The priests of the tribe of Levi
1 The Levite priests, the whole tribe of Levi, will have no share or inheritance as the rest of the children of Israel have, but they shall live on the burnt offerings in honor of Yahweh, and on what is consecrated to him.
2 The Levite shall have no share in the inheritance received by his brother because Yahweh is his inheritance as he has promised.
3 This will be the right of the priests from what is offered, whether ox or sheep: to the priest shall be given the shoulder, the jaws and the stomach.
4 You shall also give him the firstfruits of your wheat, your wine and your oil, as well as the first wool from the shearing of your sheep,
5 for Yahweh chose him from among all the tribes to be the servant of his Name, he and his children forever.
6 If a Levite comes from one of the cities of the territory of Israel where he resides, and he wishes to enter into the place chosen by Yahweh,
7 he shall officiate in the Name of Yahweh, his God, like all his Levite brothers who stand there with him in the presence of Yahweh.
8 He shall eat the same portion, regardless of what he has obtained from the sale of his family goods.
Prophets and “the” Prophet
9 When you have entered into the land which Yahweh, your God, gives you, do not imitate the evil deeds of those people.
10 You must not have in your midst anyone who makes his child pass through the fire, or one who practices divination, or anyone who consults the stars, who is a sorcerer,
11 or one who practices enchantments or who consults the spirits, no diviner or one who asks questions of the dead.
12 For Yahweh abhors those who do these things, and it is precisely for this reason that he drives them away before you.
13 You must be blameless for Yahweh, your God.
14 Those people that you are to drive away listened to sorcerers and diviners, but Yahweh, your God, has provided you with something different.
15 He will raise up for you a pro phet like myself from among the people, from your brothers, to whom you shall listen.
16 Remember that in Horeb, on the day of the Assembly, you said: “I am afraid to die and I do not want to hear the voice of Yahweh again or see again that great fire.”
17 So Yahweh said to me: “They have spoken well.
18 I shall raise up a prophet from their midst, one of their brothers, who will be like you. I will put my words into his mouth and he will tell them all that I command.
19 If someone does not listen to my words when the prophet speaks on my behalf, I myself will call him to account for it.
20 But any prophet who says in my name anything that I did not command, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.”
21 You will perhaps ask: “How are we going to know that a word does not come from Yahweh?”
22 If any prophet speaks in the name of Yah weh and if that which he says does not happen, you shall know that the word does not come from Yahweh. The prophet has spoken to boast and you shall not pay any attention to him.
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Comments Deuteronomy, Chapter 18
• 18.9 This text condemns magicians and fortune-tellers and then praises the true prophets.
God’s people live by the word of God, not only by the word found written in a book, but by what God says through the prophets. There are some who receive a special gift from the Spirit to guide people and nations toward the real goals which God proposes to us.
You must have no fortune-tellers among you. Human beings have always been tempted to pierce through the mystery of their future: many soothsayers and false prophets have responded, as the authors of horoscopes do today, to this desire to snatch secrets from a God we distrust. But this is not the role of the prophets of Israel: their mission is to courageously proclaim what God demands today.
I shall raise up a prophet from their midst. This “prophet” means the whole series of prophets who will continue to address Israel, as can be seen at the end of the paragraph (vv. 20-22). Yet, in the future, Israel was expecting a prophet greater than all others, a prophet who would lead the entire people as well as Moses had done. When John the Baptist ap peared, some asked: “Are you the prophet?” (Jn 1:21), and Christians understood that Christ was “the Prophet” (see Acts 3:22).