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King
David Calls Him: "My Lord"
The history of David, his exploits and
prophetical writings, are found in two books of the Old
Testa- ment, Samuel and the Psalms. He was the youngest
son of Yishai (Jessie) from the tribe of Judah. While
still a young shepherd, he had killed a bear and torn into
halves a lion. The valiant young man swung a small stone
right through the forehead of Goliath, an armed Philistine
champion and saved the army of Israel. The highest reward
for a successful feat displaying valor was the hand of
Michal, a daughter of King Saul. David played on a harp
and flute, and was a good singer. His flight from his
jealous father-in-law, his adventures and attributed
exploits as a bandit, are well known in the Bible. On the
death of Saul, David was invited by the people to assume
the reins of the kingdom, for which he had long before
been anointed by the Prophet Samuel. He reigned for some
seven years at Hebron. He took Jerusalem from the
Jebusites and made it the capital of his kingdom. Its two
hills, or mounts, were named "Moriah" and
"Sion." Both these words have the same signi-
fication and import as the famous mounts of
"Marwa" and "Sapha" in Mecca, which
words respectively mean "the place of the vision of
the Lord," and "the rock" or
"stone." David's wars, his very grave family
troubles, his sin against the faith- ful soldier, Uriah,
and his wife, Bathsheba, was not left with impunity. He
reigned forty years; his life was marked with wars and
family griefs. In the Bible there are some contradictory
accounts about him which are evidently to be ascribed to
the two opposite sources.
The alleged crime of David claimed in
the Bible in connection with Uriah and his wife (2 Sam.
xi.) is not even alluded to in the Qur'an, rather the
Qur'an refers to his excellent pious character and that he
was one of the top ranking Messengers. It is one of the
superiorities of the Holy Qur'an that it teaches us that
all prophets are born sinless and die sinless. It does
not, like the Bible, impute to them crimes and sins - e.g.
the double crime of David, mentioned in the Bible, which,
according to the Law of Moses, is punishable by death -
which, let alone a prophet who is a chosen worshiper of
God the Almighty, we would not even think of attaching to
the name of an ordinary human being.
The story of David committing adultery
and two angels having come to him thus to remind him of
the sin is a puerile falsehood - wherever it may be found.
It has been repudiat- ed by the best Muslim opinion. Razl
says: "Most of the learned, and those who have
searched for the truth among them, declare this charge
false and condemn it as a lie and a mischievous story. The
words istaghfora and ghafarna occurring in the text of
verse 24, chap. 38 of the Holy Qur'an by no means indicate
that David had committed a sin, for istighfar really
signifies the seeking of protection; and David sought
Divine protection when he saw that his enemies had grown
so bold against him; and by ghafarana is meant the
rectification of his affairs; for David, who was a great
ruler, could not succeed in keeping his enemies under com-
plete control.
The Old Testament does not mention the
time when the gift of prophecy was granted to David. We
read there that after David had committed the two sins it
was Nathan the Prophet who was sent by God to chastise
David. Indeed, until late in his life we find him always
having recourse to other prophets. According to the
Biblical accounts, there- fore, it would seem that the
gift of prophecy came to him after he had thoroughly
repented of his sin.
