For Moses truly said unto the fathers. — Better, For Moses indeed said, the word being one of the common conjunctions, and not the adverb which means “truthfully.” The appeal is made to Moses in his two-fold character as lawgiver and prophet. As the words stand, taken with their context, they seem to point to the appearance of a succession of true prophets as contrasted with the diviners of Deuteronomy 18:14; and, even with St. Peter’s interpretation before us, we may well admit those prophets as primary and partial fulfilments of them. But the words had naturally fixed the minds of men on the coming of some one great prophet who should excel all others, and we find traces of that expectation in the question put to the Baptist, “Art thou the prophet?” (John 1:21; John 1:25.) None that came between Moses and Jesus had been “like unto the former,” as marking a new epoch, the channel of a new revelation, the giver of a new law.
In all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. — The words are inserted by St. Peter as a parenthesis in the actual quotation, and suggest the thought of a quotation from memory.