Ep 16 — The Philosophy of Prophethood

Session 14: The Philosophy of Prophethood. delivered Wednesday, 10 Mehr 1353 / 15 Ramadan al-Mubarak 1394 Surat al-Jumu'ah (62:2-3). He it is who raised up among the unlettered a Messenger from among themselves, who recites to them His verses, purifies them, and teaches them the Book and wisdom — though before that they had been in manifest error — and [He raised him] also for others among them who have not yet joined them. He is the Mighty, the Wise. Today, God willing, we take up from the Qur'an a discussion about prophethood. We have set before ourselves several topics in this field, so that, relying on the blessed verses of the Qur'an and seeking their help, we may come to understand them. Prophethood, of course, is one of the principles of every religion. And yet to call it merely a principle among the principles of religion is to say too little; one must say something higher. I do not mean that anyone would deny that it is a principle — no. It is more than a principle: without belief in prophethood, religion has no meaning at all. Religion means that program, that path, that creed which has come by way of a messenger from God the Exalted. So the coming of a messenger — a coming from God's side — is among the essential elements of religion; the very subsistence of religion rests upon it. That is why prophethood deserves our discussion as one of the important and fundamental matters of religion. In the field of prophethood there is a whole series of standard, customary discussions. Pick up any book written about prophethood and look at it: you will find them there. Out of all those discussions, we have taken up just one — only one — and that too with a particular slant, for this series of ours. That is precisely our subject today. The rest of the discussions carried on around prophethood in the various books of theology (kalam) are, in their own place, correct points — indeed necessary ones. But that a point is correct does not compel me to raise it here, at this time, under these circumstances, with these needs. Many of the points scholars make are correct. And here let me offer a general teaching that governs all our intellectual and research work: among the correct things, we must see which is necessary; among the necessary, which is more necessary; among the more necessary, which is urgent; among the urgent, which is pressing and vital. That is what we take up first; once we are free of it, we move on to the later discussions in the same order, until at the end we reach discussions that, though correct, do not feel necessary or urgent to the same degree. Concerning the discussion of prophethood: it is true that the question of how much divine or human knowledge a prophet possesses is itself a discussion; or the question of knowing whether our Prophet — who did not write and did not read, as the speaking Qur'an states: And you did not write any book with your right hand, otherwise the falsifiers would surely have fallen into doubt. The Prophet neither wrote nor read. Was it that he could not — that in today's ordinary terms he was entirely illiterate? Or was he able to, and simply chose not to? That is a real question. So too is which religion, which creed among all the religions and creeds of the world the Prophet of Islam believed in and practiced before his prophethood and his Bi'thah. These are discussions, yes — but how necessary are they for us? How necessary is the one before them, or the one before that? Not necessary at all. Once a person has learned everything that bears on prophethood and religion, there is no harm in coming, at the very end, to work out which religion the Prophet followed before the Bi'thah. But we are still in the bend of a single alley. Our society still does not know the meaning of prophethood, the meaning of the Bi'thah, the aim of the Bi'thah, the outcome and conclusion of the Bi'thah, the path of the Bi'thah, and the watchword of prophethood; it does not even know that it is afflicted with this condition. The Muslim does not know the aim of the Muhammadan Bi'thah — and that is why his affairs are the way they are. If he knew the aim of his Prophet's Bi'thah, he would go after that aim. We are still in the first matters, the preliminary matters, the fundamental matters in the field of prophethood. Are we then to grasp at the secondary matters, the ones of the fourth and fifth degree? That is why, in our discussion of prophethood, we raise none of those debates the theologians have conducted and go on conducting in their books. Those books exist; go and read them. We have no doubt that such discussions are necessary, nor that they are good. But we have just as little doubt that their necessity falls far below the necessity of many other discussions that ought to be raised today. That is why we set them aside. The first matter we discuss concerning prophethood is the philosophy of prophethood. Why must there be a prophet? Why must someone, from the side of the Lord, gird himself to guide humankind? Can a person not do it himself? Are human knowledge and human thought not enough? Why a prophet? Why a messenger between the unseen (ghayb) and the witnessed (shuhud)? This is a question we must answer. Without the philosophy of prophethood, the rest of the discussions about prophethood are left almost suspended in mid-air. So first we must know: prophethood