In one of the previous articles I
remarked that after the split of the Kingdom into two
independent States which were often at war with each
other, the ten tribes which formed the Kingdom of Israel
were always hostile to the dynasty of David and never
accepted any other portion of the Old Testament except the
Torah - or the Law of Moses as contained in the
Pentateuch. This is evident from the Samaritan version of
the first five books of the Old Testament. We do not meet
with a single word or prophecy about David's posterity in
the discourses of the great prophets, like Elijah, Elisha,
and others, who flourished in Samariah during the reigns
of the wicked kings of Israel. It is only after the fall
of the King- dom of Israel and the transportation of the
ten tribes into Assyria that the Prophets of Judeah began
to predict the ad- vent of some Prince from the House of
David who was soon to restore the whole nation and subdue
its enemies. There are several of these obscure and
ambiguous sayings in the writings or discourses of these
later prophets which have given a rapturous and exotic
exultation to the Fathers of the Church; but in reality
they have nothing to do with Jesus Christ. I shall briefly
quote two of these prophecies. The first is in Isaiah
(Chap. vii., verse 14), where that Prophet predicts that
"a damsel already pregnant with child shall bear
forth a son, and thou shalt name him Emmanuel." The
Hebrew word a'lmah does not mean "virgin," as
generally interpreted by the Christian theologians and
therefore applied to the Virgin Mary, but it signifies
"a marriageable woman, maiden, damsel." The
Hebrew word for "virgin" is bthulah. Then the
child's name is to be Emmanuel, which means "God-
is-with-us." There are hundreds of Hebrew names which
are composed of "el" and another noun, which
forms either the first or the last syllable of such
compound nouns. Neither Isaiah, nor King Ahaz, nor any
Jew, ever thought that the newly born infant would be
himself "God-with-us." They never thought
anything else but that his name only would be as such. But
the text expressly says that it was Ahaz (who seems to
have known the maiden with child), that would give the boy
that name. Ahaz was in danger, his enemies were pressing
hard against Jerusalem, and this pro- mise was made to him
by showing him a sign, namely, a pregnant maiden, and not
a Virgin Mary, that would come into the world more than
seven hundred years later! This simple prediction of a
child that would be born during the reign of Ahaz was
equally misunderstood by the writer of the Gospel of
Matthew (Matt. i. 23). The name "Jesus" was
given by the Angel Gabriel (Matt. i. 21), and he was never
called "Emmanuel." Is it not scandalous to take
this name as an argument and proof of the Christian
doctrine of the "Incarnation"?
The other strange interpretation of a
prophetic predic- tion is from Zachariah (ix. 9), which is
misquoted and utterly misunderstood by the writer of the
first Gospel (xxi. 5). The Prophet Zachariah says:
"Rejoice much, O daughter of Sion; shout, O daughter
of Jerusalem: behold, thy King is coming unto thee;
righteous and with salvation is he; meek and mounted upon
an ass; and upon a colt, son of a she-ass."
In this poetical passage the poet simply
wishes to describe the male ass - upon which the King is
seated - by saying that it was a young ass, and this colt,
too, is described as the son of a female ass. It was only
one male colt or young donkey. Now Matthew quotes this
passage in the following way: - "Tell the daughter of
Sion, Behold, thy King is coming unto thee; Meek, and
mounted on a female ass, And on a colt, the son of a
female ass."
Whether or not the person who wrote the
above verse did really believe that Jesus, when making his
triumphal entry into Jerusalem by mounting or sitting at
the same time both upon the mother ass and her young colt,
worked a miracle is not the question; nevertheless it is
true to say that the majority of the Christian Fathers so
believed; and it never occurred to them that such a show
would look rather a comedy than a royal and pompous
procession. Luke, how- ever, is careful, and has not
fallen into Matthew's mistake. Were these authors both
inspired by the same Spirit?
Zachariah foretells in Jerusalem, after
the return of the Jews from captivity, the coming of a
king. Though meek and humble, mounted upon a colt of an
ass, still he is coming with salvation and would rebuild
the house of God. He pro- phesies this at a time when the
Jews are endeavoring to rebuild the Temple and the ruined
town; their neighboring peoples are against them; the work
of building is stopped until Darius, King of Persia,
issues a firman for the cons- truction. Although no Jewish
king had ever appeared since the sixth century before
Christ, nevertheless they had had autonomous governments
under foreign sovereigns. The sal- vation here promised,
be it noted, is material and immediate, and not a
salvation to come five hundred and twenty years
afterwards, when Jesus of Nazareth would ride upon two
asses simultaneously and enter into Jerusalem, already a
large and wealthy city with a magnificent temple, simply
to be captured and crucified by the Jews themselves and by
their Roman masters, as the present Gospels tell us! This
would be no solace at all for the poor Jews surrounded
with enemies in a ruined city. Consequently, by the word
"king" we may understand one of their chief
leaders - Zerobabel, Ezra, or Nehemiah.
These two examples are intended to show
chiefly to my Muslim readers - who may not be well
acquainted with the Jewish Scriptures - how the Christians
have been misguided by their priests and monks in giving
stupid interpretations and meanings to the prophecies
contained therein.
Now I come to David's prophecy: -
"YahwaH said to my ADON, Sit at my right until I
place Thine enemies a footstool under thy feet."
