Deuteronomy 18:18

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.