did the seraph use a live, or burning, coal from the altar to cleanse Isaiahs lips?
Isa 6:6, 7. The seraph explained that through touching the prophet’s lips his guilt and sin were removed (vs. 7). The sin is not specified, but it need not be limited to wrong speech, because lips signify not only speech but also the entire person who utters it. Having received moral purification, Isaiah was now able to offer pure praise to God. Fire is an agent of purification, because it burns away impurity (compare Num. 31:23). But the seraph used a coal from the special, holy fire of the altar, which God Himself had lighted and which was kept perpetually burning there (Lev. 6:12). So, the seraph made Isaiah holy, as well as pure. There is more. In worship at the sanctuary, or temple, the main reason for taking a coal from the altar was to light incense. Compare Leviticus 16:12, 13, where the high priest is to take a censer full of coals from the altar and use it to light incense. But in Isaiah 6, the seraph applies the coal to Isaiah, rather than to incense. Whereas Uzziah wanted t
