Click to join the conversation with over 500,000 Pentecostal believers and scholars
| PentecostalTheology.com
Blockquote 15 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— 16 just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ 17 And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. 18 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. (Dt 18:15–18, ESV).
In this prophetic utterance (v. 15), the word “LORD” (all caps in some English Bibles, Jehovah in some languages, etc.) is the exclusive, sacred name for God (YHWH). Verse 15 delineates between the sender YHWH (“the LORD your God”) and “him” (the prophet) as two distinct persons. In consistent fashion, verse 18 retains distinct pronouns: “I” applies to YHWH and “he” applies to the prophet.
When interpreting this prophecy in the New Testament should we collapse these two distinct persons (YHWH and the Messiah) into YHWH, or should we understood this prophecy as YHWH sending a Messiah who would not be YHWH? For similar prophetic passages that made a strong distinction between YHWH and the coming Messiah, please see Micah 5:4, Psalm 2:2,7, 45:7, 89:26, 110:1, Isaiah 42:1-3, 53:6, 61:1, and Jeremiah 30:9.
