40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 172 (Deuteronomy 17:14-18:22)

Episode Date: July 6, 2019

The fact that Israel has no king sets them apart from other nations but God knows the people will demand one eventually. What are the rules God makes for choosing a king? What does He require a king to do? How does this play out in the history of Israel? A true king and prophet is coming and He is like Moses and yet not like Moses at all. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Conference Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 podcast network podcast. You can go over to 1517.org slash podcast check out all the things that we got going on over there. Those things being more podcasts for you to listen to. Go check them out. See if there's another one besides this one that, you know, fits your listening taste. Also, while you're over there, you can go over to the conference link, and then that link will take you to Here We Still Stand, and you can get in on the final 50 tickets that there are for that event. It's in October in San Diego, California. We're going to be talking about the Apostles' Creed, and other things that are commonly held beliefs by Christians.

So if you want to come out, hang out with me, Chad, and a whole bunch of other people, go over there, and you, as a podcast listener, can get $25 off each and every ticket you buy by entering the promo code PNET19 in the promo code box at checkout. $25 off. We'd love to see you there. Not a lot of tickets left, so get on that. chad we are just wrapping up the fourth of july we are yeah and i noticed you've got kind of a got a california tone going on this morning there i do but my home away from home uh out here in southern california suffering out there in southern california well i wasn't sure california celebrated the fourth of july but

they did so that's good they came through they came through that's good yeah we had a pretty relaxing for the july which is kind of nice yeah been kind of crazy the last few days so we just kicked back enjoyed our freedom there you go free free to do nothing ate some ate some good food watched a little fireworks so yeah it was it was good so here we are yeah we're we're uh we're actually you know we're a day late but one thing that people don't know is that we already recorded this but then something went wrong and so you guys are getting a really well thought out of you know thought out episode we can correct all the heresy that we spoke in the in the first episode first recording either that or people gonna be maybe yeah it probably will happen as

people be really disappointed this is this is what it sounds like when you get a second shot at something yeah probably so probably so we'll give it our best shot we're gonna do 17 and 18 today we're gonna finish 17 rather and then we're gonna do 18 so uh we got some good stuff coming up about kings and priests and a very significant prophet, which we're going to hear once we get to chapter 18, verse 15. The second half of chapter 17 of Deuteronomy, verses 14 through 20, are kind of a fascinating section of Deuteronomy because it's forward-looking. Of course, there's a lot of forward-looking stuff in Deuteronomy, but this is even more forward-looking than most of it is. There's a lot of stuff in Deuteronomy which says, you know, when you get

to the land, then you need to do this. You need to offer these sacrifices, or you need to celebrate this festival, or whatever it might be. So, of course, it's forward-looking, but into the immediate future. This, however, is different. Not only is it different in the sense that it looks way ahead, but it even, theoretically, poses a possibility which may or may not happen. So, what we're talking about is whether Israel will choose a king. Now, of course, at this point, Israel has had no king except Yahweh. He is their true king. They have a leader, to be sure. They've got Moses or Moses and his brother Aaron, but nowhere are Moses and Aaron called kings. They serve a priestly capacity. They serve a prophetic capacity, but they do not serve a regal capacity. Now, this is

interesting because the lack of a king set israel apart this is actually one of the ways in which israel was distinguished from the nations which were around them one of them one of the many ways of course israel was similar to to the nations and that they were of course a people that had land or about to have land and they centered their lives around worship however they were different in a lot of respects. For instance, they were monotheistic, which was unheard of in the ancient world. Everybody had multiple gods, but Israel did not. And this one god that they worshiped didn't have an image. There was no statue of Yahweh, unlike the statues and images that were found in the religions of the nations which were around them. And thirdly, Israel had

no king. In fact, they didn't have a king now. They wouldn't have a king in Joshua. They wouldn't have a king in Judges. It's not until we get a few chapters into the first book of Samuel that finally Israel has a king. So this is a long way down the road. And keep in mind that having a king in Israel was not only unnecessary, but ultimately it was extremely unwise, as we'll hear in just a minute. So even though in this particular section of Deuteronomy 17, it holds out the possibility of Israel having a king, because of the temptations to which the king will be subject, which are spelled out here, Israel would make a very unwise and unfavorable choice for the whole nation, should they ever go this route. And of course, as we read in the rest of Samuel and 2 Samuel and

1st and 2nd Kings and Chronicles and in the prophets, if there was one problem that resurfaced continuously in the life of Israel, it was the choices that the kings made, especially with regard to worship, which affected the rest of the nation negatively. So anyway, all that's kind of a preamble to what we see here in Deuteronomy 17, which starts out saying, this first verse is very significant. When you enter the land, which the Lord your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me. And then it goes on, but I want to stop there. As soon as we hear this phrase, all like all the nations who are around me, then our antenna ought to go up and we ought to realize, oh, this is, this is

not good. Because if there's one thing that we hear repeatedly in the Old Testament, it's don't be like all the nations which were around you. So the expressed will of Israel in choosing a king to be like all the nations which are around them is already a kind of a self-imposed indictment against that choice. Because when you want a king so you can be like all the nations which are around you you immediately signal that you actually don't like the way that god has constituted you and you want to bring about a change so that you're like all the other nations which surround you yeah it's interesting that he doesn't say if he says when you come into the land your lord your god has given you and you possess it and dwell on it and then you say so when this

happens when you say this words that i will set a king over me like all the nations around me says you can do it but you're gonna do it this way obviously prophetic in nature saying and this is what's going to happen yeah yeah and we see when this does happen which is in second Samuel chapter eight that when the people express their desire to have a king they actually lift some of the words from deuteronomy 17 verse 14 to express their their desire so or god or god went forward in time and lifted them from their lips and stuck them back here yeah exactly this is what i know you're this is what i know you're gonna say so when uh i'm looking ahead here to first samuel chapter 8 and what happens is basically samuel has been the judge and the prophet for israel

Samuel was one of the judges. So it's almost like the book of Judges continues into Samuel because Samuel was in that capacity. He's the last of the judges, but he's also, of course, a prophet. And he's old. And Samuel had sons, but his sons were not like him. They were corrupt. They took bribes and the people knew it. So they tell Samuel, hey, we don't like your sons. we want to change things so all the elders of israel gather together and they come to samuel and in first samuel 8 verse 5 they say to him look you've grown old and your sons do not walk in your ways now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations and i check the hebrews exactly the same that like excuse me that like all the nations is kakol ha-gogim exact same phrase

in first samuel 8 as well as in deuteronomy 17 so yeah whether the people are like quoting it or whether god knows what they're going to say and so he inserts that in deuteronomy 17 however you want to look at it whether it's uh forward looking or backward looking this is what the people are this is what the people are desiring they want to be like the gentiles they want to be like the non-israelites and so they they want to they want a king and as it goes on to say in first samuel chapter 8 their desire for a king is at the same time a rejection of yahweh as their king because as soon as they say this samuel sam is upset right he doesn't like this he doesn't want this it's displeasing to him or literally in the hebrew it's evil to him and so samuel

praise to god and here's how god responds to samuel he says listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you and that's a hebrew idiom we've talked about that before to listen to the voice of someone is the is a lot of times it's translated as obey because that that's the way that that conforming oneself to the expressed will of another instead of saying obey in hebrew it's listen to the voice of so that god says to samuel listen to what they're saying. Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, because they have not rejected you, but they rejected me from being king over them. And then in 1 Samuel 8, God goes on through Samuel to tell the people, to forewarn the people exactly what life is going to

be like under a king. And it doesn't sound very good. He's going to take your money. He's going take your land he's going to take your sons he's going to take your daughters he's going to tax you he's going to he's going to do a whole lot of things that you're not going to enjoy that much and despite the fact that all of these warnings about what the king is going to do and take despite all the fact that israel knows this they persist they won't give up their idea they want to be like all the nations they want a king to judge them and to go before them And probably most importantly, they want a king to go before them who will fight their battles, as it said in Samuel 8, verse 20. So anyway, in the end, of course, that's what happens.

