What Does Isaiah 6:2 Mean?
Above him stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.THE KEY
The seraphim’s wings are not only for flight: four of six veil them, so the nearest beings are marked by concealment as much as motion.
THE MEANING
This image holds concealment and movement together: each seraph covers face and feet with four wings, while two carry it in flight. Nearness to the overwhelming presence includes veiling as well as movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The scene unsettles the assumption that nearness to the divine means total exposure: even the seraphim cover face and feet.
THE ROOT
שְׂרָפִים
śərāfīm
GROWS FROM
שׂרף
ś-r-p
to burn, to flame up
“the seraphim” in this verse is śərāfīm. The name carries the root sense of “burning ones,” so the beings are named by fire rather than given an unrelated title. The same root family includes fiery serpents and burning, keeping creature and flame linguistically close.
ALSO GROWS
śārāf: a fiery one; also a fiery serpent
שָׂרָף
This singular form shows that the name in the verse belongs to a word family that also names fiery serpents.
śĕrēfāh: burning; a fire or conflagration
שְׂרֵפָה
This noun carries the same root from a fiery being into the act or event of burning.
כְּנָפַיִם
kənāfayim
GROWS FROM
כנף
k-n-f
wing; outer edge or extremity
Hebrew כָּנָף can mean a wing and an outer edge or corner. Here the wings become a veil over face and feet, so the word’s edge sense and its covering use meet in one image.
ALSO GROWS
kānāf: a wing; also an outer edge or extremity
כָּנָף
The wings in this verse serve both for flight and for covering.
kenaf: the edge or corner of a garment
כְּנַף
This edge sense echoes how the wings form a boundary over the face and feet.
THE PATTERN
Winged beings near the divine are pictured with wings for concealment, movement, and unceasing attendance.
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.Thus were their faces. Their wings were spread apart above, two wings of each joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.Each of them has six wings about him, and all around and within they are full of eyes. They do not rest day and night, saying, Set apart, set apart, set apart, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.THE THREAD
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.The verse reuses the name seraphim and places a live coal in one being’s hand. The same root that carries the sense of burning in their name appears here as fire drawn from the altar.
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