The Walking Word of God

        God has spoken to His people through the prophets in patriarchs by His Word in many different ways throughout the eons. And though the Word of the LORD has come to many prophets and He called many patriarchs, the Word itself is the greatest of prophets (though it may very well be said that the Word is a prophecy itself). Many prophets have had their words contained within their sundry scrolls summarized in the following way: “the words of the prophet…” but the words of these prophets are only their anthropological allegories concerning the Word that came to them. For it is more incredibly written of many of the prophets that “the Word of the LORD came to me” or that they had seen the Word of the LORD. And of how many of these prophets can it be said that their words had walked or appeared to any other? For our words are not visible, though we, being those from which the words come, are. But the LORD, who is even less visible, appears to His prophets and people as the Word - Making the Word the greatest of prophets.

And the Word does not need to be repeated by any other prophet but is its own prophet. For this reason, when the Word discusses itself to others, they are impressed at it since “He was teaching them like one possessing authority, and not like the scribes.” But it can also be said that His teaching was not even like that of any of the other prophets - The other prophets who did not will for the Word to come to them but to whom the Word came to anyways. For even the prophet with the greatest scroll is called the weeping prophet because of his crying when the Word of the LORD called Him; and even the prophet that asked that he be sent to serve the LORD said this of himself: “I am undone, / for I am a man of impure lips, / and in a people of impure lips do I dwell” (Alter, Isa 6.5). Not only are the people to which the Word calls Isaiah to prophecy unclean, but even the lips of the prophet He calls are not purified. How is a prophet - Even a greater prophet - to prophecy with an instrument (the instrument being his lips) that is impure while calling his own people to purity? The prophet himself admits his insufficiency in his comparison of himself to his people. But the Word speaks on behalf of the God from which it is generated (and of which it can rightly be said that it also is) on His own. He speaks on His own authority in starting His sayings in parables in the following way: “Amen, amen, I tell you” (Hart, Jhn. 5.24). Can the same be said of any other prophet? For the other prophets can only speak what the Word speaks (and is, since speech is only made up of words) that the LORD says to them in saying: “Thus saith the LORD”. But cannot even the most elementary of understanding not know the difference between who says “this is what the LORD says” and “I say to you” (with the assumption that the latter is the Word)? One makes it clear that He is not the LORD nor even being so close to the LORD that he is His Word, while the other simply assumes it and even says “whoever hears my word and has faith in the one who has sent me” - That is the LORD (of which, again, the Word also is, as the following will make quite clear) - “has life” (5.24).

This word is also confident of itself, knowing who it is not by being called by God in a way which He cannot control, but deciding on His very own to be “led up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tried by the Slanderer” (Matt. 4.1). This prophet approaches temptation to show that He can overcome it by commanding such a slanderer to “be gone” (v. 10)! And this contrasts His very own teaching of how one might pray, saying just a little later, “do not bring us to trial, but rescue us from him who is wicked” (6.13). It should be noted that this is not in contradiction to His teaching, but a teaching for those who are weaker, of whom He can say in another place “whoever causes one of these little ones…to falter” (18.6). And in speaking of the “little ones”, He compared His own disciples who asked Him about the greatest in Heaven (v. 1) to the child that He took to Himself (v. 2). So then, even the greatest in Heaven can stumble and should pray for freedom from trial and temptation. But He who is greater needs not pray for such a thing (nor ask, as He had to respond, for how one should pray) but approaches such an adversary even in a wilderness while having abstained from all things pleasurable. This one, as being God Himself and speaking as He is the LORD (not needing to say that the LORD said what He said because He is the LORD), still does speak to the LORD. Not only did He go alone into the desert in following Him but lamented to Him even in the garden: “‘Father, it if is your will, take this cup away from me’” (Lk. 22.42). But He did not refuse His call or even complain it, but quickly added what was the true desire of the Word since the beginning: “yet let not my will, but yours, come to pass” (v .42). It should be said that this passage proves the Word not just to be the Word but the Will. In this way He far surpasses all other prophets that struggle to seep themselves in the Will. He, however, is like a Will that is power over all else. For some say that people have the power of will, but those that give in to passions have let those passions overpower their will. And even among the first prophets, they, having fasted for forty days after a great test from the LORD, satiated their thirst with wine and were drunk, and lay naked in a tent. But this God went into the wilderness and denied even the greatest of demons. How much more would any other prophet fall into failure when confronted by such a magnificent being? For we know that this same slanderer “transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11.14). But make no mistake in believing that the very Word of God could not distinguish such a being, but know that while He was in the wilderness, true angels of light ministered to Him.

