How can anyone be sure a word really came from God? Israel asked that out loud, and Deuteronomy 18 is God’s answer. Start here for a Deuteronomy 18 summary and study guide of the chapter that promises a prophet like Moses.
Table of Contents
- Setting the Stage
- Comprehensive Deuteronomy 18 Summary
- Deuteronomy 18 Outline
- The Nine Forbidden Practices
- Observations from Deuteronomy 18
- Difficult Verses Explained
- Common Misunderstandings
- Christ Connection
- When, Where, and Why
- Key Verses
- Key Lessons from Deuteronomy 18
- Bible Study Questions
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Deuteronomy 18, The Full Text (KJV)
Setting the Stage
It began at a mountain called Horeb. God spoke to Israel out of the fire, and the sound of His voice terrified them so badly that they begged never to hear it again. They asked Moses to go and listen for them and bring back whatever God said, and Moses had been doing that ever since.
Now Moses is old, standing with Israel on the plains of Moab, about to die without crossing the river. Chapters 16 to 18 set out who will hold authority in Israel after him: judges, a king, the priests, and last of all a prophet. That last one answers the question nobody had said out loud. When Moses is dead, who stands where he has been standing?
Comprehensive Deuteronomy 18 Summary
One tribe in Israel gets no land. The priests and the whole tribe of Levi receive no share of Canaan, because God Himself is what they are given instead. So the nation feeds them out of what it brings to God. From every ox or sheep offered, the priest takes the shoulder, the two cheeks and the stomach.
From every harvest he takes the first of the grain, the wine and the oil, and the first wool off the sheep. Any Levite living out in the country may come and serve at the sanctuary, and eats the same portion as the men already there, whatever he still owns at home.
Then Moses looks ahead to the land itself. The nations living there have nine ways of reaching into the unseen, and he names them all: burning a child in the fire, divination, reading omens, spell-craft, mediums, seeking answers from the dead. God calls every one of them an abomination, and these are the practices for which He is driving those nations out. Israel is to be whole with Him instead.
Israel can afford to refuse all nine because God is not leaving His people without a voice. He will raise up a prophet from among their own countrymen, a prophet like Moses, and put His own words in that prophet’s mouth. The promise answers what Israel asked for at Horeb. Anyone who will not listen to that prophet will answer to God for it.
A promise of true prophets raises the question of false ones, so the chapter ends with both. Death is the sentence on a prophet who speaks in God’s name a word God withheld from him, or who prophesies in another god’s name. Then comes Israel’s own question, and the test that answers it: when a prediction fails, God was never behind it, and the man who made it has lost his claim on anyone’s fear.
One Word Summary
- Provision: a whole tribe is fed from what Israel brings to God
- Voice: God promises to keep speaking, and He names how
- Test: the chapter ends by telling Israel how to check a claim
In One Sentence
Moses sets out how Israel is to feed the priests and Levites, forbids the nine Canaanite ways of prying into the unseen, and promises that God will raise up a prophet like himself whose words Israel must obey and can test.
Theme of Deuteronomy 18
Deuteronomy 18 is about God giving His people a true way to hear from Him, so that they never need a false one. Running alongside that are three connected ideas: the nation must support the men who serve at the altar, holiness means refusing the alternatives outright, and every claim made in God’s name has to be tested rather than simply believed. The chapter treats worship, guidance and discernment as one subject, because in Israel they were.
Deuteronomy 18 Outline
- Deuteronomy 18:1-2: The tribe of Levi receives no land in Canaan, because the LORD Himself is their inheritance.
- Deuteronomy 18:3-5: The people give the priest set portions of every sacrifice, the first of their grain, wine and oil, and the first fleece.
- Deuteronomy 18:6-8: A Levite who leaves his town to serve at the sanctuary receives an equal share with those already serving.
- Deuteronomy 18:9-11: Israel is forbidden to learn nine Canaanite practices, from child sacrifice to consulting the dead.
- Deuteronomy 18:12-14: God calls these practices an abomination and is dispossessing the nations for them, and Israel is told to be perfect with Him.
- Deuteronomy 18:15-17: God will raise up a prophet like Moses, answering what Israel asked for at Horeb.
- Deuteronomy 18:18-19: God repeats the promise in His own words and holds accountable whoever will not listen.
- Deuteronomy 18:20-22: A prophet who speaks presumptuously must die, and Israel is given a test to identify him.
