Zabur Closes – with Promise of the Coming Preparer

Surah al-Mudaththir (Surah 74 – The Cloaked One) pictures the prophet PBUH wrapped in his cloak sternly giving his warnings about Judgment Day

O thou wrapped up (in the mantle)!
Arise and deliver thy warning!
And thy Lord do thou magnify!… (Surah al-Mudaththir 74:1-3)
Finally, when the Trumpet is sounded,
That will be- that Day – a Day of Distress,-
Far from easy for those without Faith. (Surah al-Mudaththir 74:8-10)

Surah Al-Kafirun (Surah 109 – The Disbelievers) pictures the prophet PBUH clearly calling out a different path from the disbelievers.

Say : O ye that reject Faith!
I worship not that which ye worship,
Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
And I will not worship that which ye have been wont to worship,
Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
To you be your Way, and to me mine. (Surah Al-Kafirun 109:1-6)

The Zabur closes by referring back to the Prophet Elijah PBUH who did exactly as Surah al-Mudaththir and Surah al-Kafirun described. But the Zabur also looks forward to the coming of another prophet who will be like Elijah and prepare our hearts. We know him as the Prophet Yahya PBUH.

The coming of the Prophet Yahya (PBUH) Foretold

We saw in the Sign of the Servant that the Servant was promised to come. But the whole promise of his coming balanced on an important question. Isaiah 53 began with the question:

Who has believed our message …? (Isaiah 53:1a)

Isaiah (PBUH) was predicting that this Servant would not be readily believed, and the problem was not with the message or the Signs of the Servant because they would be precise in timing by cycles of ‘Sevens’ as well as by name and specifying that he would be ‘cut off’. The problem was not that there were not enough signs. No, the problem was that the hearts of people were hard. So someone needed to come before the Servant came to prepare people for his coming. Therefore the prophet Isaiah (PBUH) gave this message about the one who would prepare the way for the Servant. He wrote this message in his book of the Zabur in the following way

A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the LORD will be revealed” Isaiah 40:3-5

Isaiah (PBUH) wrote about someone who would come ‘In the wilderness’ to ‘prepare the way for the LORD’. This person would smooth out the obstacles so that the ‘glory of the LORD will be revealed’. But Isaiah did not specify in what way this would be done.

The Prophet Malachi – Last Prophet of Zabur

The Prophets Isaiah, Malachi and Elijah (PBUT) shown in historical timeline

About 300 years after Isaiah came Malachi (PBUH) who wrote the last book of the Zabur. In this last book Malachi (PBUH) elaborates on what Isaiah had said about a coming Preparer. He wrote:

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty. (Malachi 3:1)

Here again the messenger who would ‘prepare the way’ is predicted. After this Preparer comes then ‘the messenger of the covenant’ will come. What covenant is Malachi (PBUH) referring to? Remember that the prophet Jeremiah (PBUH) had predicted that Allah would make a new covenant by writing it in our hearts. Only then would we be able to quench our thirst which always leads us to sin. This is the same covenant that Malachi (PBUH) is referring to. The giving of that covenant will be signaled by the coming of the Preparer.

Malachi (PBUH) then closes the entire Zabur with the last paragraph of his book. In that last paragraph he again looks to the future and writes:

“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” Malachi 4:5-6

What did Malachi (PBUH) mean by ‘Elijah’ would come before the great day of the LORD? Who was Elijah? He was another prophet whom we have not looked at (we cannot look at all prophets of Zabur since it would make this too long but see him in timeline above). Elijah (PBUH) lived around 850 BC. He was famous for living in the wilderness and wearing garments of animal hair and eating wild food. He probably looked quite peculiar. Malachi (PBUH) wrote that in some way The Preparer who comes before the New Covenant will be like Elijah (PBUH).

And with that statement, the Zabur was completed. This is the last message in the Zabur and was written about 450 BC. The Taurat and the Zabur were full of promises of things to come. Let us review some.

