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David (pbuh) . Indeed, until late in his life we find him98always having recourse to other prophets. According to the Biblical accounts, therefore, it would seem that the gift of prophecy came to him after he had thoroughly repented of his sin.In one of the previous articles I remarked that after the split of the Kingdom into two independent States which were often at war with each other, the ten tribes which formed the Kingdom of Israel were always hostile to the dynasty of David (pbuh) and never accepted any other portion of the Old Testament except the Torah - or the Law of Moses (pbuh) as contained in the Pentateuch. This is evident from the Samaritan version of the first five books of the Old Testament. We do not meet with a single word or prophecy about David’s posterity in the discourses of the great prophets, like Elijah, Elisha, and others, who flourished in Samariah during the reigns of the wicked kings of Israel. It is only after the fall of the Kingdom of Israel and the transportation of the ten tribes into Assyria that the Prophets of Judah began to predict the advent of some Prince from the House of David (pbuh) who was soon to restore the whole nation and subdue its enemies. There are several of these obscure and ambiguous sayings in the writings or discourses of these later prophets, which have given a rapturous and exotic exultation to the Fathers of the Church; but in reality, they have nothing to do with Jesus Christ (pbuh) . I shall briefly quote two of these prophecies. The first is in Isaiah (Chap. vii.verse 14), where that Prophet predicts that “a damsel already pregnant with child shall bear forth a son, and thou shalt name him Emmanuel.” The Hebrew word a’lmāh does not mean “virgin,” as generally interpreted by the Christian theologians and therefore applied to the Virgin Mary, but it signifies “a marriageable woman, maiden, damsel.” The Hebrew word for “virgin” is bthulah. Then the child’s name is to be Emmanuel, which