And though all of the other prophets have a scroll or two (except for the one that has five), He Himself is prophesied by all of them throughout time. He Himself, not needing to write a word of Himself. For this reason, He can make the claim that “it is necessary for everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms to be fulfilled” (Lk. 24.44). Further, no prophet can claim to be the greatest - Or even, being among the most humble, be called the greatest by later prophets (as Moses is) - if their own prophecies are of another prophet. For the Prophet of which prophets speak must be the greatest. This is as simple as the principle that any prince that speaks of another prince shows that He is not the greatest prince but that there is one greater. And if even a prince spoke best about himself, he is probably not the best - But if a prince has been spoken of so highly by all the princes that came before Him (and there cannot be any princes at the same time as Him as each kingdom is only led by one king and has only one prince), He needs not to say anything great of Himself. In the same way, the anti-messiahs that may come will all claim that they are the Messiah. And again, they cannot be since the greatest cannot say such a thing about themselves but only let the not-as-great from their fathers say such things about themselves (though the Word only had His one father). About such a one that makes a claim this bold, one last statement should be made: that, though the other prophets gave up their lives or were willing, only He gave up His life in the greatest way. For even Elijah, wanting to die, does not die but is rebuked by the LORD for his ignorance. For not only does the LORD say that He had preserved prophets that would work for Him against the Evil One as well, but He next sends Him to give His power over to a prophet who is greater than Him.

And though Elijah, like Enoch, may have ascended and not died, the Word did the both of them - One as an encouragement to the lesser prophets of His day and the other as a hope for all the others that will likewise ascend. However, between the two He was also resurrected by His own power. And no other prophet has been resurrected - Let alone, of their own power, though one, that is Samuel, was by that of a necromancer - But the Word itself is eternally generated and cannot be quenched. For this reason, at the crux of His crucifixion, He makes a claim that no other could have ever claimed (even if this Word had come to them): “‘It has been completed’” (Jhn. 19.30). And as He completed all things, He also started all things, and made the prophecy of Himself in the very beginning. And this is well known because of the records of His best friend and follower John; and He, like the other prophets before him and of his time, meditated on the ministry of His friend and the Scriptures that led up to Him and wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God” (NRSVue, Jhn. 1.1). How great of a prophet is He who was the first and final prophets of all and who existed throughout all - All other prophets, though the prophesied of Him, prophesied from Him (as one must remember that it was only when the Word of the LORD spoke to such prophets that they spoke such to their people).

So then, the Word, being the greatest prophet that was since the beginning and until the end, is right in saying that He is “the beginning and the end” (Hart, Rev. 22.13). And even those that will take Him away to persecute Him must fall back at His words when He is in the flesh: “I AM” (Jhn. 18.8). This statement being one He had already uttered to the theologians that opposed Him in His own day, proving to them before they would plot His death that the only God is that of the living so as to prove His own eternality and resurrection: “before Abraham came to be, I AM” (8.58). And even before that (before His incarnation that is), He tells the next greatest prophet that same name. And He confirms Him as the greatest prophet in saying not just that He is the God of their fathers but that but that by this name, not even they knew Him. So Moses, following in the footsteps of such a great prophet as the Word, gets to record the beginning of creation before anyone else. Moses, in fact, begins not just the account of creation but of the whole Torah that would be used to guide His people in wisdom throughout all time. And even after such a book is edited by Ezra the Scribe, it will be said that until that time no other prophet had arisen such as Him. And rightly so, for the other aforementioned prophets had spoken not their own words but the words that came to them from the Word; however Moses wrote not only his own words and that of the Word itself, but also of its appearance to his fathers. And though Abraham and especially Israel are seen as patriarchs, prophets, and even prototypes of the entire nation, they do not even record their own statements. On the contrary, it is Moses who records them. Moses, being so much greater than them that he writes the Word that came to him, the word that came to the three patriarchs before him, and the Word that came to all humanity.

What does it even mean that the Word came to all humanity? When and in which day could the single Word of God come to all humanity? The single Word of God came to humanity in the very beginning, when God spoke to humanity in saying that they were to image His Word and rule over all the land that He had given them. And even this prophecy, though it is the Word of God and therefore first prophesied by the Word, it is recorded as a prophecy by the next greatest (but by far more than any word might describe) prophet. And Moses is greater in another: for some have noted that in any link of chains, the further that one is from the original, the weaker they are. In the same way, though the Word is immanent and throughout all time and space, it can also be said that the greatest revelation of the Word as that which would be imaged was depraved not only at the moment of failure but throughout all generations. For though Adam was made “in the likeness of God” (Gen. 5.1), the one made by Adam (though truly God Himself made them through Adam) was made “according to his image” (v. 3). And any image is limited in that it is only a flat image of whatever it represents; but how much more limited an image becomes when it is duplicated by another. For even if one were to argue that those after Seth the son of Adam saw and imaged Adam directly, even Adam died according to the curse of God. So then, the original image was destroyed after their was a re-imaging of it. Then, being many more images made after the one before it, the older always dies out and leaves its lesser copy. And in the same way, the link of chains is weaker the further from the wall or ceiling that it extends. If one, for example, were to imagine that such a link of chains hung from a ceiling and were to hit it at the bottom, the bottom-most chain would swing the furthest, and the higher up less so. Say, even if one were to hit the highest of the chains, they would find that the lower-down chains would vibrate the most even though they were not directly hit. So then, Adam, failing - Being hit by his own sin - left a vibration of sin caused by the wicked viper that originally deceived him.

