For our purposes we will speak of three types of word revelation — first, prospective word revelation. Often, we speak of this kind of word revelation as prediction. At times, God’s prospective word revelation spoke of proximate events and often to people who would directly or indirectly witness an event. For example, in Exodus 3:7-8, before Moses went to Egypt to deliver the people of Israel, God told him what was going to happen.

The Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

God’s words to Moses were prospective, predicting the significance of a future act of God.

At other times, God’s prospective word revelation spoke of events in the distant future, so distant that those who first heard his word would not experience the event. For example, the prophet Isaiah spoke of the coming of the great Messiah in this way in Isaiah 9:6-7:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.

Here Isaiah spoke of Jesus. But these words were spoken at least seven hundred years before Christ. The people who first heard this word revelation never even saw the divine action to which it referred.

In the second place, sometimes in Scripture, God speaks simultaneously with an event. Now of course, God’s words and actions in Scripture seldom occur precisely at the same moment. But God does often speak in close enough proximity to an event to treat it as simultaneous. For example, listen to God’s actions and words in Exodus 19:18-21:

Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him… The Lord said to him, "Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the Lord and many of them perish.”

The mighty act of God in this passage is God’s display of power. As God was performing this great act, he proclaimed word revelation that explained the significance of what he was doing by warning the people not to approach the Mount.

In the third place, God’s word revelation is often retrospective, explaining the significance of events after they have taken place. On the whole, this is the most frequent way divine word revelation comes to us in Scripture. Sometimes, God spoke proximately, just after an event had occurred. Still, at other times, distant retrospective word revelation came long after an act revelation had occurred. For example, in Genesis 1:27, we read this description of the creation of humanity:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

The original recipients of this retrospective word were the Israelites who followed Moses after the Exodus. And they lived thousands of years after Adam and Eve had been created. Nevertheless, God provided this word revelation to inform them about humanity’s original role in creation.

So we see that in a variety of ways, God’s verbal revelation explained events to clarify their true significance.