In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim; each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he did fly. And one cried to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory! (Yeshayahu 6:1-3).
It is difficult not to be awestruck by this magnificent throne room vision of Yeshayahu, permanently enshrined in our Kedushah liturgy and fittingly read as the Haftarah for Yitro, which contains God’s revelation of the Ten Commandments. Chazal compare and contrast this vision with that of Yehezkel’s famous vision of the “ma’aseh ha-merkavah” (found at the beginning of Sefer Yehezkel); this analysis can enable us to better understand these visions as well as prophecy in general.
In Haggigah (13b), Rava claims that Yehezkel and Yeshayahu saw the same vision. He compares Yehezkel to a villager who saw the king, and Yeshayahu, to a townsman who saw the king. Although there are significant ostensible differences between the visions of these two prophets, namely that Yehezkel describes the merkavah vision at great length while Yeshayahu devotes but a few verses to the same description, Rava links the two. What exactly is the meaning of Rava’s cryptic statement?
Rashi in Haggigah, and Abarbanel (introduction to Yeshayahu, p. 4), suggest that Yeshayahu was accustomed to audiences with human kings. Yehezkel, in contrast, lived in the Babylonian exile. Since Yeshayahu was familiar with the experience of an awesome, powerful human leader, he was relatively less stunned by the vision of the King of kings than Yehezkel and consequently described it more tersely.
Rambam (Moreh Nevuchim III:6) proposes two additional interpretations: Yeshayahu’s audience may have understood the vision immediately because they were on a high spiritual level; hence, he needed to spend only a few verses talking about the vision. In contrast, Yehezkel needed to describe the vision in greater detail since his audience did not understand and therefore needed elaboration. Alternatively, perhaps Yeshayahu himself attained a higher level of prophecy, and therefore was not as overwhelmed by the vision as was Yehezkel.
Tosafot (on Haggigah 13b) present another possibility: Yehezkel’s audience believed that nobody would receive prophetic revelation in Babylonia. Therefore, Yehezkel elaborated on his vision to convince his listeners that he indeed experienced the Shekhinah.
The foregoing interpretations are valuable insights into the nature of prophecy. Two explain how the personal backgrounds of the prophets may have affected their prophetic experiences (Rashi-Abarbanel, Rambam #2); the other two pertain to the need for prophets to express themselves in a manner appropriate to their audiences (Rambam #1, Tosafot).
Furthermore, several mefarshim stress how a prophet’s historical context helps shape the way he perceives God. For example, Rashi (on Yehezkel 1:4) observes that since Yehezkel was prophesying at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, Yehezkel perceived God in a “violent storm.” Malbim (on Yehezkel 1:4) adds that Yeshayahu saw God on His throne, since the Mikdash was still standing at that time; in contrast, Yehezkel was in exile, and therefore saw God “on wheels,” moving away from Jerusalem. Abarbanel (on Yeshayahu 6:2) quotes Kuzari with a similar idea.
In their subsequent discussion of Rava’s statement, Chazal observe that the exile caused the angels in Yehezkel’s vision to decline: they had only four wings, whereas Yeshayahu had perceived the angels with six wings (Haggigah 13b). Similarly, a Yerushalmi (Sukkah 4:3, 54c) concludes that the Babylonian servitude must have been worse than the Egyptian slavery. They derive this from the manner in which the respective communities perceived God: the Israelites in the desert perceived God as “livnat ha-sappir,” a brick of sapphire (Shemot 24:10). Yehezkel, in contrast, describes God as an even ha-sappir, a stone of sapphire (Yehezkel 1:26). Since stones are harder than bricks, the Yerushalmi concludes that the Jews in Babylonia must have been suffering more.
Thus, we have seen that the prophets’ portrayal of Truth is affected by personal background, the nature of the audience, and historical context. Next week we will discuss how these issues relate to Moshe Rabbenu’s superior prophecy.