Deuteronomy 18:15-22
15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you – from your fellow Israelites; ▼▼ The MT expands here on the usual formula by adding “from among you” (cf. Deut 17:15; 18:18; Smr; a number of Greek texts). The expansion seems to be for the purpose of emphasis, i.e., the prophet to come must be not just from Israel but an Israelite by blood.
▼ you must listen to him. 16This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our ▼▼ The Hebrew text uses the collective singular in this verse: “my God…lest I die.”
God any more or see this great fire any more lest we die.” 17The Lord then said to me, “What they have said is good. 18I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command. 19I will personally hold responsible ▼▼ Heb “will seek from him”; NAB “I myself will make him answer for it”; NRSV “will hold accountable.”
anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet ▼ speaks in my name. 20 “But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized ▼
▼ Or “commanded” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV).
him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 21Now if you say to yourselves, ▼▼ Heb “in your heart.”
‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’ ▼▼ Heb “know the word which the Lord has not spoken.” The issue here is not understanding the meaning of the message, but distinguishing a genuine prophetic word from a false one.
– 22whenever a prophet speaks in my ▼ name and the prediction ▼▼ Heb “the word,” but a predictive word is in view here. Cf. NAB “his oracle.”
is not fulfilled, ▼▼ Heb “does not happen or come to pass.”
then I have ▼ not spoken it; ▼▼ Heb “that is the word which the Lord has not spoken.”
the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”
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