A prophet will I raise up unto them from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
Moses is near the end of his life. He tells Israel what God will do after him. God will raise up a Prophet from Israel's own people and give Him His own words to speak. Two questions follow. Who is this Prophet? And what is it like to hear Him?
This promise comes in a chapter that has just warned Israel against fortune-telling and contact with spirits.
Here is the divine resource of the Lord's people, at all times and in all places... He shows them very clearly that they had no need to turn to spirits of the dead, enchanters, wizards or witches, all of which were detestable to the Lord.
Jewish teachers have proposed various candidates — Jeremiah, Joshua, or a whole line of prophets. None of them fits the words "like me."
How else could we explain a man like Abarbanel twisting the words of Deuteronomy 18:18, quoted here, and applying them to Jeremiah?... Completely untenable is the theory of Aben Ezra and others that Joshua is meant. Joshua only added to Moses' work, and in hardly more than one direction. In no adequate way does he stand out as the prophet raised up from his brothers like Moses. So some of the most distinguished Jewish teachers have tried to read this one prophet as a line of prophets! That goes against the use of the language as much as against the facts of their history... The role of mediator, whose words people must obey or die, points to what was unique in Moses. And it is true in the highest degree of no one but the Messiah.
The words "from among their brothers" answer something the people themselves had asked for at Sinai.
God remembered how the thought of hearing God Himself speak at Sinai had terrified Israel (Ex. 20:18-20). They had asked for someone to stand between themselves and God. So the Prophet spoken of in verse 18 is the "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5). He would faithfully speak the words He received from God.
Jesus spoke of His own words in the same way.
The Son never claimed that anything He spoke was His own. This made the rejection of His words all the more serious for those who claimed God as their God. Every word He spoke was the Father's, for "The Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak." Not only the substance of what He said, but the very words were the Father's. In obedience to the Father, the Son made known every one of them.
Commentators differ over how far "like me" reaches. One reads it as implying superiority, because this Prophet brings a change of covenant.
He foretold that the Lord God would raise up a prophet like himself — like him, yet superior to him (Deut. 18:15, 18). There would be no superiority in this prophet if he did not introduce a new state of things — that is, the new covenant. Moses brought in the old covenant. Christ will bring in the new covenant.
Another asks what the word "prophet" means here, and points out what Moses does not claim.
The word "prophet" here seems to point to the divine authority of the lawgiver rather than to the power of seeing the future... The One this passage speaks about was to be "a prophet," Moses says, "like me." The Jews acknowledged the authority of Moses as their lawgiver appointed by God and the founder of their system. But he himself foretold the coming of another of equal authority — he does not say higher. And this one they were to hear in all things.
The people dreaded God's own voice at the mountain. Hearing this Prophet is different:
How precious is the privilege of hearing the voice of such a Prophet! It is the voice of God speaking through the lips of the man Christ Jesus. He speaks not in thunder, not with flaming fire or flashing lightning, but in that still small voice of love and mercy. It falls with soothing power on the broken heart and crushed spirit... We have this voice in the holy Scriptures. We must never forget this. The voice of Scripture is the voice of Christ, and the voice of Christ is the voice of God.
- Raised up. God's answer to a people tempted by mediums and diviners was not a technique but a Person — a Prophet He Himself would provide.
- From among. He comes from Israel's own family. He is the mediator they begged for at Sinai, when God's own voice terrified them.
- In His mouth. The Prophet speaks nothing of His own; Jesus said the Father gave Him the very words, not just the substance.
- Like Moses. Commentators differ on whether "like me" means equal authority or greater. Either way, no earlier prophet fits. The description lands on the Messiah alone.
- Hear Him. The same voice still reaches us in Scripture, no longer thunder from a mountain but mercy spoken to a broken heart.
And it shall come to pass that the man who hearkeneth not unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.
God promises a Prophet like Moses, and then adds a warning in His own voice. Refuse what that Prophet says in God's name, and God Himself will call you to account. So who is this Prophet? And what does God mean when He says He will "require it" of the one who will not listen?
Moses never names the Prophet he foretells. The New Testament does. One writer says we do not even need the apostles' quotations, because the whole New Testament proves the point:
So plainly we have the true prophet put forward, Christ Himself. Men refuse to believe, but the Holy Spirit affirms over and over that it applies to Him — through Peter in Acts 3, and through Stephen in Acts 7. In fact we do not even need these quotations of the passage. The entire New Testament is itself the unanswerable proof that Christ is the prophet meant here. It also proves the folly and sin of listening to anyone else.
This warning grows out of something the people asked for. At Sinai they heard God speak and could not bear it. God's answer was a Man who drew near to them and spoke the words His Father gave Him:
He spoke what the Father gave Him to speak, for He had become flesh to draw near to us. He was truly a Man among men, walking in grace and depending on God... They had been afraid of the voice of divine majesty. It spoke in the middle of fire and storm, from the smoking mountain where God gave the law. God therefore promised to raise up One "from among their brothers," who would speak in divine grace.
The verse warns, but first it offers something tender. God's own voice now comes to people through the lips of a man:
How precious is the privilege of hearing the voice of such a Prophet! It is the voice of God speaking through the lips of the Man Christ Jesus. He does not speak in thunder, nor with flaming fire or the flash of lightning. He speaks in that still small voice of love and mercy. It falls with soothing power on the broken heart and the crushed spirit. It falls like the gentle dew of heaven on thirsty ground. This voice we have in the Holy Scriptures... The voice of Scripture is the voice of Christ, and the voice of Christ is the voice of God.
The verse does not explain the phrase. One commentator spells out what God promises to do, and who must answer for it:
If someone would not listen to God's words spoken by this Prophet, God would require it of him. God would make this a serious issue that the guilty person could not escape... He is the one Prophet whom everyone is responsible to recognise and believe.
Peter quotes this promise in Acts 3 with sharper words: the soul who will not listen is "destroyed from the people." What comes before the promise explains why the choice is that stark:
The law was bound to fail to bring people near to God. "Man shall not see me and live" had been His word to Moses himself. The veil in front of the holiest place bore witness to that all through those years... There must be, then, another Prophet and a different message. If a person hears Him, the way to God that is otherwise closed opens for him. If he will not hear Him, there is indeed no remedy: "every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people."
The verse asks for a hearing because of the sender: the Prophet speaks in God's name. When the Son came, God asked for more:
People were to receive a prophet because he spoke in the name of Jehovah who sent him (Deut. 18:18-19). But now men had to believe in the name of the Speaker Himself — the Only-begotten Son. Israel had to believe the message of the prophet, but not on his name. But now God called the people to believe on the Son, for Jehovah's "name is in Him" (Ex. 23:21).
- Asked for. At Sinai Israel begged not to hear God's voice from the fire. The promised Prophet is God's answer to that fear — One who speaks in grace.
- Given. That Prophet is Christ. Peter says so in Acts 3, Stephen in Acts 7, and the whole New Testament proves it.
- Gentle. His is not the voice of thunder but the still small voice of love and mercy. We have that voice now in Scripture: the voice of Scripture is the voice of Christ, and the voice of Christ is the voice of God.
- Required. God Himself takes up the refusal of those words, and no guilty person escapes it. The law could not bring anyone near God, so apart from this Prophet there is no remedy.
- Named. People heard a prophet for the sake of the name that sent him. We believe on the Son for His own name, because God's name is in Him.