Reviewing the Promises of Taurat & Zabur that were still unfulfilled

The Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH) in the Sign of the Sacrifice had declared that on Mount Moriah it ‘will be provided’. The Jews were still waiting at the end of Zabur for this ‘providing’ to occur.
The Prophet Musa (PBUH) had said that Passover was a Sign for the Israelites, and the Israelites celebrated the Passover through all their history, but they forgot that, as a Sign, what it pointed to had not yet been revealed.
The prophet Musa (PBUH) in Taurat had predicted that a prophet would come for whom Allah had said that, “I will put my words in his mouth” . Allah had also declared in that promise of the coming Prophet that, “I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name”.
King Dawud (PBUH) had predicted the coming of the ‘Christ’ or ‘Masih’. Through their long history the Israelites wondered what the reign of this ‘Christ’ would look like.
The prophet Isaiah (PBUH) had prophesied that a virgin would give birth to a ‘son’. At the close of the Zabur the Jews were still waiting for this remarkable event to happen.
The Prophet Jeremiah (PBUH) had predicted that a New Covenant, one written in our hearts instead of on tablets, would come one day.
The Prophet Zechariah (PBUH) had predicted the name of this coming ‘Christ’ (or Masih).
The Prophet Daniel (PBUH) had predicted that when the Christ (or Masih) did come he would be ‘cut off’ instead of ruling as most assumed would happen.
The prophet Isaiah (PBUH) had written about a coming ‘Servant’ who would suffer greatly and be ‘cut off from the land of the living’
And as we saw here, the prophet Malachi (PBUH) had predicted that all this would be preceded by the coming of The Preparer. He was to Prepare the hearts of the people because our hearts are so easily hardened against the things of God.

So with the close of the Zabur in 450 BC the Jewish people lived in anticipation of the fulfillment of these wonderful promises. And they kept waiting and waiting. One generation replaced another and then still others would come – with no fulfillment of these promises.

What happened after the Zabur was completed

As we saw in the History of the Israelites, Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world in 330 BC and from these conquests the peoples and civilizations of the world adopted the Greek language. As English today has become a universal language for business, education and literature, in that time Greek was similarly dominant. Jewish teachers translated the Taurat and Zabur from Hebrew into Greek around 250 BC. This translation was called the Septuagint. As we saw here, this is where the word ‘Christ’ comes from and we saw here that this was where the name ‘Jesus’ also comes from.

During this time (300 – 100 BC which is the blue period shown in the timeline) there was an ongoing military rivalry between Egypt and Syria and with the Israelites dwelling right between these two empires they were regularly caught up in the battles. Some specific Syrian kings sought to impose the Greek religion (a religion of idol worship) on the Israelites and to eradicate their worship of One God. Certain Jewish leaders led an uprising to defend their monotheism and restore the purity of worship instituted by the Prophet Musa (PBUH). Were these religious leaders the fulfillments of these promises that the Jews awaited? These men, though faithful followers of worship as instructed in the Taurat and Zabur, did not fit the Prophetic Signs. In fact they themselves did not even claim to be prophets, just pious Jews defending their worship against idolatry.

Historical books about this period, describing these struggles that preserved the purity of worship were written. These books provide historical and religious insight and are very valuable. But the Jewish people did not regard them as being written by prophets and so these books were not included in the Zabur. They were good books, written by religious men, but they were not written by prophets. These books were known as the Apocrypha.

But because these books were useful they were often included alongside the Taurat and Zabur to give a complete history of the Jewish people. After the Injil and the message of Isa al Masih (PBUH) was written the books of Taurat, Zabur and Injil were combined into one book – al kitab or Bible. Some Bibles today will even include these books of Apocrypha, though they are not part of Taurat, Zabur or Injil.

But the promises given in Taurat and Zabur were still waiting for fulfillment. Following the Greek influences the powerful Roman Empire expanded and replaced the Greeks to rule over the Jews (this is the yellow period that comes after the blue in the timeline above). The Romans ruled efficiently but harshly. Taxes were high and the Romans tolerated no dissent. The Jewish people longed ever more for the fulfillment of the promises given in Taurat and Zabur, though in their long wait their worship became very rigid and they developed many extra rules not from the prophets but from traditions. These extra ‘commands’ seemed like good ideas when they were first suggested but they quickly replaced the original commands of the Taurat and Zabur in the hearts and minds of the Jewish teachers.

And then finally when it looked like perhaps the promises were long forgotten by Allah, the mighty angel Gabriel (Jibril) came to announce the long awaited birth of the Preparer. We know him today as the Prophet Yahya (or John the Baptist – PBUH) . But that is the beginning of the Injil, which we look at next.