This verse of David is written in Psalm
cxi, and quoted by Matthew (xxii. 44), Mark (xii. 36), and
Luke (xx 42). In all languages the two names contained in
the first unstitch are rendered as "The Lord said
unto my Lord." Of course, if the first Lord is God,
the second Lord is also God; nothing more convenient to
and suitable an argument for a Christian priest or pastor
than this, namely, the speaker is God, and also the spoken
to is God; therefore David knows two Gods! Nothing more
logical than this reasoning! Which of these two Domini is
"the Lord" of David? Had David written,
"Dominus meus dixit Domino meo," he would have
made himself ridiculous, for then he would have admitted
himself to be a slave or worshiper of two Lords, without
even men- tioning their proper names. The admission would
go even farther than the existence of two Lords; it would
mean that David's second Lord had taken refuge with his
first Lord, who ordered him to take a seat on his right
side until he should put his enemies a footstool under his
feet. This reasoning leads us to admit that, in order to
understand well your religion, you are obliged to know
your Bible or Qur'an in the original language in which it
was written, and not to depend and rely upon a
translation.
I have purposely written the original
Hebrew words YaHWaH and Adon, in order to avoid any
ambiguity and misunderstanding in the sense conveyed by
them. Such sacred names written in religious Scripture
should be left as they are, unless you can find a
thoroughly equivalent word for them in the language into
which you wish to translate them. The tetragram Yhwh used
to be pronounced Yehovah (Jehovah), but now it is
generally pronounced Yahwah. It is a proper name of God
the Almighty, and it is held so holy by the Jews that when
reading their Scriptures they never pronounce it, but read
it "Adon" instead. The other name,
"Elohim," is always pronounced, but Yahwah
never. Why the Jews make this distinction between these
two names of the same God is a question for itself,
altogether outside the scope of our present subject. It
may, however, in passing, be mentioned that Yahwah, unlike
Elohim, is never used with pronominal suffixes, and seems
to be a special name in Hebrew for the Deity as the
national God of the people of Israel. In fact,
"Elohim" is the oldest name known to all
Semites; and in order to give a special character to the
con- ception of the true God, this tetragram is often
conjointly with Elohim applied to Him. The Arabic form,
Rabb Allah, corresponds to the Hebrew form, Yahwah Elohim.
The other word, "Adon,"
signifies a "Commander, Lord, and master," or
the same as the Arabic and Turkish nouns Amir, Sayyid, and
Agha. Adon stands as the opposite term of "soldier,
slave, and property." Consequently the first part of
the distich is to be rendered as "God said to my
Lord."
David, in his capacity of a monarch, was
himself the Lord and Commander of every Israelite and the
Master of the Kingdom. Whose "servant" was he,
then? David, being a powerful sovereign, could not be, as
a matter of fact, a slave or worshiper of any living human
being whatsoever. Nor is it imaginable that he would call
"his Lord" any dead prophet or saint, such as
Abraham or Jacob, for whom the usual and reasonable term
was "Father." It is equally con- ceivable that
David would not use the appellation "my Lord"
for any of his own descendants, for whom, too, the usual
term would be "son." There remains, besides God,
no other conceivable being who could be David's Lord,
except the noblest and the highest man of the race of
mankind. It is quite intelligible to think that in the
sight and choice of God there must be a man who is the
noblest, the most praised, and the most coveted of all
men. Surely the Seers and the Prophets of old knew this
holy personage and, like David, called him "my
Lord."
Of course, the Jewish Rabbins and
commentators of the Old Testament understood by this
expression the Messiah, who would descend from David
himself, and so replied they to the question put to them
by Jesus Christ as quoted above from Matthew (xxii.), and
the other Synoptic. Jesus flatly repudiated the Jews when
he asked them a second question: "How could David
call him 'my Lord' if he were his son?" This question
of the Master put the audience to silence, for they could
find no answer to it. The Evangelists abruptly cut short
this important subject of discussion. To stop there
without a further explanation was not worthy either of the
Master or of his reporters. For, leaving the question of
his god-head, and even of his prophetical character,
aside, Jesus as a teacher was obliged to solve the problem
raised by him- self when he saw that the disciples and the
hearers were unable to know who then that
"Lord," could be!
By his expression that the
"Lord," or the "Adon," could not be a
son of David, Jesus excludes himself from that title. This
admission is decisive and should awaken the religious
teachers of the Christians to reduce Christ to his due
status of a high and holy worshiper of God, and to
renounce the extravagant divine character ascribed to him
much to his own disgust and displeasure.