for what? This is our first discussion today. In the notes I wrote, we have set this question down briefly, in a few concise sentences, and the verses we recite today bear upon it. Concerning the philosophy of prophethood we need not say much; it comes down to one thing: a person's senses, instincts, and intellect all fall short of guiding him and taking him by the hand. Some creatures can be managed by their senses alone. A few animals we perhaps know to be of this sort, drawing only on their outward senses. Most kinds of animals, though, are guided by their instincts. The honeybee's instinct tells it: go and alight upon the fragrant flower, and suck from its perfume and its essence; then return to the hive; build the houses in that six-cornered, hexagonal form; and there, by certain arrangements, enter the houses and exit; and keep a queen and helpers and guards — in short, a whole bee civilization. Suppose you imagine that one day the bees sat down together, convened a great conference of the chiefs of the hives and regions, and asked, "How is it better for us to build the house?" — one said octagonal, one said square, one said hexagonal; then they studied it and saw, no, the hexagonal is more suitable. If you imagine it happened this way, I must tell you: you are mistaken. No such thing ever occurred. And your Lord revealed to the honeybee: Take houses for yourselves in the mountains, and in the trees, and in what they build as trellises. Then eat of all the fruits, and tread the paths of your Lord, in humble obedience. This is divine revelation (wahy) to the bee. It does not mean that the bee sits down and Gabriel descends upon it; it means that the bee's very structure, the bee's very instinct, is like this — an instinctual pull that draws the bee and compels it, so that it cannot do otherwise. By nature and by instinct the bee is compelled, fashioned to build its house, to build it in this form, to find flower and plant in such-and-such a place and suck from them. Should a bee deviate — should it smell and suck foul, rotten plants instead of flower and plant — the others would behead it right there at the entrance of the hive. All this is their nature (fitrah) and their instinct. For the bee, instinct is enough. Maurice Maeterlinck sat for years studying the life of bees and ants and termites. Take the very termite you complain about so much: it keeps a certain arrangement inside those ceilings of yours; in your usurped house it has built an organized structure. You would rather it not settle on the beam of your house and build there — the house is usurped — yet in this usurped house it does its work all the same. It builds a house of a particular shape, in a particular order. And here is the strange thing. Suppose you could find one of the termites' houses, or a hive of the honeybees, from the time of Noah's flood — or ten centuries before Noah's flood — and set it beside one of the hives in the pleasant, fine-aired highlands of present-day Mashhad. You would see that this hive does not differ from that one by the breadth of a needle's point in its arrangements. Evolution, advancement, progress — these do not exist in the work of the honeybee, nor in the work of any other animal. What does exist is the revelation of nature, the revelation of instinct, the guidance built into the very quality of its creation, which draws it, moves it, shows it the way, points out the obstacles, until it can do its own work. There is nothing other than instinct. You too use instinct, but little. When you first came into the world, your state — with all due distinction — was the state of one of these very animals. It was by instinct, by the pull of nature (fitrah) and disposition, that you found the store of your food in your mother's breast, and when they placed it in your mouth, you sucked. No one had taught you to suck; you had not learned the practical, auditory, and visual steps of it somewhere — this was your instinct. As you rose out of childhood, this tool, this eyeglass, this weapon whose name is instinct gradually grew weak, became ineffective, became of little use. In its place came something more effective, stronger, more powerful — reason and intellect ('aql wa khirad) — and you became a reasoning being. Instinct no longer runs your life now; it is not instinct that tells you, "Sir, go and open your shop, or close it at such-and-such an hour, or answer the customer this way, or study the lesson this way, or teach in that manner" — these are not instinct, these are instructions you took up from thought and from knowledge, learned, and used to find your way of life. But does this intellect, this human thought, suffice to guide you and bring you to the destination of felicity? Is human reason adequate to guide you? Sound reason, if it is open, if it thinks, if it does not become bigoted, if it wishes to judge without ulterior motive, will say no. It is like a court that rules on its own case and finds it has no jurisdiction — a court that says, "I have no competence to judge in this matter." Sound human reason, free of ulterior motive, judges that it is not competent to guide humanity on its own. You want proof? We have two kinds. One is that human reason is limited, not infinite, whereas the needs of human beings are infinite. How could a single intellect understand every need well enough to meet it, or to legislate for