Bible Prophecies of Muhammad (Part 2 of 4): Old Testament Prophecies of Muhammad
Description:
The Biblical evidence that Muhammad is not a false prophet.
Part 2: A
discussion on the prophecy mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:18, and how Muhammad
fits this prophecy more than others.
Deuteronomy
18:18 “I (God) will raise them up a
Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee (Moses), and will put my
words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command
him.”
Many
Christians believe this prophecy foretold by Moses to be in regards to
Jesus. Indeed Jesus was foretold in
the Old Testament, but as will be clear, this prophecy does not befit him,
but rather is more deserving of Muhammad, may the blessing and mercy of God
be upon him. Moses foretold the
following:
1. The Awaited Prophet will be from the Brethren of
the Jews
The verse in
discussion is explicit in saying that the prophet will come amongst the
Brethren of the Jews. Abraham had two
sons: Ishmael and Isaac. The Jews are
the descendants of Isaac’s son, Jacob.
The Arabs are the children of Ishmael.
Thus, the Arabs are the brethren of the Jewish nation.
The Bible
affirms:
‘And he
(Ishmael) shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.’ (Genesis 16:12)
‘And he
(Ishmael) died in the presence of all his brethren.’ (Genesis 25:18)
The children
of Isaac are the brethren of the Ishmaelites. Likewise, Muhammad is from
among the brethren of the Israelites, because he was a descendant of Ishmael
the son of Abraham.
2. God Will Put His Words in the Mouth of the Awaited
Prophet
The Quran says
of Muhammad:
“Neither does
he speak out of his own desire: that [which he conveys to you] is but [a
divine] inspiration with which he is being inspired.” (Quran 53:3-4)
This is quite
similar to the verse in Geneses 18:15:
“I will raise
them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my
words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command
him” (Geneses 18:18)
The Prophet
Muhammad came with a message to the whole world, and from them, the
Jews. All, including the Jews, must
accept his prophethood, and this is supported by the following words:
“The LORD thy
God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy
brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken.” (Deuteronomy 18:15)
3. A Warning to Rejecters
The prophecy
continues:
Deuteronomy
18:19 “And it shall come to pass,
[that] whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my
name, I will require [it] of him.” (in some translations: “I will be the
Revenger”).
Interestingly,
Muslims begin every chapter of the Quran in the name of God by saying:
Bismillah
ir-Rahman ir-Raheem
“‘In the Name
of God, the Most-Merciful, the Dispenser of Grace.”
The following
is the account of some scholars who believed this prophecy to fit Muhammad.
The First
Witness
Abdul-Ahad
Dawud, the former Rev. David Benjamin
Keldani, BD, a Roman Catholic priest of the Uniate-Chaldean sect .After
accepting Islam, he wrote the book, ‘Muhammad in the Bible.’ He writes about this prophecy:
“If these
words do not apply to Muhammad, they still remain unfulfilled. Jesus himself never claimed to be the
prophet alluded to. Even his disciples
were of the same opinion: they looked to the second coming of Jesus for the
fulfillment of the prophecy (Acts 3: 17-24).
So far it is undisputed that the first coming of Jesus was not the
advent of the Prophet like unto thee and his second advent can hardly fulfill
the words. Jesus, as is believed by
his Church, will appear as a Judge and not as a law-giver; but the promised
one has to come with a “fiery law” in his right hand.”
The Second
Witness
Muhammad Asad
was born Leopold Weiss in July 1900 in the city of Lvov (German Lemberg), now
in Poland, then part of the Austrian Empire.
He was the descendant of a long line of rabbis, a line broken by his
father, who became a barrister. Asad
himself received a thorough religious education that would qualify him to
keep alive the family’s rabbinical tradition.
He had become proficient in Hebrew at an early age and was also
familiar with Aramaic. He had studied
the Old Testament in the original as well as the text and commentaries of the
Talmud, the Mishna and Gemara, and he had delved into the intricacies of Biblical
exegesis, the Targum.
Commenting on
the verse of the Quran:
“and do not
overlay the truth with falsehood, and do not knowingly suppress the truth”
(Quran 2:42)
Muhammad Asad
writes:
“By
‘overlaying the truth with falsehood’ is meant the corrupting of the biblical
text, of which the Quran frequently accuses the Jews (and which has since
been established by objective textual criticism), while the ‘suppression of
the truth’ refers to their disregard or deliberately false interpretation of
the words of Moses in the biblical passage, ‘The Lord thy God will raise up
unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto
him ye shall hearken’ (Deuteronomy 18:15), and the words attributed to God
himself, ‘I will raise them up a prophet from among thy brethren, like unto
thee, and will put my words in his mouth’ (Deuteronomy 18:18). The ‘brethren’ of the children of Israel
are obviously the Arabs, and particularly the musta’ribah (‘Arabianized’)
group among them, which traces its descent to Ishmael and Abraham: and since
it is this group that the Arabian Prophet’s own tribe, the Quraish, belonged,
the above biblical passages must be taken as referring to his advent.”
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