A Man of Unclean Lips

Smoke coming into a room from nowhere, and the doorposts shifting in their sockets as though something heavy had gone past.

That is the temple in the year that king Uzziah died, and the smoke is being caused by a sound. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. Isaiah is a working prophet already, and the five chapters in front of this one are his, full of woe pronounced on other people.

Then he says it about himself, and where it lands is exact. Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips. Undone carries the sense of being silenced, cut off, brought to a stop. His entire trade is his mouth, and it is his mouth that fails him, in a room where other mouths are doing it perfectly and have to cover their faces to do it.

None of this was new information. His lips were the same lips the week before. The last clause is what changed: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Job arrives there after thirty-eight chapters of arguing: I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.

So do the small version before the day gets going. Take the sentence you say most often about other people, the one you would defend as simply accurate, and say it in that room with the seraphim covering their faces. Do not tidy it first. Then wait, because the coal came off the altar and was carried to him. Isaiah never went and fetched it.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 42 is Call and Answer (Psalm 91:15).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two