Three Elements in Prophecy
C. A. Dickinson. Isaiah 26:1-10 In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. All true prophecy, seems to have in it three elements: conviction, imagination, inspiration. The seer speaks first of all from his knowledge of, and experience with, the inherent vitality of right and righteousness. He is sure that the good in the world is destined to conquer the evil. Then when he attempts to tell how this victory is to be brought about he uses his imagination. He employs metaphors and figures which from the necessities of the case may not be literally fulfilled. And then, in addition to this, his prophecies have in them a certain comprehensiveness of plan and structure, and a certain organic relation to history, such as can be revealed only by the Divine Maker of history Himself. It took a man of large parts to see above the wreck and ruin, and through the darkness of his age, such visions of hope and promise as Isaiah saw. Everywhere around him were sensuality and oppression. The Church of the true God had been almost swallowed up by the foul dragon of paganism. And yet the prophet, with his eye upon the future, beheld a day when this song was to be sung in the land of Judah: the song of salvation. Sure he was that God must triumph, and with the poet's instinct he clothed his assurance in the language of metaphor, and set it to the rhythm of song. (C. A. Dickinson.) Parallel Verses KJV: In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. WEB: In that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah: "We have a strong city. God appoints salvation for walls and bulwarks.