I cannot imagine a teacher who, seeing
his pupils unable to answer his question, should keep
silent, unless he is him- self ignorant like them and
unable to give a solution to it. But Jesus was not either
ignorant or a malevolent teacher. He was a prophet with a
burning love to God and man. He did not leave the problem
unsolved or the question with- out an answer. The Gospels
of the Churches do not report the answer of Jesus to the
question: "Who was the Lord of David?" But the
Gospel of Barnabas does. This Gospel has been rejected by
Churches because its language is more in accordance with
the revealed Scriptures and because it is very expressive
and explicit about the nature of Jesus Christ's mission,
and above all because it records the exact words of
Prophet Jesus concerning Prophet Muhammad. A copy of this
Gospel can easily be procured. There you will find the
answer of Jesus himself, who said that the Covenant
between God and Prophet Abraham was made on Ishmael, and
that "the most glorious or praised" of men is a
descendant of Prophet Ishmael and not of Prophet Isaac
through Prophet David. Prophet Jesus repeatedly is
reported to have spoken of Prophet Muhammad, whose spirit
or soul he had seen in heaven.
I shall have, if God wills, an occasion
to write on this Gospel later.
There is no doubt that the prophetical
eye of Daniel that saw in a wonderful vision the great
Barnasha, who was Prophet Muhammad, was also the same
prophetical eye fo David. It was this most glorious and
praised of men that was seen by the Prophet Job (xix 25)
as a "Savior" from the power of the Devil.
Was it, then, Prophet Muhammad who
Prophet David calls "my Lord" or my Adon"?
Let us see.
The arguments in favor of Prophet
Muhammad, who is styled "Sayyidu 'l-Mursalin."
the same as "Adon of the Prophets," are
decisive; they are so evident and explicit in the words of
the Old Testament that one is astonished at the ignorance
and the obstinacy of those who refuse to understand and
obey.
1. The greatest Prophet and Adon,in the
Eyes of God, and man, is not a great conqueror and
destroyer of mankind, nor a holy recluse who spends his
life in a cave or cell to meditate upon God only to save
himself, but one who renders more good and service to
mankind by bringing them into the light of knowledge of
the One True God,and by utterly destroying the power of
the devil and his abominable idols and wicked
institutions. It was Prophet Muhammad who "bruised
the head of the serpent," and that is why the Qur'an
rightly calls the devil, iblis, namely the bruised
one"!! He purged the Temple of the Ka'aba and all
Arabia of the idols, and gave light, religion, happiness,
and power to the ignorant Arab idolaters, who in a short
time spread that light into the four directions of the
earth. In the service of God, the works and the success of
Prophet Muhammad are incomparable and unrivalled.
The Prophets, Saints, and Martyrs form
the army of God against the Power of the Devil; and
Prophet Muhammad alone is decidedly the Commander-in-Chief
of them all. He is indeed, alone the Adon and Lord not
only of David but of all the Prophets, for he has purified
Palestine and the countries visited by Abraham of
idolatry.
2. Since Jesus Christ admits that he
himself was not the "Lord" of David nor that the
Messiah was to descend from David, there remains none
other than Prophet Muhammad among the Prophets to be the
Adon or Lord of David. And when we come to compare the
praiseworthy religious revolution that the Nobel Son of
Ishmael brought about in the world, with what all the
thousands of prophets put together have achieved, we have
to come to the conclusion that it is alone Prophet
Muhammad who deserves the meritorious title of Adon.
3. How did David know that "Wahwah
said to Adon, 'Sit thou at my right until I put thine
enemies a footstool under they feet'?" and when did
David hear this word of God? Christ himself gives the
answer, namely "David in spirit wrote this." He
saw the Adon Muhammad just as Daniel had seen him (Dan.
vii), and Paul had seen him (2 Cor. xii) and many others
had. Of course, this mystery of "Sit thou at my
right" is hidden from us. Yet we may safely
conjecture that this official investiture with the honor
of seating himself at the right of the Throne of God, and
therefore raised to the dignity of the "Adon."
not only of the Prophets but of all the Creatures, took
place on the famous night of his Mi'raj to Paradise.
4. The only principle objection to
Prophet Muhammad's Divine mission and superiority is his
condemnation of the trinity. But the Old Testament knows
no other God besides Allah, and the Lord of David did not
sit at the right hand of a triple god, but at that of the
One Allah. Hence among the Prophets who believed in and
worshiped Allah none was so great, and accomplished such a
stupendous service for Allah and mankind, as Prophet
Muhammad, upon whom be peace and blessings.
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