When a True Prophet Presumes To Speak, It Is Decided in Heaven
Prophecies often address existing sins necessitating urgent either-or choices in case of crises. Crises make people choose. When people choose, they take sides. When they take sides, they face the dilemma to do the will of their Maker or their own will. The Supernal One sets everyone in a situation to make a choice; His prophets included: whether they will speak His words or their own words. But the truth of a prophet’s word could only be determined after an event has come to pass; if the predicted event has not come to pass, this is the word which the Eternal has not spoken. He is a false prophet. But how are we to distinguish between true and false prophets? Since a prophet has great influence, his authority of speaking prophecy must be clearly defined in the Torah. But how could we know which word the prophet has spoken is authentic and which is not?
The Torah gives answers to all questions sought earnestly. It points to them for those who desire to learn on a deeper level of understanding.
In the following, we will show that the issue of “false prophets” is far from being clear-cut and hope to provide a more complex answer, as we advance in this study.
Reading Torah is an experience that takes place in time. Hence, the second or third time a reader encounters a given message, such as concerning the false prophets, within a few chapters of Deuteronomy, should be assumed to have the same effect over the reader. The question, then, is how this repetitive message affects the reader, and what message is conveyed with such a repetition. With this study we continue what we commenced to explain in the previous article on the subject of “false prophets”, which we suggest the reader review before proceeding here. The object of this work was to explain the “signs” and “wonders” a self-proclaimed “prophet” does and the words which he speaks presumptuously in the Name of the Eternal in the context of Deuteronomy 13. Here we will briefly touch upon the issue,
… All the words I am commanding you, guard to do it. Do not add to it nor take away from it. When there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he shall give you a sign or a wonder, and the sign and the wonder shall come true, of which he has spoken to you, saying, “Let us go after the gods of the others, which you have not known and serve them”, do not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Eternal your Elohim is testing you to know whether you do love the Eternal your Elohim with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deu 12:32-Deu 13:1-3)
The children of Israel did not believe in Mosheh because of the signs and wonders he performed in Egypt and in the desert. Indeed, one who believes because of miracles can be easily deceived, since a “miracle” can be done by trickery or sorcery. In Deuteronomy 18, however, Mosheh continues the subject in an interesting way. He told the people to wait a prophet like him, whom the Eternal would raise up for them from their midst; this prophet would be their brother. Mosheh admonished them to listen to him, according to all they asked of the Eternal at Mount Horev when they witnessed the thunders, the lightning flashes, the voice of the shophar, and the mountain smoking, and they heard the Eternal speaking to them the words of the Covenant. But they were scared and trembled saying to Mosheh, “You speak with us and we hear, but let not Elohim speak with us, lest we die” (Exo 20:18-19). If they had chosen to just continue to listen to, they would have heard the warning in Exo 20:23 and would not have sinned by having made a gold image of the Eternal. That was forty years before Mosheh’s speech in Deuteronomy. Now, Mosheh reminded the people of this event and added an important detail which was not revealed to them back then. It was the Eternal who first spoke of a prophet who would come after Mosheh, a prophet like Mosheh. And the Eternal said to Mosheh,
What they have spoken is good. I shall raise up for them a prophet like you out of the midst of their brothers. And I shall put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And it shall be, the man who does not listen to My words which he speaks in My Name, I require it of him. (Deu 18:18-19)
What is meant by the Eternal’s statement, “I shall raise up for them a prophet like you … And I shall put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak”? This prophet, the Eternal promised to Israel to raise up from their midst, shall not come to establish anything other than what the Eternal had already spoken to Mosheh and the people at Horev. But rather this prophet will require the people to fulfill the laws of the Torah and teach them, as Mosheh taught. Anyone who speaks and does otherwise is not the prophet the Eternal has promised, even if that person teaches Israel to neglect one yud or one tittle, or even worse, to break the least commands in the Torah. The Eternal told Mosheh to convey His warning to the people that if they would not hearken to the words of that prophet, He would require it of them; all in accordance with the words He spoke to the last prophet Malachi,
Remember the Torah of Mosheh, My servant, which I commanded him in Horev for all Israel: the statues and the judgements. (Mal 3:22; 4:4 in the Christian Bibles)
And immediately Mosheh conveyed the words of the Eternal to the people concerning the prophet who was to come, He warned them against false prophets who would come and speak in His Name,
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. (Deu 18:20)
Until now, it is the Eternal who is speaking. In the last two verses, it is Mosheh, who is speaking for it is natural that the generations after Mosheh would ask how they could distinguish between a true prophet who relates what the Eternal has indeed told him to say, and who has fabricated his own message. Mosheh, therefore, warned them in his words,
And when you say in your heart, “How do we know the word which the Eternal has not spoken?” When the prophet speaks in the Name of the Eternal and the thing is not, nor comes to pass, that is the thing which the Eternal has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him. (Deu 18:21-22)
Why did Mosheh return to “a prophet who presumes to speak a word in His Name” from “a prophet like me”, an issue that he had already addressed previously in Deuteronomy 13? It is the object of this work to seek the answers to this question, as we will address it in due course. Below, we would like to posit another way to look at this issue and offer the conclusion for the reader’s consideration.
