Yezid at last went near the walls with an interpreter, to know their
minds, and to propose the usual terms. When these were rejected, the
Saracens would willingly have assaulted the town forthwith, had not
Yezid told them that the general had not commanded them to make any
assault, but only to sit down before the city; and thereupon sent to Abu
Obeidah, who forthwith gave them order to fight. The next morning the
generals having said the morning prayer, each at the head of his
respective division, they all, as it were with one consent, quoted this
versicle out of the _Koran_, as being very apposite and pertinent to
their present purpose: "O people! enter ye into the holy land which God
hath decreed for you," being the twenty-fourth verse of the fifth
chapter of the _Koran_, where the impostor introduces Moses speaking to
the children of Israel, and which words the Saracens dexterously
interpreted as belonging no less to themselves than to their
predecessors, the Israelites. Nor have our own parts of the world been
altogether destitute of such able expositors, who apply to themselves,
without limitation or exception, whatever in Scripture is graciously
expressed in favor of the people of God; while whatever is said of the
wicked and ungodly, and of all the terrors and judgments denounced
against them, they bestow with a liberal hand upon their neighbors.
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