Evidences of Inspiration.
[Joseph Addison Alexander, in “Isaiah Translated and Explained.”] THE gift of prophecy included that of foresight and prediction, but it included more. The prophet was inspired to reveal the will of God, to act as an organ of communication between God and man. . . . The restriction of these terms in modern parlance to the prediction of events still future has arisen from the fact that a large proportion of the revelations made in Scripture, and precisely those which are the most surprising and impressive, are of this description. The frequency of such revelations, and the prominence given to them, not in this modern usage merely, but in the word of God itself, admit of easy explanation. It is partly owing to the fact that revelations of the future would be naturally sought with more avidity, and treated with more deference, than any other by mankind in general. It is further owing to the fact that of all the kinds of revelation, this is the one which affords the most direct and convincing proof of the prophet's inspiration. The knowledge of the present or the past, or of general truths, might be imparted by special inspiration, but it might also be acquired in other ways; and this possibility of course makes the evidence of inspiration thus afforded more complete and irresistible than any other. Hence the function of foretelling what was future, altho but a part of the prophetic office, was peculiarly conspicuous and prominent in public view, and apt to be more intimately associated with the office itself in the memory of man.