How Missionaries Misread Devarim 18:15
One of the many claims missionaries use in their attempts to entice Jews away from the Torah is that Moshe himself foretold the coming of their messiah. They point to a pasuk in Parashat Shofetim (Devarim 18:15): נָבִיא מִקִּרְבְּךָ מֵאַחֶיךָ כָּמֹנִי יָקִים לְךָ יְיָ אֱלֹקֶיךָ אֵלָיו תִּשְׁמָעוּן (A prophet from your midst, from your brothers, like me, Hashem your G‑d will raise up for you; to him you shall listen) – and they present it as though the Torah plainly predicts one unique future prophet who would be "like Moshe." The claim is often presented with great confidence, as though it were the only possible interpretation of the pasuk, and as though any Jew who rejects it is being ignorant, or worse, stubborn. But before asking who this prophet might be, we must first ask a more basic question: Is Moshe actually speaking here about one particular prophet "like him" at all?
To answer that question, we first need to understand the context in which the pasuk appears. Moshe has just warned the Jewish people not to imitate the nations by seeking knowledge through diviners, sorcerers, astrologers, necromancers, and other practitioners of the occult (Devarim 18:9-14). He then explains how Hashem will provide Yisrael with legitimate guidance: He will raise prophets from within the Jewish people, and Yisrael will be obligated to listen to them (Devarim 18:15-19). The Torah then continues by defining the false prophet and explaining how his claims are to be tested (Devarim 18:20-22). The subject of the entire passage is therefore the institution of prophecy in Yisrael, set in direct opposition to the forbidden practices of the goyim. Its immediate subject is not Mashiach.
Our first source is the סִפְרֵי [Sifrei], a halachic midrash work on Bemidbar and Devarim, whose anonymous teachings the Gemara attributes to R' Shimon bar Yochai (Sanhedrin 86a). We turn to it before examining the later commentators in order to ask a basic question: How did Chazal understand our pasuk? Did they treat it as a hidden prediction of one extraordinary figure who would arise in the distant future, or as part of the Torah's laws governing prophecy in Yisrael? The Sifrei explains (Devarim 175:1): נָבִיא מִקִּרְבְּךָ – וְלֹא מֵחוּצָה לָאָרֶץ. מֵאַחֶיךָ – וְלֹא מֵאֲחֵרִים. יָקִים לְךָ ה׳ אֱלֹקֵיךָ – וְלֹא לַגּוֹיִם. The Sifrei reads each part of the pasuk as defining the prophetic institution within Yisrael. "From your midst" means that the prophet arises within Eretz Yisrael; "from your brothers" excludes outsiders; and "Hashem your G‑d will raise up for you" means that this prophetic gift is given specifically to Yisrael, not to the goyim. Continuing in the Sifrei (Devarim 175:2): אֵלָיו תִּשְׁמָעוּן, אֲפִלּוּ אוֹמֵר לְךָ עֲבֹר עַל אַחַת מִן הַמִּצְווֹת הָאֲמוּרוֹת בַּתּוֹרָה כְּאֵלִיָּהוּ בְּהַר הַכַּרְמֶל – לְפִי שָׁעָה – שְׁמַע לוֹ. The command "to him you shall listen" establishes the halachic authority of a true prophet, even if he temporarily instructs the people to set aside one of the mitzvot mentioned in the Torah, as Eliyahu did at Har ha-Carmel.
The Sifrei does not explain the word כָּמֹנִי ['like me'] at all, and we should not attribute to it an interpretation that it does not state. What it does establish, however, is how Chazal understood the setting and purpose of the pasuk: it belongs to the Torah's continuing system of prophecy in Yisrael, with defined origins, authority, and limitations. It is not presented as an isolated messianic prediction of one unique figure who would appear many centuries later.
