A Prophecy of Moses

Here’s another prophetic saying you will remember, but it’s still astounding in its implications. Moses tells the people (Deuteronomy I8, 15-19):

The Lord your God shall raise up for you a prophet from your midst, like me. Him shall ye hear... From among their brothers I shall raise up for them a prophet like you, and I will put My words into His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And the man who does not heed My words, which He shall speak in My name, I will hold him accountable for them.”

What strikes me so much this time is the phrase, “a prophet like me.” Or as the Lord says to Moses, “a prophet like you.” To say Moses is the greatest of all the Hebrew prophets is understatement, because it was through Moses God’s people were delivered from slavery to the Egyptians and led to the Promised Land, the true God was revealed, the Law was given, the Covenant and the whole Jewish religion established. Moses is, to say the least, a very, very tough act to follow! Yet a prophet “like me” means the Israelites were to expect someone who would be at least as important as that, who would have similar authority, who would do similar deeds, who in short would be another Moses. That’s absolutely astonishing.

Now I appreciate better why the Gospel of St. Matthew goes to considerable lengths to demonstrate that Jesus is the new Moses.

“The Law came by Moses,” says St. John, “but grace and truth through Jesus Christ.”

P.S.) "From the midst of you" ... "from among their brothers..." Not from the line of Ishmael. Not Mohammed.