The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. (Deuteronomy 18:15)The words spoken by the prophets were not necessarily predictive in nature. Most of the prophets' message was forthtelling rather than foretelling. In other words, most of what a prophet spoke was God's message for those to whom he was speaking. This is not to say there is no benefit for the 21st century reader of such prophecies, but that the message made sense to the people who were physically hearing it. It would be arrogant as well as naive to believe biblical prophetic messages were aimed specifically at us and not applicable to our grandparents or our grandchildren. To understand God's message for us, we have to understand the message as it was intended for its original audience.
In the first century, people read that God would raise up a prophet like Moses from Israel. The writer of Matthew went to great lengths to identify Jesus with Moses and reveal that Moses-like prophet as none other than Jesus Christ himself.
What characteristics did Jesus share with Moses?
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