So then, just as Moses was the first of the greatest prophets, he had a more acute sense of the original word, being closer to the first chain that was directly connected to the wall. Such a statement might make arise questions concerning Adam - Why would Adam not then be considered the greatest prophet? It has been noted, after all, that Adam was the one to which the Word first appeared. So then, Adam, not needing any other chain to connect Him to the surface, should seem to be the greatest prophet. But the LORD, being one of kindness and mercy, chose Moses. It seems then, that the LORD made Moses a new Adam (though not the newest of Adams) so that if humanity were such a chain that dangled from the first one (Adam), it looped back to such a ceiling and was reconnected through Moses. And none of the other prophets, though they were connected to the word in another way, can claim the same thing for themselves. For though they heard directly from the Word, they were not the first to be reconnected, but were only the line that followed Moses in expounding the Law that he gave. So then, they were chains that were connected to the wall while also surrounding Moses as a crowd might surround a great teacher.

Then the problem seems to arise of how even the Word could be a greater prophet than such a one as Moses. If the LORD, being one that would elect such a humble man and undermine the thoughts of man that Adam needed be the greatest prophet, were to directly reconnect man to the Word first through Moses, how could the Word be any greater. As John records, “the Word was God” (NRSVue, Jhn. 1.1). So, being distinct from God and yet God, it becomes greater. For the Word could be said to be a chain that is entirely cemented into the wall of cement so that He is fully a chain yet fully cement. And through such a powerful prophet it could come to pass that many different chains that might have been separated earlier might come together and be reconnected to Him (for surrounding and hinging on one chain weakens that one chain - and in the same way, having all hinge on Moses would weaken His words if it were not for the cement that He was connected to connecting all other things). For it is not only true that “all things came into being through him” (v. 3). And the Apostles, it seems, best understood this when they stated that “in Him we live and move and are” (Hart, Acts 17.28). And even the removed Greeks understood this - For such a claim was merely a quote of an inspired Greek poet. For such a poet to make such a statement, it would seem that they would need to be connected to thing they claimed surrounded them. And it seems that in one way or another, they were - For Jesus is the cement in which many earlier sundry separated chains became cemented.

But of Moses, he still brought many chains around him because he was looped back to the cement. And how did it happen that he was looped back? How was Abraham not better looped back? Abraham, being called out of his own land to another, quickly moved on to Egypt after a famine - And even Abraham would not return to such a land until his burial. And Isaac is more of a promise given to Abraham than a prophet. It should be no surprise to anyone that Isaac is rarely reasoned to be any greater than even Abraham. For he, not only did not stay in the land, but was passive in every account. For this reason, God rarely spoke to Isaac - for Isaac was so senseless to not hear the Word that He spoke to the prophetess, his wife, Rebekah. And even in such senselessness, God let the younger again usurp the older in deceiving his sightless father. And even Jacob could not be claimed to be greater than Moses, for though he dwelt in Canaan for some time, he had to be bereaved for that which he had earlier bereaved others for. As Jacob had stolen the two daughters of Laban throughout deceit, the LORD stole his two sons. And in this very manner, he called him down to Egypt. But Moses, went up out of the land of Egypt. And though Moses did not make to the land neither did he abandon the land. For though the two patriarchs that were in the land were there for some time, they left because of bereavement or being cowards. And who can be said to be greater: the one that is regifts something great or one that does well without even being given it? And Moses, though he had not stepped foot in the land, was found more faithful than those before him. Moses, having more faith than even Abraham, could therefore see the back of the LORD and hear His name that had not been revealed until then. Further, he, being called into Canaan, did not doubt the LORD but was only deceived by the unfaithful following Israelites. Through his wandering in the wilderness, in fact, he listened for the LORD. And even in leaving Egypt, he did not hear from that God until he had already left that land. The others, on the other hand, needed to hear His call from Canaan (but still exiled themselves in Egypt).

