2 Peter 1:19

We have also a more sure word of prophecy Better, And we have yet more steadfast the prophetic word. The force of the comparative must have its full significance. The "prophetic word" was for the Apostle, taught as he had been in his Master's school of prophetic interpretation, and himself possessing the prophetic gift, a witness of yet greater force than the voice from heaven and the glory of which he had been an eye-witness. He uses the term in its widest sense, embracing the written prophecies of the Old Testament and the spoken or written prophecies of the New. It is a suggestive fact that the Second Epistle ascribed (though probably wrongly) to Clement of Rome, contains what is given as a quotation from "the prophetic word" (chap. xi), and that that quotation presents a striking parallel to the language of St James on the one hand, and to that of this Epistle on the other. "If we are not servants to the Gospel of God because we believe not the promise, wretched are we. For the prophetic word saith, Wretched are the double-minded, those who doubt in their heart (James 1:8); who say, All these things we heard in the days of our fathers, but we, waiting day by day, have seen none of these things" (2 Peter 3:4). Was the Apostle referring to a "prophetic word" such as this, which was then actually extant, and was to him and others as the sheet-anchor of their faith? The words quoted by the pseudo-Clement prove the existence of such a document, as held in high authority, and, though the book itself is lost, there is nothing improbable in the thought that the Apostle should refer to it, and the continuous guidance of the Spirit of which it was the token, as confirming all his previous belief, and assuring him that he had not followed cunningly-devised fables nor been the victim of an illusion. In any case we must think of him as referring to the continuous exercise of the prophetic gift, the power to speak words which came to the souls of men as a message from God, which had been given to himself and others. We can scarcely fail to note the identity of thought with that expressed in the Apostle's speech in Acts 2:16-21.

whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place Better, as to a torch shining in a gloomy place. It may be noted (1) that the "torch shining" is precisely the term applied by our Lord ("the burning and the shining light," John 5:35) to John the Baptist as the last in the long line of the prophets of the older covenant; and (2) that the Greek word for "dark" or "gloomy" (not found elsewhere in the New Testament) is applied strictly to the squalor and gloom of a dungeon. Interpreting the word, we find in the "gloomy place" the world in which the lot of the disciples was as yet cast. For them the "prophetic word," written or spoken, was as a torch casting its beams athwart the murky air, preparing the way for a radiance yet brighter than its own.

until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts The imagery reminds us of that of Romans 13:12 ("the night is far spent, the day is at hand"), but with a very marked and manifest difference. In St Paul's thoughts the "day" is identical with the coming of the Lord, as an objective fact; the close of the world's "night" of ignorance and darkness. Here the addition of the words "and the day star arise in your hearts" fixes its meaning as, in some sense, subjective. The words point accordingly to a direct manifestation of Christ to the soul of the believer as being higher than the "prophetic word," as that, in its turn, had been higher than the attestation of the visible glory and the voice from heaven. So understood, the passage presents an interesting parallelism with the "marvellous light" of 1 Peter 2:9, as also with the "day-spring from on high" of Luke 1:78. The word for "day star," the morning star (literally, Lucifer, the light-bearer), the star that precedes and accompanies the rising of the sun, is not found elsewhere in the New Testament or in the LXX., but it is identical in meaning with the "bright and morning star" of Revelation 2:28; Revelation 22:16, and the use of the same image by the two Apostles indicates that it had come to be recognised as a symbolic name of the Lord Jesus as manifested to the souls of His people.