2 Samuel 7:17

Vision . This word does not imply that Nathan saw anything with the natural eye, but signifies that sort of prophecy which was vouchsafed to a "seer." Thus the prophecies of Isaiah, of Nahum, and of Obadiah are called "visions." Probably the word is taken from the fixed gaze, with which the seer looked into the far off world with unmoved eyes, yet seeing not with them, but with the spiritual sight within. It would thus be an intellectual process accompanied by a rigidity of the natural organs, caused partly by intensity of feeling, but chiefly by mental preoccupation, which left no faculty at liberty to discharge its ordinary function.