CHAPTER 16
Isaiah sees the Lord—Isaiah’s sins are forgiven—He is called to prophesy—He prophesies of the rejection by the Jews of Christ’s teachings—A remnant shall return—Compare Isaiah 6. Between 559 and 545 B.C.1 In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
2 Above it stood the seraphim; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
3 And one cried unto another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.
4 And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
5 Then said I: Wo is unto me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips; and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.
6 Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar;
7 And he laid it upon my mouth, and said: Lo, this has touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said: Here am I; send me.
9 And he said: Go and tell this people—Hear ye indeed, but they understood not; and see ye indeed, but they perceived not.
10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes—lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and be healed.
11 Then said I: Lord, how long? And he said: Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate;
12 And the Lord have removed men far away, for there shall be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
13 But yet there shall be a tenth, and they shall return, and shall be eaten, as a teil-tree, and as an oak whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.
CHAPTER 17
Ephraim and Syria wage war against Judah—Christ shall be born of a virgin—Compare Isaiah 7. Between 559 and 545 B.C.1 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.
2 And it was told the house of David, saying: Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
3 Then said the Lord unto Isaiah: Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field;
4 And say unto him: Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be faint-hearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.
5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying:
6 Let us go up against Judah and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, yea, the son of Tabeal.
7 Thus saith the Lord God: It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.
8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus, Rezin; and within three score and five years shall Ephraim be broken that it be not a people.
9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If ye will not believe surely ye shall not be established.
10 Moreover, the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying:
11 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depths, or in the heights above.
12 But Ahaz said: I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.
13 And he said: Hear ye now, O house of David; is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?
14 Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign—Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and to choose the good.
16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.
17 The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, the king of Assyria.
18 And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.
19 And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.
20 In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet; and it shall also consume the beard.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, a man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep;
22 And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk they shall give he shall eat butter; for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.
23 And it shall come to pass in that day, every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, which shall be for briers and thorns.
24 With arrows and with bows shall men come thither, because all the land shall become briers and thorns.
25 And all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns; but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and the treading of lesser cattle.
I learned a few things in my "Writings of Isaiah" class at BYU that explained some of the expressions in these pages. Maybe you already know them but just in case you don't I'll describe them. The first is that when a word is written three times it is the same as us saying good, better, and best. So when Isaiah writes holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts in verse 3 of chapter 16 he is emphasizing that the Savior is not just holy or holier but holiest!
The second is that a reference to butter and honey is symbolic of comfortable living and prosperity. In the days of Isaiah if you were able to eat butter and honey it meant that you had access to a healthy cow who produced milk and to bees that had access to the pollen of blooming flowers. For this to be possible the land must not have been suffering from drought or severe weather.
A third insight was about Seraphim which are mentioned in verses 1 and 2 of chapter 16. I like this quote that sums up what I remember:
“Seraphs are angels who reside in the presence of God, giving continual glory, honor, and adoration to him. . . .The fact that these holy beings were shown to him [Isaiah] as having wings was simply to symbolize their ‘power, to move, to act, etc.’ as was the case also in visions others had received. (D. & C. 77:4.)” (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, pp. 702–3).
I know there are still a lot of mysteries in these verses that I didn't even touch on but at least these are a few small insights.
P.S. There's a trivial Hollywood connection to this chapter! Do you know which celebrity A-list couple just named their daughter Seraphina after these angels in Isaiah?
If so leave it in a comment! : )
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