Isaiah 6:1

Hebrew Bible

1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord seated on a high, elevated throne. The hem of his robe filled the temple. 2 Seraphs stood over him; each one had six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and they used the remaining two to fly. 3 They called out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies! His majestic splendor fills the entire earth!” 4 The sound of their voices shook the door frames, and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 I said, “Woe to me! I am destroyed, for my lips are contaminated by sin, and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. My eyes have seen the king, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”

1 Enoch 14:17

Pseudepigrapha

17 And I looked and saw therein a lofty throne: its appearance was as crystal, and the wheels thereof as the shining sun, and there was the vision of cherubim. 18 And from underneath the throne came streams of flaming fire so that I could not look upon it. 19 And the Great Glory sat on it, and His garment shone more brightly than the sun and was whiter than any snow. 20 None of the angels could enter and could behold His face because of the magnificence and glory and no flesh could behold Him. 21 The flaming fire was all around Him, and a great fire stood before Him, and no one around could draw near Him: ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him, yet He needed no counselor.

 Notes and References

"... Unlike LXX Psalm 96, Hebrews does not explicitly cite LXX Psalm 95. Yet the author’s knowledge of a heavenly tabernacle (compare 8:2, 5) that Jesus entered when he ascended into heaven, and where he presented his offering before God (9:24–25) is remarkable in view of the preceding discussion of LXX Psalm 95. If, as seems likely, the realm that Jesus entered is the same realm the author expects to endure after the final shaking of the creation/κόσμος (compare 12:25–28), then the depiction of God’s temple as unshakable in LXX Psalm 95 may well be a thread in the larger web of biblical connections that supports his eschatological hopes. This is all the more interesting in light of the fact that Hebrews closely associates the heavenly tabernacle with the heavenly throne at God’s right hand (compare 8:1) ... This association between the tabernacle and the throne of God is already explicit in the biblical text where the Lord is depicted as a king who reigns from his seat between the cherubim, language that recalls the ark in the holy of holies (e.g., Psalm 99:1; compare 2 Kings 19:15; Isaiah 37:16) and from other passages that link the temple with the divine throne (e.g., Isaiah 6:1; Ezekiel 10:1–5; 43:6–7). The motif is common in texts that depict a tabernacle/temple in heaven where God sits enthroned in the holy of holies (e.g., 1 Enoch 14:18–20; Testament of Levi 3:4; 5:1) ..."

Moffitt, David M. Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews (pp. 71-72) Brill, 2011

 User Comments

Do you have questions or comments about these texts? Please submit them here.