The Fullness of all the Earth is his Glory
Preacher: Professor William Tooman, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism
Readings: Isaiah 6:1–8 (9–13), Psalm 138, Luke 5:1–11
Our text this morning is taken from the book of Isaiah, chapter 6. This chapter depicts the beginning of a new stage in the prophet’s career. In chapters 1–5, the prophet Isaiah summoned the people of Jerusalem to repent of their sins. The sins that he criticised them for were, mostly, social sins like profiting off the poor and privileging the rich in court. But from this moment until he utters his last prophecy, Isaiah will no longer call on Israel to repent. From chapter 6 onward, his people are already doomed. The prophet now has a sad task. To announce, again and again, the fate of Judah and Jerusalem. But his message is not without hope. He looks forward to a renewed world, a better world, where humans and nature thrive in harmony, and God is no longer distant but lives, once again, among his people.
The chapter opens with the prophet standing inside the Jerusalem temple. From Jerusalem, he sees God himself enthroned in the heavens, his feet and the hem of his robes reaching down to touch and fill the temple here on earth. There is no indication that anyone else is in the temple or sees God. The camera lens is fixed on the prophet and on God. God is attended by celestial beings, as he always is when he is enthroned. In this case, seraphim, a title which simply means “burning ones.” One of the regular tasks of God’s celestial beings is to sing. In this case, they are serenading God with an antiphonal song of praise. A ditty really, as it is so short. They sing:
Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.
Or so the New Revised Standard Version reads.
I want to focus attention this morning on the second clause of this little song. Flying round God on his throne, the seraphim sing: “the whole earth is full of his glory.” What does this mean? Of course, the natural world we live in can be beautiful: coral reefs, starry nights, sunrises and sunsets. Is Isaiah suggesting that these somehow manifest God’s glory? Perhaps, but then we recall that the world is also filled with pain, and sorrow, and ugliness. Clearly it is not full of God’s glory. Are the celestial creatures referring to something more specific, God’s people perhaps, who fill the world. Are God’s people his glory? We run into the same problem, I think. People can be noble, and sublime, and even breathtaking. But they can also be terrible and terrifying. There is evil in the world –– I believe –– and it is always found in people.
In fact, the translation –– “the whole earth is full of his glory” –– though traditional, is incorrect. It is an error introduced about two centuries before the turn of the first millennium (OG Isaiah, c. 200 bce), and it has stubbornly refused to go away. The Hebrew clause מְלֹ֥א כָל־הָאָ֖רֶץ כְּבוֹדֽוֹ does not say “the whole earth is full of his glory.” It says, “the fullness of all the earth is his glory.”
What difference does it make? What is the “fullness of the earth” anyway?
The line is an allusion to the creation of the world. In Genesis 1, after creating all the creatures that swim and fly, the narrator interjects: “God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth’” (vv. 21–22). Again, after making land animals – turtles and tigers, hedgehogs and humans – Genesis says, “God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” Later in our book, the book of Isaiah, in chapter 42, God invites all the creatures who fill the seas to mimic the seraphim and sing songs to God, songs of his glory (esp. vv. 10–12). Psalm 89 announces that everything in the sky belongs to God; the earth itself belongs to God; and the creatures who fill both belong to God.
Let me put it differently. According to the seraphim, when we witness a world filled with diverse creatures, the seas teeming with life, the land heaving with animals, we are witnessing God’s glory. According to Psalm 89, this wild medley of living things belongs to God. It is not ours. It is his. To damage it is to damage God’s property and God’s glory.
There are many arguments today for protecting creation that are based on beauty and sentimentality. Baby seals should be preserved and protected because they are fuzzy, and they look nice to cuddle, and they have wide innocent eyes. Sequoia forests are worthy of safeguarding because –– with their size and silence and permanence –– they inspire awe and humility. The majestic power of Victora Falls might be lost forever as the rivers that feed it progressively go dry.
Other arguments for creation-care are based on human self-interest. Rainforests must not be lost because they are the planet’s natural air filters. Arable land must be preserved because human population is booming, deserts are expanding, and everyone must eat. Flora must be safeguarded because we do not yet know what miraculous medical ingredient may be hidden in a rare flower.
Here, in a single line of a small song praising God, the sages of ancient Israel offered a different reason to protect living things. Isaiah 6 is, in fact, the oldest argument that I know for ecological activism. For the Jewish and Christian scriptures, a verdant world – crowded with living things of all kinds – is the glory of God. A swarm of bees might not seem glorious, but it is. A shoal of mackerel might not be as romantic as pod of orcas or a huddle of penguins, but they too are God’s glory.
The contemporary poet Araiana Benson captured this same idea beautifully in her little poem “Lovliness”:
i read somewhere
that a group of ladybugs is called a loveliness. and i wonder
what the person who gave them
that name (surely someone of at least measurable humanity) knew,
or thought they did, about what love
—what kind, specifically—so embeds itself in a thing that the thing,
subsequently, becomes an embodiment of that love …
Benson speaks of ladybirds as love manifest. Isaiah would agree, I think. And he would add that all creatures likewise embody God’s glory.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – –
The remoteness of God makes it difficult for many to believe in him. Theologians refer to God’s remoteness as the “hiddenness” of God. Although the Jewish and Christian scriptures tell us that God is present and active in the world, the fact that we cannot see him or touch him or speak with him face to face makes him seem distant if not mythical. We are left casting prayers upward in the hope that someone is there listening.
But, for the writers of the Hebrew scriptures, God is not so hidden as we think. There are traces of God to be found in watching ravens play in the wind, or listening to the interplay of birdsong in a woodland, or glorying in the flowering of snowdrops, or just watching ants come and go.
Let me make my point more plainly. When we humans do violence to the fullness of the earth –– when we drive species to extinction, when we so fill the earth with ourselves that there is no room left for other creatures to thrive, when we fish the seas to exhaustion –– we do violence to God’s glory, even more, we do violence to God.
One of my favourite writers, and possibly the most quotable person to ever set pen to page, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, says in his beautiful little novel Wind, Sand and Stars:
To be [human] is, precisely, to be responsible.
It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery …
It is to feel, when setting one’s stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.
… if you (and he) will permit me to add a less elegant line:
It is to protect all God’s creatures, for in so doing, we preserve the very presence of God.
AMEN