2 Peter 1:20

20. Knowing this first The apostle knew well the need of this caution for all prophetic investigators.

No prophecy Not limited now, as in 2 Peter 1:19, but general.

Of any private interpretation ”The cross of interpreters,” says Wolf. Whitby, Macknight, Clarke, and others, understand private invention or suggestion, which, however, is about what is said in the next verse. Επιλυσις occurs only here, but its verb is used in Mark 4:34, of Jesus’s expounding his parables to his disciples; and its usual meaning is explanation or interpretation. The various expositions of private may be reduced to three: (1) The prophets themselves often did not know the import of their own predictions. This is true; but it is no reason for the caution; nor does the divine inspiration of the prophecies explain the inability of the prophets to understand them. (2) Some refer it to the readers; but to bid them give attention to the prophecies, and then add that they cannot understand them, would be a singular procedure. Nevertheless, as matter of fact, prophetic interpretations before fulfilment are seldom verified by events, as, for instance, in the Jewish preconceptions of the Messiah. (3) As meaning that prophecy is not self-interpreting. St. Peter uses the word ιδιος in eight other places, and in the sense of its own in every instance. This fits the caution, assuring them that the full meaning does not lie on the surface, and that they will need to search for it, as did the prophets themselves, (1 Peter 1:10;) and also intimating that the explanation must be found in the event. The Gnostics interpreted many of the prophecies after their own fancies, often violently torturing them to adapt them to their own systems. On the other hand, though the prophecies are not self-interpreting, they are true, for they proceed from the Holy Ghost.