The Messiah in the OT___

  

THE MOSAIC PREDICTION (DEUTERONOMY 18:15,18)

When we started these short surveys a few weeks ago I mentioned that there were six predictions in the Pentateuch we need to examine. We are now at the 6th and final prediction. However, we will continue to examine Messianic predictions for a while. We now look at Deuteronomy 18:15, 18.

 15"The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.16"This is according to all that you asked of the LORD your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die.'17"The LORD said to me, 'They have spoken well.'I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him."

God, speaking to his people said that at some point there was to a prophet “like Moses” raised up. The prediction is singular in number throughout the passage implying only “one prophet” and not many. Clearly a single person is intended here. Nevertheless, Jewish and most modern commentators have seen “prophet” here as a generic and collective term. It is not without significance that all previous messianic prophecies in the Pentateuch have been generic in nature, for they envisaged the Messiah as coming from the seed of a woman, from the race of Shem, from the seed of Abraham, from the tribe of Judah or from the sons of Jacob. Not one of the five previous predictions have pointed to a specific person, even though it is clear that the coming one was to be an individual. By specifying a “single prophet” the prediction in Deuteronomy narrows the playing field and sets a specific person and the center of this discussion.

Some claim that given the context of chapters 17-18 it is best to understand the text, at least in part to a succession of prophets that God was to raise up from Israel. But__there are some aspects in which none of the prophets who followed Moses were like him or provided an exact match.

Deuteronomy 34:10-12:

 10Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,

 11for all the signs and wonders which the LORD sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land,

 12and for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.

Notice the qualifications. Likewise:

 6He said,
         "Hear now My words:
         If there is a prophet among you,
         I, the LORD, shall make Myself known to him in a vision 
         I shall speak with him in a dream.     7"Not so, with My servant Moses,
         He is faithful in all My household;     8With him I speak mouth to mouth,
         Even openly, and not in dark sayings,
         And he beholds the form of the LORD.
         Why then were you not afraid
         To speak against My servant, against Moses?"

In some vital aspect, all the other prophets missed something that Moses had because of his unique relationship with God. In this regard the promise to Moses served to unite him with the coming Messiah.

But the meaning of these two passages does not force us to assume that no prophet in the OT never had the mind of God revealed to him as did Moses. Surely there were many who God had a relationship with but Moses is special precisely because of the directness and clarity with which the message came. Thus he founded a class of prophets who were to follow after him.

So let us see if we can narrow this down. The coming prophet would be (1) an Israelite (“of your brothers”); Dt. 18:15, 18; (2) “like” Moses (vv.15,18); (3) authorized to declared God's words with authority (vv. 18-19). He would enjoy unusually intimate fellowship with the Father, just as Moses talked with God on the mountain “face to face”(34:10). He would perform miracles in public before the nations, (Gentiles) as Moses had done (34:11-12), not in private, as Elijah and Elisha for the most part did. He was to be a lawgiver exactly as Moses had given the ten commandments, and a mediator who was to pray as earnestly for his people as Moses did (Ex. 32:11ff., 31-35). He would be a deliverer just as Moses had been used by God to bring His people from Egypt.

It is no wonder then that so many Jews in the 1st century expected the Messiah to be a great “prophet” who was to come. When the saw the miracle of the feeding of five thousand they exclaimed “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world” (Jn.6:14). They said the same thing when they heard Him teaching at the Feast of Tabernacles (7:40) even though there was some confusion for they had asked John the Baptist if He were a prophet (1:21). When John declared that he was not they turned on him saying Why do you baptize if you are not the Christ [Messiah] nor Elijah [the messenger who was to prepare the way], nor the prophet?” (1:25). Philip found Nathaniel and announced to him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about who the prophets wrote” (1:45). Even the Samaritan woman concluded that Jesus must be the “prophet.”

Peter was clear on the matter by the time he was used by God in the book of Acts. In his second temple message he quoted Deuteronomy 18:15, 18-19 as properly pointing to Jesus as the Prophet that was to come and who came into the world (Acts 3:11-26). Stephen made the same connection between Jesus and the Prophet (Acts 7:37).

As in the previous five prophecies of the Messiah in the Pentateuch, here too the coming final prophet comprehended in His person all that the prophets oftentimes only weakly demonstrated. Yet, Moses the prophet was unique in his miracles, his direct access to God, his giving of the law, his actions as a deliverer, and his office as judge over the people. In everyone of these functions and more, he distinctly anticipated the Messiah that was to come.   by Lane