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It is stated by the Lord in the book
of Deuteronomy of the Old Testament of the Bible: ‘I will raise them
up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my
words into his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command
him.’ The passage from which these words have been noted is given below:
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; According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb
in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of
the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die
not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which
they have spoken. I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren,
like unto thee, and will put my words into his mouth; and he shall speak
unto them all that I shall command him. 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.1
We shall undertake the study of its main
themes point by point.
‘From the midst of thee’
‘From the midst of thee’ would
(if it be a genuine phrase having not been interpolated by some later redactor
of the Bible, which it looks to be), in this context, obviously mean that
the promised prophet shall be a descendant of your main and joint ancestor,
Abraham (sws). It is, however, noticeable that this prophecy has been noted
at some other places of the New and Old Testaments of the Bible as well2,
but this phrase does not appear there. It makes the genuineness of this
phrase doubtful. Some versions etc. of the Bible take it in the sense of
some place. A Jewish Commentary explains:
from the midst of thee. This implies that
the endowment of prophecy can only be exercised in the holy land (N).3
There are some versions etc. of the Bible
that have dropped this phrase from verse 15 of the passage. The New Oxford
Annotated B, in addition to dropping the phrase, has changed the word ‘brethren’
into ‘people’, and has translated it as:
…will raise up for you a prophet like me from
among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.4
The New International V, dropping the
phrase from v. 15, translates it as:
…will raise up for you a prophet like me
from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.5
Good News B and Today’s English V, both,
have also dropped the phrase, but have changed the word ‘brethren’ into
‘people’. They write:
(…), he will send you a prophet like me from
among your own people, and you are to obey him.6
The Revised Berkeley V has also dropped
the phrase from its translation of v. 15. It writes:
He will raise up for you a prophet like me, one
of your own brothers, and you shall listen to him.7
The same is the case with so many other
Versions (e.g. Contemporary English V, 1995, p. 219, The Reader’s Digest
B, 1983, p. 97, The New American B, p. 176, etc.). It looks to be sufficient
to establish that most of the Bible authorities themselves do not feel
comfortable with keeping the phrase as a genuine part of the passage in
their works and take it to be an interpolation by some later redactor of
the book.
All the above discussion makes it
quite probable that the phrase ‘from the midst of thee’ is a later
addition by someone and is not a genuine part of the passage. Even if it
be a genuine phrase of the gospel, it signifies that the prophet shall
not be a stranger to you. He would be a kinsman of yours, from the progeny
of your own forefather Abraham.
‘of thy brethren’
To ascertain the meaning of the phrase
‘of thy brethren’, there is a clue in the beginning of this very chapter
18 of the book of Deuteronomy. Verse 2 reads:
Therefore shall they [ie. ‘The priests, the Levites’,
as recorded in v. 1 of this ch.] have no inheritance among their
brethren; the Lord is their inheritance.8
Obviously the word ‘brethren’ here
means ‘the other tribes from the line of their main ancestor, Jacob (sws),
and not the brothers related to their own tribe, the Levites, because they
have been denied any inheritance’. Because the addressees here are the
Levites, their ‘brethren’ would mean none other than their brethren (cousins)
from the other tribes of the line of Jacob (sws) and not the members of
their own tribe. There are other examples in the Bible for this theme as
well, e.g. Judges 20: 13; Numbers 8: 26; 2Kings 24:12; etc. It is, however,
to be noted that the word brethren is a general term and implies the real
brothers, first cousins, the remotest cousins, or anyone else. It is a
form of the original Hebrew word awkh or akh, that is the
same (akh) in the Arabic language. Strong’s Heb B Dictionary explains
it as:
A brother (used in the widest sense of
literal relationship and metaphorical affinity or resemblance):— another,
brother (-ly), kindred, like, other.9
The Bible has also used this word in the
same broad sense. In the context of the lengthy instructions being delivered
to the Israelites, God orders regarding the Edomites, who are the descendants
of Jacob’s elder brother Esau:
Thou shalt not abhor an edomite; for he is thy
brother;10
The word ‘brethren’ has also been used
in the Bible for even the Ishmaelites as the brethren of the Israelites.
