Isaiah 6 is unique: This narrative of a prophetic vocation does not stand at the beginning, as e. g. Jeremiah 1 or Ezekiel 1–3. God is called three times “holy”, as nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. He is outstanding and filling the entire earth, yet he asks for human collaboration. Only here an individual freely declares his willingness for a divine sending. God’s paradoxical commission
to “make fat the heart, to make heavy the ears and to paste over the eyes of this people” reveals a deeper sense; it has parallels in the rejection of divine messages and finds a solution within the context of the Book of Isaiah and in the orientation towards future salvation.
