Let me start with the relevant passage in Deut. 18:
20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
21 And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken?
22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
I was once in a conversation with an LDS who objected to my take on v20 which is “that prophet shall die” means that the false prophet was to be executed. He said that it was simply meaning that the prophet would eventually die for some reason such as old age, or possibly that God would cause him to die young.
While it’s true that the English phrase “shall die” can mean either of those things, the context is important in determining whether it’s a simple foretelling of the future along the lines of “everybody dies” or if it’s a command to execute capital punishment. We see that other places in this same book indicate that in passages such as this, it is the latter.
- Deuteronomy 22:25, But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die.
- Deuteronomy 24:7 If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from among you.
The second passage clearly shows that this use of “shall die” must mean execution, because it says that when the kidnapper “shall die”, that this is the people putting away the evil among them. If this isn’t execution, then how are the people acting to put away that evil? The first passage likewise shows that this can’t be meaning just some sort of natural death, because everybody dies; it’s not like being raped gives you immortality and only the rapist dies.
At a different point in the conversation, I said that Deut. 18:22 requires that a prophet claiming to speak for God must be 100% accurate in what he says. It’s helpful here to back up and read the entire chapter of Deut. 18, or at least start at v15, to get the flow of the context. Here we have Moses prophesying about a future prophet like him that the people will listen to (spoiler alert, it’s Jesus!), because at Mt. Sinai, the people heard directly from God and could not bear it, so begged for God to speak to them directly no longer, but only to speak to them through Moses. But this raises the problem (v21) — if God isn’t speaking to them directly but only via the mouth of a man, how are they to know if a man is actually hearing from God or is lying or mistaken? That’s where this verse comes in — if a claimed prophet foretells something, saying it’s from God, and it doesn’t happen, that man is a false prophet.
This LDS opponent disagreed, and actually said that it was saying not that the man was to be identified as a false prophet and thus wasn’t to be feared or heeded, but that this particular prophecy wasn’t to be heeded.
Really? How does that work? Let’s give a hypothetical example: A prophet says, “in five years we will be in a worldwide war”, and five years passes without war, so we’re just supposed to say, “well, he got that wrong, so I guess we can discard that prophecy, but he’s still a real prophet, so I’m going to believe him today when he says that in five years there will be world peace”? What good does it do to discard the failed prophecies of the past? They’re already past, so whether they came true or not, the prophecy can’t be heeded any longer. Perhaps, however, a two-prong prophecy was in view, with the putative prophet saying, “in five years we will be in a worldwide war, so stock up on food and water”. Again, if five years passes without WWIII, you’ve already heeded the second part of the prophecy, so it’s kinda too late to undo that. The only way it would work is if the prophecy was something like, “we’ll be in WWIII in five years, but it will be over in three more years, and then at that time you need to do X”. But even in that instance, how does that fit with the flow of the passage here in Deuteronomy, with the question being asked, “how do we know if the man is actually hearing from God?”
EDITED TO ADD: the OT has several places that tie into this topic:
- Deut. 4:2 says, “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” (God can add to His Word, but if man does so — if a person falsely claims to speak for God — that is condemned.)
- Deut. 13 begins with the first “prophet test” that I can think of in the Bible, saying that if someone claims to be a prophet and makes a true prediction, but he is preaching a false god, that he is a false prophet and is not to be feared or obeyed, but is instead to be put to death, because he is inciting people to idolatry.
- 1 Sam. 2 gives an example of the “true/false prophet test” of Deut. 18 in action, with a short-term prophecy (both Eli’s sons will die on the same day, which happens soon after the prophecy is given) and a long-term prophecy (Eli’s house is cursed and the high priesthood will be taken from it see 1 Kings 2).
- 1 Kings 13 is similar — God sends a prophet from Judah to Jeroboam to tell him how wrong he was, and the prophet prophesies that a man named Josiah, from the house of David, will one day kill and burn the false priests on the altar that Jeroboam had set up. “And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the Lord hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out“, and this happened at that time. — In other words, a true prophet will show that he really is speaking for God by giving a short-term prophecy that comes true, so that the people know that the other things he has said are also true.
- 1 Kings 21 gives an example of God’s mercy in softening a prophecy (this one concerning Ahab, who repented); a big difference is that false prophets come up with the excuse “God must have changed his mind” after the prophecy fails to come to pass, whereas here and with Hezekiah, God tells the prophet of the change before it was to occur. (See also Why Nineveh doesn’t save Joseph Smith.)
- In 1 Kings 22, the prophet Micaiah says that Ahab will die in the battle. The king is angry and throws him into prison, with instructions that he is to be fed only bread and water until Ahab comes back in peace. Micaiah says that if he comes back at all, then God hasn’t spoken by him.
- 2 Kings 20 gives the account of Hezekiah being terribly sick with Isaiah telling him God said he would die of the sickness, but then Hezekiah prays for longer life and God relents and grants him an additional 15 years of life. When Isaiah comes with the second message, there is an accompanying sign, in accordance with Deut. 18, given to show that the prophecy is indeed from God — the shadow moves back ten steps. (See more here.)
- Isa. 7:10 says that God spoke to Ahaz, even though it is actually Isaiah — which shows that prophets speaking for God must be careful not to add to nor subtract from what God said, so that it can truly be said to be “God’s words”, not “mostly God’s words but marred by human intervention” (which is more or less the LDS view of prophets speaking for God). As with Hezekiah, God also gives Ahaz a choice of signs as short-term proof of the validity of the long-term prophecy (see more here).
- Isaiah 41 continues what has been called “the trial of the false gods” which began in the previous chapter. In this chapter, God challenges the false gods to correctly predict the future and also to accurately tell what happened in the past and why those things happened, in order to prove that they are gods. This is another good point to consider when talking about whether JS was a prophet from God.
- Jeremiah 23 is an excellent chapter to bring up in discussions like this, because it contains several instances of God condemning false prophets for claiming to speak for Him when they’re actually just lying.
- In Jeremiah 28, two prophets (Jeremiah and Hananiah) give competing and opposing prophecies, with Hananiah saying that God will return the Temple vessels and the captives within two years, and Jeremiah saying He will not. Jeremiah basically says, “I hope you’re right, but we’ll just have to see which prophecy turns out to be true”, saying, “when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Lord hath truly sent him.” Again, the proof of a true prophet is that his predictions will come to pass!
- Still in Jeremiah 28, Hananiah doubles down on his prophecy, and says that God has told him that He will break Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke from the nations within 2 years. Later, Jeremiah prophesies that Hananiah would die that year for his wickedness, and it happened in the 7th month, but Hananiah’s prophecy failed.
- Jeremiah 36 has the king destroying a prophecy from Jeremiah that he doesn’t like, but Jeremiah rewrites it again without a problem, unlike JS who couldn’t rewrite the lost 116 pages.
- Jeremiah 44 contains another example of short-term/long-term prophecy, saying that the Jews who seek refuge in Egypt will be destroyed (except for a remnant), and the proof o that would be that Egypt would fall to Nebuchadnezzar.
- Ezek. 13 may have the most concentrated denunciation of false prophets in the entire Bible, with verse after verse after verse excoriating false prophets who “prophesy out of their own hearts“, with God saying, “Woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing“, and “they have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, ‘The LORD saith’: and the LORD hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word,” among other things. The false prophets and their prophecies are likened to building a wall with shoddy materials, which will certainly fall ere long.
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