It is recorded in the book of Genesis of the Bible as follows:
And the angel of the Lord said unto her [—Hagar—]:
I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for
multitude. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold, thou art with
child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the
Lord hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will
be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall
dwell in the presence of all his brethren [stress added].11
The word ‘brethren’ has once again been
used in the Bible in the same sense. In the context, none other than Ishmael’s
step-brothers, Abraham’s sons from Sarah and Keturah, can be implied:
These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are
their names, by their towns, and by their castles; twelve princes according
to their nations. And these are the years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred
and thirty and seven years; and he gave up the ghost and died; and was
gathered unto his people. And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur that is
before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria; and he died in the presence
of all his brethren [stress added].12
From the above presentations, it can be
safely concluded that the phrase ‘of thy brethren’ here stands for
the Ishmaelites as the brothers (cousins) of Israelites etc. In clause
‘Therefore shall they [i.e. the Levites’] have no inheritance
among their brethren,’ of this very chapter 18 of Deut. (v. 2), the
word ‘brethren’ means the Jewish tribes other than the Levites,
and the Levites stand plainly excluded from this ‘brethren’. In
the same way, the Israelites stand excluded from this phrase. So the phrase
‘of thy brethren’ can only mean ‘of the Ishmaelites’, and
‘a prophet’ would obviously mean the only prophet from the line
of Ishmael, ie. ‘Muhammad’ (sws).
Here is an interesting observation.
It is said that alterations, additions, deletions, and interpolations have
been freely exercised in the Bible. No reasonable scholar of the Bible
denies this fact. An example to illustrate that this practice has not only
been exercised in the past, but that it is being exercised till today without
any hesitation, is afforded here. ‘The Living Bible’ looks
to be a modern translation of the Bible. It is ‘Copyright © 1971
by Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois 60187. All rights reserved.’
It was first printed in July 1972 under the name of ‘The Way’,
whereafter its sixteenth printing was published in March, 1976, claiming,
‘3,760,000 copies in print’. The writer of the present article has got
this sixteenth printing. It translates the v. 15 as:
Instead, he will raise up for you a Prophet like
me, an Israeli [stress added], a man to whom you must listen
and whom you must obey.13
Its reversion was accomplished in 1996
by ‘ninety evangelical scholars from various theological backgrounds and
denomination… commissioned in 1989 to begin revising The Living Bible’.
It has revised this translation as:
The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet
like me from among your fellow Israelites, and you must listen, to that
prophet.14
How can one explain where the words ‘an
Israeli’ or the ‘fellow Israelites’ have jumped in from?
The New English B (and it was prepared
and approved by the Joint Committee of almost all the important churches
of the Christian world) has dropped the most important phrase ‘from
among your brothers’ from its translation of v. 15, which is a further
example of such alterations. It writes:
…will raise up a prophet from among you like
myself, and you shall listen to him.15
Some other translators have also dropped
this phrase of ‘your brothers’ from the translation of v.15. I wonder
through what literary sorcery such worthy translators have got the phrase
‘from among your brothers’ disappeared from the scene of the passage
before the open eyes of the world of letters. Of course, this dexterity
of the translators must be ‘appreciated’.
It is also to be noted that if the
promised prophet was to come from among the Israelites, the wording of
the prophecy should have been:
I will raise them up a prophet from among
themselves [stress added], like unto thee, and will put my words
into his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
It was essential to rule out all sorts
of ambiguity, misunderstandings, and confusions. The word ‘brethren’ as
already explained with reference to the Hebrew Dictionary of the Bible,
is a multi-meaning word and is certainly liable to create ambiguity and
confusions and the Lord is not supposed to create confusion Himself. He
should have been clear-cut, pertinent, precise, scrupulous, fastidious,
to the point, and exact. Whereas, instead of it, the actual words of the
Bible stand as follows, which are not compatible with the claim of the
Jews and the Christians that ‘the promised prophet shall be from among
the Israelites themselves’:
I will raise them up a prophet from among
their brethren [stress added], like unto thee, and will put my
words into his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command
him.16
In fact the Lord has not used these words
carelessly. He has used these words intentionally and decisively. These
words rule out every possibility of the claim of the Jews and the Christians
that ‘the promised prophet shall be from among the Israelites themselves’.