Sign of the Coming Servant

In our last post we had seen that the prophet Daniel had predicted that the Masih would be ‘cut off’. This seemed to contradict other prophets who wrote that the Masih would rule. But the contradiction is resolved when we realize that the prophets were looking at two different comings of the Masih. One coming to be ‘cut off’ and the other to ‘rule’. The Jewish nation, by and large, missed this because they did not know all the scriptures. This should be taken as a warning for us that we do not do the same.

We come to the close of our journey through the Zabur. But we have a little more to learn. The Prophet Isaiah (see him in the timeline below) had prophesied

When Isaiah lived — Historical Timeline of Prophet Isaiah (PBUH) with some other prophets in Zabur

about the coming Masih using the image of a Branch. But he also wrote about a coming person whom he called the Servant. He wrote a long passage about this coming Servant. Who was this ‘Servant’? What was he going to do? We look at the passage in detail. I reproduce it exactly and in full here below, insert some comments to explain.

The Coming Servant predicted by the Prophet Isaiah. The complete passage from Isaiah 52:13-53:12)

See, my servant will act wisely;
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
¹⁴Just as there were many who were appalled at him—
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness—
¹⁵so he will sprinkle many nations,
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.

We know that this Servant will be a human man because Isaiah refers as a ‘he’, ‘him’, ‘his’. When Harun (PBUH) would give his sacrifice for the Israelites he would sprinkle the people with the blood – and then their sins were covered and would not be held against them. When it says that the Servant will ‘sprinkle’ the prophet Isaiah means that in a similar way this Servant will sprinkle people of their sins like Harun (PBUH) did for the Israelites when he made the sacrifices.

But the Servant will sprinkle ‘many nations’. So the Servant is not coming for the Jews only. This reminds us of the promises to Ibrahim (PBUH) when Allah said (Sign 1 and Sign 3) that ‘all nations’ would be blessed through his offspring. But in doing this sprinkling the ‘appearance’ and ‘form’ of the Servant will be ‘disfigured’ and ‘marred’. Though it is not clear what the Servant will do to be disfigured like this, one day the nations ‘will understand’

53 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
²He [The Servant] grew up before him [The LORD] like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

For some reason, though the Servant would sprinkle many nations, he would also be ‘despised’ and ‘rejected’, full of ‘suffering’ and ‘familiar with pain’.

⁴Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

The Servant will take ‘our’ pain. This Servant will also be ‘pierced’ and ‘crushed’ in ‘punishment’. This punishment will bring us (those in the many nations) ‘peace’ and make us ‘healed’.

⁶We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

We saw in the Sign of our Thirst, how easily we go to our own ‘broken wells’ to satisfy our thirst instead of turning to Allah. We have ‘gone astray’ each of us ‘turned to our own way’. This is sin (= iniquity).

⁷He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth

With the prophets Abel, Noah, Ibrahim, Musa and Harun (PBUT) they brought lambs to be given in sacrifice. But The Servant himself will be like a lamb going to the ‘slaughter’. But he will not protest or even ‘open his mouth’.

.⁸By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.

This Servant was ‘cut off’ from the ‘land of the living’. Is this what the prophet Daniel meant when he said that the Masih would be ‘cut off’? The exact same words are used! What does it mean to be ‘cut off from the land of the living’ except that one will die?

⁹He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.

If he was assigned ‘a grave’ this Servant must have died. He died condemned as a ‘wicked’ man even though ‘he had done no violence’ and no ‘deceit was in his mouth’

¹⁰Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand

This whole cruel death was not some terrible accident or misfortune. It was explicitly ‘the LORD’s will’ to ‘crush him’. But why? Just like Harun’s sacrifice was an ‘offering for sin’ so that the person giving the sacrifice could be held blameless, here the ‘life’ of this Servant is also an ‘offering for sin’. For whose sin? Well considering that ‘many nations’ would be ‘sprinkled’ (from above) it must be the sin of the peoples in the ‘many nations’.

.¹¹After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

Though the prophecy of the Servant is gruesome here it changes tone and become very optimistic and even triumphant. After this terrible ‘suffering’ (of being ‘cut off from the land of the living’ and assigned ‘a grave’), this Servant will see ‘the light of life’. He will come back to life?! And in so doing this Servant will ‘justify’ many.

