“‘But I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who will do according to what is in My heart and in My soul; and I will build him an enduring house, and he will walk before My messiah always.’ … Then the LORD came and stood and called as at other times, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And Samuel said, ‘Speak, for Your servant is listening'” (1 Sam 2:35; 3:10).
As is so often the case with many of Israel’s great leaders in the Bible, so Samuel is presented as a parallel to Moses. In the immediate context, Samuel is undoubtedly the “faithful priest” in God’s house (see 1 Sam 3:20), and this description is virtually identical to God’s description of Moses in Numbers 12:7: “He is faithful in all My household.” And we must not forget that Moses, like Samuel, also had a priestly function in the LORD’s tabernacle. Even more remarkable is the reference to the LORD “standing” before Samuel (3:10). There is only one other time in the entire Hebrew Bible where LORD “stands” in front of his prophet: “The LORD descended in the cloud and STOOD there with him as he called upon the name of the LORD” (Exod 34:5). This shared language suggests that Samuel saw the LORD standing before him in some form or fashion, just as Moses had at Mount Sinai (see Exod 33:23; 34:6).
Samuel is truly a stellar figure. Looping back around to the description of Samuel as “my anointed one [messiah]” (1 Sam 2:35), the author of 1-2 Samuel wants us to see Samuel as a Messianic figure, given the importance of Messianism in the compositional strategy of the book (1 Sam 2:10; 2 Sam 7:11-14; 22:51; 23:1). And it is essential to notice that Samuel is particularly Messianic because he is like Moses.
When the authors of the NT draw the parallels between Yeshua and Moses, they do so because they are so critical to his Messianic identity. And by describing Yeshua like Moses, the NT authors also demonstrate their deep roots in the Messianism of the Hebrew Bible itself. To fully appreciate Yeshua’s Messianic identity means we must, like the NT authors, master this topic from within the exegetical-theological framework provided by Hebrew Bible. We must not read the NT and its description of Yeshua in isolation from the Hebrew Bible, because the authors of the NT did not write about Yeshua’s unique identity in isolation from the Hebrew Bible!
“So, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said was going to take place” (Acts 26:22).
