Part 2

Predictions of mere national prosperity, or adversity, are usually conditional. When the condition is not expressed, it is implied. Example.—The Lord said unto Jonah, “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.... And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.... And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them: and he did it not.”

For all cases of this kind, the Lord has given the following general RULE: “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it: if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them.” Jer. 18:7-10.

9. UNCONDITIONAL Prophecy includes all predictions which are absolute in their nature. Examples.—“But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.” Num. 14:21.

“For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.... For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.... Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.” Isa. 60:2, 3, 12, 21.

“But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.” Micah 4:1.

10. A VISION is a revelation from GOD, supernaturally presented. Future events are made to pass before the mind of the seer, as if actually transpiring. Examples.—See the prophecies of ISAIAH, AMOS, OBADIAH, &c.

11. A SYMBOLIC VISION is where the future events, instead of being presented to the mind of the prophet, are represented by analogous objects. Examples.—The prophecies of EZEKIEL, DANIEL, ZECHARIAH, and JOHN, are of this kind.

12. A LITERAL Prophecy is where the prediction is given in words used according to their primary and natural import. Examples.—Num. 14:21-35; Jer. 25:1-33.

13. Prophecy is figurative when it abounds in tropes, as in much of ISAIAH and the minor prophets; and it is symbolic, when symbols instead of the objects themselves are presented—as in DANIEL and JOHN.

14. POETRY is writing thus constituted by the metrical or rhythmical structure of its sentences; and is not necessarily any more figurative or obscure than prose writing. It is, also, a term sometimes applied to the language of excited imagination and feeling.

The Poetry of the Bible consists in Hebrew parallelisms, where the idea of the preceding line is repeated, or contrasted, in the succeeding one. Examples.—The Psalms, ISAIAH, and other prophets.

15. HIGHLY FIGURATIVE, or SYMBOLIC Prophecies—the laws and use of Tropes and Symbols being understood are not necessarily more equivocal, enigmatical or obscure, than those which are literal.

16. LITERAL FULFILMENT of prophecy is prophecy fulfilled in accordance with the grammatical interpretation of its language.

17. LITERAL INTERPRETATION, when technically applied to the interpretation of prophecy, is not opposed to tropes or figures of speech, but to spiritual interpretation. It interprets the language of the Scriptures, as similar language would be interpreted in all other writings.

18. SPIRITUAL INTERPRETATION (mystical) seeks, in the language of Scripture, a meaning that is not expressed by any of the ordinary rules of language. It sets at defiance all the laws of language, and makes fancy the interpreter of prophecy. “It subjects clear predictions to an exegetical alembic that effectually subtilizes and evaporates their meaning.”—Bush.

19. ULTRA LITERAL INTERPRETATION is a disregard of the peculiarities of symbols and of the several kinds of tropes—understanding them as if they were literally expressed.

20. SYMBOLS and TROPES are literally explained, when interpreted in accordance with the grammatical laws which respectively govern their use.

21. PROPHETIC SYMBOLS are objects, real or imaginary, representative of agents or objects possessing analogous characteristics. All agents or objects seen in symbolic visions are symbols. The inspired explanations of symbols are always literal, except when they are affirmed to be the same as some other symbol which represents the same object, as in Rev. 17:9.

22. LAWS OF SYMBOLS.

I. “The Symbol and that which it represents resemble each other in the station they fill, the relation they sustain, and the agencies they exert in their respective spheres.”—Lord.

II. The Symbol and that which it represents are of the same, or they are of different species, kinds, or rank, according to the nature and use of the symbol.

III. “When the Symbol is of such nature, or is used in such a relation that it can properly symbolise something different from itself, the representative and that which it represents, while the counterpart of each other, are of different species, kinds, or rank.”—Lord.

Example.—Dan. 7:3, beasts; v. 17, governments.

IV. “Symbols that are of such a nature, station or relation, that there is nothing of an analogous kind that they can represent, symbolize agents, objects, acts, or events of their own kind.”—Ib. Example.—Dan. 7:9.

V. “When the Symbol and that which it symbolizes differ from each other, the correspondence between the representative and that which it represents, still extends to their chief parts; and the elements or parts of the symbols denote corresponding parts in that which is symbolized.”—Ib.

VI. “The Names of Symbols are their literal and proper names, not metaphorical titles.”—Ib.

VII. “A single agent, in many instances, symbolizes a body and succession of agents.”—Ib.

VIII. Symbols of the same kind, and used in the same relations, always represent one class of objects; and when the office of a symbol has been once shown, the same symbol, similarly used, always fills a like office. They are never used arbitrarily.