Prophecies about Jesus: He would be a prophet like Moses

I woke up early yesterday, so I watched the soccer [football]. In the world cup, the Australian socceroos played the pharaohs from Egypt. It reminded me of Moses and the Israelites verses Pharaoh and the Egyptians at the Red Sea.

Dallas Stadium was a sea of red, and Pharaoh was there in the crowd. There was an own goal and chasing the Israelites to the Red Sea was a home goal for Pharaoh. Harry Souttar was a like Moses, only Moses wouldn’t have missed that goal!

They seemed to have changed the game of soccer by adding diving! Better dives get more penalties. There were also miracles – I saw players that were mortally wounded have a rapid recovery.

The prophet

After God defeated the Egyptians at the Red Sea, the Israelites travelled to Mount Sinai where they were given the 10 commandments. They were terrified when God appeared on the mountain – the mountain shook and there was thunder and lighting. So they asked that God speak to them through a mediator (Ex. 20:18–19). And Moses was that mediator for at least 40 years. But in Deuteronomy, Moses was about to die. That generation of Israelites had never been without Moses as their leader and as God’s voice to them. But now that he was to die, how were they to know what God wanted them to do?

So, Moses told the Israelites, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb [Mount Sinai] on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”
The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name.”
(Dt. 18:15-19NIV).

The answer was that God would raise up a prophet whenever they needed to hear from Him. It says, “I will put my words in his mouth”. Each prophet spoke words given to him by God.

So, after Moses there was a series of Jewish prophets as described in the Old Testament. In the short term, this promise was partially fulfilled by leaders like Joshua, and later by great prophets like Samuel, Elijah, and Isaiah. They were all “like Moses”. They spoke words that came from God. That was how God communicated with the Israelites.

But the Bible says that Moses was unique, “Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel” (Dt. 34:10-12). He was the only prophet who spoke “face to face” with God – God spoke to the other prophets by dreams and visions (Num. 12:6-8). And the miracles that God did for Moses were more powerful than those He did for the other prophets.

The ultimate prophet

The people of the first century AD were expecting a particular prophet. When asked, John the Baptist said that he wasn’t “the prophet” (Jn. 1:21).

Philip said,” We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law” (Jn. 1:45). After Jesus fed the 5,000, some people said that that He was the promised prophet (Jn. 6:14). Likewise, after He taught the people some said that that He was the promised prophet (Jn. 7:40). When Jesus came into Jerusalem as King, the crowds said, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee” (Mt. 21:11).

Peter quoted Deuteronomy 18:15, 18, 19 and said that Jesus was the ultimate fulfillment of the promise of a prophet like Moses (Acts 3:22-23). Stephen also quoted Deuteronomy 18:15 in a speech defending his preaching about Jesus (Acts 7:37). Paul agreed when he said, “there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). Jesus is the ultimate mediator between God and humanity. He is the go-between who resolved the conflict between God and mankind.

This Prophet is trustworthy because He is much more than a man. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt. 16:16). The people understood that this meant He was God (Jn. 5:18).

Like Moses, Jesus was unique. He spoke “face to face” with God the Father because He was God the Son. While Moses delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, Jesus can deliver us from slavery to sin to forgiveness, salvation and eternal life. That’s the greatest miracle of all!

Listen to Him

The Israelites were told to “You must listen to him [the prophet]”. And God said, “I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name”. And Peter, John and James were told “listen to Him [Jesus]” (Lk. 9:35).

Are you listening to Jesus? Will you trust Him as Savior and obey Him as Lord? Do God’s words in scripture have the final authority in your life?

Prayer

Father God, we thank you for raising up Moses to be the leader and mediator of the old covenant (the Law). And we thank you for providing the other prophets to guide the Israelites after Moses died.

But most of all we thank you for providing Jesus as the leader and mediator of the new covenant (of God’s grace). We realise that as the divine Son of God, He is exceedingly greater than all the other prophets. And He fulfills the Old Testament roles of prophet, priest and king.

We thank you for His sacrificial death that enabled our sin to be forgiven and us to be reconciled with God. And we thank you for His resurrection back to life which was a great victory over death, sin and Satan. Amen.

Written, 5 July 2026