[2] No rebellions shake the throne of God; though “the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing,” yet “he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.” The throne of God is a rock in the midst of the ever-rolling ocean of created existence, that heaves and swells with ceaseless change; but, in comparison of Him, its mightiest billows have but their moment of existence, and sink into the mass at the base of the immovable throne of the Everlasting One.—Watson.

[3] An observer on a mountain-cliff may be able to survey the whole circumference of a lake that lies beneath him, but no man can see the whole of the ocean, simply because it is the ocean, and not a lake.—Watson.

The Seraphim.

vi. 2. Above it stood the seraphim:[1] each had six wings, &c.

I. “With twain he covered his face.”[2] They bow with prostrate awe, veiling themselves in the presence of the Divine glory, as though feeling the force of those strong words, “He chargeth His angels with folly, and the heavens are not clean in His sight.” If the angels tremble when they gaze, what should man feel? II. “With twain he covered his feet.”[3] Among Orientals this expresses reverence. Well may you bow in reverence before Him! The sense of pardon will humble you, even while it fills you with holy exaltation. III. “With twain he did fly”—in readiness to execute His commands.—Richard Watson: Works, vol. ix. pp. 150–153.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] As those that are nearest of a king’s attendants stand behind his throne or chair of state, at his elbow.—Day.

This is the only passage of Scripture in which the seraphim are mentioned. According to the orthodox view, which originated with Dionysius the Areopagite, they stand at the head of the nine choirs of angels, the first rank consisting of seraphim, cherubim, and throni. And this is not without support, if we compare the cherubim mentioned in Ezekiel, which carried the chariot of the divine throne; whereas here the seraphim are said to surround the seat on which the Lord worshipped. In any case, the seraphim and cherubim were heavenly beings of different kinds; and there is no weight in the attempts of Hendewerk and Stickel to prove that they are one and the same. And certainly the name seraphim does not signify merely spirits as such, but even, if not the highest of all, yet a distinct order from the rest; for the Scriptures really teach that there are gradations in rank in the hierarchy of heaven. Nor were they mere symbols or fanciful images, as Hävernick imagines, but real spiritual beings who visibly appeared to the prophet, and that in a form corresponding to their own supersensuous being, and to the design of the whole transaction. Whilst the seraphim hovered on both sides of Him that sat upon the throne, and therefore formed two opposite choirs, each ranged in a semicircle, they presented antiphonal worship to Him that sat upon the throne.—Delitzsch.

The cherubim in the temple represented no doubt spiritual powers and presence in the most general sense, those who look upon God and reflect His light. If we distinguish between them and the cherubim, as we do in our “Te Deum,” these last would seem more especially to represent those divine energies and affections of which the zeal, devotion, and sympathy of man are counterparts.—F. D. Maurice.

The name cannot possibly be connected with sârâph, a snake (Sanscrit, sarpa, Latin, Serpens); and to trace the word to a verb sâraph in the sense of the Arabic ‘sarafa (‘sarufa), to tower high, to be exalted, or highly honoured (as Gesenius, Hengetenberg, and others have done), yields a sense that does not very strongly commend itself. On the other hand, to follow Knobel, who reads shârâthim, worshippers of God), and thus presents the Lexicon with a new word, and to pronounce the word seraphim a copyist’s error, would be a rash concession to the heaven-storming omnipotence which is supposed to reside in the ink of a German scholar. It is hardly admissible, however, to interpret the name as signifying directly spirits of light or fire, since the true meaning of sâraph is not urere (to burn), but comburere (to set on fire or burn up). Umbreig endeavours to do justice to this transitive meaning by adopting the explanation “fiery beings,” by which all earthly corruption is opposed and destroyed. The vision itself, however, appears to point to a much more distinctive and special meaning in the name, which only occurs in this passage of Isaiah. . . . If the fact that a seraph absolved the seer by means of this fire of love (vers. 6, 7) is to be taken as an illustrative example of the historical calling of the seraphim, they were the vehicles and media of the fire of divine love, just as the cherubim in Ezekiel were the vehicles and media of the fire of divine wrath. For just as in the case before us, a seraph takes the fire of love from the altar; so there, in Ezek. x. 6, 7, a cherub takes the fire of wrath from the throne-chariot. Consequently the cherubim appear as the vehicles and media of the wrath which destroys sinners, or rather the divine doxa, with its fiery side turned towards the world; and the seraphim as the vehicles and media of the love which destroys sin, or of the same divine doxa with its light side towards the world. . . . “Seraphic love” is the expression used in the language of the Church to denote the ne plus ultra of holy love in the creature.—Delitzsch.