Commentary - Deuteronomy 18:15-22

Bird's-eye view

In this crucial section of Deuteronomy, Moses, the great lawgiver and mediator, turns his attention to the future leadership of Israel. The people are being prepared to enter the land, and God is making provision for them. He has already laid out the roles for judges and kings, and here He addresses the prophetic office. This is not just some administrative detail. The central issue for a covenant people is this: how do we hear from God? Israel has just been warned sternly against resorting to the occultic practices of the Canaanites, things like divination and sorcery. God's people are not to seek guidance from the darkness. So, what is the alternative? The alternative is revelation. God will speak.

The passage makes two central points that are really two sides of the same coin. First, God promises to raise up a prophet, a singular prophet, who will be like Moses. This is the great Messianic promise that finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one to whom all must listen. Second, because God's true word is so precious, the counterfeit is deadly. Therefore, God provides the means for distinguishing a true prophet from a false one. The true prophet speaks God's words and they come to pass. The false prophet speaks presumptuously, from his own heart or in the name of other gods, and he is to be utterly rejected. This passage, then, establishes the office of the prophet, points us to the final Prophet, and gives us the tools to protect ourselves from deception.

Outline

The Prophet Like Moses

15 “Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers; you shall listen to him.

Right after warning the people away from all the pagan mumbo-jumbo, God makes a stupendous promise. He is not leaving them in the dark. He will provide a guide. Notice the specifics. Yahweh Himself will be the one to raise this prophet up. This is a divine appointment, not a democratic election. He will be "like me," Moses says. How was Moses unique? He spoke with God face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. He was the mediator of the covenant. He delivered God's people from bondage. This prophet, then, will be a mediator of the highest order. He will come "from among you, from your brothers," meaning he will be a true Israelite, one of them. He will be incarnate, you might say. And the response required is simple and absolute: "you shall listen to him." This is not a suggestion. The Hebrew is emphatic. All ears are to be on this prophet. While this applies to the ongoing office of prophets God would send, the language points to a singular, ultimate fulfillment. Peter nails this down in Acts 3, applying it directly to Jesus. Jesus is the Prophet par excellence whom God has raised up, and to refuse to listen to Him is to cut oneself off from the people of God.

16 This is according to all that you asked of Yahweh your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of Yahweh my God; let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die.’

God's provision is not arbitrary; it is a merciful response to human weakness. Moses throws it back to their experience at Mount Sinai, or Horeb. When God descended on the mountain in fire and smoke, and the whole mountain quaked, and the voice of God thundered the Ten Commandments, what did the people do? They trembled in terror. They recognized, rightly, that sinful creatures cannot stand in the unmediated presence of a holy God. They begged for a go-between. They wanted a mediator, someone who could stand in the gap, hear from God, and then report back to them. They understood that direct contact meant death. This is a foundational biblical principle. God is a consuming fire, and we are not fireproof.

17 And Yahweh said to me, ‘They have spoken well. 18 I will raise up a prophet from among their brothers like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

God's response to the people's fear was not annoyance, but affirmation. "They have spoken well." God approved of their request for a mediator. It showed a right understanding of their own creaturely and sinful status before Him. And so, He formalizes the arrangement. He ratifies their request with this promise. He will raise up this Prophet, this new Moses. And notice the key qualification: "I will put My words in his mouth." A true prophet is not a religious genius, a creative thinker, or a spiritual entrepreneur. He is a mouthpiece. The message is not his own. The authority is not his own. He is under divine orders, and his job is to "speak to them all that I command him." Not some of it. Not the parts he likes. All of it. This is the essence of the prophetic vocation, and it finds its perfect expression in Jesus, who said, "For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak" (John 12:49).

