Volume 1 — THE BLESSING OF JACOB UPON JUDAH (continued 2)

Bengel remarks on Rev. v. 6: "The elder had pointed John to a Lion, and yet John beheld a Lamb. The Lord Jesus is called a Lion only once in this prophecy, and that, at the very beginning, before the appellation Lamb appears. This indicates that as often as the Lamb is remembered, we should also remember Him as the Lion of the tribe of Judah."

As the designation of Christ as the Lion refers to what, in the blessing of Jacob, is said of the lion-nature of the tribe of Judah, so, in the "Lamb"—the emblem of innocence, justice, silent patience and gentleness—the name Shiloh is embodied.

^[1] Luther says: "No doubt the sons of Jacob will have waited with anxious desire, and with weeping and groaning, for what their father had yet to say; for, after having heard curses so hard and severe, they were very much confounded and afraid. And Judah, too, will certainly not have been able to refrain from weeping, and will have been afraid, when thinking of what should now become of him. There will have arisen in his heart very sad recollections of his sins, of his whoredom with Thamar, and of the advice which he had given to sell Joseph. Certainly, I should have died with sorrow and tears. But there soon follow a fine dew and a lovely balm, refreshing the heart again."

^[2] Bochart says: "When the whelp of a lion is weaned, and begins to go out for prey, and to seek his own food without the help of his mother, he then ceases to be a גור, and is called a כפיר." Deut. xxxiii. 22 must, therefore, not be translated, "Dan is a lion's whelp leaping from Bashan"—as if the גור אריה were already active—but thus, "Dan is a lion's whelp; he shall leap (i.e., after he shall have grown up) from Bashan." Dan is in that place styled a lion's whelp, just as is Judah in Gen. xlix. 9, because, as yet, he is only a candidate for future victories.

^[3] The LXX. translate, ἐκ βλαστοῦ υἱέ μου ἀνέβης, "from a shoot, my son, thou hast grown up." They explain טרף by an inappropriate reference to Ezek. xvii. 9, where it is used of a fresh green leaf.

^[4] Calvin says: "This dignity is bestowed upon Judah only with a view to benefit the whole of the people."

^[5] In the first edition of this work, the author had likewise maintained that view.

^[6] It was this difficulty which led Grotius to adopt the feeble exposition, "That teachers out of Judah's posterity would lead the people until the times of the Messiah, who would be the highest leader and commander of Jews and Gentiles."

^[7] Calvin says: "If any one should object, that the words of Jacob convey a different meaning, we would answer him, that whatever promises God gave concerning the outward condition of the Church, they were so far limited that God might, in the meantime, exercise His judgments in the punishment of men's sins, and prove the faith of His people. And indeed it was not a light trial when, at the third succession, the tribe of Judah was deprived of the greater part of his territory. A more severe one followed when, before the eyes of the father, the sons of the king were slain, his own eyes put out, and himself was carried to Babylon, and given over to servitude and exile along with the whole royal family. But the heaviest trial of all came, when the people returned to their land, and were so far from seeing their expectations fulfilled, that they were, on the contrary, subjected to a sad dispersion. But even then, the saints beheld with the eye of faith the sceptre hidden under ground; neither did their hearts fail, nor their courage give way, so that they desisted not from continuing their course."

^[8] Many expositors, following the LXX. (ἐκ τῶν μηρῶν αὐτοῦ), the Vulgate (de femore ejus), and the Chaldee Paraphrast, understand this expression as a designation of origin and production. But in that case, we must assume a very hard ellipsis, viz., "he who is to proceed." Moreover,

^[9] The signification, "expectation," given to this word by the LXX. (καὶ αὐτὸς προσδοκία ἐθνῶν), Jerome, and other translators, is founded upon the erroneous derivation of the word from קוה. In the other passage (Prov. xxx. 17), where the LXX. translate, "the age of his mother," they have confounded the root יקה with קהה, "to be blunted."