The Nine Forbidden Practices
Verses 10 and 11 name nine practices in a single breath, and they are the reason many readers open this chapter at all.
| KJV term | Where | What it was | Elsewhere in Scripture |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire | 10 | Giving a child to Molech in the fire | Leviticus 18:21; 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 32:35 |
| Useth divination | 10 | The broad word: seeking hidden knowledge by lots, arrows or signs | Numbers 22:7; 1 Samuel 15:23; Ezekiel 21:21 |
| An observer of times | 10 | Reading omens from clouds, stars or seasons | Leviticus 19:26; 2 Kings 21:6; Micah 5:12 |
| An enchanter | 10 | Reading signs and omens, including divining by a cup | Genesis 44:5; Numbers 24:1; 2 Kings 17:17 |
| A witch | 10 | Working spells with drugs, potions or herbs | Exodus 7:11; Exodus 22:18; Malachi 3:5 |
| A charmer | 11 | Binding a person by spells, literally tying knots | Psalm 58:5; Isaiah 47:9 |
| A consulter with familiar spirits | 11 | Asking a divining spirit for answers | Leviticus 20:27; 1 Samuel 28:7; Isaiah 8:19 |
| A wizard | 11 | Literally a knowing one, claiming knowledge of the unseen | Leviticus 19:31; 2 Kings 21:6 |
| A necromancer | 11 | One who seeks answers from the dead | 1 Samuel 28:11; Isaiah 8:19 |
Alexander Maclaren grouped the eight that follow child sacrifice into three kinds: three ways of reading the future, two of influencing events, and three of consulting the dead. The exact sense of several of these Hebrew words is uncertain even to scholars, which is why English Bibles translate them so differently. What they have in common is plain enough. Every one of them is a way of getting information or power out of the unseen world without asking God.
The modern forms belong to the same family. Horoscopes and natal charts read the sky the way the observer of times did. Tarot cards, palm reading, Ouija boards and psychic hotlines look for hidden knowledge the way the enchanter and the wizard did.
A medium who offers to reach a dead relative is doing what verse 11 names outright. Wanting to know what is coming is a human thing and God made us curious, as John Calvin pointed out on this passage; what God forbids here is going after that knowledge by a door He has closed.
Observations from Deuteronomy 18
One Word Runs From the Altar to the Fraud (18:5, 7, 19, 20, 22)
The word “name” appears six times in this chapter, across five verses, and it ties every part of it together. The priest is chosen “to stand to minister in the name of the LORD” (18:5), and the Levite who comes to serve “shall minister in the name of the LORD his God” (18:7).
Both men do their work as God’s representatives, not their own. Then the Prophet speaks “my words which he shall speak in my name” (18:19), and the impostor either presumes “to speak a word in my name” or speaks “in the name of other gods” (18:20). Whose name a man is acting in is what the whole chapter turns on.
God Called Their Fear Well Spoken (18:16-17)
At Horeb Israel asked God to stop speaking to them directly. That request could easily be read as cowardice, and God does not read it that way. “And the LORD said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken” (18:17).
God told Moses that the people were right to say what they said. He answered a frightened request not by rebuking it but by giving them something better than they had asked for, a man who would carry His words to them.
The Priest Is Chosen, the Prophet Is Raised Up (18:5, 15, 18)
The word “chosen” appears once in this chapter, and it belongs to the priest: “the LORD thy God hath chosen him out of all thy tribes” (18:5). God had also said the king must be one “whom the LORD thy God shall choose” (Deuteronomy 17:15). Both offices are filled by selecting a man from people already there.
The prophet is different. God says He will “raise up” this prophet (18:15) and then repeats it in His own voice, “I will raise them up a Prophet” (18:18).
The prophet is produced rather than picked, a contrast Peter Pett also notes. Israel could see a king and a priest coming. God supplies a prophet as the moment requires.
The Chapter Never Says What Makes a Man a Prophet (18:15-18)
The king had rules attached to him: no multiplying horses, wives or silver, and a copy of the law to write out and read (Deuteronomy 17:16-20). The priest had a lineage. The prophet is given no list at all.
Two things identify him and nothing else does. God raised him up, and God’s words are in his mouth. That may be why the chapter moves straight from the promise to the test. The only credential is invisible, so Israel needed a way to check it.
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Difficult Verses Explained
Does “Thou Shalt Be Perfect” Mean God Expects Flawlessness?
No, and the Hebrew word settles it. “Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God” (18:13) uses tamim, the word used of a sacrificial animal without blemish (Exodus 12:5) and of Noah and Job as men who walked with God (Genesis 6:9; Job 1:1). It means whole and undivided rather than faultless.
Set where it sits, between the nine practices and the reason they are forbidden, it means being wholly God’s rather than splitting your trust between Him and something else. The Jewish commentator Rashi read it as walking with God in sincerity and waiting on Him, not prying into the future, and taking whatever comes with simplicity.
