shall hearken; 16. 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. 17. And the Lord said unto me, They have well
spoken that which they have spoken. 18. 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. 19.
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. 20. 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. 21. And if thou say in thine heart,
How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? 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.'--DEUT. xviii. 9-22.


It is evident from the connection in which the promise of 'a prophet
like unto Moses' is here introduced that it does not refer to Jesus
only; for it is presented as Israel's continuous defence against the
temptation of seeking knowledge of the divine will by the illegitimate
methods of divination, soothsaying, necromancy, and the like, which
were rampant among the inhabitants of the land. A distant hope of a
prophet in the far-off future could afford no motive to shun these
superstitions. We cannot understand this passage unless we recognise
that the direct reference is to the institution of the prophetic order
as the standing means of imparting the reliable knowledge of God's
will, possessing which, Israel had no need to turn to them 'that peep