Isaiah 6:13
‘Then I said: “Woe is me!…. For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”… Then one of the seraphims flews to me, having a live coal in his hand…, and said: “Look, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away!”… I also heard the Voice of the Lord, saying: “Who shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said: “Here am I; send me!” And He said: “Go, and
tell this people!… They shall return…like an oak whose substance is in them when they cast off their leaves. So, the holy seed shall be its substance!”‘ Isaiah 6:5-13.
Calvin comments: “‘Woe to me!’… The Prophet…was so terrified by seeing God, that he expected immediate destruction…. Jerome renders it, ‘because I was silent’…. In the Scriptures, silence is often taken for death…. The Prophet therefore means that he was so terrified, as to resemble a dead man…. ‘My eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts!’…. Death is within us. But we do not perceive it, unless when it is compared with the life of God!…
“‘Then flew one of the seraphim to me!’ The Prophet shows what kind of relief was brought to him, when he was so terrified as to think that he was a dead man…. The angel…, bringing forward the sacred pledge [of a live coal] which he had received from God, laid it…on the lips of the Prophet….
“‘Afterward I heard the Voice of the Lord.’ The Prophet now begins to discourse about the design of this vision. Why did God appear to him with such glorious majesty?… It was because he was called to deliver an incredible message!…
“Who will go for Us?’…. This passage points to Three Persons in the Godhead. Just as we elsewhere read, ‘Let Us create man in Our likeness!’ (Genesis 1:26). For God talks with Himself, and in the plural number…. Unquestionably, he (the Father) now hold a consultation with His eternal Wisdom and His eternal Power — that is, with the Son and the Holy Spirit….
“‘Then He said, “Go and tell that people!”‘… ‘And I said, “How long, O Lord?” And He answered, “Until the cities be wasted!… (But yet) it shall return!”‘ That is, a change will take place for the better…. The destruction will not be complete, but such as happens to trees when their leaves fall off in the Winter and nothing appears but dead timber. But when Spring returns, they bud forth anew. And so, also will this people!”
“‘In it, shall be substance!’… Isaiah in this passage describes the restoration of the Church, by taking a metaphor from trees which wither at the end of Autumn but again blossom at the return of Spring and put forth new leaves. Which could not happen, did they not retain some vigour during the Winter — though to outward appearance they were dead….
“‘The holy seed’…is that ‘substance’…. He means the elect, who would be preserved by the free mercy of God…. For ‘the holy seed is the substance’ of the Church! The holy seed is solid, even when oaks shed their leaves!
