14.  In the classes of prophecies that have been considered, the principle of figurative interpretation can be maintained upon solid grounds.  But it would be wrong to press it as of universal and exclusive application.  Where no reasons to the contrary exist, the literal interpretation, as the most natural and obvious, deserves the preference.  To draw the limits between the literal and the figurative in prophecy is difficult, and in some cases impossible.  In this respect it has pleased the wisdom of God that a vail should rest on some unfulfilled predictions which his own hand alone has power to remove.  There are two questions, especially, respecting which interpreters have long been divided, and will probably continue to be divided, till God himself shall decide them.  The first is that of the literal restoration of the Jews to the promised land; the second, that of our Lord’s personal reign on earth during the promised age of millennial glory.  To enter upon the full discussion of either would require a volume.  We must dismiss both with some brief hints.

15.  The original promise to Abraham included the grant of the land of Canaan to him and his seed “for an everlasting possession.”  Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 15:18; 17:8; 26:3; 28:13.  It is expressed in the plainest terms, the boundaries of the promised territory are defined, and the nations inhabiting it enumerated (Gen. 15:18-21); in a word, every thing indicates the literal as the true interpretation.  The remarkable words of the Saviour:  “And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations:  and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24), have had a literal fulfilment in the awful judgments which they foretell; and it seems reasonable to believe that the promise implied in the last clause, “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” shall have a literal fulfilment also in their repossession of Jerusalem and the Holy Land.  The wonderful preservation of the Jewish nation through so many centuries of dispersion points in the same direction.  All these things, taken in connection with the numerous and very explicit prophecies of their captivity and dispersion for their sins, and their subsequent restoration upon repentance (Lev. chap. 26; Deut. chaps, 28-30:  1 Kings 8:46-50; Isa. chaps. 6, 11, 66; Jer. chaps. 30, 31; Ezek. chaps. 36-39; Hosea 1:10, 11; Joel. chap. 3; Amos chap. 9; Micah 7:8-20; Zeph. 3:8-20), seem to warrant the expectation of a literal fulfilment hereafter of the promise made to Abraham that his seed should inherit the land of Canaan for ever.