Is Muhammad Prophesied in the Bible (By Name)?

doug5Solas

August 6, 2024

The Assertion

Muhammad appears in the Hebrew scriptures by name.

This one is a serious stretch. This is a single text. The late Muslim apologist and missionary Ahmed Deedat cherry-picked it. Others also hold to the claim.

The Analysis

Here is how this line of reasoning shakes out. Now, I am NOT an expert on Semitic languages To be truthful, I am out of my element to claim expertise. Here is what I understand from my research

Both Hebrew and Arabic are Semitic languages. They are the native languages of the Old Testament of the Bible and the Quran, in that order.

Semitic languages are a family of languages. They are from the geographic area of the Ancient Near East. Many of the people groups in the OT are Semitic. Examples would be:

Hebrew,
Arabic,
Aramaic,
Assyrian,
Amorite,
Ammonite,
Edomite,
Moabite, etc.

The Semitic Roots Repository recognizes at least 43 languages in the Semitic family.

Hebrew and Arabic, in fact all these languages, rely quite a bit on the use of grammatical radicals. Radicals are three consonant combinations that make up roots. From these roots, verbal concepts get formed. The addition and placement of jots and tittles (marks) act as vowels. These marks go beside, above or below these radicals to form words.

Now I have provided a high-level and inadequate explanation of the concept. Here is how this comes into play. The scripture reference is found in the Song of Solomon:

His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. (SoS 5:16)

In this passage, we see a celebration of the love God has planned between a woman and her husband. The woman reflects on her love for the man she will soon marry. James White says it so well I’m going to quote him.

In describing her love, the bride says his mouth is mam’takkim, “most sweet.” Then, in a poetic form, she says he is machamaddim, “altogether desirable.” Note the parallel, mam’takkim and machamaddim. The second term is from chamad, which means “desire, desirable thing,” “precious object,” and “what is pleasing to the eyes.” It is used thirteen times in the Hebrew Scriptures. Here, in the plural, it is used intensively, hence, “most desirable,” “most pleasing” is being used descriptively of the husband.

What does any of this have to do with Muhammad? Well, logically, linguistically, and historically, nothing at all. But many Muslims believe that here, directly, is his name in the Bible. By ignoring the problems inherent in moving from one language to another, even within the same language family (Hebrew and Arabic are Semitic languages but have differences in grammar and syntactical structures), Muslims have moved from machamaddim to machamad (singular) to muhammad, finally concluding that here, in the original language, we find Muhammad!

It is hard to take such argumentation seriously, but somehow many do. ^[1]

Conclusion

On the face of it, the argument is flimsy at best and ludicrous at worst. Here is what White has to say in the end notes of the book.

While the triliteral roots are the same, those familiar with Semitic languages know that connection on the root level does not guarantee connection on the level of meaning. Contextual and grammatical usage is what determines any word’s meaning, and the usage of the root in the poetic form found in Song of Solomon is far removed from anything even slightly relevant to the Arabic name Muhammad. ^[2]

We are not bound to believe arguments as flimsy as these. In this third attempt, Islam has failed to make its point. There is no rational support for accepting such grasping-at-straw, and we are not obliged to do so.

^[1] White, James R.. What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur’an (p. 164). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

^[2] Ibid (p. 239).

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