Isaiah's Call and Commission

The event

Isaiah dates his overwhelming Temple vision precisely: "In the year that King Uzziah died," placing his call around 740/739 BC, right as Judah's long era of prosperity was giving way to the shadow of a rising Assyrian empire. He saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, His train filling the Temple, seraphim calling to one another, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts" — and the very doorposts shaking at the sound.

Isaiah's response was immediate conviction: "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips." A seraph touched his mouth with a burning coal from the altar, declaring his guilt taken away and his sin atoned for — and only then did Isaiah hear the Lord's question, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" His answer, "Here am I. Send me!", has become one of Scripture's most quoted expressions of willing obedience.

That commission launched a ministry that would run through the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, addressing kings directly, confronting foreign alliances, and — as later chapters of his book unfold — reaching centuries ahead to speak of a coming Servant and a coming kingdom of peace.

Scripture references

• Isaiah 6