Raise up for you a prophet: the verb raise up in this context means “to cause to appear.” More simply it means to send: “The LORD your God will send you a prophet.” For prophet see 13.1. The noun is singular in the Hebrew text, and most translations take it to refer to a particular prophet who will appear in the future. But as the alternative rendering in Good News Translation shows, the singular here may be understood as a collective, meaning “God will send you [from time to time] prophets”; New Revised Standard Version provides the same alternative in a footnote. However, translations do not give this meaning in the text. The promise (in the singular) is used in the New Testament as a reference to Jesus (see Acts 3.22; 7.37).

Like me: this can be understood to mean “as he sent me,” but most take it to mean that the coming prophet will be like Moses.

From among you, from your brethren: another case of duplication, for clarity. It means the coming prophet will be an Israelite, “one of your own people” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version).

To repeat what we have said earlier in the Handbook, the translator should be aware of what the second person pronouns you and your may mean in some languages; that is, the person (Moses) who says this is not an Israelite. Such a wrong meaning should be avoided. See, for example, 1.6.

Him you shall heed: the people are to listen to him and do as he commands.

Good News Translation is a suitable model for this verse, as is Contemporary English Version:

• Instead, he will choose one of your own people to be a prophet just like me, and you must do what that prophet says.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .