[1] This vision evidently contains the designation of Isaiah to
his work as a prophet. It does not follow that he may not
himself have put his book together in the form, or nearly
in the form, in which we have received it. The early
chapters as they describe the state of the people, not at
one particular moment but through a course of years,
announcing the punishments which must follow from that
state with the blessings which could come out of them, are
a living index to the subsequent prophecies and history.
The place which they occupy, supposing it was assigned by
Isaiah, cannot hinder us from accepting his own express
words as a proof, that the year in which King Uzziah dies
was the critical year of his life, that which explained to
him why he was sent into the world and what task he had to
perform in it.--_F. D. Maurice._
[2] Once for all must he who was to be a prophet have become
absolutely certain of the true relation of the world and
Jehovah,--must have beheld, as in a distinct form, the
sublime and holy character of Jehovah, and felt that he was
directed by Him alone; once for all must he have recognised
the Divine power of truth against the whole world, and
himself as living and moving in it alone; once for all must
he have entered, with the effectual energy and act of his
whole inner being, into the counsels of God, and found
himself for ever bound by them, and endowed by these bonds
with true power and freedom:--this was the first condition
and the true beginning of all the work of the prophet, the
holy consecration and the inner call, without which none
can become a true prophet.--_Ewald._