To ‘justify’ is the same as giving ‘righteousness’. Remember that to get ‘Righteousness’ from the Law of Musa one had to keep ALL the commands ALL the time. But the prophet Ibrahim (Sign 2) was ‘credited’ or given ‘righteousness’. It was given to him simply because of his trust. In a similar way this Servant will justify, or credit righteousness to ‘many’. Is righteousness not something that we both want and need?

¹²Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

This Servant will be among ‘the great’ because he volunteered (‘poured’) out his life ‘unto death’. And he died as one who was numbered as a ‘transgressor’, that is as a ‘sinner’. Because the Servant did this he can make ‘intercession’ on behalf of the ‘transgressors’. An intercessor is an intermediary between two parties, The two parties here must be the ‘many people’ and ‘the LORD’. This “servant’ is sufficiently worthy to interceded or plead on our behalf to Allah himself!

Who is this Servant? How would all these things happen? Can and will he ‘intercede’ on behalf of ‘many’ from different ‘nations’ to Allah himself? We conclude the Zabur by looking at the last prophecy and then we go to the Injil itself.

The Masih: Coming to rule … or be ‘cut off’?

In our last articles we have seen how the prophets gave signs predicting the name of the Masih (the prediction was Jesus) and predicting the time of his coming. These are amazingly specific prophecies, recorded and set in writing hundreds of years before the coming of Jesus (Is al Masih – PBUH) and they correctly predicted him. These prophecies were written down, and are still there(!), in the Jewish scriptures – not in the Injil or the Qur’an. The question then arises as to why the Jewish people did not and still (mostly) do not accept Jesus as Christ (the Masih) since this is written in their book.

Before we look at this question, I should clarify that asking the question in the way that I did is not quite accurate. Many Jews in the lifetime of Jesus (Isa – PBUH) did accept him as the Masih. And today there are also many who accept him as the Masih. But the fact remains, as a nation, they did not accept him. So why?

Why do the Jews not accept Isa (PBUH) as the Masih?

The Gospel of Matthew (Injil) records an encounter between Isa (PBUH) and the Jewish religious teachers (called Pharisees and Sadducees – they had a similar role as imams have today). They had posed a trick question to him and here is Jesus reply:

Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. (Matthew 22:29)

This exchange gives us an important clue. Though these were leaders who taught the Taurat and Zabur to the people, Jesus accused them of not knowing the scriptures and not knowing the power of God. What did he mean by this? How could the experts not ‘know the scriptures’?

The Jews did not know ALL the scriptures

When you study what the leaders talked about and referenced in the Taurat and Zabur you will notice that they were very aware of only certain prophecies – and not other ones. So we saw, for example, in the Sign of the Virgin’s Son, that the experts knew the prophecy that the Masih would come from Bethlehem. Here is the verse that the experts in the Law quoted to King Herod at the birth of Isa to show where the Masih was to be born:

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.” (Micah 5:2)

You will see that they knew the verse that referenced the Christ (= Masih – see here for why these terms are the same) and that this verse refers to him as the ‘ruler’. Another passage, well-known to the Jewish experts, was Psalm 2, inspired by Dawood (PBUH) which first introduced the title ‘Christ’ and which said that the ‘Christ’ would be ‘installed as King in Zion” (= Jerusalem or Al Quds) as we see in the passage.

The kings of the earth take their stand … against the LORD and against his Masih … The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them… saying, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill … (Psalm 2 of Zabur)

The Jewish teachers were also well aware of the following passages from Zabur

O Lord, … For the sake of Dawud your servant, do not reject your Masih. The Lord swore an oath to Dawud, a sure oath that he will not revoke: “One of your own descendants I will place on your throne— … “Here I will make a horn grow for Dawud and set up a lamp for my Masih. (Psalm 132:10-18 of Zabur)

The Jews did not know the power of God by limiting it by their logic

So they knew certain passages, all of which pointed in one direction – that the Masih would rule with power. Given that in the time of Isa (Jesus – PBUH) the Jews lived under Roman occupation in the land of Israel (see here for history of Jews) this was the only kind of Masih that they wanted. They wanted a Masih that would come with power and repel the hated Romans and set up the powerful Kingdom that King Dawud had established 1000 years before (see here for background to King Dawud). This yearning to have a Masih shaped from their own desires rather than from the plan of Allah kept them from studying all their scriptures.

