According to Sunday’s Lectionary, the Isaiah reading, God commissions the prophet to give a message to his people. In the book, there have already been five chapters of Isaiah’s prophecy, but for some reason this particular display of God’s power is extra special. God shows Isaiah that he’s forgiven and has no need to be ashamed and is fit to take God’s word to the people.
This is accompanied by an amazing, terrifying, overwhelming vision of God’s power. The whole thing starts with, “In the year that King Uzziah died,…” Naturally, the writer wants to anchor this incident in the history of the people, and dates would have been measured by the reigns of kings. But maybe we can see something else in that statement. The vision of God is accompanied by images that the ancients might have associated with royalty. King Uzziah has died – now there’s a new king on the block – God’s own self.
How God’s rule works in practice is a big question. I’ve had enough of theocracies that are actually ruled by violent and domineering men. We see something in the prophecies themselves of what God’s rule requires – fair treatment of others for example.
