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Deuteronomy

About this book
Chapter 18

1 The Levitical priests—indeed,⁠ the entire tribe of Levi—will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance. 2 They will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them. 3 This shall be the priests’ fair allotment from the people who offer sacrifices, whether bull or sheep—they must give to the priest the shoulder, the jowls, and the stomach. 4 You must give them the best of your grain, new wine, and olive oil, as well as the best of your wool when you shear your flocks.⁠ 5 For the Lord your God has chosen them and their sons from all your tribes to stand and serve in his name permanently. 6 Suppose a Levite comes by his own free will from one of your villages, from any part of Israel where he is living, to the place the Lord chooses 7 and serves in the name of the Lord his God like his fellow Levites who stand there before the Lord. 8 He must eat the same share they do, despite any profits he may gain from the sale of his family’s inheritance. 9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations. 10 There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire,⁠ anyone who practices divination,⁠ an omen reader, a soothsayer, a sorcerer,⁠ 11 one who casts spells, one who conjures up spirits, a practitioner of the occult, or a necromancer.⁠ 12 Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord, and because of these detestable things the Lord your God is about to drive them out from before you. 13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God. 14 Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things. 15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you—from your fellow Israelites; you must listen to him. 16 This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore or see this great fire anymore lest we die.” 17 The Lord then said to me, “What they have said is good. 18 I will raise up a prophet like you⁠ for them from among their fellow Israelites.⁠ I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command.⁠ 19 I will personally hold responsible anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet speaks in my name. 20 “But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 21 Now if you say to yourselves, ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’— 22 whenever a prophet speaks in my name and the prediction is not fulfilled, then I have not spoken it; the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”

Texts in conversation

Compare Deuteronomy 18:18 and Samaritan Exodus 20:21

Hebrew Bible · Samaritan

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Summary

In Deuteronomy 18, Moses remembers God promising at Horeb to raise up a prophet like him, a promise Exodus never records. The Samaritan version of Exodus adds it to the Sinai story, so God makes the promise there, just after the Ten Commandments.

Passages

Deuteronomy 18:18

Hebrew Bible
15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you—from your fellow Israelites; you must listen to him. 16 This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore or see this great fire anymore lest we die.” 17 The Lord then said to me, “What they have said is good. 18 I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command. 19 I will personally hold responsible anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet speaks in my name.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

Samaritan Exodus 20:21

Samaritan · Samaritan Penteteuch
21 And the people stood far away, and Moses approached the thick darkness where God was. And Shema spoke to Moses, saying: “I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken to you. Everything they have said is good. If only they had hearts like this, so that they would fear me, and keep my commandments always, so that things might go well for them, and with their children forever! I will raise them up a prophet from among their brothers, like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. And if anyone does not listen to the words he shall speak in my name, I will demand [it] from him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. And if you think to yourself, ‘How may the word which Shema has not spoken be known?’ When a prophet speaks in the name of Shema, if the word does not happen or come
130–120 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Samaritan Exodus

References

“... The Samaritans, by rendering the Jewish Ten Commandments in nine parts, made room for a distinctly Samaritan tenth commandment which in its first part states “the vital dogmatic difference between Jews and Samaritans,” the absolute sanctity of Mount Gerizim. A second part of their tenth commandment is, however, equally important. It includes the interpolation of Deuteronomy 18:15, 18. By granting to this promise so central a place, the Samaritans stated not only their claim for Mount Gerizim, but also their hope for a Redeemer like Moses (or perhaps, better expressed, Moses redivivus) whom they called the Taheb. ...”
J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, 3rd ed., NTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 106.
“... The SP version of the Decalogue of Exod 20 is a composite literary piece, inserting into the Exodus text selections from Deut 5, 11, and 27. The resulting rendition of the Ten Commandments accomplishes three important tasks. First, with clarity and geographical precision, Mount Gerizim is identified as the only legitimate and divinely ordained place of sacrifice. Worship on Gerizim becomes the concern of the tenth and final command, and in this manner the importance of Gerizim, the distinctive place for Samaritan worship, is secured. Second, Moses is elevated to an even higher status than that presented in the MT. Only Moses can speak with God, and the community grants only to Moses the status of intermediary to the Divine. The third accomplishment of this text is to invest the promised prophet to come with all the authority of the ten sacred words. The promise of the prophet, in Samaritan theology, becomes a significant social construct by which the Samaritans critique the Davidic dynasty and all social power structures that detract from the centrality of the one who will restore the Divine Favor, the Taheb. ...”
Robert T. Anderson and Terry Giles, The Samaritan Pentateuch: An Introduction to Its Origin, History, and Significance for Biblical Studies (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), 94–95.
“... The same emphasis on Moses as God’s faithful representative perhaps explains why Deuteronomy serves as the source for fifteen insertions into Exodus and Numbers. In Deut 1–3, Moses recalls incidents and events that occurred during the time of the narratives related in Exodus and Numbers. Some of these events do not appear in the MT and LXX texts of Exodus and Numbers, and the insertions in the SP and pre-Samaritan texts fill this gap. As Kartveit observes, in the SP “Moses in Deut 1–3 is depicted as a truthful history-teller. He does not report an event or a divine revelation in Deuteronomy unless it actually took place according to Exodus and Numbers.” This need for the primary narrative to appear in Exodus and Numbers is quite understandable: since Deuteronomy is postured as a recap of the earlier narrative, all of the events described there should also appear in the primary narrative of Exodus-Numbers, but not all of the details in Exodus-Numbers need appear in Deuteronomy, as Moses could have abridged the story. ...”
Robert T. Anderson and Terry Giles, The Samaritan Pentateuch: An Introduction to Its Origin, History, and Significance for Biblical Studies (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), 68.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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