When Jesus again takes some disciples aside for private instruction (15:21; 16:13; see comment on 13:10-17), his transfiguration among them provides a foretaste of his glory when he will return to judge the earth (16:28). Various suggestions for the background for Jesus' proleptic "glorification" could be offered here, but a variety of allusions combine to point to Moses in the Old Testament. After Moses beheld God's glory, his own face shone with that glory (Ex 34:29-35; compare Ps-Philo 12:1; 19:16). Despite the clear testimony of Deuteronomy 34 (see also 1 Enoch 89:38), some of Jesus' contemporaries doubted that Moses had died (Sipre Deut. 357.10.5; ARN 12A), living on like Elijah and some other figures (compare 4 Ezra 6:27; pace Jos. Ant. 9.28). The Bible itself claimed that both Elijah (Mal 4:4-5) and a prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15-19) would return. Most important, this literal Moses and Elijah also capture the reader's attention for the figurative new Elijah (Mt 17:12) and new Moses-Jesus-of whom this text speaks.

But while the text may present Jesus as a new Moses (especially 17:5), it also presents him as something more. It portrays the disciples as witnesses of his glory on the mountain, just as Moses and Elijah heard God on Mount Sinai (see Moiser 1985). The presence of Moses and Elijah indicates that Jesus is incomparably greater than the prophets with whom some were comparing him (16:14; compare Thrall 1970:316).