Deuteronomy 18:11-22

18:11 one who casts spells, ¹  one who conjures up spirits, ²  a practitioner of the occult, ³  or a necromancer. ⁴  18:12 Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord and because of these detestable things ⁵  the Lord your God is about to drive them out ⁶  from before you. 18:13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God. 18:14 Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things.

18:15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you – from your fellow Israelites; ⁷  you must listen to him. 18:16 This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our ⁸  God any more or see this great fire any more lest we die.” 18:17 The Lord then said to me, “What they have said is good. 18:18 I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command. 18:19 I will personally hold responsible ⁹  anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet ¹⁰  speaks in my name.

18:20 “But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized ¹¹  him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 18:21 Now if you say to yourselves, ¹²  ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’ ¹³  – 18:22 whenever a prophet speaks in my ¹⁴  name and the prediction ¹⁵  is not fulfilled, ¹⁶  then I have ¹⁷  not spoken it; ¹⁸  the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”

[18:11]  ¹ tn Heb “a binder of binding” (חֹבֵר חָבֶר, khover khaver). The connotation is that of immobilizing (“binding”) someone or something by the use of magical words (cf. Ps 58:6; Isa 47:9, 12).

[18:11]  ² tn Heb “asker of a [dead] spirit” (שֹׁאֵל אוֹב, sho’el ’ov). This is a form of necromancy (cf. Lev 19:31; 20:6; 1 Sam 28:8, 9; Isa 8:19; 19:3; 29:4).

[18:11]  ³ tn Heb “a knowing [or “familiar”] [spirit]” (יִדְּעֹנִי, yiddÿ’oniy), i.e., one who is expert in mantic arts (cf. Lev 19:31; 20:6, 27; 1 Sam 28:3, 9; 2 Kgs 21:6; Isa 8:19; 19:3).

[18:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “a seeker of the dead.” This is much the same as “one who conjures up spirits” (cf. 1 Sam 28:6-7).

[18:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “these abhorrent things.” The repetition is emphatic. For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, the same term used earlier in the verse has been translated “detestable” here.

[18:12]  ⁶ tn The translation understands the Hebrew participial form as having an imminent future sense here.

[18:15]  ⁷ tc The MT expands here on the usual formula by adding “from among you” (cf. Deut 17:15; 18:18; Smr; a number of Greek texts). The expansion seems to be for the purpose of emphasis, i.e., the prophet to come must be not just from Israel but an Israelite by blood.

[18:16]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew text uses the collective singular in this verse: “my God…lest I die.”

[18:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “will seek from him”; NAB “I myself will make him answer for it”; NRSV “will hold accountable.”

[18:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the prophet mentioned in v. 18) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:20]  ¹¹ tn Or “commanded” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[18:21]  ¹² tn Heb “in your heart.”

[18:21]  ¹³ tn Heb “know the word which the Lord has not spoken.” The issue here is not understanding the meaning of the message, but distinguishing a genuine prophetic word from a false one.

[18:22]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the Lord’s.” See note on the word “his” in v. 5.

[18:22]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the word,” but a predictive word is in view here. Cf. NAB “his oracle.”

[18:22]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “does not happen or come to pass.”

[18:22]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the Lord has.” See note on the word “his” in v. 5.

[18:22]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “that is the word which the Lord has not spoken.”