it? Human reason cannot do this work; it is too weak, too incapable, too inadequate to recognize every pain and supply the remedy for each one. The other proof is historical and scientific fact. Were the great intellects ever equal to it? Could intellects like Aristotle's or Plato's or Socrates's manage humankind? Plato the thinker sits and thinks, consults, studies, researches, and sketches an ideal city — a utopia. But that ideal city is good only for the mind and the private strongbox of the honorable Plato himself, because it was never put into practice, anywhere, for a single moment. And if you set Plato's ideal city today against the arrangements of the present world, it looks unacceptable and ridiculous. Look at the rational and philosophical schools, how they array themselves one against the other. See that humanity cannot reach the way to guidance and felicity unless it is connected to a source and a point higher, loftier, and deeper than human reason. This is the meaning of prophethood: human beings need a force higher, a guidance stronger and deeper than the guidance of the senses, of instinct, of reason. This guidance comes — and what does it do? Does it come to compete with your senses? Does it come to oppose your instinct? Does it come to dash the head of reason against a stone? Never. It comes to guide reason, to nurture reason, to bring the buried reason out from beneath the tons of dust. Our Commander of the Faithful, may God's blessings and peace be upon him — I misspoke — the Commander of the Faithful of all humanity (let us not confine the Commander of the Faithful to ourselves); he is the teacher of humanity, the Commander of the Faithful is the great one of humanity. According to what is in the Nahj al-Balaghah, he says that God sent the prophets so that they might urge human beings to remain faithful to the covenant of their nature (fitrah), bring to their remembrance the forgotten blessings, and then "unearth for them the buried treasures of the intellects" (wa yuthiru lahum dafa'in al-'uqul). The prophets come to bring out these buried treasures, to stir up these buried intellects: the intellects, the reasons, the understandings, the consciousnesses of the human societies that had been buried by the Pharaohs and the Nimrods and the great ones and the powerful. Pharaoh does not like the people to possess intellect; he does not like them to understand — because if they understand, his existence becomes void and a fable, which we will see explained in the later discussions of prophethood, God willing. That is why Pharaoh buries the force of intellect: he cannot afford the people to employ it. How he buries it is a matter for the later discussions, God willing. The prophets come to extract these buried treasures, these hoards, these hidden and concealed treasures; they refine them, and they place them in the people's hands. So the prophets, with the force of revelation they carry, do not go to war against reason. The one who imagines that religion is at variance with reason either does not know religion or has no reason. By contrast, one who possesses reason — one who has tested reason and also knows religion — knows well that religion cannot, and does not, have any variance whatsoever with human knowledge and human reason. None at all. What religion says, sound intellects understand and approve. Some ignorant people, in the name of defending religion, say things like, "Sir, you must not seek the rationale of religion; you must not seek argumentation in religion; you must not seek philosophy in the matter of religion." They imagine that raising philosophy — asking for reasons — diminishes the worth of religion. They must know that this is not the case at all. Sound religion, when it is presented before the complete intellect, has no variance and no conflict with it whatsoever. Today the great intellects of humanity understand religion's tawhid, its prophethood, its prayer, its fasting, its zakat, its secondary rulings. When human intellect and the experience of human knowledge recognizes alcohol, knows its harms, understands the injury it does to the body, to the nerves, to the spirit, and to the general condition of society — why should I not have the courage to recite the verse of the Qur'an with power? Indeed, wine, gambling, idols, and divining-arrows are an abomination from the work of Satan, so avoid it. Why should I not raise the verse of the Qur'an? Why should I not appeal to what human knowledge has understood in this field? Why should I not say that it is from the work of Satan — that is, it is the satans who give this to you, and it is the satans who profit from the drinking of that wretched drinker? Why should we not say this? You have heard that Imam al-Sajjad, may God's blessings and peace be upon him, said, "The religion of God is not attained by the intellects" (din Allah la yusabu bi-l-'uqul) — but its meaning is something else. It means the divine creed cannot be discovered by reason. And what does "cannot be discovered" mean? It means that if you have no narration (riwayah) telling you the noon prayer is four cycles, you cannot work out by reason that the noon prayer is four cycles — and this is a very sound point too. Take the time of prayer: if the Qur'an itself does not state it — Establish the prayer from the declining of the sun until the darkness of the night, and the Qur'an of dawn (the