19 And it will be that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.

The stakes could not be higher. Because the prophet speaks God's words in God's name, to ignore the prophet is to ignore God. The authority is delegated, but it is absolute. And God Himself will be the enforcer. "I Myself will require it of him." This is a solemn judicial phrase. It means God will personally call that individual to account. There will be a reckoning. This is not a matter of disagreeing with a religious teacher's opinion. This is a matter of rebellion against the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth. Again, think of the application to Jesus. The author of Hebrews warns us, "See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven" (Heb. 12:25). To reject Jesus is to invite divine judgment.

Distinguishing the True from the False

20 But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’

With great authority comes great responsibility. If the true prophet is to be obeyed absolutely, then the false prophet must be dealt with decisively. God identifies two kinds of false prophets here. First is the one who claims to speak for Yahweh but is making it up. He speaks "presumptuously." The Hebrew word there has the sense of boiling up, arrogance, pride. This is the man who has a hot take, a new idea, a personal ambition, and he baptizes it with "Thus saith the Lord." He is using God's name as a cover for his own ego. The second kind is more blatant; he speaks "in the name of other gods." He is a spiritual adulterer, leading the people to worship demons. For both, the sentence is the same: "that prophet shall die." Why so severe? Because this is spiritual treason. It is an attack on the covenant at its very root. To poison the revelatory well is to poison the entire nation. There can be no tolerance for it.

21 Now you may say in your heart, ‘How will we know the word which Yahweh has not spoken?’

This is the necessary and practical question. It is the question of discernment. If the penalty for being a false prophet is death, and the penalty for ignoring a true prophet is divine judgment, then the people absolutely must have a clear, objective way to tell the difference. They can't be left guessing. God is not a tyrant who sets His people up for failure. So, He anticipates their question. "How can we know for sure?" This is not a question of unbelief, but a plea for clarity from those who want to obey.

22 When a prophet speaks in the name of Yahweh, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

Here is the test. It is an empirical test. It is a pragmatic test. It is a falsifiable test. Did the thing he predicted happen? If a man says, "Thus saith the Lord, it will rain tomorrow," and the sun shines all day, he is a false prophet. It's that simple. If his short-range, verifiable prophecies don't pan out, you have no reason to trust him on the long-range, unverifiable ones. The word must "come about or come true." It must align with reality. God's word creates reality, so if the word spoken doesn't match the world as it unfolds, it wasn't God's word. This is the test of fulfillment. And when a prophet fails this test, the verdict is clear: "The prophet has spoken it presumptuously." He was puffed up, speaking from his own arrogant heart. And the practical application for the people is liberating: "you shall not be afraid of him." Don't be intimidated by his charisma, his credentials, or his dire warnings. He is a fraud. He has no real authority. You are free from any obligation to listen to him. This is God's gracious way of protecting His flock from wolves.

Application

The central thrust of this passage is to drive us to Christ. He is the Prophet like Moses, the one who speaks God's words perfectly. He is the one to whom we must listen. Every other prophetic voice in Scripture is a pointer to Him, a type, a forerunner. And Jesus passed the ultimate prophetic test. He predicted his own death and resurrection, and on the third day, the prophecy came true. The tomb was empty. This is the bedrock fact of history upon which our faith rests. Because He was vindicated, we must listen to everything He says.

This passage also equips us for life in the Church. The New Testament warns us that false prophets and false teachers will arise from among us. How do we test them? First, we test their message against the supreme message of the great Prophet, Jesus Christ, as recorded for us in Scripture. Does their teaching align with the apostolic doctrine? Does it exalt Christ? Or does it subtly or overtly lead us away from Him? Second, we are to look at the fruit. While we may not have prophets giving us new, predictive revelation today in the same way, we do have teachers. And we can test them. Do their words build up the church in holiness and truth? Or do they cause division, promote arrogance, and lead to licentiousness? A teacher who speaks presumptuously will inevitably lead people into error and sin. We are not to be afraid of such men. We are to identify them, reject their teaching, and cling to the sure and certain word spoken by the Lord Jesus, the true and final Prophet of God.