For a description of what is going on in this verse, see this post.
I have noticed a theme laced throughout the Old and New Testament having to do with the importance of words and language. Obviously, this is super interesting to me.
For example, Isaiah says (speaking as Jesus Christ): "I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands" (Isaiah 49:16). This seems to be an obvious reference to Jesus Christ's crucifixion, in which nails were driven through his hands. It's as though the marks from the nails were our sins and pains written into his body.
John the Beloved (JST version) says, "In the beginning was the gospel preached through the Son. And the gospel was the word, and the word was with the Son, and the Son was with God, and the Son was of God." (JST, John 1:1) This seems to be another obvious reference to the Savior and Heavenly Father in the premortal existence as creators of the world, and somehow their power is connected with words.
I've been trying to gather a big giant pile of my words to create the "Kate Corpus." In so doing, I've made a list of all the places where I might find my typed words. There is no hope that I will be able to find everything that I have ever typed on a computer - but I definitely will be able to gather a lot of it, perhaps even most of it. Certainly most of the recent (in the past 2 years) writing.
In so doing, I've thought about how records are kept on the other side of the veil. Perfect records, without error. I wonder what that looks like. I imagine all of our thoughts and actions being recorded somewhere, somehow. I wonder if somehow, after we die, these "words" will be examined with some kind of tool that can see all the connections between all the words. Will we be judged on the frequency with which our lives were made of good?
I started to shudder a bit. There's...stuff in my life that I don't want to be visible in any kind of divine concordancer tool. I just want to erase it.
But when you put something online, you pretty much accept that you no longer have control of it. Your writing is gone forever, if you ever really own your words at all. Or your DNA, for that matter.
This caused me to think about the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 58:42: "Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more."
Basically, Jesus Christ's atonement works like an eraser - a permanent delete button - in my Kate-as-a-person Corpus.
Answer:
When Isaiah is bemoaning the fact that he has "unclean lips" it is the same worry and self-loathing that I understand. He doesn't want to be unclean before God, but his "words" (including, I think, his thoughts, his actions) were painfully obvious in their flaws.
Yes. That sounds pretty upsetting.
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