There is another point with regard
to the expression ‘from among their brethren’. Like the earlier
prophets, Jesus (sws) has also warned the Israelites:
Therefore I say unto you, the kingdom of God
shall be taken from you, and given to a nation [stress added. Please
note the ‘singular form a nation and not the plural the nations’.
It reflects the theme of ‘singularity’.] bringing forth the fruits thereof.17
It clearly shows that the kingdom of God
or the prophethood is now to be taken away from the progeny of Israel and
is to be transferred to their brethren. The context of this verse makes
it quite clear that it relates to none other than the ‘brethren of the
Israelites’. Jesus (sws) says:
Hear another parable: There was a certain householder,
which planted a vineyard18,
and hedged it round about, (…), and let it out to husbandmen19,
and went into a far country: And when the time of the fruit drew near,
he sent his servants20 to
the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen
took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another21.
Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them
likewise. But last of all he sent unto them his son22,
saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son,
they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and
let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out
of the vineyard, and slew him. When the lord therefore of the vineyard
cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?23
The answer to this question is so simple
and natural, that ‘they’ (the audience), like anybody else who happens
to hear it, spontaneously ‘Say unto him,’:
He will miserably destroy those wicked men24,
and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen25,
which shall render him the fruits in their season. Jesus saith unto them,
Did ye never read in the scriptures, THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED26,
THE SAME IS BECOME THE HEAD OF THE CORNER: THIS IS THE LORD’S DOING, AND
IT IS MARVELLOUS IN OUR EYES? Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of
God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation [stress added]
bringing forth the fruits thereof.27
The words of Jesus (sws) are so clear
and unequivocal that they need no comments at all. But if someone has already
decided to favor some pre-assumed interpretation, what can anybody do!
‘“a” prophet’
‘a prophet’ is
another important feature to be cautiously noted to ascertain the exact
application of the prophecy. Moses (sws) does not say that God will raise
up ‘prophets’, he rather says, ‘a prophet’ . The forthcoming
person will be ‘a prophet’ after Moses (sws). Now there have
been so many prophets after Moses (sws) in the line of Israel. The important
point is that the promised prophet should be only ‘a prophet’ which means
a ‘single’ and ‘singular’ prophet
(who is, moreover, required to be ‘from among their brethren’ and
‘like unto Moses’). ‘Singleness’ and ‘singularity’ from among the
brethren of the Jews (which are no other than the Ishmaelites,) can only
be claimed for the Prophet Muhammad (sws). As regards the Israelites, ‘singleness’
and ‘singularity’ cannot be claimed for any of them, because there had
been almost scores of them in the line of Israel. ‘Singleness’ and ‘singularity’
demand that he should be distinguished from all the other prophets after
Moses (sws), all of whom belonged to the lineage of Israel amongst the
descendants of Abraham (sws). And it is only the Prophet Muhammad (sws)
amongst the descendants of Abraham (sws), from the progeny of Ishmael [the
brethren of Israelites], who came after Moses (sws) and who came from outside
the clan of Israel.
‘like unto Moses’
It means that the promised prophet
should have such a unique and specific prophetic peculiarity or characteristic
in common with Moses (sws) which no other forthcoming prophet can claim.
There is a most conspicuous singular peculiarity of Moses (sws), which
no other prophet can claim to possess and in which no other prophet after
Moses (sws) can be ‘like unto him’. What is that? It is only
Moses (sws) who brought the ‘LAW’ of the Lord for the people. After
him, there had been no other prophet from among the descendants of Abraham
(sws) in the whole of the history of the humankind who can claim to bring
a complete divine ‘LAW’ for the people, revealed to him by the Lord, except
the Prophet Muhammad (sws). Neither anyone ever claimed it, nor it is true
about anyone. There did not even exist any claimant or candidate of having
been ‘a prophet from among the brethren of the Israelites with a ‘Fiery
Law for them’29
‘like unto Moses’, that could have been presented as a rival to
the single and sole Prophet from among the Ishmaelites, who are the genuine
‘brethren of the Israelites’.
