Last Updated on January 29, 2024 by Gloria M. Chang
A reflection on Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Sunday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time (Year B)
©2024 Gloria M. Chang
Moses spoke to all the people, saying: “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen. This is exactly what you requested of the Lord, your God, at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let us not again hear the voice of the Lord, our God, nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.’ And the Lord said to me, ‘This was well said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin, and will put my words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him. Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it. But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.’”
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
A Prophet Like Moses
Listening to the pleas of his people in the wilderness, Moses received an oracle from the Lord that “a prophet like you” would be raised up from among their kin to speak words of divine truth. Theophanies in thunder, lightning, smoke, and earthquakes induced fear and trembling on Mount Sinai. But as salvation history unfolded, prophet after prophet to the forerunner John the Baptist, the “Lamb of God” and “shepherd of Israel” arrived as an adorable infant in the womb of a virgin Jewess.
While the shepherd Moses heard God in a burning bush, the Son of God—fully human and fully divine—became incarnate in the “unburnt bush” of the Immaculate Virgin.
Moses compassionately interceded for the Israelites by offering himself as an atonement for their sins on Mount Sinai (Exodus 32:30-32), but failed to enter the promised land because of his own sins (Deuteronomy 32:48-52). Jesus, the sinless “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), “passed through the heavens” (Hebrews 4:14), and is seated “forever at the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12).
God’s thundering voice will become a coo;
His blazing fire, a babe, in natures two.
Traditional Chinese Translation
《一熾熱寶貝嬰兒》
上帝雷鳴般的聲音將變成咕咕聲；
祂的熊熊烈火，（變成）一個嬰兒，祂具(神人) 二性。