According to David Bokovoy, in the process of cleansing Isaiah so that he could leave behind the impurities of his people and receive introduction into the assembly, one of the seraphim purified Isaiah's mouth with a live coal taken directly from the celestial altar (Isaiah 6:6-7). Isaiah could now fully participate with the heavenly host in offering praises to the Lord. He had become a member of the heavenly court. In the ancient Near East, mouth cleansing rituals held considerable significance. In Mesopotamian ritual prayers, for example, mouth purification symbolized total and complete purity. A biblical scholar Victor Horowitz has noted, "A large portion of the [Mesopotamian] sources . . . raise the possibility that the washing of the mouth or the purity of the mouth has independent significance as a characteristic granting or symbolizing special divine or quasi-divine status to the person or object so designated. The pure mouth enables the person or object to stand before the gods or to enter the divine realm, or symbolizes a divine status." [David E. Bokovoy, "The Calling of Isaiah," in Covenants Prophecies and Hymns of the Old Testament, pp. 136-137]