The Seraphim — the “burning ones” — are the highest order of angels in Jewish and later Christian tradition: fiery six-winged beings who stand in the immediate presence of God, ceaselessly singing his holiness. Their name comes from the Hebrew saraph, “to burn,” and they are made of, and wreathed in, divine fire.
The Vision of Isaiah
The seraphim enter scripture in the great throne-vision of the prophet Isaiah. “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and lifted up,” he writes, “and above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.” And they called one to another the words that became the heart of all sacred liturgy: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At their voices the foundations of the threshold shook, and the temple filled with smoke.
The Burning Coal
It is a seraph who performs one of scripture’s most striking acts of grace. When Isaiah cries out that he is a man of unclean lips, a seraph flies to him bearing a live coal taken with tongs from the altar, and touches it to the prophet’s mouth, saying that his guilt is taken away and his sin atoned. Thus the burning ones are not only singers of holiness but agents of purification, carrying the cleansing fire of the divine presence to mortal flesh.
The Highest Choir
In the angelic hierarchies systematized in later tradition, the seraphim are ranked first of the nine choirs, closest of all to God, surpassing even the [cherubim] and the [thrones]. They are the angels of pure love and pure fire, so consumed by the divine radiance that they perpetually burn without being consumed. Some traditions link them to the fiery serpents of the wilderness, others see them as flames given form and voice. Above every other order they encircle the Throne, an unceasing chorus of fire forever proclaiming the holiness of the One they cannot stop adoring.