If a Prophecy Is About the Distant Future, How Can Verse 22 Test It?
The test works better than it first appears, though it was never meant to stand alone. Three things answer the difficulty. First, most prophets in Scripture spoke about events close at hand, which their hearers could check within their own lifetimes; Hananiah’s word was tested and failed inside two months (Jeremiah 28:15-17).
Second, a stated or implied condition is part of the word, which is why Nineveh was not overthrown after forty days: God says plainly that He turns from a threatened judgment when a nation turns from its evil (Jeremiah 18:7-8). Third, Deuteronomy 13:1-5 supplies the other test, and it is the one that catches a prophet whose sign does come true but whose message leads Israel after other gods. Accuracy was the first test, never the only one.
Common Misunderstandings
- That verses 1 to 8 are an unrelated preface about money. The chapter is one argument about who serves and speaks for God in Israel, and how the nation supports them.
- That verses 6 to 8 describe travelling preachers being put up by villages. The Levite in verse 6 leaves his town and goes to the place God chooses, and he is fed from what is brought there.
- That Israel is already living in the land. They are camped on the plains of Moab and have not crossed the Jordan. Verse 9 says “when thou art come into the land,” which is still ahead of them.
Christ Connection
The New Testament identifies the prophet of verse 15, and it does not do it by inference. It does it through witnesses who name Him.
- John the Baptist is asked directly, “Art thou that prophet?” and answers no (John 1:21, 25).
- Philip tells Nathanael, “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth” (John 1:45). Philip is saying that Moses wrote about this man.
- The crowd after the feeding says, “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world” (John 6:14). Others said the same thing later (John 7:40). They recognised the promise and thought it had arrived.
- The Samaritan woman, whose Bible was the five books of Moses and nothing else, expects a Messiah who “will tell us all things” (John 4:25). Moses’ promise here is where an expectation like that could have come from.
- Jesus says, “for had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me” (John 5:46), and then fulfils verse 18 word for word: “I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak” (John 12:49). God had promised to put His words in the prophet’s mouth, and Jesus says that is exactly what happened.
- The Father says at the transfiguration, “hear ye him” (Matthew 17:5), which is verse 15’s “unto him ye shall hearken” turned into a command.
- Peter quotes verses 15 and 19 and applies them to Jesus (Acts 3:22-23), and Stephen quotes verse 15 as well (Acts 7:37).
The gospel is in how God kept this promise, as much as in who kept it. At Horeb the people asked for a man to stand between them and a voice they found unbearable, and God said they were right to ask.
The answer He finally gave was a man who is also God, so that what terrified Israel at the mountain came near to be looked at and touched: “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
The voice that was too much to bear at Sinai arrived in a face. He is the one mediator between God and men (1 Timothy 2:5), and He is greater than the man He was promised to resemble (Hebrews 3:1-6). Serious readers do differ over whether verse 15 promises Christ alone or a line of prophets reaching its height in Him. Where the promise lands is not in dispute, because the New Testament says so plainly.
When, Where, and Why
- When: Late in the fortieth year after Israel left Egypt, in the eleventh month (Deuteronomy 1:3), only weeks before Moses died. On the traditional dating that is approximately 1406 BC.
- Where: The plains of Moab, east of the Jordan opposite Jericho. Israel can see the land but has not entered it, which is why the warning in verse 9 begins “when thou art come into the land.”
- Why: Moses is naming the offices Israel will live under once he is gone. Chapters 16 to 18 cover judges, then a king, then the priests, and finally the prophet. This chapter answers the question his own death forces: who will speak for God after him.
Key Verses
“The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken.”
Deuteronomy 18:15
God will produce a prophet who resembles Moses out of Israel’s own countrymen, and Israel is to give that prophet more than a hearing. They are to listen to him and do what he says. It is one of the passages the New Testament returns to most often in Deuteronomy, and it is why people in Jesus’ day were watching for someone they called “that prophet.”
“For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.”
Deuteronomy 18:14
The nations Israel is about to dispossess took their guidance from fortune tellers and diviners, and God has refused Israel permission to do the same. The verse is the chapter’s pivot: it closes the list of what Israel may not do and opens straight into what God will give them instead. Isaiah later put the same question to a generation that had gone back to mediums: “should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?” (Isaiah 8:19), meaning that people with a living God have no business asking the dead.
“When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.”
Deuteronomy 18:22
A prediction made in God’s name that fails to happen proves the LORD stayed silent and the man spoke on his own authority, so Israel may disregard him. That last clause is a release as much as a verdict, because a false prophet’s threats lose their power the moment his words fail.
