inapplicable to Muhammad or to anyone but Christ. (2) Half of verses 9 and 12 do not in any way suit Muhammad. (3) As to dividing the spoil, this was to take place after death, which is true in a spiritual sense of Christ (since only after His Resurrection and Ascension did the Gentiles begin to enter His Kingdom), but not of Muhammad. (4) Why the people of Medinah, the Ansars who received and fought for Muhammad, should be called wicked, rather than those of Mecca who rejected him, is not easily seen. (5) All parts of the prophecy were spiritually fulfilled in Christ, whereas many portions of it cannot possibly refer to anyone else, least of all to a victorious warrior like Muhammad. Besides this, the ancient Jewish commentators understood the chapter as a prophecy regarding the Promised Messiah. The whole of the New Testament shows how this prophecy and the similar one in Ps. xxii. were fulfilled in Christ alone.

12. Isaiah liv. 1 is supposed to be a prophecy of Muhammad's birth from the descendants of Ishmael. It predicts that more people will become his followers and thus be brought to God than were converted by all the prophets of Israel. In reality, however, the prophecy has two meanings, a literal and a spiritual. The literal meaning is that the Jews will be rescued from Babylon and brought back to Jerusalem. This took place under Cyrus, beginning in 536 B.C. The spiritual meaning is taught by St. Paul (Gal. iv. 21-31. There we see that it was fulfilled when the Gentiles, long devoted to idolatry and estranged from God, began to receive the Gospel of Christ. Incidentally, moreover, St. Paul in that passage shows that Hagar's descendants were not to be preferred to Sarah's spiritual offspring.

13. Isa. lxiii. 1-6. Muslims say that the warrior here mentioned is Muhammad, as he was "the prophet with the sword". They think that Bozrah mentioned in ver. 1 is the famous city of Basrah. But ver. 1 shows that Bozrah is in Edom. It is now called Al Busairah,

and is a little south of the Dead Sea. If we compare ver. 5 with Isa. lix. 15, 16, it will be seen that the warrior is the Lord of Hosts Himself, who has punished Edom for its sins. The imagery is used again in Rev. xix. 11-16, where the warrior is explained as the Kalimatu’llah, who will finally punish the wicked and put down all enemies under His feet (I Cor. xv. 25).

14. Isaiah lxv. 1-6. This passage is asserted to be a prophecy of the conversion of the Arabs to Muhammad. The second and following verses are said to tell of the sins of the Jews and Christians, who were therefore rejected by God. In reality, however, ver.1 is a prophecy of the conversion of many of the Gentiles to Christ. The sins of some of the Jews are mentioned in vers. 2-6, but vers. 8-10 tell us that God will not finally reject the whole Jewish nation (compare Rom. xi). Nothing is said of the Christians, and not a word about Muhammad.

15. Dan. ii. 45 contains a prophecy of the rise and spread of Islam, in the opinion of some Muslims. They say that the four kingdoms mentioned in that chapter are the Chaldaean, the Median, the Kayanian (or Persian), and the Macedonian. Alexander the Great shattered the Persian Empire, but under the Sasanian kings it revived. At one time strong, at another weak, it lasted until Muhammad's birth in the time of Khusrau Anushiravan. But soon after Muhammad's death the Muslim hosts overthrew the Persian Empire, conquered Persia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and "filled the whole land" (vers. 44, 45). This explanation, however, does not agree with the facts of history for the simple reason that (1) there was no Median Empire after the Babylonian (Darius the Mede—Dan. v. 31; vi; ix. 1—"was made king" of Chaldaea only, i.e. the region around Babylon, reigned only part of one year, and was viceroy of Cyrus the Great), and hence the Persian was the second Empire (Dan. viii. 3, 4, 20): (2) The Macedonian was the third Empire (Dan. viii. 5, 7, 21):