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FOUR – Isaiah

Isaiah’s great call and commissioning took place ‘in the year that King Uzziah died’. Uzziah had ruled Judah for fifty-two years, so this was a year of great change and instability for the nation – already a dramatic moment for Isaiah and for Judah. True to his call and commissioning, Isaiah becomes prophet to a whole generation – active through four reigns and four decades.

The setting for the call is the temple in Jerusalem, and its form is a dramatic and glorious vision. The Lord is seated on a throne, ‘high and exalted,’ and his glory fills the temple. Six-winged seraphs are in attendance, calling ‘holy, holy’. The whole building shakes and fills with smoke. It could be the incense of heaven or it could be the dust of the earthquake: either way it is dramatic and unsettling (Isaiah 6:1‑4).

In the midst of all this drama, Isaiah faces God in awe and bewails his unworthiness and his inevitable demise. God offers a purifying forgiveness: a seraph brings a coal from the altar, touches Isaiah’s lips, and says, ‘your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out’ (Isaiah 6:5‑7).

The situation is transformed in that moment. Now when God says ‘Whom shall I send?’ Isaiah can reply: ‘Here am I, send me’ (Isaiah 6:8).

This is all very FOUR: to experience such glories in visions and dreams; to record them in striking poetry; and the very business of being commissioned by God as an individual – a unique individual with a message for the world.

Isaiah’s initial sense of unworthiness is FOUR clinging to security type ONE. God addresses this link to ONE with the assurance of purification and forgiveness – so when the challenge comes – ‘Whom shall I send?’ – Isaiah can thrive under pressure and move to volunteering TWO: ‘send me.’

Finally Isaiah is challenged to stay true to the task – even when the people neither see nor understand (Isaiah 6:9‑10), and even through all the pain that lies ahead (Isaiah 6:11‑13): a call to the true vocation of FOUR.

The five chapters leading up to this account are a summary of Isaiah’s message. It begins with observations and descriptions – as the state of the nation is assessed by observer FIVE on the wing of FOUR. God and the nation are ‘utterly estranged’ as the country ‘lies desolate’ (Isaiah 1:2‑8) – and yet the practice of their religion continues regardless (Isaiah 1:11).

Isaiah describes God as disgusted at this dissonance between outer religion and inner iniquity (Isaiah 1:11‑15). Disgust is a gut reaction – caused here by the ‘imperfection’ of godlessness – FOUR’s link again to gut type ONE. God is appalled at their very presence, ‘this trampling of my courts’: location and presence are important in the gut zone (Isaiah 1:12). And on the wing of ONE at NINE, Isaiah has God going all passive-aggressive: averting his eyes and covering his ears as they approach with their unworthy prayers (Isaiah 1:15). ‘Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean’ says the text – meaning: ‘learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, defend the orphan, plead for the widow’ (Isaiah 1:16‑17). This is idealism, addressing impurity – this is ONE.

And now Isaiah’s God woos us, and offers to make things right: FOUR’s link to TWO. ‘Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord; though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’ (Isaiah 1:18). And typically for TWO, this section is both wooing and demanding: only if you are ‘willing and obedient’ will you eat the good of the land; refusal and rebellion lead inevitably to destruction by the sword (Isaiah 1:19‑20).

Chapter 2 begins with a beautiful vision of a perfect world. All the nations flow to the house of the Lord, on the highest of all mountains. God will be judge, and in this idealistic utopia, swords will be beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks, and nations will speak of peace and not war. The poetry and imagery of FOUR express the idealistic and peaceful visions of the link to ONE – and its NINE wing (Isaiah 2:1‑4).

Chapter 5 declares itself to be a love song – bringing together the poetry of FOUR and the intimate compassion of TWO. It is sung for a lover who has received all due attention, but like a failing vineyard yielded no good fruit: it is a TWOish lament for an asymmetry of love where for all of the giving there has been no fair response (Isaiah 5:1‑7).

Many years later, ‘second Isaiah’ writes the moving description of the suffering servant of God – bringing so much to our New Testament understanding of Jesus as Messiah and Redeemer. The righteous suffering servant of God grows up among us, ‘does no violence,’ and ‘has no deceit in his mouth’ – but is rejected and cast out, persecuted and despised. Somehow through his suffering redemption comes – and a salvation that spreads beyond Israel to the world (Isaiah 52:13–53:12). This is truly the vision and vocation of FOUR: bringing redemption – often for others – through the pain.

In Isaiah we see the poetry and the pain and the creativity and the empathy of FOUR – and the anger and justice and idealism of the link to ONE, and the demanding compassion of the link to TWO. We see the objective observation of the FIVE wing, and the gifts of wing THREE as the writer inspires hope for a future redeemer. Adding in the vision of peace at NINE, Isaiah uses the gifts of every sector that FOUR can reach – continuous from sector NINE to sector FIVE.

In the section on ‘access all areas,’ we noted that FOUR has no easy access to sectors SIX or SEVEN or EIGHT. Isaiah’s only interest in the following of detailed rules is to condemn it as an inadequate disgrace: there is no easy comfort here for a particular kind of SIX. Where Isaiah has messages of joy, they are visions for the future – not SEVEN’s call to be positive in the literal here and now. And Isaiah’s attacks on the powerful are poetry based on observation – not action based on instinct: Isaiah is an observing poet, not an instinctive fighter EIGHT.

Isaiah’s journey is the journey of FOUR: from praying alone in the temple, seeing profound visions, and thinking deep thoughts – to engaging with the people, communicating profoundly and with great beauty, and serving and challenging as a prophet of God.

Of course many hands have contributed to the book of Isaiah as we receive it today. Its consistency comes from its faithfulness to a single ideal and style – and it is not only ‘the several Isaiahs,’ but the prophets as a group, who are corporately FOUR – or at least in the heart zone. When Jesus speaks of the Old Testament, he speaks of ‘the law and the prophets.’ Those from Moses onward who gave Israel its laws were working from the head side to influence the behavior of the people: the prophets were working from the heart side, to the same end. Each from their own perspective, the law and the prophets seek to exert a godly influence on the choices and behavior of the people – one from the head, and one from the heart.

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