LECTURE VI:

THE PROPHET LIKE UNTO MOSES.

DEUT. Xviii. 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."

THIS prophecy, though not belonging to what is

commonly called the Patriarchal Age, is fitly classed with the prophecies of that period; being, like them, the single prophecy of the Redeemer to come (if we except that which Balaam was overruled to utter, noticed in last Lecture) in another lengthened period: succeeding that of Jacob at a distance of two hundred years, and followed by another long interval of suspension till the time of Samuel, between three and four hundred years later, from whom (as before observed) "the proper age of prophecy" dates. But, like them also, we shall find it to be, though brief, comprehensive,—a pregnant oracle truly; comprising in epitome (it is not too much to say) the whole purpose of God in the Redemption, as foreshown in that typical dispensation to which it affords the key; and which, as a whole, and not in respect of its ceremonial law only, it autho

rizes us to regard as "the shadow of good things to come."

For Moses, it should be observed, does not merely announce here, like the Baptist afterwards, the coming of One after him greater than himself,-a Prophet of greater dignity, to whom, as was fitting, he would direct and divert from himself the veneration of the people, which otherwise might have rested on him. He says, "a Prophet like unto me." That is, he tells them he was a Type of the Messiah, to whom the Jews have always applied the prophecy, as well as the inspired writers of the New Testament:* and a Type, not like many others, "dumb elements" and "latent prophecies," but a lively symbol, foreshowing by his various offices the purposes for which that Prophet like to him should be "raised up," raised up to Israel, but in order to carry into effect the purposes of blessing to the world at large, which a former oracle has taught us were contemplated in their election.

What then, let us inquire, were those offices of Moses to that people in respect to which this analogy holds? There are three distinctly attributed to him in Scripture, and all of them implied in the title here taken by him in its full import, "Prophet;"† namely, 1. "REDEEMER" or "DELIVERER;" 2. "MEDIATOR;" and 3. “LAWGIVER.'

* Acts, iii. 22, 23; vii. 37; with which compare St. John, i. 45, and vi. 14. For the Jewish authorities see Bishop Chandler's "Defence of Christianity," ch. vi. § 2.

One who reveals the will of God in any way, a divinely commissioned teacher, &c.

I. Moses was the "REDEEMER" of Israel, as he is styled in a passage remarkably illustrative of the type in this aspect of it-Acts vii.-where St. Stephen, in his recapitulation of the mercies and rebellions of his nation, says of Moses' first interposition in their behalf, ver. 25, "For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them.”* And again, ver. 35, "This Moses, whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a Ruler and DELIVERER" (or "REDEEMER,” as the word also signifies†) "by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush." First, like his Divine Antitype, "despised and rejected of men;" refused by His own people, and in the very same terms-"We will not have this man to reign over us:" but, notwithstanding this, their "Saviour" and "Deliverer,”—“HE brought them out after that he had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the Wilderness forty years" (ver. 36).

That is, to advert to a distinction noticed on a former occasion between redemption by ransom and redemption by power, the objects respectively (as we then also saw) of the first and second Advents of the Saviour-Moses was Redeemer of Israel by power, their "Goel,"‡ not their " propitiation." The

* Δίδωσιν αὐτοῖς σωτηρίαν.

† AUTρwτy, here only; but compare Avтpov in Gr. Concord

ance.

See Lect. III., section II. pp. 64, 65.

redemption by ransom had also at the same time its type in the Passover, so accurately fulfilled in its minutest particulars by the death of Christ. But it is in vain we seek in the history of the first Advent for a like accurate antetype to the mission of Moses as regards either the judgments on the oppressors of the chosen people, or the marvellous deliverance that followed at their Exodus from Egypt. Christ was indeed "raised up," and as "the Deliverer," but not to those to whom He is here promised. The promise is to Israel: and to them He proved, as we know, "a stone of stumbling and rock of offence" upon which "they fell and were broken:" His Advent, owing to their unbelief, the day of their judgment ending in their dispersion continued to this day. But, in a passage to which reference was made in last Lecture, the Apostle of the Gentiles has told us that in this character He shall be one day known to them, when, according to the prophecy of Isaiah then and yet remaining to be fulfilled,"There shall come out of Zion THE DELIVERER,* and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob"(Rom. xi. 26). When also they shall be brought back by a deliverance so similar to that which Moses wrought for them, that it is termed a second Exodus; as foretold by the same Prophet, ch. xi., where, in continuation of one of his most glowing descriptions of the kingdom of the Messiah under the title of "The Rod and Branch out of the root and stem of

**O ¿vỏμevos. In the Heb. of Isaiah, "THE GOEL."