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Light
from the Sidra |
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There is inquisitiveness in the heart of man and a desire to know the future. The nations that inhabited the land of Canaart before the Israelite conquest used different occultic means to see into the future. In Shofetim Moses issues a strong warning to Israel, “When you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who uses witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium or a spirit[ual]ist or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD your God drives them out before you” (Deuteronomy 18:9-12). God promised to
raise up in Israel a prophet who would teach, explain and direct them
in the way of truth, “I will raise them up for them a Prophet like you
[Moses] from among their brethren, and will put my words in his mouth,
and he shall speak to them all that I command him; and it shall be, that whoever will not hear my
words, which he speaks in my name, I will require it of him”. What does this
promise mean? One opinion is that the word “prophet” means a class of
prophets. Instead of the diviners and the charmers of the nations God
would raise up true prophets to speak the truth in his name. Such a
meaning is possible. God did raise up prophets throughout the history
of Israel. But that does not seem to be the principal meaning of the
promise, for these reasons:
The Prophet was
to be to his generation all that Moses had been to his. In Numbers 12,
God spoke to Aaron and Miriam after they criticised Moses, “If there is
a prophet among you, I, the LORD make myself
known to him in a vision and speak to him in a dream. Not so with my
servant Moses; he is faithful
in all my house. I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not
in dark sayings; and he says the form of the LORD”. In Deuteronomy
34:10, it is written, “... since then there has not arisen in Israel a
prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face”. Moses had a
special position before God, and he cannot be compared with other
prophets that appeared at different times in history. The prophet
promised here was to have a very special status before God. How shall we
identify the Prophet and where in history shall we place him? At the
time of the second temple in Jerusalem there appeared a great Prophet,
“mighty in word and deed”. There was great expectation in Israel at
that time, and the general feeling of the people of the land was that
this was the long-promised Prophet like Moses. That Man was more
than a prophet. He fulfilled not only the the promise of the “Prophet
like Moses”, but all the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures concerning
the ideal Servant of God, in whom and through whom all the nations of
the earth would be blessed. That Man was the source, the centre and the
focus of all God's revelation, but although “the am ha’aretz heard him
gladly”, the leaders of Israel despised him and rejected him. The
reason given by Israel for this rejection is well known, but the
Prophet himself revealed the true reason: “How can you
believe, who receive honour from one another, and do not seek the
honour that comes from God alone? Do not think that I will accuse you
to the Father: there is one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you trust.
For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he
wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how can you
believe my words?” (John 5:44-47)
Since the time of
Jesus the voice of prophecy has been silent. There is no need for it,
because Jesus was the last and ideal prophet of Israel. By him, all the
revelation God had to give came. |
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