“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 —
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. Moses says this near the end of his life, pointing forward to someone who hasn't shown up yet. Not a replacement exactly, but someone with the same kind of authority, still to come.
That's a strange thing to promise on behalf of someone else's future. Moses can't guarantee it himself — he's naming a gap and trusting it will be filled by someone he'll never meet. Centuries later, this exact verse gets applied to Jesus, as the prophet this promise was actually pointing toward all along.
Whatever you make of that connection, there's something worth noticing in the posture Moses models here: pointing beyond himself, willing to say someone greater is still coming, and telling people in advance to listen when he arrives.
If someone greater really was being pointed to here, would you be willing to actually listen when you found out who it was?
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.