15 Yahweh your God will raise up to you a prophet from the midst of you, of your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Lord thy God will raise up. This is added by anticipation, lest the Israelites should object that they were more hardly dealt with than the rest of the nations of the world; for it was always most justly considered an extraordinary blessing to hold communication with God; and indeed there can be nothing more to be desired. But an opinion had obtained currency, that men approached more closely to God by means of magical arts, by the oracles of Pythonic spirits, and by the study of augury. The people of Israel, then, would have complained of being badly treated, if they had been shut out from all prophecies and revelations. Moses meets this complaint or objection by announcing, that their access to God would be not less familiar than as if He should Himself openly come down from heaven; if only they kept the right way, and were contented with that rule which He deemed best for them. He, therefore, commands that, instead of all the imaginations of the Gentiles, the doctrine of the Prophets should alone have force among them. Thus He signifies that although God should not openly come down from heaven, yet that His will, as far as was expedient, should be surely and clearly made known to them, since He would faithfully teach them by His servants the Prophets. On this ground when, in Isaiah, He has mocked at the prophecies of false gods, He calls the Israelites His "witnesses," (Isaiah 43:1-10,) as having made them the depositaries of His secrets and of the treasures of divine wisdom. We see, then, the way pointed out in which God would have His people inquire concerning the things necessary to salvation; and this is more plainly declared in Isaiah 8:19, 20, "And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony." Nor is there any doubt that Isaiah took this doctrine from the passage before us, when he first condemns the errors which men by their curiosity invent for themselves, and then enjoins the faithful simply to give attention to the Law, and to be content with this form of instruction, unless they desired to be miserably misled. Hence we conclude that the expression, "a Prophet," is used by enallage for a number of Prophets. For it is altogether absurd, as some do, to restrict it to Joshua or Jeremiah; since Moses is here treating of the continual manner of the Church's government, and is not speaking of what God would do within a short time. Not at all more correct is their opinion, who apply it strictly to Christ alone; for it is well to bear in mind what I have said respecting God's intention, viz., that no excuse should be left for the Jews, if they turned aside to familiar spirits (Pythones) or magicians, since God would never leave them without Prophets and teachers. But if He had referred them to Christ alone, the objection would naturally arise that it was hard for them to have neither Prophets nor revelations for two thousand years. Nor is there any strength in those two arguments on which some insist, that the Prophet, of whom Moses bears witness, must be more excellent than him who proclaimed him; and that the eulogium that he should be "like unto" Moses could not be applied to the ancient Prophets, since it is said elsewhere that "there arose not a Prophet since like unto" him. (Deuteronomy 34:10.) For he does not at all detract from his own dignity, by recommending that whosoever might be sent by God should be hearkened to, whether they were his equals or his inferiors; and, as to the comparison, this particle translated like (sicut) does not always denote equality. Therefore it is true that there was no Prophet like Moses, that is to say, similar to him in every respect, or in whom so many gifts were displayed; yet it is no less true, that they were all like Moses; because God set over His Church a continual succession of teachers, to execute the same office as he did. This is referred to in the words, "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John," (Matthew 11:13, and Luke 16:16,) where we see others united as colleagues with Moses in the government of the Church, until the coming of Christ. Yet Peter aptly and elegantly accommodates this testimony to Christ, (Acts 3:22,) not to the exclusion of others of God's servants, but in order to warn the Jews that in rejecting Christ they are at the same time refusing this inestimable benefit of God; for the gift of prophecy had so flourished among His ancient people, and teachers had so been constantly appointed to succeed each other, that nevertheless there should be some interruption before the coming of Christ. Hence, in that sad dispersion which followed the return from the Babylonish captivity, the faithful complain in Psalm 74:9, "We see not our signs; there is no more any prophet." On this account Malachi exhorts the people to remember the Law given in Horeb; and immediately after adds, "Behold I send you Elijah the prophet," etc., (Malachi 4:4, 5;) as much as to say, that the time was at hand in which a more perfect doctrine should be manifested, and a fuller light should shine. For the Apostle says truly, that "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son," (Hebrew 1:1, 2;) and, in fact, by the appearing of the doctrine of the Gospel, the course of the prophetic doctrine was completed; because God thus fully exhibited what was promised by the latter. And this was so generally understood that even the Samaritan woman said that Messias was coming, who would tell all things. (John 4:25.) To this, then, what I have lately quoted as to the transition from the Law and the Prophets to the Gospel refers; and hence it is made out, that this passage was most appropriately expounded by Peter as relating to Christ; for unless the Jews chose to accuse God of falsehood, it was incumbent upon them to look to Christ, at whose hand was promised both the confirmation of doctrine and the restoration of all things. They had been for a long time destitute of Prophets, of whom Moses had testified that they should never be wanting to them, and whom he had promised as the lawful ministers for retaining the people in allegiance, so that they should not turn aside to superstitions; they had, therefore, either no religion, or else that greatest of Teachers was to be expected, who in his own person (unus) would present the perfection of the prophetic office. But we must remark the peculiar circumstances whereby God restrains the evil affections of the Jews. It was no common act of His indulgence, that He should take to himself Prophets from among that people, so that they should have no need to run about to a distance in search of revelations, and at the same time that they might be taught familiarly according to their capacity. But with regard to the comparison which Moses makes between himself and other prophets, its effect is to raise their teaching in men's estimation. They had been long accustomed to this mode of instruction, viz., to hear God speaking to them by the mouth of a man; and the authority of Moses was so fully established, that they were firmly persuaded that they were under the divine government, and that all things necessary to salvation were revealed to them.
