D. ISTERPJtETATION AXD FULFILMENT. — There are certain peculiarities in the language and thouglit of the prophets which have to be taken into account in interpreting their writings, and in considering how their predictions or constructions of the future have been or will be fulfilled. These peculiarities so struck early writers on prophecy that they devoted great attention to them, fancy- ing that the prophetic writings were constructed on a particular plan, whicli had special purposes in view. Hence they speak greatly of what they call the ' structure ' of prophecy, and lay down elaborate rules for the way in wliich prophecies relating to a distant future must have been expressed, in order tliat when fulfilled they might he recognized to have been genuine supernatural predictions.* Ths • e.y. John Davison, Discourses on Prophecy.
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language also, as well as the form, was thoufjht to differ from that of ordinary literature, sj'iiibob being greatly used instead of jilain expressions. This artificial way of regarding tlie prophecies was greatly due to the apologetic or evidential use made of them. But there is nothing in the form of the propliecies so special that it deserves the name of 'structure'; neither is symbol to any great extent employed instead of ordinary lan- guage. The prophets were practical teachers, such as we might expect men of their nation and time to be, and their i)rophetic addresses are cast in the form that would be most easily understood by their hearers. They were usually men of powerful imagination, and hence their language is poetical and to some extent figurative ; and they were men living under a particular kind of constitution or dispensation, and in certain conditions of the world, and tlieir ideas naturally are clothed in the forms suggested by their OT constitution, and those conditions of the ancient world in which they lived. This OT constitution and these conditions of the ancient world have passed away, but the religious ideas and truths expressed by the prophets still remain and live. Obviously, to interpret the j)r<)phets we must read them literally, endeavour- ing to throw ourselves back into their circum- Btances and the conditions of the world around them, and into their mind in such conditions : if we fail to do this, and fasten our attention onlj' on their ideas and truths as valid for other times than theirs, we do not interpret but only applij their prophecies. Some points bearing on fuliilment may be bricdy alluded to.
i. The prophecies are poetical. They are not poetical in so strict a sense as books like Job and the Psalms are : the parallelism is not so exact, and the lines are not so uniform in length. Many parts of the early prophets are no doubt poetical evec in form, ana some modern commentators make great ell'orts to bring the present text of the prophecies into strictly poetical measure, assuming that it had this form originally ; but their opera- tions apiiear in many ca.ses to be arbitrary. The approximation to poetical form appears less in later
irophets, though the style still remains elevated.
"hough poetical the prophecies are not allegorical. When Is 2, for example, says that tlie day of the Lord shall be on all lofty mountains, and on all cedars of Lebanon and oaks of I5ashan, these things are to be umloistdod literally, and not allegorized into things human, such as great .States, the higher r.anks of .society, or persons of eminence. Neither are the iiropliccies written in symbolical language. It has licen said, for exaiiiph;, that 'mountain' in propheiy is a sj'inliol for kingdom, and the like.* '1 lure is no evidence for this. ' Mountain ' is a ligure for any great obstacle in the way (Is 40* iV, Zoc 4') of whatever .sort it be, but is no stereotypic! symbol for kingdom. A beginning of fixed symbolism is made in Daniel, where 'horn' is a symhol for king or kingdom, and the usage is contiiiiuMl in the Apocalypse ; but in Zee 1" 'horn' is still merely a figure for any instrument of pushing and overthrow. The pro- phecies are poetical in the sense that they are imaginative and often ideal. Thus, in predicting the destruction of some great city at present full of life, the prophet will draw a picture of desola- tion with all its mournful characteristics— ' their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; wolves shall cry in their castles, and jackals in the pleasant palaces' (Is i;i-''); 'the pelican and the porcupine shall lodge in the chapiters thereof ' (Zeph '2", la 34""'). Such pa.ssages merely expre.ss the idea of complete desolation ; the details are not predictions, but part of the expression of the • Fairbaim, On rropliecy, p. 496.
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idea. Similarly, in predicting the capture of Babylon by the Medes the prophet gives an ideal picture of the sack of a city — ' their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and tlieir wives ravished' (la 13'"). We know that these things did not actually hajipen, for Cyrus entered Babylon 'in peace.' In some cases it may be dillicult to say whether a ims.sage be of this ideal kind, or be merely of the nature of a threat, e.(f. Am 7" spoken of Jeroboam, and Jer 22'^'- of Jehoiakim. A margin of un- certainty will remain in connexion with these ideal prophecies. The details given in the pro- phecy form a true and natural picture of sucli a thing as that predicted, and some of them may bo realized, and the question may be put, Are these details thus realized to be regarded as a fuliilment of the prediction, or are they merely due to the nature of the case? Under the belief that in such propliecies the details are merely an exiiressioii of the idea, and that the idea exhausts the predic- tion. Dr. Arnold propounded a theory of fuliilment ex abunJiinti. I" or example, the prophecy Zee 9''' — 'Behold, thy King conieth unto thee; lowly, and riding upon an ass,' merely' by its details expresses the idea that the Messiah will not be a man of war, but humble and a prince of peace, and would have been fullilled in Christ's mind and bearing, though none of the external details had been verified ; the fact that Christ entered Jerusalem riding on an ass was a fuliilment ex abundanti, and (iue to a special providence of God.* Of course, the special fuliilment in this case may have been intentional on tlie p.vrt of Christ. In that case we must suppose that Christ's consciousness of being the Messiiih spoken of was so powerful that it prompted Him to act in the character described. His action was merely His consciousness expressing itself by an irresistible impulse ; it was not a matter of calculation intended to impress the multitude.