Transcription
The Old Testament book of Deuteronomy informs us of a momentous prophecy spoken by Moses just before his death. Note the three key locations highlighted in the prophecy: Si, Seir, and Pan.
The first location, Si, is the place where Moses encountered God and had already received the ten commandments. The second location, Seir, is defined by the Bible to be a land in the country of Edom. Edom was an ancient kingdom that included parts of Palestine and Jordan. This just happens to be the area where Jesus received and preached the word of God. This is fully in line with rabbinic messianic expectations, as rabbis themselves believed the Messiah would be associated with Edom. So we can see that the prophecy here accurately foretold the coming of the Messiah.
Now the big question is which place is being referred to by the mention of the third location, Pan. Strong's Bible dictionary defines it as Pan, a desert of Arabia. Encyclopedia Biblica asserts Pan refers to the Arab tribal names Farane or Paran. The Jewish commentary Sifre Devarim associates Pan with the Arabic language. The book of Jubilees, an ancient Jewish text, associates Pan with Ishmael, who is the forefather of the Arabs. It is clear that Pan relates to Arabia, which just happens to be the region that Muhammad, upon whom be peace, received the revelation of the Quran.
Note the prophecy's mention of light shining forth at Mount Pan. This serves as a clue to help us narrow down the location to a specific part of Arabia. There is a mountain in Mecca known as Jebel Nur, which means the mountain of light. This mountain is famous for housing Hira cave, which is where Muhammad first encountered the angel Gabriel and received the Quran. The Jews in Arabia who heard stories about Muhammad claiming to have encountered God at the mountain of light would have immediately recognized and made the connection to the prophecy. Thus, for the Jews of Arabia, this part of the prophecy served as clear evidence for the truthfulness of Muhammad's claims of prophethood.
In summary, this sequence happens to mirror the chronological order of the revelations of the Torah, followed by the Injil, and finally the Quran. We can see that this prophecy laid out a road map for the revelations that God was going to send forth to the world.
Now, it's important to highlight the prophecy's use of language concerning God's first revelation. It said God came. In the second, it said God rose up. While the third said, God shined forth. This appears to be a metaphor about the rising of the sun, with the revelation of the Torah being likened to the break of dawn when the light is at its weakest. The revelation of the Injil being likened to the rising of the sun with its light getting stronger. And finally, the revelation of the Quran being likened to the sun at noon when it is highest in the sky and its light shining forth at its most intense. Historically, the light of guidance of the Quran did indeed spread quicker and further east and west than with the prior revelations.
The next part of the prophecy informs us that the individual associated with Pan is said to come with 10,000 saints and possess a fiery law. With regards to the emergence of 10,000 saints, the original Hebrew word is Rababa, which strictly means 10,000, but also carries the general meaning of an indefinitely large number. Whether you choose to interpret it literally or symbolically, either way, this just happens to mirror a historic event that took place during the lifetime of Muhammad, known as the conquest of Mecca, when he and a large company of his followers, 10,000 to be exact, returned to their home city of Mecca after having been expelled from it by their pagan persecutors. As Muhammad's companions narrated, the prophet left Medina for Mecca in the company of 10,000 Muslim warriors in the month of Ramadan. This is an exact fulfillment of the prophecy foretelling the emergence of a large number of followers at Pan.
The question has to be asked, did Muhammad's companions fit the prophecy's description of his followers being saintly? They absolutely did, because they sacrificed everything, including their family ties, wealth, and lives, in order to support and protect God's final messenger, Muhammad. With regards to the prophecy's mention of a fiery law, Muhammad, upon whom be peace, was given the Quran, the law that was divinely revealed to him from God through the angel Gabriel.
In summary, we can see that the prophecy was fulfilled to the letter with the advent of Islam. There is no other person in the entire history of mankind who emerged from Arabia in such circumstances with multitudes of saintly followers and a divinely revealed law except the prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace.
An interesting point worth mentioning is that this very prophecy seems to have been presented to the prophet Muhammad by a Jewish man in Medina. The messenger of God said to a Jewish man, "Do you testify that I am the messenger of God?" The man refused to respond. So the messenger of God asked him, "Have you found mention in the Torah and in the Injil?" He replied, "Yes, we find a description like yours coming out from your homeland. We used to hope that you would be among us. Then when you came out, we realized that you were the one. We find among his nation 70,000 who will enter paradise without being held to account."
We can see that the Jew highlighted three key details found in the Torah that foretold the advent of Muhammad: his homeland, the number of followers, and the characteristics of his followers. The Jew acknowledged that Muhammad's homeland, i.e., Mecca, is the correct location they were expecting a prophet to emerge from. This fits Deuteronomy's mention of Pan. Regarding the mention of 70,000 followers, in ancient Judaism, specific numbers such as 7, 70, and 1,000 often carried symbolic meanings beyond their literal sense. The Old Testament book of Samuel also mentions 70,000 to express a vast number of deaths rather than an exact figure. Even in the language of Hadith, 70,000 is used symbolically to mean a very large number. For example, it is said that the Dajjal will have 70,000 followers from among the Jews. We can see that in the broader ancient Near Eastern literary tradition, numbers such as 70,000 frequently serve as hyperbolic expressions to convey magnitude. Hence, the mention of 70,000 followers fits Deuteronomy's mention of 10,000 in terms of meaning a very large group of people. Finally, the mention of his nation entering paradise without being held to account fits Deuteronomy's mention of the multitude being saintly because both convey the same meaning of a people who will be highly virtuous and pious in character.
In summary, we can see that the prophecy presented by the Jew in Medina corresponds nicely with Deuteronomy. Not only do the key points match in terms of details, but they are also mentioned in the same exact order. The fact that this same prophecy, or at the very least something quite similar to it, was present in the Torah in Medina at the time of Muhammad is a strong indication that it is genuine divine revelation or Wahi that has been preserved in the Bible to the present day.
Let's now spend some time looking at Jewish objections to my interpretation of the prophecy. Maimonides was a rabbi in the Middle Ages who is widely considered to be one of the most influential Jewish scholars in history. In his famous letter to Yemen, he commented on Muslim claims about Muhammad and Deuteronomy 33 as follows: "The argument from the phrase 'he shined forth from Mount Pan' is easily refutable. 'Shined' is past tense. Had scripture employed the future tense, 'he will shine forth from Mount Pan,' then the imposters might have had a semblance of truth on their side. Note also how scripture indicates the various gradations in the intensity of the divine splendor. It speaks of the light that glimmered from Mount Pan, which is further removed from Sinai, but of the light that radiated from Mount Seir, which is nearer to it, and finally of the revelation of the full splendor of God on Sinai, which was the goal of the theophany."
Here Maimonides put forward his strongest objections against Muslim claims that Muhammad is prophesied in Deuteronomy 33. Firstly, he made a linguistic argument that the prophecy is spoken in the past tense and hence it cannot be about a future event such as the coming of Muhammad. In response, the use of the past tense is, in fact, a literary technique that is actually very common in biblical prophecies and is known as the prophetic perfect tense. It is used to describe future events that are so certain to happen that they are referred to in the past tense as if they have already happened. There are numerous examples of this literary technique throughout the Old Testament. For example, in the story of Noah, God told Noah to build the ark and then states that Noah had already entered the ark, despite the ark not yet being built. The prophetic perfect tense is being utilized in the story of Noah as a literary technique to make the point that Noah would absolutely enter the ark with certainty.
Now there are, in fact, explicit indications that the prophecy in Deuteronomy 33 points to a future event. This is because a similar prophecy is repeated in another passage in the book of Habakkuk: "God shall come from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran." We can see that Habakkuk has repeated the prophecy from Deuteronomy 33, rendering it in the future tense, thus making it crystal clear that the prophecy from Deuteronomy 33 is about a future event. Note that Teman has been mentioned in the place of Seir. Teman is actually a reference to Seir; they are one and the same location, as the Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Bible commentary confirms. Hence, Maimonides' linguistic argument that the prophecy in Deuteronomy 33 cannot be about a future event because it uses past tense verbs has been completely dismantled.
Let's now tackle Maimonides' second objection, which is a geographical one. Namely, that the main focus of the prophecy is Mount Si, as that is where God revealed himself, with the light manifested at the other locations of Seir and Pan being mere reflections of the light emanating from Sinai. In other words, these events are not three separate revelations at three different locations, but rather a single revelation manifesting in Sinai, which caused light to shine in multiple locations.
In response, the details of the prophecy itself refute Maimonides' claim. Recall the prophecy's use of the metaphor about shining: "The Lord came from Sinai and rose up from Seir and shined forth from Mount Paran." Such statements do not fit with Maimonides' explanation that the source of the light is at Sinai, because the prophecy itself declares that the light gradually increases in intensity, initially emerging at Sinai, getting stronger at Seir, and finally reaching its peak at Pan. Islam teaches that Muhammad is the final prophet and he was given the final revelation, the Quran. Hence, it makes perfect sense that the shining is at its strongest in Muhammad's location of Arabia. The prophecy's metaphor about shining light clearly better fits the interpretation of three separate revelations at three different locations and not just one revelation at Sinai, as Maimonides wrongly argued. Moreover, recall that the book of Habakkuk repeats the prophecy but actually omits the mention of Sinai altogether—another indication that Sinai is not the main focus. The commentary Barnes' Notes on the Bible even goes so far as to state that this omission of Sinai points to the coming of another lawgiver who will be similar to Moses.
Finally, Jewish rabbis themselves have raised questions that seriously challenge Maimonides' position. The difficulty with this exegesis is: why does the Torah employ three different verbs for describing God's arrival? Why did the Torah not simply lump all this together by writing "He came from Sinai, Seir, and Pan"? Besides, why did the Torah first mention the place when referring to Sinai? Whereas it describes God's shining or appearing before mentioning where this took place, i.e., Seir or Pan respectively. Interpreting the prophecy in its apparent context of revelation coming from multiple locations, culminating with the revelation of the Quran to the Arabs, resolves all these linguistic and geographical issues acknowledged by rabbis.
In conclusion, we have seen that even Maimonides, one of the greatest rabbis in history, struggled to refute Muslim claims about Muhammad being the fulfillment of the prophecy. For more information on biblical prophecies about the coming of Muhammad, upon whom be peace, please download your free copy of the book Abraham Fulfilled at the link below.