John Lightfoot on John 12:41

[When he saw his glory.] Isaiah 6:1: "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne." Where the Targum, I saw the Lord's glory, &c. So Exodus 24:10: "They saw the God of Israel." Targum, "They saw the glory of the God of Israel." And verse 11; "And they saw God." Targum, "And they saw the glory of God." So the Targumists elsewhere very often: commended therefore by their followers for so rendering it, Because no man could see God.

It might be therefore thought that our evangelist speaks with the Targumist and the nation when he saith, that "Isaiah saw his glory"; whereas the prophet himself saith, "He saw the Lord."

But there is a deeper meaning in it: nor do I doubt but this glory of our Saviour which Isaiah saw was that kind of glory by which he is described when he was to come to avenge himself and punish the Jewish nation. As when he is said, "to come in his kingdom," and "in his glory," and "in the clouds," &c. viz. in his vindictive glory. For observe,

1. The prophet saw "the posts of the door shaken and removed," as hastening to ruin. 2. "The Temple itself filled with smoke": not with the cloud as formerly, the token of the divine presence, but with smoke, the forerunner and prognostic of that fire that should burn and consume it. 3. He saw the seraphim, angels of fire, because of the predetermined burning. 4. He heard the decree about blinding and hardening the people till the cities be wasted, and the land desolate.