(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
Deuteronomy 18:15–22, “The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; According to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, 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. And the LORD said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet 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. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. 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. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? 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.”
Moses had been the Lord’s prophet to Israel since the nation had been founded on the first Passover night. He would go down in history as the founding prophet of the nation. He would always stand alongside the patriarchs as an important man in Israel’s history. Just before Moses completed his task of setting Israel free from slavery in Egypt and taking them to the borders of the Promised Land. He had also prepared them to live as an independent, sovereign nation in the Land that the Lord had promised to Abraham and his descendants, he also promised them that there would be another prophet like himself who would come at a later stage. The major issue in identifying this prophet was the fact that the prophet would be like Moses. What does this mean? Would any prophet qualify as this prophet? If we look further down in this section we can see that there were further qualifications that would distinguish this prophet. Moses went into the mountain at Horeb, to meet with the Lord and protect the people from the awesome majesty of the Lord by bringing the Law to them. Moses stood between the Lord God and people so that they would not die (Ex 19:9–12, “And the LORD said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes, And be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death:”) This prophet would also have to come at an important time of transition in the nations history for Moses was the great prophet of the first transition. Another prophet of transition was the prophet Elijah who prophesied to Ahab when the nation was sinking into a complete rejection of the Lord and everything that He had chosen them to do on His behalf. (1 Kings 16:30–33, “And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.”) But Elijah didn’t prevent Israel from experiencing the full extent of the penalty provisions that they agreed to when the made their contract with the Lord and they were taken away into exile. We read in the New Testament that this prophet was still expected when John the Baptist was preaching in Judah. John 1:19–23, “And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.”) Moses was the prophet who was commanded to put a vail in the Tabernacle to separate between holy and most holy. (Ex 26:33, “And thou shalt hang up the vail under the taches, that thou mayest bring in thither within the vail the ark of the testimony: and the vail shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy.”) The Lord Jesus Christ, on the other hand, was the prophet (Luke 13:33, “Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.”) He was responsible for removing the removal of the veil and allowing every sinner to have direct access to the Lord God. (Luke 23:44–45, “And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.”)
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