Companion to the Bible

by E. P. Barrows

(3.) There remains a third, and perhaps preferable view, which may be called the typical view, maintained, as is well known, by Melanchthon, Calvin, and many later expositors. This begins with the well-established principle that David (in a less eminent degree his successors also on the throne, so far as they were true to their office) was a divinely-constituted type of the Messiah, not only in his office as the earthly head of God's kingdom, but in the events of his history also; that the psalms in question, whether they describe his victorious might or his deep suffering at the hand of his enemies, had a true historic origin; that their first and immediate reference was to the writer's own situation and the events which befell him; but that, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he was carried beyond himself to describe the office and history of the Messiah; that consequently these psalms have a lower fulfilment in David the type (the seventy-second in Solomon), and a higher in Christ the Antitype.

The second psalm, for example, which describes the vain conspiracy of the heathen rulers against the Lord's anointed king, and God's purpose to give him the uttermost ends of the earth for his possession, may have had its occasion in the combination of the surrounding heathen nations against David. In the victorious might with which God endowed him, it had a lower fulfilment; and this was, so to speak, the first sheaf of the harvest of victories that was to follow. It was an earnest and pledge of the complete fulfilment of the psalm in Christ, in whom alone the promise made to David: "Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever" (2 Sam. 7:16), could have its real accomplishment. Luke 1: 32, 33.

The second class of psalms, of which the twenty-second is a well-known example, may have had, in like manner, a true historic origin. When the psalmist began with the exclamation: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" he may have had immediate reference to his own distressed condition. But since he was the divinely appointed head of the line of kings which should end in Christ, and was thus in his office a type of Christ, God had so ordered the circumstances of his history as to shadow forth in them the sufferings and final triumph of the Messiah. Writing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he was led, through these circumstances, to say many things which applied to himself only in a lower and often figurative sense, but which were appointed to have a complete fulfilment in Christ his Antitype (Psa. 22:1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 16, 18; 40:6-10; 69:4, 7-9, 21; 109:1-20), and which point to Christ as the chief subject of the prophecies.

How far the psalmist understood this higher reference of his words is a question difficult to be determined. With regard to the sixteenth psalm, the apostle Peter tells us that David, "being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption" (Acts 2:30, 31); whence we infer that in penning this psalm David was conscious of its higher application to Christ. The spirit of the New Testament quotations from the psalms indicates that he had a deeper insight into the prophetic meaning of his words than many modern expositors are willing to admit. But however this may be, the Spirit of inspiration had in view the fulfilment of these psalms in Christ; and his intention, clearly revealed to us in the New Testament, is our rule of interpretation.

10. Different from the above literal and typical sense, yet closely related to it in principle, is that of the progressive fulfilment of prophecy, which has a wide application in the interpretation of those prophecies which relate to the last days. By the progressive fulfilment of prophecy is meant, a fulfilment not exhaustively accomplished at one particular era or crisis in the church's history, but successively from age to age; a fulfilment repeated, it may be, many times, and ending only with the final consummation of the Messiah's kingdom. An undeniable example of such a prophecy is God's message by Isaiah to the covenant people: "Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not," etc, with the threatened desolation that should follow (chap. 6:9-13). This prophecy had a true fulfilment in the ancient Jewish people before the Babylonish captivity. For their blindness of mind and hardness of heart, they were given over to the power of Nebuchadnezzar, who wasted their land, destroyed their city and temple, and carried the remnant of the people into captivity. But the same prophecy had, in both its parts, a more awful fulfilment in the generation of Jews who rejected and crucified our Lord, and were destroyed with their city and temple by the armies of Rome (Matt. 13:14, 15; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; John 12:39-41; Acts 28:25-27; Rom. 11:8); and its fulfilment is yet in progress. Joel's prophecy of the outpouring of the Spirit in the last days upon all flesh, with the mighty accompanying judgments (chap. 2: 28-32), and Amos' prediction of the raising up of David's fallen tabernacle (chap. 9:11, 12), had both their initial fulfilment in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and the triumphs of the gospel that followed. Acts 2:16-21; 15:16, 17. But the blessings which they promised were not exhausted in the apostolic age. The church has had rich instalments of them, but richer still are reserved for the future of millennial glory. A large part of the prophecies of the Old Testament indicate in their very structure that they are not to be understood of particular events, but of the development of God's kingdom from age to age. The reader may take, as a single example among many others, the prediction of Isaiah and Micah concerning the establishment of the Lord's house in the last days in the top of the mountains, the resort of all nations to it, and the universal peace that shall follow. Isa. 2:2-4; Micah 4:1-4. That particularism which seeks for the fulfilment of every prophecy in some one specific event of history must go widely astray in its interpretation of Scripture.