Then they used their human reason to limit the power of God in their thinking. The prophecies said that the Masih would rule in Jerusalem. Jesus did not rule with power from Jerusalem. So he could not be the Masih! It was simple logic. They limited the power of God by confining Him to their linear and human logic.

The Jews to this day largely do not know the prophecies of Zabur. Though it is in their book, called the Tanakh (=Taurat + Zabur) but if they read anything they just read the Taurat. They are ignoring God’s commands to know ALL the scriptures and are therefore ignorant of the other prophecies, and by limiting God with their human logic, they reason that since the Masih is to rule, and Isa did not rule, he cannot be the Masih. End of story! No need to investigate the question further! To this day most Jews do not look further into the issue.

The Masih: Coming to be … ‘cut off’

But if they did examine the scriptures they would learn something that we are now about to learn. In the last article we saw that the prophet Daniel (PBUH) correctly predicted the time of the coming of the Masih. But now notice what else he said about this Messiah (= Anointed One=Masih=Christ)

So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah (or Anointed One) the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. (Daniel 9:25-26)

Notice what Daniel says will happen to the Masih when he arrives. Does Daniel predict that the Masih will rule? That he will occupy the throne of his ancestor Dawud and destroy the occupying Roman power? No! In fact it says, quite clearly, that the Masih will be ‘cut off and will have nothing’. Then it says that foreign people will destroy the sanctuary (the Jewish Temple) and the city (Jerusalem) and that it would become desolate. If you look at the history of the Israelites you will see that this indeed happened. Forty years after the passing of Jesus the Romans came and burned down the Temple, destroyed Jerusalem and sent the Jews into worldwide exile so that they were driven from the land. Events happened in 70 AD exactly as prophesied by Daniel around 537 BC, and predicted previously by the Prophet Musa (PBUH) in the Curses.

So Daniel predicted the Masih was not going to rule! Instead he would be ‘cut off and have nothing’. The Jewish leaders missed this because they did not ‘know the scriptures’. But this raises another problem. Is there not a contradiction between the prophecy of Daniel (‘cut off’) and those that the Jews were familiar with (the Masih would rule). After all, if all the prophets had messages from Allah, all of them would have to come true as specified by Musa (PBUH) in the Taurat. How could it be possible that the Masih would be cut off AND that he would rule? It seemed that their human logic had outsmarted the ‘power of God’.

Contradiction between ‘Rule’ and ‘Cut off’ explained

But of course their logic was not stronger than the power of God. They were simply, as we humans do, not recognizing an assumption they were making. They assumed that the Masih was to come only once. If that were the case then there would indeed be a contradiction between the rule of the Masih and his being ‘cut off’. So they limited the power of God in their minds because of their logic, but in the end it was their logic that was faulty. The Masih was to come two times. In the first coming he would fulfill the ‘cut off and have nothing’ prophecies and only in the second coming would he fulfill the ‘ruling’ prophecies. From that perspective the ‘contradiction’ is easily resolved.

Do we also miss ALL the scriptures and limit the power of God?

But what did it mean that the Masih would be ‘cut off and have nothing’? We will look at this question soon But for now perhaps it would be more useful to reflect on how the Jews missed the signs. We have already seen two reasons why the Jews did not see the signs of the Masih. There is also a third reason, which is recorded for us in the Gospel of John (Injil) in another exchange between Jesus (Isa – pbuh) and the religious leaders where he says to them.

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life…. How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? (John 5: 39-44)

In other words, the third reason that the Jews missed the signs of the Masih was because they simply ‘refused’ to accept them because they were more interested in winning the approval of each other rather than approval from God!

The Jews are not more misguided and wrong-headed than other people. Yet it is easy for us to sit in judgment over them for missing the signs that Jesus was the Masih. But before we point our fingers at them perhaps we should look at ourselves. Can we honestly say that we know ‘all the scriptures’? Do we not, like the Jews, simply look at the scriptures that we like, are comfortable with, and understand? And do we not often use our human logic to limit the power of God in our minds? Or do we even sometimes refuse to accept the scriptures because we are concerned about what others think more than what God has said?

The manner in which the Jews missed the signs should be a warning to us. We dare not limit ourselves to only the scriptures that we are familiar with and that we happen to like. We dare not limit the power of God by our human logic. And we dare not refuse to accept what the scriptures teach. Armed with these warnings from how the Jews missed the signs of the coming Masih we now turn to understand the coming of a key person – The Servant.