In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
Ver. 1. In the year that Uzziah died.] This was 1590 years from Noah's flood, say chronologers, where one a well observeth how divers things were done in this year within the Church, and without. The Gentiles in Greece, at the town of Eleum, behold their Olympic games; the prophet Isaiah in Judea beholdeth the glory of God, and heareth the trisagion of the blessed angels. So in the year of grace 1617 the Pope proclaimed a jubilee for the peace of Italy and Austria, &c. The Reformed Churches in Germany kept a jubilee likewise at the same time, in way of thankfulness to God for the gospel restored just a hundred years before by Luther, Zuinglius, and other reformers. b
I saw also,] sc., In spiritu et in ecstasi, In spirit and in a rapture. Some compare it with that vision which Ezekiel saw afterwards. Eze 1:4-28 This whole book is called ‘the vision of Isaiah'; Isa 1:1 and why? See Trapp on " Isa 1:1 " Est autem celeberrima haec prophetia, but this is a most famous prophecy of the utter excaecation and excision of the Jews; and is alleged against them by all the four evangelists, and by St Paul. Rom 11:8
The Lord.] The Three in One, and One in Three: Isaiah 6:8, "Who shall go for us?" Compare Genesis 1:26; Genesis 3:22. See John 12:41, where it is applied to God the Son; and Acts 5:3,4, where to God the Holy Ghost. This Lord of all was seen by the prophet, not in his essence, or in the infinite excellence of his majesty, Exodus 33:20 1Ti 6:16 but in some visible model of his glory; like as we cannot see the sun in rota, but in radiis, in the body of it, but in the beams only.
Sitting upon a throne.] Instar iudicis et vindicis, as a just judge and sharp revenger of this people's rebellions; and this throne is in the temple too, the place wherein they most of all trusted, crying, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." Jer 7:4 Lo, here they were to be sentenced, because they had cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Isa 5:24
High and lifted up.] Stately for sight, and lofty for site, as was Solomon's. 1 Kings 10:18 ; 1Ki 10:20
And his train filled the temple.] His train, or his skirts c - viz., of his robes. The Sept. and Chaldee have it, "The house was full of his glory." The sense is, saith Oecolampadius, that the least part of the divine majesty is greater than the greatest glory of men. as 1Co 1:25 "He hath upon his vesture and on his thigh this name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords." Rev 19:16 Here we can see but his back parts, his train and line. We need see no more that we may live. Zeuxis, the famous painter, drew in a table a fair temple with the doors open, and Venus going in, so as the beholders could behold but her back and her train, as not able to depaint her fair face and fore parts.
a Ussher
b Jac. Rev. Hist. Pontif. Rom., p. 306.
c Sirmata.