The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so.  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 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. (Deuteronomy 18:14-18)

In the second reading of the Law brought down from Mount Sinai, or Horeb, Moses brings a message from Almighty God.  In this capacity Moses is acting as a ‘spokesman’.  The Hebrew word translated as prophet is נָבִיא nevi and it means just that, one who speaks on God’s behalf.

It should be noted that it has a broader meaning, which also embraces Moses standing, one who speaks with God.  Abraham (Genesis 20:7) and Moses’ brother, Aaron (Exodus 7:1) are described as nevi’im, prophets, while Moses sister, Miriam, is a neviah or prophetess.  They all communed directly with God

Indeed, God intended that the whole nation would hear directly from Him in the same way, not least so that they might trust Moses:

And the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you for ever.”  (Exodus 19:9)

But even though the Lord limited the nation to come no further than the foot of the mountain to ensure their safety, the people preferred that Moses was their intermediary:

Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off, and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.  (Exodus 20:18-21)

God was not obligated to honour this decision but he did so, and as divination – the means to discern divine will – was denied them, thenceforth, God would speak to Israel by prophets He would raise up.

But there was a problem inherent in this, one that God foresaw, of course.  While God’s thunderous voice cannot be misidentified, a man or woman can.  Moses delivers this qualification to the Israelites:

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’ – when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. (Deuteronomy 18:18-22)

In other words, prophets will be given the message, which they cannot alter or fail to deliver on pain of death; moreover, given the test for their validity is after the fact, they could and in fact, would be ignored and it would spawn many false prophets would choose popularity.  The prophet Jeremiah is given a word on this:

‘Thus, says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”  (Jeremiah 23:16-17) 

This is echoed by Peter.

….no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.  But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. (2 Peter 1:20 – 2:1)

To be chosen by the Lord as a prophet may be a spiritual blessing, but it came with an earthly curse (in the sense that Paul speaks of Jesus becoming accursed, Galatian 3:13) – and Jeremiah knew much about this.  He was directed to prophesy in public:

“Thus, says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I am bringing upon this city and upon all its towns all the disaster that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their neck, refusing to hear my words.” (Jeremiah 19:15)

…for which he was beaten and put in the stocks causing him to utter this prayer of complaint:

O Lord, you have deceived me,
    and I was deceived;
you are stronger than I,
    and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughing-stock all the day;
    everyone mocks me.
For whenever I speak, I cry out,
    I shout, “Violence and destruction!”
For the word of the Lord has become for me
    a reproach and derision all day long.
If I say, “I will not mention him,
    or speak any more in his name”,
there is in my heart as it were a burning fire
    shut up in my bones,
and I am weary with holding it in,
    and I cannot.  (ibid 20:7-9)

Like Jonah, who rather than prophesy to the Ninevites attempts to emigrate (Jonah 1:3), Jeremiah resisted his calling but with no success.  He was forced to prophesy to his temporal cost.

To be raised up to deliver God’s messages guaranteed anything from being shunned or ridiculed, to persecution.

Jesus addresses the violence done to his Father’s prophets when speaking of John the Baptist, whom he calls a prophet (Matthew 11:9) the last of the line from Moses:

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.  (Matthew 11:12-13)

John will suffer as Jeremiah; at the time Jesus is speaking, John is imprisoned by Herod Antipas, but Jesus is also saying that this generation of prophets is concluded:

Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. (ibid 11:11)

In being the one spoken of by Malachi (3:1 – quoted and applied to John by Jesus Matthew 11:10) as the messenger who will herald the Messiah, John is the greatest of all the prophets, even as Elijah (Malachi 4:5)

And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.Whoever has ears, let them hear. (ibid 11:14-15)

Nevertheless, Jesus says that that least in his father’s kingdom is greater than John, how can that be?

This is all to do with how God speaks to those he calls.  With Abraham he converses directly regarding his own destiny, while Moses is an intermediary.  From Moses to Malachi, God speaks through men and women, but when Jesus comes, he speaks directly to humanity not for God but as God.

Peter, one to whom Jesus often conversed, says this:

For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honour and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.  (2 Peter 1:16-18)

Peter refers to the Transfiguration; here, Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the sacred mountain (Carmel) to see his divine person, in a reversal of the events at Horeb.

But Jesus must die, and thereafter sends the Spirit of God to indwell.  At Pentecost, Peter has revelation of this, recalling the prophesy given to Joel, quoting: 

“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
    and your young men shall see visions,
    and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants
    in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy…”’ (Acts 2:17-18)

God now speaks directly to everyone who will open their hearts in faith as Jesus as the Christ, the anointed one, persecuted as others for God’s purpose to be outworked.  Unlike reluctant Israel at Horeb, God’s people may now commune directly with God.  All our prophets and their message also commanded, the Gospel.

Yet some things are not changed. Jesus also warns of that rejection is still the lot of prophets:

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  (John 17:14)

Those that are chosen to speak the God’s word will be subject to violent opposition; most often disbelieved and sometimes killed.