Weren’t all prophets “like Moses”? No. Even at the time of Moses there were other prophets, such as Miriam and Aaron. Yet God made it plain that Moses was quite different from them. God spoke to Moses in a more open, direct and personal way. This is what God said:
If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses… With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord (Numbers 12:6-8).
Joshua came after Moses. Yet even in the passage which speaks of Joshua’s greatness, Deuteronomy ends with these words,
And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord sent him to do… and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror [fear] that Moses did in the sight of all Israel (Deuteronomy 34:10-12).
Clearly, the other prophets were not like Moses. God was more direct with Moses. God used him as His special agent and lawgiver. Because of His unique authority, all other Israelite prophets, from Joshua on, taught their people to follow “the Law of Moses.” The coming Prophet would serve, like Moses, as God’s Mediator with special authority to give God’s commandments to the people. God would speak directly with the new Mediator. And here is another important point: From Deuteronomy 34, we learn that being truly “like Moses” had to include showing miracles of mighty power.