attempt as they had not done, or to feel aspirations which they had not felt; how sometimes, one and another standing by, dull and inert, are caught by and swept on with it, and begin, themselves, to glow! IV. And now, concerning THE ASPECT, THE SALIENT FEATURES OF THESE BURNING ONES who proclaimed the glory of the Lord, and were such moving powers. They were creatures with six wings: "with twain they covered their face, with twain they covered their feel and with twain they did fly" — in which composition of them we may see imaged three things which are always involved in real greatness of character, without which no real nobility is attained. "They covered their face" — it was the expression of humility, the humility of awe and worship, of those who were admiringly conscious of a splendour and majesty, a sublime strength and perfection, in the presence of which they felt their own littleness, their poorness and infirmity. And no lofty excellence is ever reached where there is nothing of this. They only grow fine and do finely who know what it is to kneel in spirit, to have visions before which their heads are bowed. "They covered their feet" — renouncing the use of these, though they had them, because it was theirs to fly. Meaning to be wholly "winged" ministers of the Lord, they wrapt up their feet. And, devotion to some chosen life purpose involves always some resolute self-limiting in relation to things lawful enough, but not expedient, and always impels to it. "With twain they did fly" — swift, so swift, to execute the errands of Jehovah; and faithful velocity, instantaneous and vivid movement in obedience to the voice of the Lord within you, action that drags not, nor halts, that is never reluctant or slow when duty is seen, when conviction speaks, but flashes forth at once in quick and bright response — this is the third of the three essentials to real greatness of character and nobility of life which Isaiah's seraphim suggest. (S. A. Tipple.) Parallel Verses KJV: Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. |
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