YHWH appeared to the Biblical prophets? He spoke to them directly?

In answer to the video "Was Muhammad a False Prophet?"

God does not interract directly with the people and even when He spoke to the Israelites, He did not manifest Himself physically. He bestows the light of inspiration and prophethood on an individual -human or else 6:9,130,11:69,17:95,22:75,35:1- from any nation to lead it to the straight path 3:73-4,179,6:88,17:65,28:68,40:15,42:13,14:11,16:93. It is so because not all people are fit to receive Revelation 2:118-9,6:124,74:52 just like not any type of electrical cable can absorb high voltage directly from the energy source.

The Israelites made that experience when revelation descended on them collectively, and consequently requested the experience to stop, fearing they would die. They then appointed Musa as their sole intermediary with God.

His guidance is not restricted 2:89-90,142,26:28,55:17,37:5,73:9 and sends it to all indiscriminately, like water from the clouds to answer the human need for spiritual guidance

The pattern of revelation in this case is again very similar among the Israelites and Ishmaelite prophet. Divine inspiration transmitted to an individual by an angel is not something unique to Muhammad. Although the Tanakh (like the Quran) recognizes that every prophet receives the ruh/ruach that allows divine inspiration, it is mostly silent on whom the carrier of that inspiration is, except in Daniel's case whose visions, prophetic dreams and inspiration were brought by a third party, who was none other than the angel Gabriel/Jibreel Dan7:15,8:16,9:21. The fact that Gabriel is referred to as "a man" is due to his appearance in the form of a man in Daniel's vision. Gabriel, along with another angel, would later appear to Daniel while awake, but still in the shape of a man. He was sent to Daniel to reveal to him the meaning of a frightening vision he had. Again in

Dan9:21"While I was still speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I saw in the vision at first, approached me in swift flight about the time of the evening offering".

Gabriel proceeded by transmitting divine revelation upon Daniel.

Moses himself is described as receiving his ever first communication with God through an angel Ex3:2. Other prophets received revelation through angels. In dreams, Jacob was regularily visited by angelic messengers Gen31:11. Same for Elisha 2Kings1:3 or Zechariah's angelic visions later on throughout the book attributed to him. In fact we read that when God intends to speak with a prophet, He does so through an angel Numb22:20,35 and it was enough for the prophet Iddo to be convinced of the truthfulness of a man claiming to be a prophet when the latter said he received revelation through an angel 1Kings13:18.

Prophetic revelation through angels, and more particularily through Gabriel, was therefore an already well established knowledge at least among the people of the book before the beginning of Muhammad's mission.

The prophet himself claimed very early on in Mecca as seen from the above verses, that it was an angel who was carrying down revelation to him, not directly through God. The non-believing Arabs, who also believed in the existence of angels but had corrupted it by calling them God's daughters, echoed that claim by challenging him to show those angels of revelation 15:6-7. The Quran would reply to this demand and other similar ones that firstly angels, when they enter the physical realm, only appear in human form and that second, should they ever be sent as per the request of a disbelieving people, then the punishment would immidiately follow.

The HB does not grade the prophets according to their revelational experience, there are no half-prophets and minor prophets. It is the Talmudic scholars that discriminate between these personalities based on the manner in which God communicated with them.

For example Moses is considered the most superior -and Jews a required to acknowledge that superiority in their creed- because God spoke directly with him. All others are less in status because divine comunication was in a less direct manner, in a "blurry" fashion, through visions (in sleep or awake).

 And the most distant mode of divine comunication is believed to be either through the ruach hakodesh/spirit of holiness or through angels. Those persons arent considered prophets anymore, but simply holy individuals with a faint level of divine inspiration.

With these principles in mind, Talmudic scholars are nevertheless in disagreement whether to consider Daniel, one with whom God comunicated through angels and visions, as already pointed earlier, a prophet or not.

The Tanakh on the other hand discards these discriminatory criteria at once when it states, concerning all prophets, including since the time of their exodus with Moses whom they regard as the chief of all prophets

Hosea12:10"I spoke to the prophets, gave them many visions and told parables through them". 

All of them are true prophets, no mention of grades despite the different visions they received. We also read that the spirit of God descending on an individual is always a pre-condition for prophethood.

Even a regular person receiving the spirit of God automatically becomes a prophet Numb11:16-30. When the prophets David and Solomon were visited in dreams by "the Lord", it obviously doesnt mean God physically appeared to them, which would by the way render their revelational experience "superior" to Moses' prophetic dreams. God visiting these men means He made His will known to them through some means, like the angels 1Kings3:5. Not in one instance is there any prophet who was in this way "visited by the Lord" ever speaking of having literally seen the divine essence.

The Quran addresses this discriminatory criteria they make in many places.