Sec Def Hegseth is evidently out on a “Send Me” tour telling people how the bible justifies all manner of war and destruction. The current video has him quoting Isaiah.
Using “send me” as a slogan for literal war against ideological or religious enemies rips v. 8 out of its literary and theological setting. Isaiah 6:1–13 is a prophetic commissioning narrative, not a military commission. The chapter’s structure is important: vv. 1–4 present Isaiah’s throne-room vision of God’s holiness; vv. 5–7 move to Isaiah’s confession of uncleanness and ritual purification; only then, in v. 8, does the divine question “Whom shall I send?” appear, to which Isaiah responds, “Here am I; send me.” In context, the verb “send” marks prophetic dispatch—Isaiah is commissioned as a spokesman, not as an agent of physical coercion.
That becomes explicit in vv. 9–13, where the content of his mission is to speak a message of judgment. Isaiah is told the people of Judah will hear but not understand. Will see but not perceive. He is not being sent to win a campaign or wage violence; he is being sent to proclaim an unwelcome truth in the face of disbelief, judgment, and national crisis. It is an especially strange prooftext for militarized rhetoric because Isaiah is sent on a mission defined, at least from a human perspective, by rejection rather than success. The point of Isaiah 6 is not heroic conquest but prophetic witness under judgment.
In parallel with the passage’s description of those who “hear but do not understand,” Hegseth seems to read but not comprehend: he extracts words from the text and repurposes them to sanctify his own commitments without reckoning with what the passage actually means.
