Deuteronomy 18:19

Deuteronomy 18 first sets out the portion of the priests and Levites (Deuteronomy 18:1–8) and then turns to the land Israel was about to enter. Its peoples practised child sacrifice, divination, sorcery, charming, consulting mediums and calling up the dead, and the LORD calls all of it abomination (Deuteronomy 18:9–14). The nations of that day sought to learn the will of their gods and to sway their world by omens, augury and spirits. Babylon and Egypt read omens in the entrails of animals, in the sky and in dreams, and the nations had prophets of their own, such as the prophets of Baal on Carmel.

Israel would need guidance as much as any people, and the LORD meets that need himself. He will speak to them, and the man who brings his word will be one he raises up. So the promise of verse 15 takes the place of every forbidden way of seeking knowledge, and the warnings of verses 20–22 guard it from counterfeits. The difference lies in who begins. The diviner works by techniques people devised to draw knowledge out of the spirit world, while the prophet receives a message from God and declares it. The Hebrew word for prophet, nâbîyʼ, means a prophet or inspired man, and it has been linked with a root meaning to announce. A prophet is God’s spokesman, one who speaks on his behalf.

“The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet.” The promise rests on Yᵉhôvâh, the LORD, Israel’s covenant name for God, tied to the verb “to be” and speaking of the self-existent God who keeps his promises. He is “thy God”, ʼĕlôhîym, the God who has bound himself to this people. The verb qûwm means to rise, and in the form used here it means to raise up or set up. The Prophet will stand because God sets him there, chosen and sent by God himself. The same verb returns when the LORD repeats the promise in verse 18.

He comes “from the midst of thee, of thy brethren”. The word qereb means the middle or nearest part, and ʼâch is a brother, used for every kind of kinship. Verse 18 has the same two words in “from among their brethren”. The Prophet will be an Israelite who shares their life and heritage, one of the people God has made his own, unlike the foreign seers of Canaan.

“Like unto me” sets the measure. Moses was the lawgiver and the mediator of the covenant, and Deuteronomy closes by saying, “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face” (Deuteronomy 34:10). The LORD spoke with Moses “face to face” (Exodus 33:11), directly and plainly (Numbers 12:8), and through him gave Israel the law, led them out of bondage and worked mighty signs. A prophet like Moses would know God closely, speak God’s word with full authority, and stand between God and the people as Moses did.

Verse 16 takes Israel back to Horeb. “According to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb” means that the promise answers their own request. The verb shâʼal means to ask, to request, even to beg. Horeb, Chôrêb, whose name means desolate, is another name for the mountains of Sinai, where God made his covenant with Israel and gave the law (Exodus 19–20). “The day of the assembly” uses yôwm, day, and qâhâl, an assembly or congregation called together, a word that can also mean a company or crowd. Here it is the whole nation at the foot of the mountain, so the fear and the request that followed came from all of them.

On that day there were thunders and lightnings, a thick cloud, the sound of a trumpet, and the mountain smoking with fire (Exodus 19:16–18). God spoke the Ten Commandments to the whole people. Moses recalls the scene earlier in Deuteronomy, where the people fear that the great fire will consume them and ask Moses to go near, hear the LORD for them, and bring them his word (Deuteronomy 5:22–27). Exodus records their plea in these words: “Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die” (Exodus 20:18–19).

Here Moses gives their words as “Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.” The verb yâçaph means to add or to go on doing something, and so gives “again” and “any more”. The voice, qôwl, is the audible voice of God speaking the commandments. They asked to be spared the sight, râʼâh, of this great, gâdôwl, fire, ʼêsh, which was the visible sign of his glory on the mountain. Their reason was “that I die not”, from mûwth, to die.

Their fear was well founded. God is holy, and he told Moses, “there shall no man see me, and live” (Exodus 33:20). The people knew themselves frail and sinful before him, and they asked for someone to stand between. The letter to the Hebrews recalls the terror of Sinai and sets beside it Mount Sion, where believers have come to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant (Hebrews 12:18–24).

The command that closes verse 15, “unto him ye shall hearken”, uses shâmaʻ, which means to hear with understanding and attention and often carries the sense of obeying. To hearken is to listen with the intent to believe and do what is said. At Horeb the people asked, “Let me not hear again,” and the verb there is this same shâmaʻ. God granted what they asked, and he still expects to be heard, now through the Prophet. Verse 19 takes up the verb again: “whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.”

“Whosoever” is ʼîysh, a man, here in the sense of each one, so every person in Israel is answerable. The words, dâbâr, are “my words”, God’s own, though the Prophet speaks them, dâbar. He speaks “in my name”, shêm, which means with God’s commission and authority, as his true representative. To refuse him is to refuse God.

“I will require it of him.” The verb dârash means to seek, to inquire of, to require. With God as the one who requires, it means that he himself will call the man to account. The seriousness of this runs through Scripture. When Saul set aside the LORD’s command, Samuel told him, “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft” (1 Samuel 15:23), so refusing God’s word stands beside the very sorcery this chapter forbids. Israel’s prophets met that refusal again and again, as when Jeremiah was put on trial for the word the LORD had sent him to speak (Jeremiah 26:1–15). Jesus gave the same warning about the towns that would refuse his messengers (Matthew 10:14–15), and Hebrews asks those who have heard the gospel, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation” (Hebrews 2:1–3).

Verse 20 turns from the true Prophet to the false one. “But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.” The word for prophet, nâbîyʼ, is the same as in verses 15 and 18, so this man claims the very office God has promised. To presume, zûwd, means literally to seethe or boil, and figuratively to act proudly or insolently. It describes a deliberate act of pride, speaking from one’s own will and imagination while claiming God’s authority for it.