^[10] Gousset says: The word can signify something good only, on account of the passage, Prov. xxx. 17, namely, something which adorns the relation of the son to his mother, the despising of which is a crime on the part of the son, and which deserves that he should be sent εἰς κόρακας. And not less so from its being used in Gen. xlix. 10 in reference to the Shiloh, where, thereby, not one or a few, but all the nations without exception, are bound to Him by a tie similar to that which exists betwixt mother and son.

^[11] Thus Luther says: "This sceptre of Judah shall continue, and shall not be taken from him, till the hero come; but when He comes, then the sceptre also shall depart. The kingdom or sceptre has fallen; the Jews are scattered throughout the whole world, and, therefore, the Messiah has certainly come; for, at His appearing, the sceptre should be taken from Judah."

^[12] In the volume containing the Dissertations on the Genuineness of Daniel, etc. Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark.

^[13] Delitzsch (who had formerly been a defender of the explanation of a personal Messiah) differs, in his Commentary on Genesis, from this view, only in so far, that he supposes that, while Judah's dominion over the tribes comes to an end in Shiloh, his dominion over the nations dates from that period. But this explanation must be objected to on the ground, that the dominion bestowed upon Judah is not merely a dominion over the tribes, but over the world.

^[14] Knobel knows of no other expedient by which to escape from the force of this argument, than by changing the punctuation. He proposes to read שֶׁלֶה, a word which nowhere occurs.

^[15] The rationalistic objection, that at so great an age, and on the brink of the grave, man is not wont to compose poems, may be refuted by a reference to the history of the ancient Arabic poetry. The Arabic poets before the time of Mohammed often recited long poems extempore,—so natural to them was poetry. (Compare Tharaphæ Moallakah, ed. Reiske, p. xl.; Antaræ Moallakah, ed. Menil. p. 18.) The poet Lebid, who attained to the age of 157 years (compare Reiske prolegg. ad Thar. Moall. p. xxx.; De Sacy, Memoires de l'Academie des inscriptions, p. 403 ff.), composed a poem when he was dying; compare Herbelot Bibl. Or. p. 513. The poet Hareth was 135 years old when he recited extempore his Moallakah, which is still extant; compare Reiske l.c. The objection, too, that it is inconceivable how the blessing spoken by Jacob could have been handed down verbatim to Moses, finds its best refutation in the history of Arabic poetry. The art of writing was introduced among the Arabs only a short time before Mohammed. (Compare de Sacy l.c. pp. 306, 348; Amrulkeisi Moall. ed. Hengstenberg, p. 3.) Up to that time, even the longest poems, of which some consisted of more than a hundred verses, were preserved by mere oral tradition (compare Nuweiri in Rosenmüller, Zoheiri Moall. p. 11); and the internal condition of those which have been preserved to us bears the best testimony to their having been faithfully handed down. But in the case before us, something altogether different from a poem was concerned.

^[16] Onkelos paraphrases these words very correctly, thus: "Hear, O Lord, the prayers of Judah when he goes out to war, and bring him safely back to his people."

^[17] It is probable also, that in the passage, Josh. xvi. 6, where Shiloh occurs for the first time as the name of a place, and which we have already discussed, there is not, as we assumed, a connection of the former name with the latter, but the complete appellation, of which the latter—Shiloh—is only an abbreviation. From the well ascertained and common signification of the verb אנה, we are entitled to explain Taanath-Shiloh: "the futurity, or the appearance of Shiloh." Shiloh shall come! Such was the watchword at that time. The word תאנה would then correspond to the יבא of the fundamental passage.

^[18] That there exists a connection between Shiloh and Solomon has often been guessed at and expressed; but expositors have not succeeded well in determining it more closely. The Samarit. Arab. Translation here says expressly: "Until Solomon cometh." (Comp. Lib. Genes. sec. Arab. Pent. Samarit. vers. ed. Kuenen. Leyden, 51.)

^[19] Kimchi says: "As long as the Jews were doing the will of God, they could lie down like the lion without fear."