Peter, Are You Serious? Moses — Part 2

Peter made a bold assertion: “All the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days” (Acts 3:24). By “these days,” he means the days in which he lived, his generation. 

The Lord Jesus showed the two disciples on the road to Emmaus this truth soon after his resurrection: 

Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:25–27)

This series of posts follows His lead, searching through the prophets to show they all spoke of Christ and God’s saving work in Peter’s time.

I’m making two suggestions as we conduct this search. You can see them in the footnotes.¹ 

After introducing the series (here and here), we saw that Moses foretold the events of Peter’s generation. He wrote of three things: 1) a son that would come, 2) a scepter that would depart, and 3) a song that would be sung. I covered the first two last week (here) and will discuss the third in this post.²

The Song That Would Be Sung

Moses spoke about Peter’s generation through music. After Israel had wandered in the wilderness for forty years, God told Moses what the people would do after his death: 

The LORD said to Moses: “Behold, you will rest with your fathers; and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.” (Deut 31:16)

God then gave Moses a song with instructions regarding its purpose: 

Now therefore, write down this song for yourselves, and teach it to the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me against the children of Israel. When I have brought them to the land flowing with milk and honey, of which I swore to their fathers, and they have eaten and filled themselves and grown fat, then they will turn to other gods and serve them; and they will provoke Me and break My covenant. Then it shall be, when many evils and troubles have come upon them, that this song will testify against them as a witness; for it will not be forgotten in the mouths of their descendants, for I know the inclination of their behavior today, even before I have brought them to the land of which I swore to give them. (Deut 31:19–21)

Moses also gave the period during which this song would operate:

I know that after my death you will become utterly corrupt.… And evil will befall you in the latter days, because you will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands. (Deut 31:29)

Last week, we saw that Moses used terms like “the latter days” to refer to the time of the Messiah’s coming in Peter’s generation. The scepter would not depart from Judah until Shiloh (Messiah) came “in the last days” (Gen 49:1, 10).

At the risk of too much repetition for my long-time readers, I will point out that Moses did not mean the “latter days” of history, the cosmos, or the church age. He described the last period of Israel’s existence as God’s covenant nation, as then made up. That period comprised the coming of Shiloh and God’s judgment of Israel after the flesh (cf. 1 Cor 10:18). These events occurred in the generation of Jesus, Peter, and the other apostles (cf. Matt 24:1-3, 24).

These men knew it was time to sing this song of Moses in their day, so they used it often. Moses described the corrupt Jews in the “latter days.” He said, “They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation” (Deut 32:5 KJV). Jude uses this “spot” imagery for the Jews of his day: “These are spots in your love feasts” (Jude 12). Paul applies the imagery in the second part of this verse to “the mutilation” (i.e., the Jews) of his day, calling them “a crooked and perverse generation” (Phil 2:15; 3:2–3). This phrase “derives from the Song of Moses (Dt. 32:5)” which “is related to the Messianic age” in Jewish writings.³

Paul draws from this song about Israel’s “latter days” in his letter to the Romans. God had said, 

They have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God; they have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols. But I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation; I will move them to anger by a foolish nation. (Deut 32:21)

Paul refers to this verse when discussing Israel’s rejection of Christ:

But I say, have they [i.e., Israel after the flesh] not heard? Yes indeed: “Their sound has gone out to all the earth, And their words to the ends of the world.” But I say, did Israel not know? First Moses says: “I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation, I will move you to anger by a foolish nation.” But Isaiah is very bold and says: “I was found by those who did not seek Me; I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me.” (Rom 10:18–20)

He understood his ministry was fulfilling this declaration by God during Israel’s last days!

The Scriptures only mention this song by name in one other place. It introduced the apostle John’s vision of the seven vials:

And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: “Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints!” (Rev 15:2–3)

The visions John saw would “shortly take place”; their time was near, and their time was at hand (Rev 1:1, 3; 22:10). God was about to judge apostate Israel as Moses had said He would do. The nation’s “latter days” had arrived, and the saints in heaven were already singing the witness song.⁴

Conclusion

Moses spoke about the period Peter called “these days” (Acts 3:24). The days when the long-promised Son appeared and the scepter departed from Judah because the Scepter had arrived. And the time when the heavenly choir filled the halls of heaven with the song of Moses.

Is it any wonder Jesus began at Moses when “He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27)?

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1. First, consider becoming familiar with the inmillennial view of prophecy. You can read a summary version here or tackle the full book-length version here. The title of the book—Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days—hints at the reason for my suggestion. This model says the “last days” are identical to Peter’s “these days”; both terms refer to the “last days” of the Mosaic age. This perspective will shed light on the prophets as we work through them. My second suggestion is that you consider watching the sermons related to this subject. I preached it at Hopewell Primitive Baptist Church in Opelika, AL, on May 7, 2023. You can watch it here.
2. The image in this post is Transfiguration of Christ by Biovanni Bellini, c. 1487. It is in the public domain.
3. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–), 1:663.
4. See The Seven Vials—Part 1: The Song of Moses.