The first fault is speaking a word, dâbâr, in God’s name, shêm, that God has given him no charge to speak. The verb “commanded” is tsâvâh, the same verb as in “all that I shall command him” in verse 18. God’s name stands for who he is, his character, authority and reputation, so to use it falsely claims his authority for one’s own words and wrongs both God and his people. The second fault is speaking in the name of other, ʼachêr, gods, ʼĕlôhîym, the word used in verse 15 for “the LORD thy God”, here meaning the gods of the nations. That breaks the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3), and leads the people away from the LORD. Moses has already given a law for the prophet or dreamer who calls Israel after other gods (Deuteronomy 13:1–5).

Both faults carry one sentence: “that prophet shall die”. The verb is mûwth, the same verb the people used at Horeb when they said, “that I die not.” False prophecy was a danger to the whole nation, because it could lead Israel into idolatry and the breaking of the covenant. Later prophets faced such men. Jeremiah heard the LORD say that the prophets prophesied lies in his name (Jeremiah 14:14) and that they spoke a vision of their own heart (Jeremiah 23:16).

Moses knows what the people will ask next. “And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken?” The verb ʼâmar, to say, can also mean to think, and to say in the heart is to ask the question inwardly. The heart, lêbâb, is the inmost part of a person, the seat of thought and will as well as feeling. To know, yâdaʻ, is properly to find out by seeing, and the people want a way to recognise a false word for themselves. God answers the question before they ask it, because he cares that his people walk in the truth. The “word”, dâbâr, that “the LORD hath not spoken”, dâbar, is a message falsely given out as his.

The answer comes in verse 22: “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.” The word for “thing” is dâbâr, the same word as “word” in verse 21. It can mean a word or the matter it speaks of, so the KJV gives it here as “thing”. To come to pass is bôwʼ, to come. When what a prophet foretells in the LORD’s name fails to come, the people know the LORD did not speak it. God’s word accomplishes what he sends it to do (Isaiah 55:11), so a word that fails shows itself to be someone else’s.

“The prophet hath spoken it presumptuously.” The word zâdôwn means arrogance or pride, a noun from the same root as zûwd, “presume”, in verse 20. The failure lies at the prophet’s door. He spoke high-handedly, claiming God’s voice for his own purpose. Then comes the word to the people: “thou shalt not be afraid of him.” The verb is gûwr. Once a prophet is exposed, his pronouncements lose their hold, and the people may set them aside without dread and go on trusting the LORD.

Later prophets used this same test. Jeremiah said that a prophet who prophesies peace is known to be sent by the LORD when his word comes to pass (Jeremiah 28:9). Ezekiel condemned prophets who said “The LORD saith” over words of their own (Ezekiel 13:6–7). Peter says that true prophecy came as holy men of God were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:20–21).

Preaching in Solomon’s porch, Peter quoted this promise and applied it to Jesus: “him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you,” and “every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people” (Acts 3:22–23). He added that all the prophets from Samuel onward had foretold these days (Acts 3:24). Stephen, in his defence before the council, also reminded Israel that Moses had promised this Prophet (Acts 7:37).

Jesus came from among his brethren. God sent forth his Son, “made of a woman, made under the law” (Galatians 4:4), fully human and one of Israel, so that he represents God to us and us to God. He is like Moses and far greater. Moses spoke with God face to face, and Jesus is the Word who was with God and was God (John 1:1), made flesh to dwell among us (John 1:14). He could say, “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).

God put his words in his mouth. Jesus said, “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak” (John 12:49–50), and again, “the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself” (John 14:10) and “as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things” (John 8:28). Verse 18 is fulfilled in his own words: a commandment from the Father, and everything spoken as the Father gave it. He taught “as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Matthew 7:29), the people were amazed at the authority of his teaching (Mark 1:27), and he set his own word beside what was said of old: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time... But I say unto you” (Matthew 5:21–22).

The test of verse 22 shows him true. He foretold his own death and rising (Mark 8:31), the fall of the temple (Matthew 24:1–2) and the coming of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16–17), and each came to pass. He said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35). The false prophet of verse 22 forfeits the people’s fear, and the true Prophet is owed their reverent trust.

He also answers the request made at Horeb. Moses mediated the old covenant, and Jesus brought in the new covenant in his blood (Luke 22:20), a better covenant of which he is the mediator (Hebrews 8:6). He is the “one mediator between God and men” (1 Timothy 2:5), the high priest who offered himself once for all (Hebrews 9:11–14) and who intercedes for us at God’s right hand (Romans 8:34), so he is Prophet, Priest and King together. The people at Horeb drew back for fear of dying, and through Christ we “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). God “Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2).

The command “unto him ye shall hearken” now means believing and following Jesus. “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life” (John 5:24), while whoever refuses to believe is condemned already (John 3:18). He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), the Scriptures testify of him (John 5:39), and his sheep hear his voice and follow him (John 10:27).

This passage shows a God who speaks to his people and refuses to leave them guessing. He saw Israel surrounded by diviners and gave them his own word through a man of their own flesh. He heard a frightened people at Horeb, called their request good, and answered it with mercy. He guards his word jealously, because a false word in his name harms those he loves, and he gives his people a plain way to tell his voice from a counterfeit and to stand free of fear before those who misuse his name.

All of this is fulfilled in Jesus. The Prophet like Moses has come with the Father’s words in his mouth, and every word he has spoken stands. The voice that once made Israel afraid of dying now speaks through the Son, and those who hear him find life. To hearken to him is the whole of what verse 15 asks, and his sheep know his voice.