Is Song of Solomon 5:16 a prophecy of Muhammad?
Answer: Song of Solomon 5:16
- KJV: His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.
- Hebrew MT: חכו ממתקים וכלו מחמדים זה דודי וזה רעי בנות ירושלם׃
Song of Solomon is actually a weaker case for Muhammad than other proposed verses. Reasons why I believe it’s weak:
- The Hebrew word is just similar to, but not exactly Muhammad. It is מחמדים (mhmdym), not Ahmad or Muhammad.
- The Hebrew word mhmdym is a plural noun, not singular, so it does not refer to a person like Muhammad.
- If we try to replace mhmdym with Muhammad, the verse will read:
His mouth is most sweet Muhammad. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.
This sentence attributes the third-person masculine possessive pronoun “His” to Muhammad, however this is wrong because the “He” pronoun in the whole Song of Solomon refers to Solomon as we read from the very first verse of the book (Song of Solomon 1:1,5, 3:7,9,11).
- If Muslims want to replace the mhmdym word with Muhammad, they will have to consistently change other verses that use the same mhmdym word:
a. Hosea 9:16 Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even Muhammad (mhmdym) fruit of their womb. b. 2 Chronicles 36:19 And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the Muhammad (mhmdym) vessels thereof. c. Isaiah 64:11 Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: Muhammad (mhmdym) is laid waste. d. Lamentations 1:10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon Muhammad (mhmdym): for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation. (is Muhammad a “she/her” ???)
- The claim about Muhammad in this verse completely neglects the context of the passage and the book. Song of Solomon is a love poem between King Solomon and one of his brides. It is a poetic love story, an intimate one at that. However it is fine to be in the Bible since the intimacy is within the context of marriage. It tells the readers that love within marriage is beautiful. Song of Solomon 5:10-16 is a particular passage where the bride admires the physique of the groom, i.e., king Solomon. It is really a difficult stretch to claim a prophecy about the great last prophet in a lovey-dovey exchange between two lovebirds on their honeymoon.
A simple sanity check
If you are in a bookstore, pick a random book, open a random page, and find the word AMD there, do not be hasty to assume it’s a prophecy / revelation about Ahmad. Maybe it’s a computer magazine and that page is describing the technical specifications of the latest AMD computer processor. Context is important.Conclusion: Song of Solomon 5:16 is NOT a prophecy of Muhammad
