The Torah is the terms of the covenant between God and His redeemed people. It was given, not just to Moses, but to an entire people at Sinai nearly 3500 years ago. It was God’s initial self-disclosure of His holiness and righteousness to an entire people group.

Although the word messiah literally means “anointed one,” its connotation is that of king. It is a reference to the one who will bring all of Israel (and the entire world) into submission under a central authority. The king of Israel is required to write for himself a copy of the Torah in order to remember that he doesn’t have authority over the Torah, but that the Torah gives him his ruling authority and he must rule within its parameters — those parameters established at Sinai by the Creator of the Universe. Deuteronomy spells out these terms: And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel (Deuteronomy 17:18–20).

Just a few chapters before this, we are given a few of the parameters which would be among those which would determine if Jesus (or any person) met the qualifications of a prophet or leader of Israel: