Women from Jerusalem
In the past, I’ve written several posts on the theory that Muhammad is predicted in the Song of Solomon. I did a post about the context of the book and how it promotes the drinking of wine in a positive way. I looked at the word that is supposedly Muhammad’s name and showed that those who know Hebrew don’t spell Muhammad’s name that way. That includes Muslims and Quran translations into Hebrew.
These two posts can be found here:
However, there is a much more immediate way of looking at the text. Song of Solomon 5:16 reads as such:
His mouth is sweetness itself;
he is altogether lovely.
This is my beloved, this is my friend,
daughters of Jerusalem.
The words “altogether lovely” is the supposed name of Muhammad. Who is the beloved of Muhammad? Probably one of his wives no doubt. It sounds like his wife is introducing him to the “daughters of Jerusalem”. Who are these daughters?
The phrase “daughters of Jerusalem” is used seven times in this short book. It seems to be a common audience of the book. Who are they? It would seem that the daughters of Jerusalem are women from Jerusalem. Here’s the problem for Muhammad. He never met the daughters of Jerusalem. Muhammad during his Meccan period supposedly took a night journey to Jerusalem. The only problem with this is that during his journey he didn’t talk to any of the women in Jerusalem, let alone had his wife introduce him to them. He didn’t even have his wife with him on the journey to Jerusalem.
So this causes a problem for the Muslims who think that Muhammad is in Song of Solomon 5:16. However, they may think “daughters of Jerusalem” may refer to just a generic group of holy women or Jewish women. Muhammad certainly came across groups like that.
The phrase “daughters of Jerusalem” is used one other place in the Bible and it’s on the lips of Jesus Christ Himself.
In Luke 23:38 we read:
Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.
This is as Jesus was being led outside of the city to be crucified. Who were the daughters of Jerusalem? Obviously they were the women from Jerusalem. They weren’t from Mecca, Medina, or some other place in Arabia.
I think that by now I’ve beaten this dead horse long enough. Song of Solomon 5:16 is not about Muhammad. I personally think that most Muslims don’t accept this verse. Only a few apologists try to make this connection but I honestly don’t think any of them have had success. I fully understand why they would use Deuteronomy 18. That verse is clearly talking about a Prophet. This verse is talking about someone who was introduced to the daughters of Jerusalem. According to Muslim sources, Muhammad never experienced this introduction.
“I think that by now I’ve beaten this dead horse long enough. Song of Solomon 5:16 is not about Muhammad.”- how could you even say such thing? Of course it is:
https://quranandbibleblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/01/allan-ruhl-and-the-song-of-songs/
Hi Orangehunter,
Ah yes, Faiz’s blog. I refuted that guy way back.
God Bless,
Allan
The Bible uses the phrase “Daughter of Babylon”, “Daughter Zion” to refer to the nations in general terms. It also uses the term virgin to refer to nations.
The daughters of Jerusalem is not a reference to women at all. It is a reference to different groups of Jewish people. The female narrator is one group of Jews who is familiar with the Beloved. She is different from the majority of the daughters in that she is special – a lily among thorns. Unlike the rest of them she knows something about the beloved and admires him greatly which is why the rest of the daughters ask her “Whats so special about your beloved as opposed to the rest of the beloveds”. She answers SoS 5:10-16.
Only then do they ask where he is? She replies he goes to his garden of balsam (Hijaz as Zakir Hussein explained) but his flock will go to the lands of the lilies (Levant).
Hi Fawaz,
What do you think about how Jesus Christ uses those words? It sounds like he’s speaking to the women of Jerusalem.
God Bless,
Allan
Yes, it seems obvious that Jesus was referring to the women as per that text.
My point was that in the Bible (especially OT) it is common to refer to people of a region as daughter.
In fact, we can actually see a wide range of usage such as daughter, sister, mother and father to refer to people groups connected to places.
Hi Fawaz,
So I want to see where we differ here. In the OT context you believe this is a group of holy devout women?
God Bless,
Allan
Hi Allan,
Let me clarify, I believe the “daughters of Jerusalem” in SoS refer to Israelite people- not specifically women.
See the following examples-
1)Ezekiel 23 – Judah & northern kingdom = sisters
2)Psalm 137:8, Zech 2:7, Isaiah 47 – refer to “daughter of babylon” or “virgin daughter Babylon”.
3)Micah 4:13 – “Daughter of Zion”
4)Ezekiel 16 – “your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.”
In these examples “daughter”,”sister”,”father”, “mother” refer to peoples without specifically relating to gender.
Hi Fawaz,
Let’s say hypothetically that the author of SOS wanted to refer to the women in Jerusalem? What would he say? We know that Daughters of Jerusalem can mean women of Jerusalem as you seemed to agree with in the case of Jesus.
Allan
please sir stop misleading people. you know very well what the Hebrew text means and what you’re hiding with the its misinterpretation. “The LORD came from Sinai and dawned over them from Seir; he shone forth from Mount Paran. He came with myriads of holy ones, from his right hand went a fiery law for them.” (Deuteronomy 33:2)