And we see from the very first king, Saul, who's chosen, that everything that God warned them about is exactly what happened. And of course, in the end, Saul's reign goes to pot, and he himself is killed by the Philistines. So everything that God told them was going to happen actually did happen. And so beginning there, and with very, very few exceptions in the rest of the life of Israel, we see that the kings actually did exactly what they were not supposed to do, according to Deuteronomy 17. Yeah, Israel had fewer what we would call good kings than bad kings. David, of course, is held up as a prime example of the ideal king. And despite the fact, of course, that he has his own skeletons in his closet.

But if there's a single name that's chosen among the kings to serve as kind of the model for a king, Well, it's David, despite multiple examples of him angering God by his actions, like the census that he took, as well as the whole debacle with Bathsheba and with Uriah. So David is held up as the ideal king. And then you've got Josiah, who is probably the second best king. and then you got a couple of other kings in the southern kingdom who are the language of the bible is something like this they did good by doing blank blank blank whatever it is they'll list those out and then it'll usually say but they did not for instance they did not remove the high places or they did not uh defeat another nation like they were supposed to or whatever it

might be, a lot of the kings who have a partially positive review, that's followed by a negative critique of the ways in which they failed. So if I remember correctly, and I could be wrong on this, but if I remember correctly, only David and Josiah are accorded like the 100% stamp of approval. That's not to say they were perfect. It's just saying, relatively speaking, when it came to the kings then these two guys were were the best that is just the southern kingdom now that of course after solomon died and his son rehoboam took the kingship then the kingdom split so you had the northern kingdom which is usually called israel and the southern kingdom which is usually called judah and they had their own kings jeroboam was the first king of the northern kingdom

and all the kings of the northern kingdom were bad i'm just like not a single one was was i might have done a few good things but like none of them uh received that stamp of approval by god yeah when you're even looking at that i mean david has obvious things they're like well that's not great josiah is probably the only the only guy that you're like i don't know this guy seemed pretty rock solid you know we don't get nearly as much information about josiah either though yeah we know that he was very young when uh when he took the throne and we know of course that when he was a little bit older is when we talked about this i think not very long ago is when uh they found the copy of the of either deuteronomy or the of the torah whatever it was

was like on a dusty bookshelf in the temple when they were cleaning it out they're like oh look there's a copy of something and they read it to read it to josiah and he realizes that it's actually the word of god and so they initiate this great reformation of worship under josiah So he did a lot of great things for Israel. But the point is that in the life of Israel, beginning with Saul and then going all the way to the last king of Israel, what you have more or less is a long litany of failures when it came to the rulers of both the northern as well as the southern kingdom. And one of the reasons for that is exactly what's talked about in Deuteronomy 17, because the temptations to which the kings were subject because of the power that accrued to their office,

Those temptations, they never like lessened. They never went away. They were like, if you were going to be a king, just plan on being tempted by these things constantly. There's not going to be a break. So back to Deuteronomy 17, it says, when you choose a king, first of all, you choose one whom the Lord chooses. So it's not like you get to, this is not a democracy. In other words, you don't get like a candidates to come forward and, and Israel cast a vote on which one they like because he or she has the best plan for the nation.

It's not like that. It's a, this is a, uh, a theocracy, uh, if, if you will, to, to use a term that, that Joseph has coined for it. So God rules this nation. And when he chooses a King, then he's the one who chooses it. He gets to, there's a single vote cast, God cast a vote and whoever he chooses is the one who is King. So that's the first thing.

and it's supposed to be from your own countrymen. You don't want to choose a Philistine, of course, or anybody else from the nations which were around them because that is like a one-way ticket to idolatry if that happens. And then we have these lists of temptations that are spelled out here in Deuteronomy 17, beginning with, first of all, the multiplication of horses. This is not just like you get a cowboy king who's really into horses, and so he fills up the stables with a bunch of thoroughbred stallions or something.

