But both these interpretations are distinctly arbitrary, incapable of holding good, and also entirely ignore the conditions of a Revelation.

The narrative is not discussed or defended as an ordinary secular narrative, which is true according to the writer’s uninspired intention or the state of his personal knowledge.  It is defended as a Revelation.  The distinction is as obvious as it is important, directly a moment’s consideration is accorded.

If we assume, for a moment, that God did (on any theory whatever of Inspiration) instruct, direct, or enable the writer in making the record, then it is obvious that the writer either put down what he saw in a vision, or what was in some other manner borne on his mind.  In any case, he could have had no critical knowledge, and no historical knowledge as an eye-witness, of the actual facts; and he may very well therefore have used language the full meaning of which he did not apprehend.[1] What alone is essential is, that the narrative as it stands, on an ordinary critical, linguistic, and grammatical interpretation, should not contain anything which is untrue.  Suppose, for example, the word “tanninim” to be incapable of bearing any other meaning linguistically than “cetacean,” then the narrative might be objected to; but if it will bear a meaning which is consistent with fact, then it is no matter that the writer at the time had an erroneous, or (what is more likely) no defined, idea in his own mind of the meaning.  And so with “winged fowl”—­the objection fails entirely, unless it can be shown, not only that the writer might have thought “bats” to be included, but that linguistically the word cannot have any other meaning than one which would include bats.[2]

[Footnote 1:  As is constantly the case in prophetic writings.  Revelation tells of the remote past sometimes as well as the future, and in neither case could the inspired writer fully understand the meaning that was wrapped up in his sentences.]

[Footnote 2:  As a matter of fact, in the one case, if the writer’s knowledge were of any importance, it is almost certain that he did not mean cetacean or sirenian.  In the other case it is impossible to say whether he thought “bats” were included or not.  It is not in the nature of things that the writer could ever have seen or even heard of a manatee or a dugong; nor is it likely that he had been a sea-farer, or could have seen any Mediterranean cetacean.  As far as his own knowledge went, he probably had but a very confused idea.  And if we refer to the poetic description in Psalm civ. 25, 26, we find “leviathan,” though distinctly a sea creature, still one of which the writer had only a vague traditional idea, certainly not a known Mediterranean dolphin, for in Job xli. the same term is applied to the crocodile.]