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أن يؤمنوا أي اليهود
"They hear the word of God, in the Pentateuch,"
يسمعون كلام الله في التوراة
—Jelalooddeen. "They hear the word of God, that is to say, the
Pentateuch,"
يسمعون كلام الله يعني التوراة
Baidhâwi. "Then they pervert it, as the description of
Mahomet, or the Verse of stoning; or the explanation thereof, and they interpret
the same accordingly as they desire,"
ثم يحرفونه كنعت محمد وآية الرجم او تأويله فيفسرونه بما يشتهون
—Ibid. The latter construction, as natural in itself, and consistent
with other notices throughout the Corân of the conduct of the Jews, and the
testimony there borne from first to last in favour of the Jewish as well as of
the Christian Scriptures, is evidently the one to be adopted.
The tenor of the passage is this:—"What! do you expect to convert the
Jews to the truth, seeing that they have already heard the truth in the word
of God as contained in their own Scriptures, and have perverted that truth
intentionally? How can you hope to succeed with men who have shown themselves
proof against the word of God? For they have already read the word of God in the
Old Testament, and wilfully perverted its meaning, 'interpreting it as they
please.' Will the word of God, as inculcated by you out of the Corân, have
any better effect upon them?"
This is much the same way in which Christians of the present day might speak
of the Jews; thus,—"they have already misused and perverted the word of
God as contained in their own Scriptures, which should
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TESTIMONY TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES |
139 | |
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have led them to believe in Christ:—and having done so, there is little
hope of gaining them over to the truth, by an appeal to the further word of
God as contained in the New Testament." Yet the Christians do not the
less accept and believe in the Jewish Scriptures.
What a full testimony is borne in this verse to the Divine origin and
authority of the Scripture in use amongst the Jews in the days of Mahomet,
by the application to it of the sacred title, "The word[s] of
God,"
كلام الله
! Why is the Corân valued by Mahometans? Simply because it is believed
to be "the word of God." Ought they not therefore to pay a
similar reverence to the "word of God" that preceded the Corân?
LXX.—SURA II., v. 76[-77].
سورة البقرة
وَإِذَا
لَقُواْ
الَّذِينَ
آمَنُواْ
قَالُواْ
آمَنَّا
وَإِذَا
خَلاَ
بَعْضُهُمْ
إِلَىَ
بَعْضٍ
قَالُواْ
أَتُحَدِّثُونَهُم
بِمَا
فَتَحَ
اللّهُ
عَلَيْكُمْ
لِيُحَآجُّوكُم
بِهِ عِندَ
رَبِّكُمْ
أَفَلاَ
تَعْقِلُونَ
أَوَلاَ
يَعْلَمُونَ
أَنَّ
اللّهَ
يَعْلَمُ
مَا
يُسِرُّونَ
وَمَا
يُعْلِنُونَ
And when they (the Jews of Medîna,) meet the
believers, they say,—We believe; but when they retire privately one with
the other, they say,—Why do ye acquaint them with what God hath revealed
to you, that they may therewith dispute with you before your Lord?
What do
ye not understand? Do they not know that God knoweth what they conceal as
well as that which they make public?
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