Jesus (sws) is by no means ‘a Prophet like unto
Moses’
From the very birth to his death Jesus
is ‘unlike Moses’ rather than being ‘like unto Moses’ in
most of the conspicuous features. On the other hand the Prophet of Islam
is ‘like unto Moses’ in most of the conspicuous features. Some of
them are common in most of the prophets including Moses (sws) and the Prophet
of Islam, but Jesus (sws) is an exception to them. The first of them is
that Moses (sws) and the Prophet of Islam were born in ordinary way whereas
Jesus (sws) had an unusual and extra-ordinary birth of a virgin mother
having no father. The second point is that Moses (sws) and the Prophet
of Islam had an ordinary death whereas the death of Jesus (sws) was of
a quite different type. The third point is that Moses (sws) was appointed
to the ‘call’ at Mount Sinai and the Prophet of Islam received the revelation
for the purpose in the cave of Mount Hira which is now called Mount Nur.
Both of them received revelation outside the city life at some mountains.
The case of Jesus (sws), whatsoever, is different from it.
The other category is of a most specific
peculiarity of Moses (sws) and the Prophet of Islam, which is not to be
found in any other prophet including Jesus (sws); and that is the revelation
of the divine ‘Law’ only to Moses (sws) and the Prophet of Islam, as noted
above.
A probe into the theme reveals that
‘likeness unto Moses’ can exclusively be claimed about the Prophet
of Islam, whereas it can by no means be claimed about Jesus (sws). I have
addressed only some specific and distinguishing features otherwise a lot
of it can be presented, which is, according to me, mere waste of time keeping
in view the limited scope of the present write up.
The Claim of the Jews: ‘Joshua is that Promised
Prophet’
There is another point which is being
briefly discussed here. Some Jews assert that the prophecy relates to and
is fulfilled in the person of Joshua. But the wording of the prophecy and
the context do not permit it. Joshua was the contemporary of and junior
to Moses (sws). Moses (sws) himself had nominated him as his successor
under the instruction of the Lord. He was a disciple, attendant, and successor
of Moses (sws) and not an independent prophet himself. No ‘Law’ was revealed
unto him. So he was in no way ‘like unto Moses’. The words of the
prophecy, ‘The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the
midst of thee, of thy Brethren, like unto me’ clearly denote that they
relate to some future event, whereas Joshua physically existed there when
this prophecy was uttered. The book of Malachi is the last of the Minor
Prophets and of the OT. It records the prophecy uttered by the Lord in
the following words [which shows that the messenger of the covenant was
yet to come by his time, and, as such, Joshua could not have been this
‘a prophet’]:
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall
prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come30
to his temple31, even the
messenger of the covenant [stress added] whom ye delight in; behold, he
shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.32
As to the date of Malachi, ‘McKenzie’
observes:
The book is dated by the critics after the rebuilding
of the temple in 516 BC, during the Persian period and before the reforms
of Nehemiah and Ezta, i.e., before 432 BC.33
The recording of the prophecy regarding
‘the messenger of the covenant’ in it shows that till 432 BC the Israelites
were still waiting for him and he was yet to come.
Then there is the epilogue of the
book of Deuteronomy which reads:
And there arose not a prophet since in Israel
like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.34
It is probable that this epilogue might
have been written by Ezra eight to nine hundred years after Moses (sws).
So the prophecy remained unfulfilled till 8-9 centuries after Moses (sws).
