What is the meaning of Isaiah 6:9-13 in terms of Isaiah's call in verse 1 through 8? We see what kind of prophetic ministry God has layed out for Isaiah. Right from the beginnnig of chapter 6 we see God actively intervening in Isaiah's life to shape the future for Israel and the world. Isaiah is being commissioned for prophetic duty like a soldier. He essentially volunteers himself when solicited by the Lord, probably because he has been overwhelmed by the Lords presence in verse 1-8. He is awe-struck and totally blown away and he knows that he is a sinner and not worthy to be in God’s presence. He knows that he is deserving of death or being burnt to a cinder for his sin hence the “woe is me for I am ruined” statement. I figure that the first thing anyone would what to do in this situation is to appease God so when solicited “Whom shall I send”…Isaiah jumps on the opportunity “Here I am send me!” Unfortunately for Isaiah he volunteers an answer like someone on a TV game show that hasn’t waited to hear the entire question and becomes totally hornswaggled due to his own hasty reaction. He is going to be initiated into a prophetic ministry for a generation of Israelites…and he will be nearly totally ignored.
The Lord even states as much in the commissioning. "Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on listening, but do not perceive; Keep on looking, but do not understand.” That’s like telling someone there are going to build a house and not give them a hammer. Israel will have become so desensitized to the Word and to God that it will be as if Isaiah is talking gibberish to them. The Israelites believed they will be fine because of their covenant with God. They fail to understand that they have violated the covenant because of idolatry and other sins. Another thing that doesn’t help Isaiah get folks to listen is that Israel both the Northern and Southern kingdom were going through a interim period of prosperity.
Not only this, he will be required to do this knowing Israel is doomed or until “cities are devastated and without inhabitant, houses are without people and the land is utterly desolate” and he would prophesy until this devastation occurred. When the judgment begins to unfold the Northern Kingdom (Samaria) fell in 722 B.C. to Assyria. The Assyrian period of Isaiah lasts fro Chapter 1-39. The Babylonian period picks up in Chapter 40 and runs through 66. Isaiah did not live through Babylonian captivity but he comforted Israel with his words for those times.
The Lord will use Assyria, Babylon, and the Medes to execute His purposes, and afterward judge each of these along other nations, bringing them to desolation because of their sins. I imagine that this is hard on the man’s psyche. He will be required to prophesy doom and no one in Israel would bother to listen. But like many of the prophetic ministries like Isaiah that will be reviewed in later we see a glimmer of hope and a promise of renewal through a remnant or “a tenth portion in it” that will be left in the land by Nebuchadnezzar…a holy seed, stump from which the Messiah would arise.
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