Deuteronomy 18 vs. Deuteronomy 13
Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchak, best known by the acronym “Rashi”, in his commentary on Deuteronomy 18:20 says that there are three types of false prophets who must be put to death by the court: (1) one who prophesies something which he was not commanded to prophesy; (2) one who prophesies something that was not spoken to him but was spoken to his fellow-prophet, and (3) one who prophesies in the name of an idol.
A careful reader will notice in Deuteronomy 18 that unlike the case of a false prophet in Deuteronomy 13, here there is no death penalty for a prophet who presumes to speak words which the Eternal has not commanded him to speak (Case 1 above), i.e., to the people, he appears to have spoken the words of the Eternal, but in fact he has not heard such words, while he who speaks in the name of idols shall die (Case 3 above). Why is there no death penalty for such a “prophet” who presumes to speak in the Name of the Eternal?
A reader may assume that our verse does not need to spell out the death penalty for a false prophet as the Torah had already done so in Deu 13:1-5, where the Torah legislated it. In Deuteronomy 13, the false prophet is sentenced to death by the court even though the prediction of that “prophet” had come true. Why? Because he had tried to lead the people astray to violate Torah. In other words, it appears that someone who fabricates a prophetic message he did not hear from the Eternal shall not die, but one who prophesies in the name of an idol shall die. We should note here that verse 20 does not say “both prophets shall die”, but “that same prophet shall die” speaking of the one “who speaks in the name of other gods”. Why did Mosheh not legislate a death penalty for the one who presumes to speak what he was not commanded to speak?
When a true prophet presumes to speak …
Why did the Eternal use the word אַךְ ak, “but” (at the beginning of verse 20)? Why did He say the word זִיד zid, “to presume”, when warning against a prophet who says things in His Name, which he has not been told to say? It would have sufficed to say only “the prophet who speaks” instead of “but the prophet who presumes to speak”. What did Mosheh mean by saying. “And when you say in your heart, ‘How do we know the word which the Eternal has not spoken?'” Is it not obvious that if the Eternal had not spoken it there was nothing to come true in the first place? Furthermore, why did Mosheh say, “that is the thing” which the Eternal has not spoken? It would have sufficed for him to say, “When the prophet speaks in the Name of the Eternal and the thing is not, nor comes to pass, the Eternal has not spoken it”. These two words seem to be totally superfluous!
We may best understand what the Torah has in mind by recalling the incident involving the true prophet Michayahu, who always prophesied negatively for King Achav, the king of the northern kingdom Israel, and his false prophet Tzidkiyahu (see 1Kings 22). This incident occurred during the reign of Yehoshaphat King of Yehudah and Achav King of Israel, when Achav invited Yehoshaphat to join him in a war against the Syrians. The false prophet urged the king to go to war. When Yehoshaphat the king of Yehudah demanded to hear a true prophet, Michayahu was summoned. When Michayahu saw that the false prophet promised success in a war against the Syrians, he too gave a positive promise and wished the king success. Why did he do that? Then, Michayahu prophesied that all the Israelite soldiers would flee the battle, as sheep without a shepherd. Why the turnaround? Let us see it a little deeper.
… It is decided in heaven
Michayahu saw a peculiar vision in heaven: the Eternal sitting on His throne, and His messengers were standing by Him. And the Eternal said to the messengers, “Who shall entice Achav to go up and fall?” And each messenger presented to the Eternal what should be done to Achav. Then a certain spirit came forward and presented his plan: “I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets” (see 1Ki 22:19-22). When we keep these considerations in mind, we will also understand the reason why the prophet changed his stance before the king. The reason is explained by the prophet when he prophesied to the king: “So the Eternal has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, for the Eternal has decreed disaster upon you” (verse 23). It is very difficult to imagine the prophet’s state of mind, when he was speaking in the current settings but in images drawn from heaven. In any case, the prophet involved himself in self-contradiction, in such a degree, that King Achav did not listen to Michayahu, since he had discredited himself: once he told him to go to war and promised him success, then he told him he would fall in battle. How is that story in the end of the Book of 1Kings related to the words of Mosheh in Deuteronomy 18?