So what does Moshe mean by saying כָּמֹנִי? Does כָּמֹנִי describe the prophet himself, as though the Torah had said, "a prophet like me," or does it describe something else entirely? We must look at the exact wording of the pasuk: נָבִיא מִקִּרְבְּךָ מֵאַחֶיךָ כָּמֹנִי. Missionaries read the pasuk as though the Torah had said נָבִיא כָּמֹנִי ['a prophet like me'], and then they go on to identify that unique prophet with their messiah. However, נָבִיא and כָּמֹנִי are not adjacent in the pasuk – the words מִקִּרְבְּךָ מֵאַחֶיךָ ['from your midst, from your brothers'] stand between them. And that syntax changes things entirely.
Does כָּמֹנִי describe the prophet, or does it modify the phrase מִקִּרְבְּךָ מֵאַחֶיךָ? Rashi explains: מִקִּרְבְּךָ מֵאַחֶיךָ כָּמֹנִי. כְּמוֹ שֶׁאֲנִי מִקִּרְבְּךָ מֵאַחֶיךָ, יָקִים לְךָ תַּחְתַּי, וְכֵן מִנָּבִיא לְנָבִיא ('From your midst, from your brothers, like me.' Just as I am from your midst, from your brothers, 'He will raise up for you', in my place, and so from prophet to prophet). Rashi does not read כָּמֹנִי as modifying נָבִיא at all, as though Moshe were predicting "a prophet like me." Rather, כָּמֹנִי completes the words that immediately precede it: just as Moshe himself came from among the Jewish people, Hashem would raise another prophet from among the Jewish people to take his place. Rashi's concluding words, "and so from prophet to prophet," make the point unmistakable: Moshe is not referring exclusively to one distant future figure, but to the continuing succession of prophets in Yisrael.
The Gur Aryeh makes Rashi's grammatical point explicit: דְּאֵין לוֹמַר כְּמַשְׁמָעוֹ שֶׁלֹּא הָיָה נָבִיא כְּמוֹ שֶׁהָיָה מֹשֶׁה, אֶלָּא רוֹצֶה לוֹמַר: כְּמוֹ שֶׁאֲנִי מִקֶּרֶב אַחֶיךָ, כָּךְ יִהְיֶה כָּל נָבִיא (It cannot be understood according to its apparent meaning for there was no prophet like Moshe, rather he means to say, 'Just as I am from the midst of your brothers, so too will every prophet be'). First, he argues that כָּמֹנִי cannot mean that a later prophet would actually equal Moshe, since the Torah itself declares (Devarim 34:10): וְלֹא־קָם נָבִיא עוֹד בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל כְּמֹשֶׁה (Never again did there arise in Yisrael a prophet like Moshe). Then he adds a second line of defense against the missionaries' interpretation: נָבִיא כָּזֶה כָּמוֹנִי יָקִים לְךָ, שֶׁכֻּלָּם יִהְיוּ מִתְנַבְּאִים לְקַיֵּם תּוֹרַת מֹשֶׁה. וְלֹא הָיָה אֶחָד שֶׁפִּיחֵת וְהוֹסִיף עָלֶיהָ, כִּדְאָמְרִינַן בִּמְגִלָּה (י"ד.) מ"ח נְבִיאִים נִתְנַבְּאוּ לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, וְכֻלָּם לֹא הוֹסִיפוּ וְלֹא פִחֲתוּ עַל תּוֹרַת מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ עָלָיו הַשָּׁלוֹם (He will raise up for you a prophet such as I am, for all of them will prophesy in order to uphold the Torah of Moshe. And there was not one who diminished from it or added to it, as we say in Megillah 14a, that forty-eight prophets prophesied for Yisrael, and none of them added to or subtracted from the Torah of Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him). Thus, even if one were to insist on attaching כָּמֹנִי directly to נָבִיא and read the words as "a prophet like me," the comparison would have to consist in preserving and strengthening the Torah of Moshe. A figure whose teachings uproot that Torah would not be "like Moshe" in the very respect that defines the mission of every true prophet.