dawn prayer and its supererogatory prayer). If the Qur'an does not state this, you cannot work out by reason and ordinary intellect when the time of prayer is. The Qur'an must state it; the hadith must state it; revelation must state it to us. This is what Imam al-Sajjad means, and the outward sense of his statement is just this — "The religion of God is not attained by the intellects." His meaning is not that we cannot see the rulings of religion and the teachings of religion through the vision of reason and human intellect — so that a group of ignorant people, in the name of defending religion, with fervor and heat, cry out, "Sir, do not set forth a philosophy for religion!" Why not? Why should we not set it forth? Of course we always say, we repeat, we confess that what we understand is not a thousandth of the deep teachings of religion; what we can apply and explain is far less than what may in reality be done and exist — there is no doubt in this. But I say one word, the next person says one word, the person after him says one word. Reckon along the lengthwise line of human history, and after two hundred years, five hundred years, you see that humankind is far more believing, more confessing, more acknowledging of the depth of religion than in the age when these thoughts and reflections and applications had not yet come to it. Religion, then, does not come to crush reason; it does not come to abrogate reason and drive it out of life. So what does it come for? It comes to guide reason, to take reason by the hand. Reason exists — but when caprice sits beside it, it cannot judge correctly. Reason exists — but when greed stands shoulder to shoulder with it, it cannot see correctly. When an ulterior motive is beside it, it cannot understand correctly. Religion comes to strip away from reason the caprices, the greeds, the fears, the ulterior motives; it strengthens sound, whole reason, confirms it, so that it may understand well. Turn to Islam and you see that Islam, from beginning to end, is full of the manifestations of reason. In the Qur'an, how often we meet "Will you not reason?" (a-fa-la ta'qilun), how often "Will you not reflect?" (a-fa-la tatafakkarun) — so that you may understand, so that you may know — how often "Indeed in that are signs for those endowed with understanding" (inna fi dhalika la-ayatin li-uli l-albab), for the people of reason. And in the narrations: "Indeed God has two proofs over the people" (inna li-Llahi 'ala l-nasi hujjatayn) — God has two proofs over the people: the prophet and the reason. Reason again. Of reason we will say no more now. In sum, keep this one word in mind. Without the guidance of revelation, without revelation coming to his aid, man cannot bring himself to the destination of felicity. And when revelation comes, it does not suppress reason, just as it does not suppress instinct, just as it does not destroy the outward senses. No — it comes to strengthen the outward senses, the human and mortal instincts, and the force of man's intellect and thought; it refines them, purifies them, takes their hand, teaches them. This is the task of revelation. And this is the philosophy of prophethood. Because it is so — because we are deficient, because human knowledge and insight fall short of our guidance — a hand must reach out from the unseen and guide us. This is the place for that hand to reach out, not the place where, having gone a little hungry, I refuse to go after a morsel of bread and instead wait for a hand from the unseen. It is not the place where, confronted with a sin, I content myself with regret and grief and wait for a hand to reach out from the unseen for me. It is not the place where I neglect my divine duty — do not enjoin good, do not forbid evil, do not tread the path of God — and wait for a hand to reach out from the unseen and do something — against the verse of the Qur'an: Have you seen the one who denies the Religion? That is the one who drives away the orphan and does not urge the feeding of the needy. Of such deniers it is said: We were not among those who prayed, nor did we feed the needy. And we used to deny the Day of Judgment. The verse of the Qur'an counts among the deniers of religion those who do not urge the feeding of the destitute — who do not rouse the people to feed the destitute and, with a broader, deeper view closer to the very text of Islam, to uproot poverty and hunger. Whoever does not conform to this verse takes not a single step on the path of eliminating hunger, advances not a single pace toward destroying the root of poverty, and sits waiting for a hand to reach out from the unseen and do something. Such people must know that if a hand did reach out from the unseen, it would first strike their own brains — to throw these spoiled, void existences away and bring them down. A hand does reach out from the unseen and does do something, and this is exactly my point. For the guidance of man, a hand must come from the unseen, and that is the hand of the prophet, the hand of prophethood. That is the skill of the messengership: it comes and guides human beings in just the manner we have stated, rousing the force of reason within them. Then several other matters arise here, of which I have briefly written down a list. One is this. What concept does prophethood carry? What is its relation to the Bi'thah, to being raised up (bar-angikhtagi)? We say the