Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Knowing this first - Considering this as a first principle, that no prophecy of the Scripture, whether that referred to above, or any other, is of any private interpretation - proceeds from the prophet' s own knowledge or invention, or was the offspring of calculation or conjecture. The word signifies also impetus, impulse; and probably this is the best sense here; not by the mere private impulse of his own mind.
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