It is also probable that it might have been written by some other redactor
of the book when the Torah and some other books of the Bible were first
compiled in written form about five hundred years after Moses (sws). It
means that the prophecy remained unfulfilled for not less than 500 years
after Moses (sws). It does not mean that it was fulfilled after it. Nobody
ever claimed to be ‘the messenger of the covenant’ or fulfilled
its pre-requisites at any time after Moses (sws). Almost every scholar
of the Bible understands that it stood unfulfilled even after the time
of Jesus (sws). The Bible Knowledge Commentary observes:
During the first century A.D. the official leaders
of Judaism were still looking for the fulfillment of Moses’ prediction
(cf. John I: 21).35
That it remained unfulfilled during the
time of Jesus (sws) and the Jews were still waiting for the coming of this
prophet, can be ascertained from the following passage of the Gospel According
to John:
And this is the record of John, when the Jews
sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he
confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they
asked him, what then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou
that prophet [stress added]? And he answered, no. Then said they unto
him, who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What
sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias. (…). And
they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be
not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?
It has become clear from the study undertaken
above that this ‘Prophet like unto Moses’ had not been raised up
till the time of Jesus (sws).
The Claim of the Christians: ‘Jesus is that Promised
Prophet’
Now there remains the claim of the
Christian scholars that this prophecy was fulfilled in the person of Jesus
(sws). Setting aside the question of safe preservation and transfer of
the NT, it is a fact that throughout the NT Jesus (sws) has nowhere claimed
to be or presented himself as this promised ‘Prophet like unto Moses’.
As can be observed from the dialogue between John the Baptist and the Jewish
representatives noted above, the Jews had been waiting for three personalities
at that time: (1) Elias or Elijah, (2) Christ, and (3) ‘that Prophet’.
Elias was John the Baptist as clarified by Jesus.37
The Christ, according to every Christian, was Jesus (sws) himself. There
remains, now, only the third one, i.e. ‘That Promised Prophet like unto
Moses’. Jesus (sws) should naturally have not claimed to be this third
personality as he has already occupied the status of the ‘Christ’. The
three personalities waited for by the Jews were three separate entities,
two of which have already been settled in the persons of John the Baptist
and Jesus (sws). There, obviously, remains the third one to be ascertained.
If somebody asserts that Jesus (sws) occupied both the entities in his
person, i.e., of the ‘Christ’ and of ‘That Prophet’, he should
offer, in unequivocal terms, some clear-cut assertion of Jesus (sws) in
favor of his claim. And no man on earth can ever do it. Rather, quite contrary
to it, Jesus (sws) did not assert to be ‘That Promised and Waited for
Prophet Like Unto Moses (sws)’ even when he was asked to clarify his
position. The Bible reports:
Now when John had heard in the prison the works
of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, And said unto him, Art thou
he that should come, or do we look for another? [Stress added. ‘or
do we look for another?’ shows that someone was yet to come by that
time.] Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those
things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the
lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised
up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And the blessed is he,
whosoever shall not be offended in me.38
It is not quite clear what does John the
Baptist mean by the question: ‘Art thou he that should come, or do we
look for another?’ ‘He that should come’ may signify both (1)
the ‘Christ’ or (2) ‘a Prophet like unto Moses’, because both had been
waited for. Whom John had alluded to, is not clear. Jesus (sws) should
have answered this ambiguous question in unequivocal terms and should have
clarified his position once and for all. Instead of it Jesus (sws) is reported
to have chosen a strange and non-specific style. He gives an ambiguous
answer. He had nowhere claimed to be ‘That Prophet like unto Moses’ previously.
But ‘Christ’ he was, of course, called by his disciples as has been mentioned
in the NT for so many times. He, obviously, could have meant to say: ‘Neither
have I ever claimed to be ‘That Prophet like unto Moses’ nor the
works I have been performing are like unto Moses (sws). So how can you
take me as ‘That Prophet like unto Moses’? As to my being ‘Christ’,
everybody knows it and my works also verify this status of mine.’
There is another clear-cut passage
in Acts III, in which Peter clarifies that Jesus is not ‘That Prophet
like unto Moses’; he is yet to come. He says:
Now you must repent and turn to God, so that
your sins may be wiped out, and so that the Lord may send the time of comfort.