Now, the reason he's not to multiply horses is horses, of course, were the weapons of war. They were the tanks, if you will, of the ancient Near East. So if you had horses, you had chariots or you just had horses and riders. But either way, these, of course, were part of military power. So the prohibition to multiply horses is a prohibition to increase and rely upon military might, which, of course, is what all the nations which were around them were doing. And would it be a constant temptation for Israel? Verse 17 goes on to say,

neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away. Well, most kings had harems, and we see from the life already in the life of David. I don't remember about Saul, but I know, of course, David had a large harem, and then Solomon had a large harem, and all the kings after them had these large harems.

And, of course, that was an ongoing temptation to turn the heart of the way, number one, from concentrating on ruling and to spend his time in sexual pleasure. But the second temptation, which is actually more serious, is that the wives that the king brought from foreign nations would then tempt him into idolatry, into creating temples for their gods or their goddesses in the land of Israel. And lo and behold, that's exactly what happened. We see that in the case of Solomon, where he married all of these foreign wives, and then they turned his heart away so that he began to construct temples for their foreign gods. Third temptation, so horses, wives, third temptation is wealth. Nor shall he greatly

increase silver and gold for himself. Well, when you're in the most powerful position in the land, and you have all this opportunity to make yourself wealthy, either by taxation or theft or by whatever it might be well that's a again that's an ongoing temptation that the king faces so these three the uh the desire for trusting in power that's about the horses or to to to turn to pleasure or to succumb to the temptation to idolatry that's that's the foreign wives the increase of wives and then thirdly uh the silver the silver and gold so those are the three warnings are the three temptations to which the king will will be subject now what's fascinating in the rest of this section of deuteronomy 17 is that is that there's really only one duty that's given to the

king uh presumably he would be doing many things he is he is the ruler but in deuteronomy anyway he's almost a figurehead he's an optional figurehead he really he really isn't needed and he's going to be subject to all these allurements of the flesh and of the world so he's given one duty and one duty only it says when he sits on the throne of his kingdom he shall take a pen paper take his quill and take his scroll and write for himself a copy of this law in the presence of the levites and he's to keep this copy of the law always with him and he's to read it all the days of his life so that he learns to fear god and to keep the words of his law and his statutes, and so that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen. That

is to say that he will not succumb to the temptation of pride and see himself as somehow exalted in importance and significance above all those who are his brothers and sisters in the faith. So it's kind of interesting, of all the things that the king could be enjoined to do, I mean, even positive things like caring for widows and orphans or acting justly or whatever it might be, even the good things that could be given to the king to do, only one, to make a copy of the Torah, to keep it with him, and to study it. So to basically, as we might say it, to immerse himself and to immerse his daily existence in the word of God so that that word begins to form and shape who he understands himself to be as a person, how he understands his office, and then how he conducts himself in that office that is so subject to all of these various kinds of evils. Yeah, so what ends up happening, of course, is the exact opposite of all these things, as you mentioned. I mean, so you do have the amassing military strength. You have all these kings taking multiple wives.

You have all these kings amassing for themselves treasure and all that stuff. And they definitely don't do this either, because if they did, Josiah wouldn't be finding a copy of the Torah in the temple being like, what's this? Yeah, evidently he didn't write a copy of the Torah when he got on the throne, right? he had to discover it years later stored away somewhere yeah uh i think that that seemed to have went away pretty quick uh because i mean josiah comes along and it's like he doesn't even know what the thing is it doesn't mean obviously this practice did not did not get upheld uh yeah yeah it's a you know what and we'll get there eventually one of these years