Rabbi Chaim Ibn Attar, better known as the Ohr HaChaim, explains it in a unique way. He says that the Eternal had allowed Achav to be deliberately misled into going to war so that he would fall in battle, as he indeed did. Or HaChaim also explains why the true prophet Michayahu had originally prophesied success for Achav instead of warning him, but then he prophesied just the opposite. He says that the true prophet had been filled with the spirit of a certain Israelite Navot, whom King Achav and his evil wife Izebel had him murdered in order to get his vineyard (see Chapter 21). Navot’s spirit had complained in heaven about not having been avenged for the injustice. The spirit that came before the Eternal to present his plan was the spirit of Navot, who was sent into Michayahu to speak. While Michayahu was under the spell of the spirit of Navot, he lured Achav into waging war agaist the Syrians. And the language and context of this passage describing what took place in heaven fits in well with Or HaChaim’s explanation, this interpretation is grounded well in the Scriptural text. Thus far Or HaChaim.
Alternatively, however, Michayahu might have said what he said to the king sarcastically, in the same manner as the false prophet: “Go to war and succeed! If this is what you want to hear from me, and if this is why you have sent for me. I have fulfilled the king’s request, as he wishes”. Then, Michayahu declared the true prophecy. What did really happen in 1Kings 22?
Mosheh foresaw events in the future, when a spirit would emanate from heaven deliberately deceiving the prophets. Thus, “the prophets, who would speak an untruth, would not be culpable as they acted under divine compulsion” (as in the story in 1Kings 22). Therefore, explains Or HaChaim, “when the Torah speaks of the penalty for a false prophet it had to make an exception for situations such as that involving Michayahu”. This is the reason Mosheh commenced his warning with the restrictive word “But”, thus establishing an exception to the legislation in Deuteronomy 18:20-22. “In order to make this point even clearer, continues Or HaChaim, the Torah added the words ‘who presumes'”.
Note: Alternatively, the plain reading of verse 22 of Deuteronomy seems to suggest that the Torah speaks about prophet who is rather a charlatan, i.e., someone who had never been known as a prophet.
As we stated above it would be natural that the future generations would ask how they could distinguish between a true prophet and a false prophet. How could they know when a true prophet had been possessed by a spirit sent from heaven, as in the story in 1 Kings, and why should he be put to death, when they would not know what has taken place in heaven? We are now returning to our verses in Deuteronomy to explain and conclude.
If a prophet speaks in the Name of the Eternal a positive message, which He had not commanded him to speak, and the word has not come to pass in the time predicted by the prophet, then it will be known to the people that that prophet had spoken deliberately sinfully, and not because he had spoken under a compulsion from heaven. The Eternal spoke to His prophet (Jer 28:9) thus, “The prophet that prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Eternal has truly sent him”. From the positive statement we may derive the negative: The prophet that prophesies of a favorable message, when the word of the prophet shall not come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Eternal has not sent him. This will be further explained in the interpretation of the verses.
As we explained in the preceding article, the non-fulfilment of a favorable prophecy will be proof that whoever has made it is a false prophet. Such a person was not misled by some spirit sent from heaven, and that prophet would be held accountable for his words. When the story in 1King 22 is closely examined, it will be noticed that Michayahu spoke to the king seemingly agreeing with the false prophet. But what we need to address here is that he had never said that he spoke in the Name of the Eternal but only that He would give the wicked king a victory, and therefore the Eternal’s Name was not discredited by the prophet. As we suggested above, it is also possible that the prophet might have spoken sarcastically, not being compelled by heaven. In either case, the prophet spoke correctly.
Thus, the negative language of the verses in Deuteronomy is interpreted in the following manner.
So, how do we know the word which the Eternal has not spoken? (Deu 18:21), when even a true prophet like Eliyahu (see 1Ki 18:23-39) issued a specific command to sacrifice on a private altar at Mount Carmel, something that had been explicitly forbidden by Mosheh. There are two questions asked here: (1) How shall we know the word which the Eternal had not spoken, and (2) How shall we know the word which He had spoken? Verse 22 is the answer to both. In the case of the prophet Eliyahu, when the heavenly fire descended and consumed his offering on the altar, it proved that he had acted with approval from heaven, and his words and actions were totally unquestionable. One who believes because of miracles can be easily deceived, since a “miracle” can be done by trickery or sorcery. Rather, all the miracles Mosheh performed were by necessity, not to prove or legitimize his prophecy. This is Mosheh to whom the Eternal spoke like to a friend: mouth to mouth and face to face. Likewise, it was necessary at the given circumstances in the northern kingdom to sacrifice on a private altar in order that the word of the Eternal be establish as opposed to the idolatry Eliyahu was fighting. The fire that came down from heaven and consumed the offering proving that the prophet’s actions were legitimate. Eliyahu’s intent was to make people choose between the Eternal and the idol they worshipped. When people choose, they have to take sides. When they take sides, they face the dilemma to do the will of their Maker or their own will, with which we concluded what we commenced in the beginning.
In the case of the prophet Michayahu, when the heaven declared that deceit would be sent in the mouths of all prophets, as we explained in our commentary on Deuteronomy 13, it was for a test. Michayahu did not speak a favorable prophecy even if he was sarcastic before the king. It was decreed that King Achav would die on account of the murder of Navot. Achav was already a dead man walking.
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