Then he will send you the Christ he has predestined, that is Jesus, whom
heaven must keep till the universal restoration come which God proclaimed,
speaking through his holy prophets. Moses, for example, said: ‘From
among your brothers the Lord God will raise up a prophet like me; you will
listen to whatever he tells you. Anyone who refuses to listen to that prophet
shall be cut off from the people’, In fact, all the prophets that have
ever spoken, from Samuel onwards, have predicted these days.39
The main features of this passage can
be described as below:
1. Peter advises the people that they
must repent and turn to God, so that their sins may be wiped out, and so
that the Lord may send the time of comfort.
2. From ‘the time of comfort’ Peter
means ‘when the Lord will send the Christ he has predestined, that is Jesus’.
3. Heaven must keep the Christ till
the universal restoration comes which God proclaimed, speaking through
his holy prophets.
4. One phenomenon of this ‘universal
restoration’, for example, is ‘From among your brothers the Lord God
will raise up a prophet like Moses’.
5. The people must ‘listen to whatever
he tells them’. Because ‘Anyone who refuses to listen to that prophet
shall be cut off from the people’; just like the people who did not
listen to the Prophet of Islam, were cut off from the people.
6. In fact, all the prophets that
have ever spoken, from Samuel onwards, have predicted the advent of ‘That
Prophet like unto Moses’ between the First and Second Coming of Jesus
Christ.
Whatever the case may be, Jesus (sws)
has never claimed to be ‘That Prophet like unto Moses’. It means
that ‘The Promised Prophet’ was yet to come during the lifetime of Jesus
(sws). Now it is only the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (sws), who fulfills
all the requisite conditions of ‘That Prophet like unto Moses’.
It is he who is the only prophet from among the brethren of Israel that
has come after Jesus (sws), and whom the Almighty Allah Himself has pronounced
to be ‘like unto Moses’ as has been recorded in the Qur’an:
Surely We have sent unto you a Messenger as a
witness over you, even as We sent To Pharaoh a Messenger [stress
added. ‘Which Messenger had been sent to Pharaoh?’ Who doesn’t know that
it was none other than Moses?], but Pharaoh rebelled against the Messenger,
so We seized him remorselessly. If therefore you disbelieve, how will you
guard yourselves against a day that shall make the children grey-headed?
Whereby
heaven shall be split [What an impressive and beautiful imagery! Had
someone had an opportunity to listen to the sonorous wordings of this verse
(while, at the same time, understanding its meaning), he should have appreciated
and enjoyed its force and beauty more deeply, which can by no means be
transmitted into its mere translation.], and its promise shall be performed.
Surely this is a reminder; so let him who will [,] take unto his Lord a
way.40
The above dissertation affirms that ‘The
Prophet like unto Moses’ had not come unto the time of John the Baptist.
Jewish scholars were waiting for him. Their inquiry from John the Baptist
whether he was … ‘that prophet’ testifies their wait for him. John the
Baptist plainly explained that he was not ‘that prophet’. Jesus (sws) was
the Christ and he never claimed or proclaimed to have been ‘That Prophet
like unto Moses’. It means that there has not risen up ‘That Prophet
like unto Moses’ among all the Jewish and Christian world unto present.
It is required that ‘The Prophet like unto Moses’ should have risen up
in some reasonable span of time after Jesus (sws). The ground reality is
that:
(1) Nobody has claimed to be ‘That Prophet
like unto Moses’ so far except the Prophet of Islam.
(2) Nobody fulfills the prerequisite conditions
and characteristics of ‘That Prophet like unto Moses’ except the
Prophet of Islam.
(3) The Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (sws) rose up
as that prophet and he has practically claimed to be ‘A Prophet like
unto Moses’ as stated above.
(4) He fulfills the entire prerequisite conditions
and characteristics of ‘That Prophet like unto Moses’.
If the claim of the Prophet of Islam,
Muhammad (sws), is not acknowledged and conceded to then we shall have
to affirm that the Bible is not true. It is now unto the reader to decide
justly and carefully, because it has been warned by the Lord just after
this prophecy:
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will
not hearken unto my words which he [the Prophet Like unto Moses] shall
speak in my name, I will require it of him.41
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