"A prophet like unto me"

 

 

Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers’.

Many New Testament writers allude to this latter verse. For example, look at the way John starts his Gospel: his first major character is John the Baptist, who is asked, ‘Are you the prophet?’ (John 1:21). And the very first gossip concerning Jesus is Philip’s comment to Nathaniel, ‘we have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law!’ (John 1:45).

The similarities between Moses and Jesus include:–

• The birth of each was concurrent with the massacre of all the local young boys (compare Exodus 1:16 and 2:2–4 with Matthew 2:16).
• Both had a human stepfather.
• Both spent their formative years in Egypt (Exodus 2 and Matthew 2:13–21).
• Both spent time in the wilderness (Exodus 2:16 ff. and Matthew 4:1–11) and both these periods were numbered with ‘40’.
• Both received commandments from God (Exodus 20 and, for example, John 13:34).
• Both fed their people with bread in a miraculous way (Exodus 16 and John 6:4–13).
• Both spoke with God face to face (Numbers 12:4–8 and Mark 9:2–9).
• Both led their people into a ‘promised land’: Moses led the Heb­rews in­to Canaan (called ‘Palestine’ in Jesus’ time, and much of which is ‘Israel’ today); and Jesus leads Christians into the new Promised ‘Land’ of Heaven.