Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary 2 Peter 1:21

"For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit." — 2 Peter 1:21 (ASV)

Each prophecy originated in God, not in the will of a human being. No prophet wrote his own private ideas. This verse is notable for the light it sheds on how Scripture was produced. Peter’s statement “men spoke from God” implies the dual authorship of Scripture—a teaching also implied in the OT (see 2 Samuel 23:2; Jeremiah 1:7, 9). The human prophets spoke, but God so worked in them that what they said was his word. It was not through a process of dictation or through a state of ecstasy that the writers of Scripture spoke but through the control of the Spirit of God—“as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”