“And [the seraphim] called out to one another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” (Isaiah 6:3)
It is interesting to think that heaven cries out about the glory of the Lord on earth. Not just that His glory would cover the earth – future tense – but in the present tense, that the earth is full, now, with the glory of the Lord. A couple weeks ago, I defined the glory of the Lord as “the magnificence and great beauty of the Lord; the heavenly splendor and bliss of the Lord… the evidence of God, Himself.”
In a way, the seraphim’s call is a response to the cry of the psalmist, “Blessed be the Lord God… who alone works wonders. Praise be his glorious name forever; And may the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen!” (Psalm 72:19)
If we think about the fact that there was a minimum of 220 years between when David penned Psalm 72 and the vision of Isaiah, that’s more than 200 years where people were singing that song – crying out to God to fill the earth with His glory.
Even before David, God promised His glory – “As I live, all the earth will be filled with the Glory of the Lord” (Numbers 14:21). That was more than 400 years before David would write Psalm 72.
And so there was a promise, a repeated cry for fulfillment, and then a vision of its reality.
The seraphim’s words were more than just a nice saying – they were a fulfillment of a promise given more than 600 years before, the answer to a worshipful prayer that had been prayed for more than 200 years.
Today we can see the evidence of the glory of God in the wilderness as one manifestation of the glory of the Lord covering the earth. We are living in the reality of what God promised, what David prayed for, what the priests and people after him prayed for, what Isaiah heard had become a reality.
