Offerings for God’s servants
18
📚The priests the Levites, and the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings of the LORD made by fire and his share. 2 📚Therefore they shall have no inheritance among their brethren; the LORD is their inheritance, as he has said to them.3 📚And this shall be the priest’s due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether it is an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach. 4 📚You shall also give him the firstfruits of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the wool from the first shearing of your sheep. 5 📚For the LORD your God has chosen him out of all your tribes, to stand to serve in the name of the LORD, him and his sons forever.
6 📚And if a Levite comes from any of your gates from any part of Israel where he has been staying, and arrives with complete earnestness at the place which the LORD chooses, 7 📚then he shall serve in the name of the LORD his God, as all his brethren the Levites do, who stand there before the LORD. 8 📚They shall have equal portions to eat, besides that which comes from the sale of his family property.
Things God hates
9 📚When you arrive in the land which the LORD your God gives you, you must not learn to behave according to the abominations of those nations. 10 📚There must not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire 📖, or uses divination, or is a sorcerer, or interprets omens, or practices witchcraft, 11 📚or casts spells, or acts as a medium or a spiritist, or consults the dead. 12 📚For everyone who does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out from before you. 13 📚You must be blameless in the presence of the LORD your God.
The great prophet to come
14 📚For these nations, which you will dispossess, listen to those who use sorcery and divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so.
18:12-14 Witchcraft was one of the terrible sins that corrupted the peoples of Canaan and made it necessary for God to drive them out. Witchcraft involves dealing, consciously or unconsciously, with evil spirits. Christians must have nothing to do with it.⚜
15 📚The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among you, of your brethren. You must listen to him. 16 📚This is in accordance with all that you asked of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, “Do not let me hear again the voice of the LORD my God, or see this great fire any more, so that I will not die”. 17 📚And the LORD said to me, “What they have spoken is well said. 18 📚I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him. 19 📚And it shall come about that whoever will not listen to my words which he will speak in my name, I will require him to give an account.
18:15-19 Note on “prophet” at Gen 20:7. These verses contain the great prophecy of Christ as prophet (compare Matt 21:11; Luke 7:16; 24:19; John 4:19; Acts 3:22-24).
Christ fulfilled all the great offices of the old covenant–priest, judge, king, mediator, shepherd, prophet. He is by far the greatest of all prophets whoever delivered God’s messages to men (Heb 1:1-2; John 7:16; 8:26, 28, 38; 12:49; 17:8; Rev 1:1; 22:18-19; Matt 17:3-5). With the prophecy called “The Revelation”, which Christ delivered to the churches, God’s inspired teachings for men is concluded (Rev 22:18-19). Thereafter God sent no more infallible prophets and teachers, for none was needed. In the Bible we have the complete revelation of what God wanted to teach men.⚜
20 📚But a prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die”.
18:20 False prophets were of two kinds – those who spoke in the name of the LORD (Jehovah) and those who spoke in the name of other gods. The former were more deceptive and dangerous, the latter more openly rebellious and contemptuous of the true God.⚜
21 📚And if you say in your heart, “How can we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?” 22 📚When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not happen or take place, the LORD has not spoken that word, but the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You must not be afraid of him.
18:22 The test of a prophet is very clear (Jer 28:9). We know the Bible was written by true prophets of God because of the fulfillment of their prophecies. See note on fulfilled prophecies in the topical index in the back of this Bible.⚜