when we get into into second samuel especially into the the lives of the kings i mean it's a comedy of errors it's just like it's like one tragedy after the other uh it's like a it's almost like a soap opera when you read the the kings of israel the things they did and the uh the presumption i mean even some of the presumptions that they had uh like it was it was at uziah that uh i mean he like he did a lot of good things but then he got so full of himself at the end that he thought you know what there's one thing i haven't been able to do and that is burn incense in the holy place of the temple you know what i think i'll do that too well and then yeah he he goes in there before the priest can pull him out leprosy just is slapped on him by god

and he ends up being a leper the rest of the rest of his days so yeah i mean to read the kings is to read about failure failure after after failure which ironically kind of sets us up for when the true king arrives right yeah i mean i mean where you have all of these things laid out what is interesting so when you have israel under roman occupation they have no king obviously and what they want is a king they want they want a messiah that's going to deliver them and they want to they want to re-establish this whole thing like we want we need a david type figure here we need someone who's going to go thump all these guys and then you know we'll have our king again well they don't like the king that shows up uh in christ even though he is the

perfect fulfillment of everything that god has said here he does not well and it's sort of one of the reasons they don't like him right is that he doesn't come and have a bunch of military power he doesn't try to raise up you know a bunch of he doesn't try to raise up a political revolt he takes no wives whatsoever ain't gonna be any lineage here you know uh he doesn't certainly doesn't amass for himself wealth uh he's homeless and uh but what he does do is he does keep the the law i mean he is the the very word of god made flesh uh and so for all these things he's rejected like no that's not at all what we want it's not the kind of king we've had before not the kind of king we want now yeah when you look at first century israel and their desire for what

a king should be like i mean it's really a repeat of first samuel 8 yeah because you know when you when you look at the very first demand of israel for a king they don't demand they don't go to sam you know what we want a king who will get on the throne and make for himself a copy of the torah and study it day in and day out it's not what they're looking for they want a king who's going to be their judge and most importantly they want a king who's going to fight their battles so this this militaristic desire that's expressed in the very first uh recording of israel wanting a king that just that just goes on i mean that's exactly what the first century is a lot to looking for as well because i mean they were they weren't in exactly the same situation as back in first

samuel but i mean they were even even if her samuel of course they were constantly threatened by the enemies around them well in the first century they weren't so much threatened by the enemies around them as they were already under the the fist of of rome and they wanted out from underneath that so the very last thing they wanted was a king like jesus but the king like jesus is exactly the kind of king that's described here in deuteronomy 17 and that actually never came upon israel's throne until till the messiah comes yeah this is one this is one of the reasons why When Jesus goes around calling himself the son of David, they're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because part of what he's saying there is that he's a potential ruler, right?

I mean, that he potentially is like the heir to this throne. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, that's not, that is definitely not you because you're not like David. If you were like David, we'd be down. Yeah, yeah. But we don't see you going out killing giants and amassing armies and taking care of the Roman Philistines who are around us. Isn't it fascinating? This is kind of a side note here. But when you read sections like this in Deuteronomy 17, 14 through 20, I mean, there's nothing here which is explicitly about the Messiah.

But it's like between every single line here, right? This is a good case of where when you read the scriptures holistically, that is from cover to cover, when you read the Old Testament light of the new and the New Testament light of the old, when you see this is all one interconnected book that is webbed together by the spirit, then you see how actually Deuteronomy 17 is all about the Messiah because it sets up a king which never comes. this ideal king never sits on the throne of of israel until the messiah comes so he ends up being the fulfillment of these verses in deuteronomy even though he's not explicitly mentioned there he this this does describe an ideal king and that ideal king is the one that we finally have in the in the messiah yeah absolutely okay so uh that's enough on that chapter uh we'll move on to 7 to 18 rather so 18 begins with some material that we've we've covered at length so i'm not going to spend more than just a minute or so there what it's describing is