prophet was sent (mab'uth), was raised up — but what does "raised up" mean? Is there a stirring (angizish) in prophethood? Is there a movement? This too is a discussion, and in the discussions related to prophethood we never encounter it. What is the starting point of the prophets' work? From where do they begin their reform and aid to human beings? How does their endeavor conclude? Where do their works arrive? Just this — that they laid him against a tree and sawed him, and it was finished and over? They cut off the head of Yahya before that tyrant (taghi), and it was finished and over? Is the end of the work of prophethood just this? No — another conclusion, another ending for this beginning is conceived and envisaged. The Qur'an alludes to it, and there are matters here that we will of course raise gradually, one by one, in the coming days. Concerning the philosophy of prophethood, this much that I have stated is, in my own view, sufficient — and it was the briefest expression that could be set forth in this field. If anything here has not become clear to you, ask me, so that this may become clear: what fundamentally is the philosophy of prophethood? The verses in this field are very pithy and full of meaning. My first thought was to explain this one verse in detail today. But I saw two obstacles. If I explained it, what I wanted to say about prophethood would go unsaid, put off to tomorrow or the day after — and even then I could not fully draw out the meaning of this verse in a single hour. It is a fascinating verse, and I urge good minds to study it in the light of the Qur'an, where there is a fairly good discussion of it. So I will content myself with a brief translation. Mankind was one community (ummah). The people were all one ummah, one group. The commentators dispute this among themselves at length. Were they one ummah — a good ummah? Or one ummah — a bad ummah? Either way, both sides face an objection. Some say that "Mankind was one community" alludes to the primitive, original communalism (ishtirakiyyat) of the prehistoric eras. I say there is no evidence for this reading — only that the name of that communalist, primitive era is on people's tongues, and we feel it a pity that our Qur'an should have no share of that cloak. That is all it amounts to. Otherwise, "Mankind was one community" would allude to an era when human beings lived in that primitive, original communalism — as the gentlemen say — like animals, if I may put it so: naked, in herds, roaming the deserts, performing feats of strength, scraping stone with their claws, catching animals and eating them, and sometimes eating one another too. Are we to take such a creature, or ourselves, as the referent of this verse "Mankind was one community"? No, never. We never try to graft onto our Qur'an something from elsewhere. What we understand from our own Qur'an is enough for us; if we grasp even that, we have done a great feat. Our Qur'an needs no marginal note or appendix from the sayings and cultures of others to be exalted by it. No — the Qur'an does not want that kind of exaltation. "Mankind was one community" can carry several meanings. Two of them are in In the Light of the Qur'an, which you can consult; a third occurs to me, the one I gave in this translation. It means that human beings were all in an equal, identical state — in their needs and in their capacities. Every human being was of one kind of need, and every human being had one measure of capacity — and social reality is always like this. All human beings have reason, thought, intelligence, a sixth sense, outward senses, inward senses. All feel hunger and thirst, feel sexual desire, want a house, want clothing, and the like. The needs are all equal, almost of one kind, and the capacities are alike. If one human being was raised in a better upbringing and his capacity blossomed, that is another matter. Some young nobleman is born in an aristocratic house, with a private tutor at home teaching him at six or seven to speak Indian and Chinese like a nightingale, while the child of some laborer in the kilns does not know even Persian properly at seven or eight — that too is another matter. It proves nothing about one child's capacity being greater than the other's. This one's capacity was drawn out; the capacity of that poor child remained, never drawn out. Take the oil deposits in a given region — northern, southern, in such-and-such a country. It is not certain they are richer or more abundant than the deposits at some other point that has never been tapped. This one's oil has been extracted; it comes into the lamps, its gasoline runs the automobiles; everyone knows it, its name is famous. That one's oil, poor thing, has not yet been extracted — and it may even be richer. So human beings, naturally and ordinarily, were one community (ummah wahidah), with identical needs and equal capacities, as we have specified in the translation. So God sent the prophets (fa-ba'atha Llahu l-nabiyyin). Among these human beings of equal capacities, God the Exalted raised up the prophets. From among these people of the same level, the Lord of the worlds singled out one — higher, stronger, deeper, more ardent, of greater capacity — and raised him up. To do what? "as bearers of glad tidings" (mubashshirin) — bringers of good news — "and warners" (wa mundhirin) — and givers of warning. Of what do the prophets give glad