Now what can be said of the rest of the prophets? As has been stated beforehand, all of the others only expounded the Instructions received first by Moses. Not only did they state (being blessed enough to have edited the end of his writings) that “there arose no further prophet in Israel like [Moses]” (Deut. 34.10), but stated that he was the only that “knew the LORD face to face” (v. 10). Even the great David prays that God might help him just to understand Moses so that he could his teaching. Further, he shows that God revealed Himself to Moses in a sense so often overlooked in saying: “Taste and see that the LORD is good” (Ps. 34.9). And to make it certain that it was Moses that tasted the LORD, he contextualizes himself in saying that that man was surrounded by the LORD’s messenger and took refuge in Him. And so the LORD revealed Himself to Moses by showing him His back, speaking to Him the words of the Covenant, and letting Him taste His goodness. And this is to show that the others preceding and produced from him would not attain such a status: for how would the blind Isaac have sought for the LORD? Or how would Jacob hear His Covenant name over his own self-deception and desire for his own blessing? Could Abraham, who fled from the famine in a desire to satiate his hunger (even eating with Egyptians - Who he knew to be unclean), taste the goodness of God? And even if those following were more faithful, because of the impurity of all of Israel (which further proves the archetypes unworthiness), the other prophets could not even approach Moses in his tent. For so severe was the sinfulness of their people that God told one of these prophets that “‘even if Noah, Daniel, and Job, these three, were in it, they would save only their own lives by their righteousness,’ says the Lord God” (NRSVue, Ezek. 14.14).

And even God elevated Moses in making him, as He says, “a god for Pharaoh” (Fox, Ex. 7.1); such a prophet was Moses, that even his own brother was made a prophet by his elevated status. God, saying, “[Aaron] your brother will be your prophet” (v. 1). And how could one be any more faithful in fulfilling any role than one who makes those around them just the same. For through Moses, the Word of God let all Israel taste his goodness in the famine - And we know that even when Abraham was faced with famine, even he fled back into Egypt like the Israelites desired to do. And Moses, in conversing with God at Sinai, had the people hear all the words of the Covenant as well - Though just like their father Isaac, they would not understand such sayings but understood only thunder and ram’s horn. And in seeing the face of God, Moses’ face shown before the Israelites - Moses, being put in a tent to judge between the Israelites before even God revealed His own tent as a testimony to Himself. For King David had to ask to make God a house, but Moses made his own tent, and, in God seeing such Wisdom, He showed him His celestial tent (and not a house - like what David had built).

And, in seeing the celestial tent, he must have seen not only the foundations of the heavens themselves, but the act of founding the heaven - And from such a sight, written the account of their creation and about their generations. Again, the other sundry scrolls of the prophets rarely have two books attributed to one prophet and his words and deeds. Moses, however, has five books not only for those of his own words and deeds but for that of the principal Word, that of all of the peoples, and of the patriarchs.

And as the anger of the anti-prophet Jonah points out: “I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in kindness and relenting from evil” (Jon. 4.2). However, Moses, knowing such a thing, asked that God took his own life away not out of anger for the unfairness of God’s grace, but out of a desire for all others to understand it. He knew himself that he could be made into a great nation himself. But, desiring for God to undo the tongues of all people and bring them back to Babel with contrition of heart, sought to give himself up that even God would forgive just Israel. And only in this way did the LORD allow him to almost die in revealing His very back to his face. Again, it was because of this very act of Moses that God allowed him to record not only the history of the Hebrews but of all humanity - Even those of the pagan peoples. And even Abraham before him would not write such a thing since, having been blessed and commanded to be “a great nation” (Gen. 12.2) - One to which God promised: “I will bless those who bless you” (v. 3). But, not only leaving the land that God wanted to grant him to another, he even lied and allowed the Pharoah to take his wife. He, not only directly disobeying God, but lying and leading others into adultery, is still sent a seed (though it is made later due to such infidelity), but not granted the glory of writing such sapiential works as the Book of the Covenant.

And again, Moses is a prophet so great that there was never one like him til the time of the incarnation of the Word - But in saying that he was the greatest, it was not referring to the Word as a prophet not because it was no prophet but because it was so great a prophet that Moses would seem even less than mortal in comparison. The Word was the prophecy of which it prophesied, making it exceedingly greater than any other prophet. For who can better herald something than if the thing were to herald itself? In the same way, this Word was not only an abstract idea as a prophet but one that walked and talked among humanity. This Word came to people and spoke to them, saying to them the things that they should write down. So great was this Word that the Word had words of its own. And these words are the prophesies passed down from old through the prophets - Again, making the Word the greatest from being spoken until its last syllable.

Bibliography

All Torah citations, unless otherwise noted, use:

Fox, Everett. The Five Books of Moses. Shocken Books, 1997.

All Hebrew Bible citations not from the Torah or otherwise noted, use:

Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible. WW Norton, 2018.

All New Testament citations, unless otherwise noted, use:

Hart, David Bentley. The New Testament. Yale University Press, 2017.

Few other citations, for the sake of familiarity, use:

New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. E-book edition, Thomas Nelson, 1989.