how those who were either levites or those who were in the levitical priesthood were to be supported so you remember that unlike all the rest of the tribes leave the levites were not given territory. They were given cities, and these cities were scattered throughout the land of Israel. And they had a little bit of land around these cities where they could grow some crops and have some herds or some flocks. But they didn't have this vast territory like all the other tribes had. And so the way that the Levites and the Levitical priests were supported was through the offerings of their brothers and sisters. And so these are spelled out in many other places in the Torah, and they're spelled out again here in the beginning of Deuteronomy 18. So there's certain

parts of the animals that are given to the priest so they can take them home and have their Fourth of July barbecue with them. Or there are certain parts of the crops that are given to the priest. And it's even said here that there's like part of the wool from the shearing of the sheep was given to the Levites as well. And this is the section, by the way, kind of interesting, that Paul alludes to in uh first corinthians when he he talks about how that the one who preaches the gospel should get his should get his living from the gospel in first corinthians 9 verse verse 13. so when paul reads the torah he'll sometimes and and then he's talking about life in the church he'll sometimes draw from sections like this just to talk about hey you know we have a parallel here in the old

testament people who were responsible for the word of god and for the worship well they they were supported by the people whom they served. And, you know, certain things have changed in many ways, but that hasn't changed. The people that serve the church, the people of God, the new Israel, who are responsible for the word of God and for the worship, well, they still deserve our offerings. This is not somehow an Old Testament law that is co-opted by the church, And so now it's legally enforced, but rather it's simply a theological precedent from the life of Israel that Paul then applies to the life of the church. So we can't, for instance, quote this section and say, see, God demands that the church make tithes or offerings to support those in ministry. Because this is the law for Israel.

We say that often. You can't take these laws that apply to Israel and then lift them wholesale into the life of the church, because this was for Israel specifically. But Paul does, very often, look at these Old Testament laws as a sort of theological precedent or model that can be followed in the life of the church. Yeah, it's like going back and saying, this thing right here was a good idea. So just as that happened, we should do something like that. Yeah, that's all that's going on there. And of course, I mean, it is a good idea, right? If those who are working full-time or even part-time, but especially full-time, I mean, if this is their job, their livelihood, their calling to serve the church, then of course the church supports them because they don't have any other way.

They're going to be able to support themselves and their family. So the church steps up and the church provides materially for the minister and the minister's family. Okay, so that's the first eight, yeah, eight verses of Deuteronomy 18. 9 through 14 are kind of a lead-in to what follows. So 9 through 14 discuss all the various ways that Israel might be tempted to try and control and manipulate the future. Of course, this is not something which was just for Israel. I mean, Israel was, it's not like Israel was interested in the future and we're not. We always wonder, you know, what's going to happen tomorrow?

What's going to happen next week? What's going to happen in 10 or 20 years? And, you know, we have our ways of, these days, we do all sorts of studies and use analytics to try and predict what's going to happen in the future, right? I mean, we have our own ways of trying to foresee and plan for the future. And to some extent, even control and manipulate it through the decisions that we make today. So this is a universal, ongoing interest of humanity to know what can we do to change tomorrow? Or what can we do now that's in some way going to alter the future so that it accords with our will?

well in the life of israel wait let me back up not so much in life of israel in the life of the nations around israel there were all sorts of ways in which you could try and figure out what was going to happen in the future so you had everything from uh hepatoscopy which is the fancy word for looking at the livers of sacrificial victims and they were like professional liver lookers. They like checked out the livers to see how certain shapes of the livers would supposedly give the worshiper an idea as to what his future was going to be like. Or you could like put drops of oil on top of other liquid and see how the oil would move around. And there were certain ways that you were supposed to be able to decipher those movements, which would give an

indication of the positive or negative of the future. Some people looked at the flights of birds or how arrows fell out of a quiver uh or you could instead instead of just looking at those sorts of things you could actually consult a professional uh someone who was what we might call a witch or a sorceress or uh just someone who read omens to be able to to tell uh from this person what the future was going to hold i guess you know the closest thing we have that's still going on today is uh palm readers i suppose i suppose people still go to the palm readers at the very least i still see the tarot card readers and stuff like this right yeah tell you all the things right right i've never quite understood that i honestly i don't know that

