ne of the central themes of Deuteronomy is the exclusive relationship between Yahweh and Israel. Yahweh was their God and he demanded total loyalty. The Deuteronomist set Israel apart from the other nations in many ways, including how they would maintain contact with God. Whereas other people employed diviners, sorcerers, and soothsayers to hear a divine voice, Israel was not allowed to use such means. Instead, Israel would hear God through a prophet.
15 "YHWH your Elohim will raise up a prophet from among your own people, one like me. To him you shall listen, 16 just as you requested of YHWH your Elohim at Horeb in the assembly when you said, 'If I hear the voice of YHWH my Elohim and see this great fire again, I will die.' 17 So YHWH said to me, 'They are right in what they said. 18 A prophet I will raise up from among their own people, one like you. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them what I command him. 19 Everyone who does not listen to my words which he speaks in my name--I will hold him responsible. 20 But, the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name which I did not command him to speak, and which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet will die.' 21 You might ask yourself 'How can we recognize the word which YHWH did not speak?' 22 What the prophet speaks in the name of YHWH and which does not happen or come about is not a word YHWH spoke. Presumptuously the prophet spoke it. Do not be afraid of him." (18:15-22)
God would raise up a prophet like Moses. The need for a prophet was revealed by the fear of the people as they stood before Yahweh at Horeb. They could not stand up under the intensity of direct contact with God, but thought they would die. It is a truism of the Hebrew Bible that one cannot look upon God directly and live.
Moses mediated between God and Israel. He became the enduring Deuteronomic model for prophetic communication between God and his people. A true prophet receives his words directly from God, and is distinguished by his access to the Divine Council where he receives God's words directly from his mouth.
The criterion for true and false prophecy was the "wait-and-see" test. In Deuteronomic perspective, prophecy predicted future events. If a prophecy was genuine, it would come to pass. This was not very helpful to those who were trying to figure out at the time who was genuine; this test really only worked in hindsight, when later generations evaluated the prophetic message in terms of the events predicted. Had they taken place or not? And it only worked for past prophets (probably ones already long gone) whose words had been recorded and written down.
The Deuteronomist is really providing a test for his seventh-century contemporaries. They were able to evaluate past claimants to prophetic office--men such as Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea. Having passed the test, these men would have been authenticated as true prophets. Listen to them and learn from their writings. All others are false. As one test for canonization, this would help decide which writings would have authority within the community and which would not.
