The phrase “I saw the Lord” is used only a handful of times in the Old Testament. Amos sees Adonai beside the altar (9:1), and in some translations Psalm 16:9 (cf. Acts 2:25) begins with “I saw Yahweh.” Two passages are nearly identical. Micaiah says that he saw Yahweh sitting on a throne surrounded by the host of heaven (1 Kings 22:19; 2 Chronicles 18:18), and Isaiah says that he saw Adonai sitting on a throne with seraphim flashing around... Read more
When Isaiah sees Yahweh enthroned in the temple, he also sees seraphim standing above the throne (6:2), one of which flies to him carrying the coal that will purify his unclean lips (v. 6). What are these creatures at the throne of God? The word seraph comes from the Hebrew verb “burn,” and so the seraphim are, fundamentally, “burning ones.” Burnings whats? From Isaiah 6, we learn that they are burning beings with six sings (v. 2), but also with... Read more
In a 2001 article in the New Oxford Review , Michael Naughton examines the spectacular rise of executive salaries in large publicly traded companies in the light of Catholic social teaching. He notes that the key issue is a change of ownership and an accompanying change in the dynamics of power in large companies. He quotes Peter Drucker: “a change in property ownership always results in a change in power. We’ve had a change in property with the emergence of... Read more
In his Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire , William Cavanaugh offers an Augustinian critique of the notion of “freedom” as it appears in free market advocates. He notes that Augustine defines freedom not merely negatively (absence of external coercion) but positively (orientation of desires and life to proper ends). That means that “he does not assume that mere negative freedom of the will from interference is a good end in itself” and thus “he believes that the individual will... Read more
Hayek write that in a free market the individual is recognized as “the ultimate judge of his ends,” and this means that cooperative actions among individuals arise from “coincidence of individual ends.” Social ends are “merely identical ends of many individuals – or ends to the achievement of which individuals are willing to contribute in return for the assistance they receive in the satisfaction of their own desires.” This claim assumes, obviously enough, that we have desires that can be... Read more
In an article from Biblical Interpretation , Francis Landy points out that Isaiah’s word for Yahweh’s “train” ( shul ) is the same as the word used for the edge of the high priest’s robe adorned with bells and pomegranates (Exodus 28:33-34; 39:25-26). Yahweh is thus the “divine priest.” All the while the Aaronic priests were busily performing their services in the temple, never sitting enthroned, Yahweh is enthroned as a priest, His work always already finished, the Omega Priest... Read more
In a 1970 article in the Tyndale Bulletin , J. A. Motyer offers this superb summary of the plot of the servant songs: “the Lord’s purposes of grace for His people raise the problem of the plight of the remaining major portion of humanity {e.g. 41:28, 29). To this, the Lord’s reply is the universal commission of His Servant (42:iff.). But this Servant cannot be national Israel, for though this Israel bears the honoured title (42:18, 19) it does so... Read more
In a 2004 article in the Concordia Journal Andrew Bartelt examines the structure of Isaiah 2-12, including the interrupted series of woes in chapter 5. He points out that the six woes of chapter 5 are chastically arranged in a way that anticipates a seventh and climactic woe: A. Woe #1 (v. 8): socio/economic abuse B. Woe #2 (v. 11): alcohol overindulgence C. Woe #3 (v. 18): human wisdom over God’s D. Woe #4 (v. 20): threefold inversion of reality... Read more
How, asks Adam K. Webb ( Beyond the Global Culture War (Global Horizons) ), did the ethos of “atomism” spread throughout the world? Atomism “rests on the two principles of homogeneity and detachment” and has as its “two pillar principles . . . a lack of transcendence and a lack of embeddedness.” Webb argues that atomism is a trans-historical ethos, but prior to the last two centuries it was held by a small minority of eccentric movements – Sophists, for... Read more
INTRODUCTION Scripture records a number of prophetic calls (Jeremiah 1; Ezekiel 1), but normally they occur at the beginning of the prophecy. Isaiah prophesies at some length before we learn about his call and the character of his ministry. THE TEXT “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings . .... Read more
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