tidings? They give the glad tidings of Paradise, of the felicity of this world, of the ideal city, of the establishment of security, of the disappearance of poverty and despair and fear and insecurity and ignorance. And at last they give human beings the glad tidings of a virtuous government and a righteous city, and after that the glad tidings of going to Paradise and connection to the good pleasure (ridwan) of the Lord. And they are warners; they frighten. They frighten of the fire of Hell, of the narrowness of the bridge of Sirat, of the wretchedness of this world, of the domination of the demon of ignorance and poverty, of the fall into the valley and slope of corruption, of the destruction of the human capacities. They are bringers of warning, they are warners. So God sent the prophets as bearers of glad tidings and warners, and He sent down with them the Book with the truth (wa anzala ma'ahum al-kitaba bi-l-haqq). But it is not enough that they should say "People, fear" and "People, glad tidings be to you." What do you have with you? A book from the side of the Lord. He sent down with them a book by the truth, in accordance with the truth. I have explained "the truth" (haqq) several times. In sum, that which conforms with the nature (fitrah) of the world, that which accompanies the natural course of the world — that is the truth. That which conforms with the nature of man and the disposition of the universe — that they call the truth. The book of the prophets too is the truth; it drives man forward on his natural, innate path, on his ordinary and evolutionary course; it advances him, it aids him. The book of the prophets carries the truth with it. He sent down with them the Book with the truth, that it might judge among the people concerning that wherein they differed (li-yahkuma bayna l-nasi fima ikhtalafu fihi). The book comes so "that it might judge" (li-yahkuma) — so that it may judge among the people in those things about which they differ with one another. After all, people are never free of difference; difference among human beings is a custom (sunnah), and its existence is necessary. Know this: the existence of difference is good, because difference is a cause of evolution. But that other thing I said — that the absence of difference is harmful — I must reconsider; I do not know whether it is harmful or not. In any case I would have to elaborate and interpret. Its existence is beneficial; as for "its absence is harmful," I do not know — I take that statement back. The book comes to judge among the people, to render judgment, concerning the things about which they have differed. What do we understand from this? We understand that the government the prophets bring into being is not the government of the individual prophet, not the government of one person, not the government of despotism; it is the government of law, the government of the Book. When the prophet comes, he makes a society in which the ruler, in meaning and in reality, is that very book — that is, the law. that it might judge among the people concerning that wherein they differed. And none differed concerning it except those who were given it (wa ma ikhtalafa fihi illa lladhina utuhu). Concerning this book no difference arose — "except those who were given it," except the very people to whom the book had been given, for whom this heavenly book had come. They themselves differed over it. And what does that show us? It shows the existence of distortion (tahrif) in the heavenly religions, among the sayings of the prophets. The prophets came and brought the book, the law, the school; then the very people to whom it had been given differed about it. To differ means this: one side spoke the truth, and one side spoke against the fact. So there are those who follow a religion and speak in its name, yet speak against the fact — an allusion to the existence of abrogation (naskh) and distortion (tahrif) in the religions. after the clear proofs had come to them, out of mutual envy (min ba'di ma ja'athumu l-bayyinatu baghyan baynahum). Out of enmity and transgression against one another. Then God guided those who believed to the truth concerning that wherein they differed, by His leave (fa-hada Llahu lladhina amanu lima ikhtalafu fihi mina l-haqqi bi-idhnih). Those who believe, who have inclined to the true religion — God guided them, by His leave, to the answer over which the others had differed. And God guides whom He wills to a straight path (wa Llahu yahdi man yasha'u ila siratin mustaqim). And God guides whomever He wills to the straight path. Now to Surat al-Jumu'ah, in the twenty-eighth part (juz'): In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. Whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth glorifies God, the Sovereign, the Holy, the Mighty, the Wise. This is Surat al-Jumu'ah, up to "and God is the possessor of mighty bounty" (wa Llahu dhu l-fadli l-'azim). I have given a brief commentary on this surah more than once before, both here and in that mosque, and the translation stands written in the papers before you. So what have we understood so far? We have understood the philosophy of prophethood — that it is a principle in all religions, indeed the mother principle. Without it, religion can have no correct meaning or concept, because religion is that which comes from the side of the Lord, by way of a messenger, a bearer of revelation.