The sixth chapter of Isaiah begins by describing a vision of the heavenly throne room that Isaiah received in around 740 BC. This vision brought home to Isaiah the great gulf between him and a holy God, a gulf created by his sinfulness.
God proceeded to cleanse Isaiah and forgive his sins. God then asked his heavenly host, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Encouraged by what God had done for him, Isaiah spoke up, "Here I am! Send me" (v 8).
God then let Isaiah know what he was getting himself into. If Isaiah told people what they wanted to hear, he might become popular. But he would be telling the nation of Judah what it needed to hear. As a result, many would tune him out, at least in the short run, and the nation would face judgment. But a remnant would listen, and the nation would be rebuilt from there.
Chronologically speaking, this may be the earliest part of the book of Isaiah. We would normally expect the book to open with this commissioning narrative---see Jeremiah 1 and Ezekiel 1-2. Commentator John Oswalt proposes that this episode appears where it does in order to model what the Israelites must do in order to address the spiritual problems raised in Isaiah 1-5. If the people would humble themselves and confess their uncleanness, then God would cleanse them in his mercy.
Another unusual thing about Isaiah 6 is that God does not command Isaiah to serve as a prophet. Instead, God invites him to volunteer.
The passage from Isaiah 6 that is most often quoted in the New Testament is verses 9-10. Jesus and Paul would sometimes find their audiences to be just as spiritually obstinate as Isaiah's. As human beings, we tend to resist listening to the things we need to hear.
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