The ancient fathers of the Church and the generality of modern commentators have regarded our Lord as the prophet promised in these verses. It is evident from the New Testament alone that the Messianic was the accredited interpretation among the Jews at the beginning of the Christian era (compare the marginal references, and John 4:25); nor can our Lord Himself, when He declares that Moses "wrote of Him" John 5:45-47, be supposed to have any other words more directly in view than these, the only words in which Moses, speaking in his own person, gives any prediction of the kind. But the verses seem to have a further, no less evident if subsidiary, reference to a prophetical order which should stand from time to time, as Moses had done, between God and the people; which should make known God's will to the latter; which should by its presence render it unnecessary either that God should address the people directly, as at Sinai (Deuteronomy 18:16; compare Deuteronomy 5:25 ff), or that the people themselves in lack of counsel should resort to the superstitions of the pagan.
In fact, in the words before us, Moses gives promise both of a prophetic order, and of the Messiah in particular as its chief; of a line of prophets culminating in one eminent individual. And in proportion as we see in our Lord the characteristics of the prophet most perfectly exhibited, so must we regard the promise of Moses as in Him most completely accomplished.
The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet - Instead of diviners, observers of times, etc., God here promises to give them an infallible guide, who should tell them all things that make for their peace, so that his declarations should completely answer the end of all the knowledge that was pretended to be gained by the persons already specified.
Like unto me - Viz., a prophet, a legislator, a king, a mediator, and the head or chief of the people of God. This was the very person of whom Moses was the type, and who should accomplish all the great purposes of the Divine Being. Such a prophet as had never before appeared, and who should have no equal till the consummation of the world.
This prophet is the Lord Jesus, who was in the bosom of the Father, and who came to declare him to mankind. Every word spoken by him is a living infallible oracle from God himself; and must be received and obeyed as such, on pain of the eternal displeasure of the Almighty. See Deuteronomy 18:19, and Acts 3:22, Acts 3:23; and see the conclusion of this chapter, Deuteronomy 18:22 (note).
The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a (g) Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;
(g) Meaning, a continual succession of prophets, till Christ, the end of all prophets, comes.
The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet,.... Not Joshua, as Aben Ezra, not Jeremiah, as Baal Haturim, nor David (o), as others; nor a succession of prophets, as Jarchi; for a single person is only spoken of; and there is a dissimilitude between Moses and anyone of the prophets, and all of them in succession, Deuteronomy 34:10, but the Messiah, with whom the whole agrees; and upon this the expectation of a prophet among the Jews was raised, John 6:14 and is applied to him, and referred to as belonging to him in Acts 3:22, who was a prophet mighty in word and deed, and not only foretold future events, as his own sufferings and death, and resurrection from the dead, the destruction of Jerusalem, and other things; but taught and instructed men in the knowledge of divine things, spake as never man did, preached the Gospel fully and faithfully, so that as the law came by Moses, the doctrine of grace and truth came by him; and he was raised up of God, called, sent, commissioned and qualified by him for the office of a prophet, as well as was raised from the dead as a confirmation of his being that extraordinary person:
from the midst of thee; he was of Israel, according to the flesh, of the tribe of Judah, and of the house of David, born of a virgin in Bethlehem, preached only in Judea, and was raised from the dead in the midst of them, and of which they were witnesses:
of thy brethren; the Israelites, of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, and to whom he was sent as a prophet, and among whom he only preached:
like unto me; the Targum of Jonathan adds,"in the Holy Spirit;''which he received without measure, and in respect of which was superior to Moses, or any of the prophets: he was like to Moses in the faithful discharge of his office, in his familiar converse with God, in the miracles which he wrought; as well as in his being a Mediator, and the Redeemer of his people, as Moses was a mediator between God and the people of Israel, and the deliverer of them out of Egypt; and it is a saying of the Jews (p) themselves,"as was the first redeemer, so is the second:"
unto him ye shall hearken; externally attend on his ministry, internally receive his doctrine, embrace and profess it; do what is heard from him, hear him, and not another, always and in all things; see Matthew 17:5.
