The prophets searched their own writing

Peter says something about the Old Testament prophets that no other passage says, and it changes how a reader pictures them at work.

They searched and investigated carefully. The two verbs are strong — the second is the one behind examining evidence.

They were searching their own material. Trying to work out the time and circumstances the Spirit in them was pointing to when He predicted the sufferings and the glories that would follow.

That is a description of men who wrote more than they understood.

And the next verse says the answer they were given, which is not the one anybody would want.

It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you.

Not your own generation. Not even your own understanding. Somebody later.

Sixteen weeks of writers have told us what they thought they were doing. Moses wrote and deposited it against a drift he would not live to see. Isaiah was told to inscribe it for a latter day. Habakkuk was told to write it plain because the vision would wait. Daniel was told to shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end — and asked what it meant, and was told to go his way, because the words were sealed.

Peter puts it plainly: they were serving readers who did not exist yet.

And there is a detail at the end of the verse that ought to stop a reader who has come this far. The things now announced by those who preached the gospel — even angels long to look into these things.

The verb is the stooping-to-look word from Week Seven’s mirror, and from the disciples bending into the empty tomb. Angels are described as leaning in.

So the men who wrote it did not fully understand it. The angels want to see it. And an ordinary reader with a Bible open on a kitchen table has it laid out in front of him, in his own language, with the answer supplied.

It is worth being careful about what this does and does not say. It does not make the prophets unwitting or their words accidental — they searched precisely because they knew they were carrying something. It says they carried more than they could unpack, and were told so, and kept writing anyway.

That is what the prophets were searching for, and it is the thing this whole volume has been about.

The two verbs in verse 10 are ekzeteo and exeraunao — to seek out and to search out thoroughly. The second is an intensified form of the verb Jesus uses in John 5:39, studied last week. Peter applies to the prophets the same activity Jesus described in His opponents, with the opposite result.

Daniel 12:8–9 is the clearest Old Testament case: I heard, but I did not understand. So I asked, My lord, what will be the outcome of these things? And he replied, Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end.

The phrase the Spirit of Christ in them in verse 11 is a strong statement about the source of Old Testament prophecy and is read alongside 2 Peter 1:21 from Week Two. Both attribute the prophets’ speech to the Spirit rather than to their own interpretation.

The verb for the angels’ longing to look is parakupto, to stoop and peer in — used of Peter and John at the tomb and of James’ man at the mirror. It implies effort and a lowering of the head; Peter uses it of angels.

Ephesians 3:10 makes a comparable claim about the audience: God’s intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. Twice in the New Testament, unseen observers are described as watching what happens to this message among ordinary people.

Look it upG1567 ἐκζητέω ekzeteo, to seek out · G1830 ἐξεραυνάω exeraunao, to search out diligently · G1213 δηλόω deloo, to make clear, indicate · G3872 παρακύπτω parakupto, to stoop and look into

Where this touches1 Peter 1:10–12 · Daniel 12:8–9 · Habakkuk 2:2–3 (Week Eight, Day Four) · Isaiah 30:8 · 2 Peter 1:21 (Week Two, Day Three) · Ephesians 3:8–10. Jeremiah, Luke, John, Revelation, Peter, Moses, Paul, the prophets, the Proverbs collectors, Peter on Paul, the chronicler, the Song of Moses, the Jerusalem council, the psalm headings, Luke's second preface, Peter and Jude, and the writers who left in their failures gave the earlier accounts.