Continued from Chapter 13
(Deuteronomy 18:15, 18)
The Torah declares that “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me [Moses] from among you, from your brethren, to him you shall listen…. I [the Lord] will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him” (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18).
Christians allege that these verses are a prophecy that refers to Jesus. This tendentious interpretation has no basis in fact. It is simply Christian wishful thinking that has them apply these verses to Jesus. The singular noun navi’, is most likely used in a plural sense generically and does not refer to a particular prophet. The people of Israel are promised that God will raise up prophets to guide Israel just as Moses himself did. This does not mean that these prophets will be like Moses in their level of prophetic stature. The uniqueness of Moses is unsurpassed. What is promised is that following the death of Moses, God will still send prophets to Israel who will possess the true prophetic spirit associated with Moses.
The Torah’s message to Israel is that they should beware of false prophets as described in verses 20-22: “But the prophet who will presume to speak a word in My name that I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the words which the Lord has not spoken?’ Know that when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the things do not follow, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it out of presumption; you shall not be afraid of him.” The people of Israel are to be ever watchful against false teachers who would attempt to undermine the Torah given by God at Mount Sinai. The true prophet, the true teacher of Torah, will continue in the path and tradition of Moses. Among the teachings of the New Testament’s Jesus were those that undermined God’s Torah (e.g., Mark 7:14-15, 18-19; Mark 10:11-12, Luke 16:18). Moreover, as we shall see, he never fulfilled the major promise to return to his contemporaries. As a result, this so-called “second coming” has been constantly put off to a future date by those professing to be his followers.
Continued
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