It is important to understand a key concept of Old Testament prophecy, namely, prophetic perspective. Old Testament prophecies often pointed to multiple events. They were often not time-specific, neatly packaged prophecies. To be sure, what a prophet foretold sounded like a single future event. But as history unfolded, it became evident that the original prophecy actually referred to multiple events.

By way of illustration, when you stand in front of a distant mountain range, you may see what looks to be a single mountainous ridge. But if you come closer, or if you were to look at it from the side, you will see that what seemed to be a single ridge was actually a series of hills, valleys, and mountains, with distances of possibly many miles between them.

As Louis Berkhof explains,

The element of time is a rather negligible character in the prophets. While designations of time are not wanting altogether, their number is exceptionally small. The prophets compressed great events into a brief space of time, brought momentous movements close together in a temporal sense, and took them in at a single glance. This is called the prophetic perspective, or as Delitzsch calls it the foreshortening of the prophet's horizon. They looked upon the future as the traveller does upon a mountain range in the distance. He fancies that one mountain-top rises up right behind the other, when in reality they are miles apart. Cf. the prophets respecting the Day of the Lord and the two-fold coming of Christ.¹

This is how it is with some Old Testament prophecies. God frequently did not provide his prophets with specific details about when their prophecies would come true, which the apostle Peter later says is what left the prophets inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories (). The prophets, therefore, see as coming together in a single vision events that are actually set apart by thousands of years.

Three illustrations:

1. Joel’s prediction of the future outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh. The prophet declared, And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit (Joel 2:28–29). Peter said that this prophecy was fulfilled at Pentecost (Acts 2:16, Acts 2:29–33). Yet the very next verses of Joel’s prophecy mention cosmic elements: And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes (Joel 2:30–31). The Lord Jesus spoke of similar cosmic signs in reference to his second coming (Luke 21:25; Matthew 24:29–31). So was Joel’s prophecy fulfilled at Pentecost? Or when Jesus died and the sun became dark? Or will it be fulfilled at Christ’s second coming? Hoekema explains: Unless one interprets these signs in a nonliteral way (in which case the turning of the sun to darkness could be understood as fulfilled in the three hours of darkness while Jesus was on the cross), it would appear that Joel in his prophecy sees as coming together in a single vision what was separated by thousands of years. This phenomenon, which we may call prophetic perspective, occurs quite frequently in the Old Testament prophets.²

2. Regarding the day of the Lord, sometimes a near and far day of the Lord are seen together, in the very same vision. Isaiah 13:1–22...speaks of a day of the Lord on the not-too-distant horizon when Babylon will be destroyed (vv. 6–8, 17–22). In the same chapter, however, interspersed between descriptions of Babylon, are references to the eschatological day of the Lord in the far distant future.³ This is found in Isaiah 13:9–11, Isaiah 13:13, where the text makes a prediction of judgment that would be in the distant future. So Isaiah sees the destruction of Babylon and the final day of the Lord as if they were one day.

3. John the Baptist struggled to grasp the mountain-tops concept of prophecy. While in prison, John sent messengers to Jesus to ask him, Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another? (Matthew 11:3). Why did John stumble in doubt? It was because John was very aware of what the Old Testament said about the Messiah coming to judge. As such, John had earlier proclaimed that Jesus’ winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire (Luke 3:17). John expected judgment, and not simply salvation, from the Messiah at his coming. As it were, John was viewing Old Testament prophecy about Christ in terms of a mountain range. The Lord Jesus, the Chief Prophet and Teacher, responded to John’s query by pointing him to a prophecy in Isaiah: Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. Jesus was pointing to Isaiah 35:5–6, to help John see that Jesus was indeed fulfilling prophecies about the Messiah; his gracious healings and preaching of the gospel bore witness to the character of his ministry. Jesus’ appeal to Isaiah was not to ignore the other mountain tops of prophecy about his work of judgment; instead, it was Jesus’ intention to point out to John the first set of mountain tops in the mountain range of prophecy about him.⁴

Prophecies are something different than a diary of future events…. The function of prophecy is consequently not that of a detailed projection of the future, but is the urgent insistence on the certainty of the things to come. This explains why, at the end of the vista, the perspective is lacking. The prophet sees all kinds of events that will come, and he sees in all of them the coming of God. But he cannot fix a date for the events, he cannot distinguish all phases in God’s coming. To him it is one great reality.⁵ This effectively makes the interpretation of prophecy difficult.