Key Lessons from Deuteronomy 18
- God provided for the men He called into His service through the obedience of His people, which is why Israel was told exactly what to give the priest (18:3-5).
- Willingness to serve is to be welcomed rather than resented, since the Levite who came of his own accord received the same share as the men already there (18:6-8).
- The command in verse 9 forbids learning these practices before it forbids doing them, so the guard goes up early.
- God met Israel’s need for guidance by supplying a better source rather than by leaving the need unmet (18:14-15).
- Being whole with God includes leaving the future in His hands instead of prying into it (18:13).
- A claim made in God’s name is to be tested, not simply received, because God Himself told Israel how to check one (18:21-22).
To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: Lessons from Deuteronomy 18.
Bible Study Questions
- What did the tribe of Levi receive instead of land, and how were they to live (18:1-5)?
- Verse 9 says Israel must not “learn to do” these things. Why might God forbid the learning and not only the practice?
- What do the nine practices in verses 10 and 11 have in common with each other?
- God says in verse 17 that Israel had “well spoken” when they asked not to hear His voice. What does His answer tell you about how He treats fear?
- What is the difference between the two kinds of false prophet described in verse 20?
- Verse 22 ends with “thou shalt not be afraid of him.” What does that free a believer from?
- When you want to know what is coming, where do you go first, and what would it look like to be “perfect with the LORD thy God” in that moment (18:13)?
- Peter quotes this chapter in Acts 3:22-23 and applies it to Jesus. What does it change for you to hear Christ as the prophet Moses promised?
Frequently Asked Questions
Who Is the Prophet in Deuteronomy 18:15?
The New Testament identifies him as Jesus Christ. Peter quotes this verse and applies it to Jesus in Acts 3:22-23, Stephen does the same in Acts 7:37, and Philip says Moses wrote about Jesus in John 1:45. Jesus Himself said Moses “wrote of me” (John 5:46).
Is Deuteronomy 18:18 About Muhammad?
The chapter’s own wording answers this. The prophet is to come from “thy brethren,” and Deuteronomy 18:2 uses that same word of fellow Israelites who have no inheritance among their brothers. On top of that, the New Testament names who the prophet was, and men who lived under this promise, including John the Baptist, Philip, Peter and Stephen, all pointed to Jesus.
Does Deuteronomy 18 Still Apply to Christians Today?
The practices it forbids are treated as evil in the New Testament as well. Paul cast a spirit of divination out of a slave girl at Philippi (Acts 16:16-18), converts at Ephesus burned their books of magic arts (Acts 19:19-20), and Paul lists sorcery among the sins that come out of our fallen nature (Galatians 5:20). The reason has not changed either, since God still speaks through His word rather than through omens.
What Is the Day of the Assembly in Deuteronomy 18:16?
It is the day Israel gathered at Horeb, or Sinai, and heard God speak the Ten Commandments out of the fire. Moses refers to it the same way in Deuteronomy 9:10 and 10:4. That day is the reason there is a prophet’s office at all, because on it the people begged for someone to stand between them and God’s voice.
Who Wrote Deuteronomy 18, and When?
Moses spoke these words on the plains of Moab shortly before his death, at the very end of the wilderness years (Deuteronomy 1:3). In verses 17 and 18 he reports something God said to him back at Horeb, and those exact words are not recorded in Exodus, so this chapter preserves part of what God said to him then.
Was Joshua the Prophet Like Moses?
Some early Jewish commentators suggested Joshua, but the book of Deuteronomy itself rules it out. Its closing verses say, “there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face” (Deuteronomy 34:10), and that verse looks back from a point after Moses had died and Joshua had taken over.
Deuteronomy 18, The Full Text (KJV)
Read the full chapter below for reference.
1 The priests the Levites, and all the tribe of Levi, shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel: they shall eat the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and his inheritance.
2 Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren: the LORD is their inheritance, as he hath said unto them.
3 And this shall be the priest’s due from the people, from them that offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep; and they shall give unto the priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw.
4 The firstfruit also of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the first of the fleece of thy sheep, shalt thou give him.
5 For the LORD thy God hath chosen him out of all thy tribes, to stand to minister in the name of the LORD, him and his sons for ever.
6 And if a Levite come from any of thy gates out of all Israel, where he sojourned, and come with all the desire of his mind unto the place which the LORD shall choose;
7 Then he shall minister in the name of the LORD his God, as all his brethren the Levites do, which stand there before the LORD.
8 They shall have like portions to eat, beside that which cometh of the sale of his patrimony.
9 When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.
10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
13 Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God.
14 For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.
15 The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;
16 According to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.
17 And the LORD said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.
18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.
20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
21 And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken?
22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
