And with it he touched my mouth and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for.”
mouth . . . lips--(See on Isa 6:5). The mouth was touched because it was the part to be used by the prophet when inaugurated. So "tongues of fire" rested on the disciples (Act 2:3-4) when they were being set apart to speak in various languages of Jesus. iniquity--conscious unworthiness of acting as God's messenger.
And he laid it upon my mouth,.... Because he had complained of the impurity of his lips, and that his mouth might take in by faith this comfortable doctrine of pardon, and it might be filled with praise and thankfulness; it denotes the ministration of the Gospel, as a means of the application of pardoning grace: and said, lo, this hath touched thy lips; this...
7. And applying it to my mouth. And he laid it upon (marg., caused it to touch) my mouth. — Eng. Ver. We see how God condescends to meet the weakness of human sense. He puts the tongs into the hand of a seraph, that by means of it he may take a coal from the altar and apply it to the Prophet’s mouth.