This brings us to the Rambam in his Iggeret Teiman, where he directly confronts the attempt to use this pasuk as a prophecy concerning a figure outside Yisrael's prophetic tradition who would establish a new religion. First, he insists that no pasuk may be detached from its surrounding context: דַּע שֶׁלֹּא יַעֲבוֹר לְשׁוּם אָדָם לָקַחַת מִלָּה אַחַת מֵעִנְיָין שֶׁכֻּלּוֹ דָּבֵק וּמִתְחַבֵּר לִהְיוֹת לוֹ לִרְאָיָה וְלִסְמֹךְ עָלֶיהָ, אֲבָל רָאוּי לוֹ לְעַיֵּן בְּמַה שֶּׁקָּדַם מִן הָעִנְיָין וּמַה שֶּׁאַחֲרָיו (Know that no person is permitted to take one word from a passage whose entire subject is connected and joined together and use it as a proof to rely on; rather, he must examine what precedes it and what follows it). He then explains that the entire passage contrasts the forbidden practices of the nations with the prophets whom Hashem would raise for Yisrael: הִנֵּה הִתְבָּאֵר וְהִתְאַמֵּת שֶׁהַנָּבִיא הַזֶּה שֶׁהִבְטִיחַ בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה אֵינוֹ נָבִיא שֶׁיָּבוֹא בְּמִצְוָה וְלֹא יְחַדֵּשׁ תּוֹרָה, אֲבָל הוּא אִישׁ שֶׁלֹּא יַצְרִיכֵנוּ לְקַסָּמִים וּלְמְעוֹנְנִים וּלְחָכְמַת הַכּוֹכָבִים (Behold, it has been clarified and established that this prophet whom He promised in this passage is not a prophet who will come with a new commandment or introduce a new Torah, but rather a man through whom we will have no need for diviners, soothsayers, or astrology). The Rambam therefore reads the pasuk not as the announcement of a new religious authority or future messiah, but as the establishment of the prophetic system within Yisrael, whose function is to guide the people while remaining entirely bound to the Torah of Moshe.
All of this notwithstanding, the writings of the Nazarene sect quote Devarim 18:15 and explicitly apply it to their messiah. In other words, they detach the word כָּמֹנִי ['like me'] from the phrase מִקִּרְבְּךָ מֵאַחֶיךָ ['from your midst, from your brothers'], attach it instead to נָבִיא, and then read the pasuk as a prediction of the Nazarene. But merely quoting a pasuk does not establish that it has been interpreted correctly. As the Rambam has just explained, no one may detach a few words from a connected passage, turn them into a proof, and rely upon them without examining what comes before and after. Once the pasuk is restored to its Torah context, and once the explanations of the Sifrei, Rashi, and the Gur Aryeh are considered, the missionary interpretation is revealed not as the plain meaning of Moshe's words at all, but as an interpretative reading imposed upon them from outside the world of Torah. Our disagreement is not merely over the identity of Mashiach; it is over how to read the Torah.
The circularity of the missionary argument should now be clear. The writings of the Nazarene sect say that this pasuk refers to their messiah. Those who regard those writings as Divinely inspired naturally accept that interpretation. The same pasuk is then presented to us as independent proof of that claim, yet that interpretation is not compelled by the pasuk itself; it is supplied by their own writings and then read back into the Torah. A pasuk cannot honestly serve as independent evidence when the interpretation imposed upon it comes from the very writings whose authority is in question.
Why does all of this matter? It protects us from being hoodwinked into believing, on the basis of this pasuk, that our Torah has been abrogated in favour of another religion. We can answer with confidence: "The Torah does not simply say 'a prophet like Moshe.' Rashi explains that Hashem will continue raising prophets from within Yisrael, from prophet to prophet. Your identification of one particular figure comes from your own writings, not from the unavoidable meaning of the Torah." The question is therefore not who this supposed unique prophet is, but whether Moshe was predicting one unique future prophet at all. According to Rashi, he was not. He was describing the continuing voice of prophecy within Yisrael – rooted in the Torah of Moshe, bound by the Torah of Moshe, and incapable of replacing the Torah of Moshe.