IV. THE QUESTION OF LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE MEANING.

11. On this question expositors are, as is well known, much divided; one class adopting, as far as possible, the literal meaning of the prophetic announcements, the other freely employing the principle of figurative interpretation. A full discussion of the claims of these two methods of interpretation, on which so many volumes have been written, would far exceed the limits of the present work. All that can be done is, to indicate some well-established principles which may help to guide the biblical student in the study of prophecy.

12. We begin by calling attention to the representative use which the Old Testament prophets make of the events of the past history of Israel; that is, to their habit of representing the future under the imagery of this history. When Israel journeyed from Egypt to Palestine through the wilderness of Arabia, God dried up the tongue of the Egyptian sea before the people, guided them miraculously by the cloudy pillar, fed them with manna, made streams of water to burst forth from the rock for their refreshment, and finally divided the waters of the Jordan to give them a passage into the promised land. This primitive history of Israel furnishes for the prophets who lived in later ages a rich treasury of images which it would be absurd to interpret in a literal way.

Thus Isaiah, speaking of the future gathering together of the outcasts of Israel and the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth (chap. 11:11, 12), says: "And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea, and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river [the Euphrates], and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dry shod" (ver. 15). To suppose that the prophet foretells a literal repetition of the miracles wrought upon the Red sea and the Jordan is unnecessary and most improbable. The meaning is, that God shall remove all obstacles which hinder the return of his people to their own land, as he originally removed all obstacles which opposed their entrance into it. This is, indeed, the very idea of the following verse: "And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt."

Again, the prophet foretells that in the latter day glory "the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence." Isa. 4:5. Here "the figurative reference is to the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire in which the Lord went before the Israelites in the wilderness, and to the glory which rested upon the tabernacle." Henderson. God will give to his church in the latter day that which the pillar of cloud and of fire signified, his glorious presence and protection. A literal repetition of the miracle is not to be thought of.

Once more, God promises to his weary people, on their pilgrimage to Zion, that "in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert" (Isa. 35:6, and often elsewhere), with obvious allusion to the miraculous supplies of water furnished to the Israelites in their journey through the Arabian desert to the land of Canaan. The water here promised is the water of life, and not literal fountains in the desert. Upon the same principle are we to interpret the river that flows out from under the threshold of the temple, and flows down eastward to the Dead sea, growing broader and deeper in its course, and imparting life to everything which comes within its influence. Ezek. 47:1-12, and compare Psa. 46:4; Joel 3:18; Zech. 14:8.

13. The same representative use is made by the prophets of the institutions of the Mosaic economy. One of their offices was, to foretell the extension of the true religion over all the earth; the conversion of all nations to the faith of the covenant people, and their peaceful subjection to Jehovah who reigned in Zion. In what form should this be done while the theocracy was yet in full force? The disclosure of God's purpose to abolish this theocracy in the interest of a simpler and more spiritual dispensation, which should know no distinction between Jews and Gentiles, would have been a premature act. It would, so far as we can judge, have led to much error and misapprehension; and it must have had the effect of disparaging the existing economy before the world was prepared to receive any thing better in its place. God, therefore, allowed his prophets to portray the glories of the latter day, when all nations should come to the knowledge and obedience of the truth, under the forms of the Jewish dispensation, with its temple, sacrifices, and solemn festivals.

A striking example is the bright portraiture of two contemporary prophets: "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 [Hebrew peoples, that is, as Isaiah, all the nations] shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it." Micah 4:1-4, compared with Isa. 2:2-4. The temple at Jerusalem, with its altar and priesthood, was the central point of the old theocracy. There all the sacrifices were to be offered, there was the seat of royal authority, and consequently of public justice, and thither all the males among the people were required to repair three times a year at the great national festivals. Deut. 16:16. A Jew could conceive of the conversion of all nations only in the form of their subjecting themselves to the theocracy, and coming up to Jerusalem for worship and the administration of justice. Accordingly the Spirit of prophecy here represents the mountain of the Lord's house as "established in the top of the mountains," a conspicuous object to all nations, who resort thither for worship, submit themselves to the authority of the great king who reigns there, and thus have universal peace and happiness. To insist on the literal interpretation of these words is contrary to the general analogy of prophecy. It is an attempt to bring back the outward sensuous form of the kingdom of heaven which the gospel dispensation has abolished.