Gregory Beale on The language of prophecy

Prophecy portrays the future with language that is understandable to the prophet’s contemporary readership; the prophetic language of Isaiah employs imagery corresponding to the earthly social and cultural realities of his own day, which he could understand to describe realities of the new creation that were to be fulfilled in way he probably could not have imagined.
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Beale, G. K. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.). Grand Rapids, Mich., Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans, Paternoster Press, 1999.