The Daily Office · Epiphany

Holy, holy, holy

Isaiah 6:1–5

1In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

2Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

3And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

4And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

5And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

What's happening here

"In the year that King Uzziah died" — Isaiah is careful to date his vision. Uzziah's long reign had been a span of relative stability; his death left Judah uncertain, Assyria looming. Into that political vacuum Isaiah sees a different king, high and lifted up, his robe filling the temple. The angels above the throne cry out a single adjective three times — the only adjective in the Hebrew Bible ever applied to God in triple repetition. Isaiah's response is not awe but undoing.

The word that matters

קָדוֹשׁqadosh

Hebrew · holy — set apart, other, not like anything else

Qadosh does not mean "morally perfect" in the first instance. Its root sense is separateness — reserved, withdrawn from common use. The Sabbath is qadosh because it is taken out of the working week. The temple vessels are qadosh because they do not go home with anyone. When the seraphim cry the word three times, they are not saying God is unusually good; they are saying God is unlike. The triple repetition is the Hebrew way of saying superlative — the holiest of the holy of the holy.

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