(o) Herbanus in Disputat. cum Gregent. p. 13. col. 2. (p) Midrash Kohelet, fol. 63. 2.
It is here promised concerning Christ, that there should come a Prophet, great above all the prophets; by whom God would make known himself and his will to the children of men, more fully and clearly than he had ever done before. He is the Light of the world, John 8:12. He is the World by whom God speaks to us, John 1:1; Hebrews 1:2. In his birth he should be one of their nation. In his resurrection he should be raised up at Jerusalem, and from thence his doctrine should go forth to all the world. Thus God, having raised up his Son Christ Jesus, sent him to bless us. He should be like unto Moses, only above him. This prophet is come, even JESUS; and is "He that should come," and we are to look for no other. The view of God which he gives, will not terrify or overwhelm, but encourages us. He speaks with fatherly affection and Divine authority united. Whoever refuses to listen to Jesus Christ, shall find it is at his peril; the same that is the Prophet is to be his Judge, John 12:48. Woe then to those who refuse to hearken to His voice, to accept His salvation, or yield obedience to His sway! But happy they who trust in Him, and obey Him. He will lead them in the paths of safety and peace, until He brings them to the land of perfect light, purity, and happiness. Here is a caution against false prophets. It highly concerns us to have a right touchstone wherewith to try the word we hear, that we may know what that word is which the Lord has not spoken. Whatever is against the plain sense of the written word, or which gives countenance or encouragement to sin, we may be sure is not that which the Lord has spoken.
CHRIST THE PROPHET IS TO BE HEARD. (Deuteronomy 18:15-19)
The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet--The insertion of this promise, in connection with the preceding prohibition, might warrant the application (which some make of it) to that order of true prophets whom God commissioned in unbroken succession to instruct, to direct, and warn His people; and in this view the purport of it is, "There is no need to consult with diviners and soothsayers, as I shall afford you the benefit of divinely appointed prophets, for judging of whose credentials a sure criterion is given" (Deuteronomy 18:20-22). But the prophet here promised was pre-eminently the Messiah, for He alone was "like unto Moses" (see on Deuteronomy 34:10) "in His mediatorial character; in the peculiar excellence of His ministry; in the number, variety, and magnitude of His miracles; in His close and familiar communion with God; and in His being the author of a new dispensation of religion." This prediction was fulfilled fifteen hundred years afterwards and was expressly applied to Jesus Christ by Peter (Acts 3:22-23), and by Stephen (Acts 7:37).
"A prophet out of the midst of thee, out of thy brethren, as I am, will Jehovah thy God raise up to thee; to him shall ye hearken." When Moses thus attaches to the prohibition against hearkening to soothsayers and practising soothsaying, the promise that Jehovah would raise up a prophet, etc., and contrasts what the Lord would do for His people with what He did not allow, it is perfectly evident from this simple connection alone, apart from the further context of the passage, in which Moses treats of the temporal and spiritual rulers of Israel (ch. 17 and 18), that the promise neither relates to one particular prophet, nor directly and exclusively to the Messiah, but treats of the sending of prophets generally. And this is also confirmed by what follows with reference to true and false prophets, which presupposes the rise of a plurality of prophets, and shows most incontrovertibly that it is not one prophet only, nor the Messiah exclusively, who is promised here. It by no means follows from the use of the singular, "a prophet," that Moses is speaking of one particular prophet only; but the idea expressed is this, that at any time when the people stood in need of a mediator with God like Moses, God would invariably send a prophet. The words, "out of the midst of thee, of thy brethren," imply that there would be no necessity for Israel to turn to heathen soothsayers or prophets, but that it would find the men within itself who would make known the word of the Lord. The expression, "like unto me," is explained by what follows in Deuteronomy 18:16-18 with regard to the circumstances, under which the Lord had given the promise that He would send a prophet. It was at Sinai; when the people were filled with mortal alarm, after hearing the ten words which God addressed to them out of the fire, and entreated Moses to act as mediator between the Lord and themselves, that God might not speak directly to them any more. At that time the Lord gave the promise that He would raise up a prophet, and put His words into his mouth, that he might speak to the people all that the Lord commanded (cf. Deuteronomy 5:20.). The promised prophet, therefore, was to resemble Moses in this respect, that he would act as mediator between Jehovah and the people, and make known the words or the will of the Lord. Consequently the meaning contained in the expression "like unto me" was not that the future prophet would resemble Moses in all respect, - a meaning which has been introduced into it through an unwarrantable use of Numbers 12:6-8; Deuteronomy 34:10, and Hebrews 3:2, Hebrews 3:5, for the purpose of proving the direct application of the promise to the Messiah alone, to the exclusion of the prophets of the Old Testament. If the resemblance of the future prophet to Moses, expressed in the words "like unto me," be understood as indicating the precise form in which God revealed Himself to Moses, speaking with him mouth to mouth, and not in a dream or vision, a discrepancy is introduced between this expression and the words which follow in Deuteronomy 18:18, "I will put My words in his mouth;" since this expresses not the particular mode in which Moses received the revelations from God, in contrast with the rest of the prophets, but simply that form of divine communication or inspiration which was common to all the prophets (vid., Jeremiah 1:9; Jeremiah 5:14).
