The Prophet: The prophet comes last in the listing of Israel’s different leadership roles. Almost certainly this is deliberate and significant, like the putting of the judge before the king. Maintaining justice was a higher priority than having a dynastic monarchy. Judge and king must both submit to the law of God, just as the priest must faithfully teach it. But what if those entrusted with such forms of leadership were themselves to go astray? Then the last word was God’s. And God would put that word in the mouth of God’s prophet.

18:9–13  To prepare the way for the section on the role of the prophet, Deuteronomy first outlines some of the pagan practices by which the Canaanites looked for answers to the riddles of life and the future. They are lumped together as the detestable ways of th…