i really want to know the future i mean there's part of me that does there's part of me it's like ah yeah you know just because there are certain things that have happened like if i'd have known beforehand they were going to happen then my life would have been living hell yeah it's almost like better not to know certain things yeah man that's a mixed bag i mean certainly obviously there's there's things that have happened in my life obviously they're that are good and you know i'm sure if i heard about those things i'd be like oh okay yeah that's pretty good but man there's some things i'd be like oh no i don't want i wouldn't sleep for like a year yeah some of these things are coming up but anyway yeah i mean so uh of course we all have a general

interest in the future uh but uh these are some of the specific ways that the nations around israel used either physical omens or professional omen readers or sorceresses or witches, whatever you want to call them. There's a whole list of them here. It's the longest list in the Torah, by the way, of these prohibited practices and offices. And God says to all of these, really only one word, no, this is not the way it's going to be. So don't go to witches. Don't go to sorceresses, don't go to omens. None of this is acceptable. So I said all this is kind of a lead-in. It's a lead-in to what we see in Deuteronomy 18, verse 15, where it says, so don't do all these things, but here's what I want you to do. This is verse 15.

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, and you shall listen to him luther i was checking out luther's commentary on deuteronomy i'll just read you a sentence or two here he's talking about this verse 15 this is the chief passage in this whole book and a clearly expressed prophecy of christ as the new teacher and then he goes on it is his purpose to show that in the future there will be another priesthood another the kingdom, another worship of God, and another word by which all of Moses will be set aside. So that's Luther's take on this verse, which of course fits with what we see from the rest of scripture. There's at least two occasions in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 3 and Acts chapter 7,

where first of all Peter, and then secondly Stephen, quote Deuteronomy 18.15 in reference to the Messiah. So this is not just kind of a general prophecy of another prophet or long list of prophets who are going to come after Moses. This is the prophecy of a very specific prophet, the Messianic prophet, who is going to be like Moses in some respects, but going to be very unlike Moses in other respects. Now, what's interesting is contextually how this works. So we have all these forbidden omens and practitioners of fortune-telling leading up to this, and then we have the Messiah prophesied in verse 15, which the message that conveys is basically, listen, if you want to know what your future holds, if you want to know what God's will

is for your life, if you want to know how things are going to work out for you, if you want to know all of the, if you want to have all these questions answered, well, then rather than turning to all of these illicit human demonic practices, turn to the prophet like Moses, whom God is going to raise up for you, because all of the most important questions in life are answered in him and in him alone. So it's kind of a, it's just one of these verses where you really need to look at it in context. Because when you see it in context, it gives you a little bit deeper and richer understanding of what is being talked about in this prophet, this messianic prophet, who's like Moses, but greater than Moses. Luther will say over and over and over again that Jesus is no new

Moses. And sometimes you might run into this verse and be like, I don't know, it kind of sounds like he is. And what this verse is saying is that God will raise up a prophet like Moses, not in the sense that he comes to bring the law, but that he comes with the Word of God and comes to fulfill that law, that in Christ, Moses is then moved aside. Absolutely, yeah. So the law comes through Moses, but grace and truth comes through Jesus Christ. And Moses is nothing more than kind of an Old Testament John the Baptist who prepares the way for the Messiah, but when Christ comes, then moses is we're done because christ fulfills the law he is he brings grace and truth and he is the fulfillment of all of the promises and all the prophecies that moses and the other prophets

talked about in the old testament yeah i mean it's it is literally most the differences are the differences are the similarities is so moses brings the law down from the mountain and christ takes your law breaking up to the mountain and dies. So it's similar in the sense that it's completely opposite. It's like completely the other thing, you know, but it sort of looks the same. That's a great way to put it. And that's a great way to wrap up too.

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that you definitely are what makes this possible chad i will see you next week all right man see you then thanks you