But whilst we are obliged to give up the direct and exclusive reference of this promise to the Messiah, which was the prevailing opinion in the early Church, and has been revived by Kurtz, Auberlen, and Tholuck, as not in accordance with the context or the words themselves, we cannot, on the other hand, agree with v. Hoffmann, Baur, and Knobel, in restricting the passage to the Old Testament prophets, to the exclusion of the Messiah. There is no warrant for this limitation of the word "prophet," since the expectation of the Messiah was not unknown to Moses and the Israel of his time, but was actually expressed in the promise of the seed of the woman, and Jacob's prophecy concerning Shiloh; so that O. v. Gerlach is perfectly right in observing, that "this is a prediction of Christ as the true Prophet, precisely like that of the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15." The occasion, also, on which Moses received the promise of the "prophet" from the Lord, which he here communicated to the people, - namely, when the people desired a mediator between themselves and the Lord at Sinai, and this desire on their part was pleasing to the Lord, - shows that the promise should be understood in the full sense of the words, without any limitation whatever; that is to say, that Christ, in whom the prophetic character culminated and was completed, is to be included. Even Ewald admits, that "the prophet like unto Moses, whom God would raise up out of Israel and for Israel, can only be the true prophet generally;" and Baur also allows, that "historical exposition will not mistake the anticipatory reference of this expression to Christ, which is involved in the expectation that, in the future completion of the plan of salvation, the prophetic gift would form an essential element." And lastly, the comparison instituted between the promised prophet and Moses, compels us to regard the words as referring to the Messiah. The words, "like unto me," "like unto thee," no more warrant us in excluding the Messiah on the one hand, than in excluding the Old Testament prophets on the other, since it is unquestionably affirmed that the prophet of the future would be as perfectly equal to his calling as Moses was to his,
(Note: Let any one paraphrase the passage thus: "A prophet inferior indeed to me, but yet the channel of divine revelations," and he will soon feel how unsuitable it is" (Hengstenberg).)
- that He would carry out the mediation between the Lord and the people in the manner and the power of Moses. In this respect not one of the Old Testament prophets was fully equal to Moses, as is distinctly stated in Deuteronomy 34:10. All the prophets of the Old Testament stood within the sphere of the economy of the law, which was founded through the mediatorial office of Moses; and even in their predictions of the future, they simply continued to build upon the foundation which was laid by Moses, and therefore prophesied of the coming of the servant of the Lord, who, as the Prophet of all prophets, would restore Jacob, and carry out the law and right of the Lord to the nations, even to the end of the world (Isaiah 42; 49; 40; Isaiah 61:1-11). This prophecy, therefore, is very properly referred to Jesus Christ in the New Testament, as having been fulfilled in Him. Not only had Philip this passage in his mind when he said to Nathanael, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law did write, Jesus of Nazareth," whilst Stephen saw the promise of the prophet like unto Moses fulfilled in Christ (Acts 7:37); but Peter also expressly quotes it in Acts 3:22-23, as referring to Christ; and even the Lord applies it to Himself in John 5:45-47, when He says to the Jews, "Moses, in whom ye trust, will accuse you; for if ye believed Moses, ye would also believe Me: for Moses wrote of Me." In John 12:48-50, again, the reference to Deuteronomy 18:18 and Deuteronomy 18:19 of this chapter is quite unmistakeable; and in the words, "hear ye Him" which were uttered from the cloud at the transfiguration of Jesus (Matthew 17:5), the expression in Deuteronomy 18:15, "unto Him shall ye hearken," is used verbatim with reference to Christ. Even the Samaritans founded their expectation of the Messiah (John 4:25) upon these words of Moses.
(Note: On the history of the exposition of this passage, see Hengstenberg's Christology.)
Will raise up - Will produce and send into the world in due time. A prophet like unto me - Christ was truly, and in all commendable parts like him, in being both a prophet and a king and a priest and mediator, in the excellency of his ministry and work, in the glory of his miracles, in his familiar and intimate converse with God.
*More commentary available at chapter level.