Messianic Prophecy. By Dr. Edward Riehm, Professor of Theology, Halle.
Translated by the Rev. John Jefferson. (T. and T. Clark.)— Dr. Riebm points out, in tho introduction to this valuable treatise, that the meaning first ginp to prophecy, when considered in the light of fulfilment, and the sense in which the prophets themselves under- stood it, are perfectly distinct, and that the last only can be used for ascertaining the relation between the utterances of the prophets and their fulfilment. He protests against the hesitation with which some accept the result of an inquiry into the historical sense of a prophecy ; he finds in such hesitation contempt for the divine origin of revelation, and a censure upon the divine method of teaching. Dr. Riehm, premising that it is an undeniable fact that the prophets were possessed with the conviction that they spoke not their own thoughts, but thoughts put into their minds by God, proceeds to investigate the method of this divine communication. He allows that ecstasy was sometimes the condition of prophetic inspiration, but confines it to the lowest grade of such inspiration. The general "method of revelation with respect to God is to be described as inward speaking, and in relation to the psychological function of the prophets as an inward perception of His words." To this origin of prophecy our own religions experience affords an analogy, in our immediate intuition of many truths through the spirit, and in our convictions as to answered prayer and the decisions arising from them. Dr. Riehm affirms that the now knowledge of the prophet derived from revelation is never unconnected with that which already existed in his own mind. This knowledge, in the case of all the prophets, comprises certain fun- damental ideas of the Old Testament religion,—the idea of the Covenant, the idea of the kingdom of God, the idea of the theocracy. This last idea might seem to be weakened by the establishment of the visible monarchy, but as the writer shows, through that establishment the idea of the theocracy became a most fruitful one in the prophetic con- sciousness. In the correct interpretation of particular prophecies, it is always to be remembered that each prophet is entrusted with a divine mission to his contemporaries. We must also observe the limits placed to the vision of the prophets into the future. Each prophet saw, in- deed, the end of the purpose of God, the triumph of the kingdom, but each had his limits, his historical horizon, circumscribing his vision. Within that limit precise predictions may be and are given, but not beyond it. To each prophet the end seemed to be nearer than it really was, and "God's gracious purposes, which at some future time were to he fulfilled, always came within their consciousness clad in the veil of contemporaneous history." We have tried to indicate some of the leading principles by which this direct and truth-loving writer inter- prets prophecy, but have not space to follow him in his application of them. This little book is of a va'uo to students of the Bible quite out of proportion to its size.
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