Genesis 49:8-12 - Exposition

Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise —literally, Judah thou, will praise thee thy brethren, the word יְהוּדָה being a palpable play on יודוךָ (cf. Genesis 29:35 ). Leah praised Jehovah for his birth, and his brethren should extol him for his nobility of character, which even in his acts of sin could not be entirely obscured ( Genesis 37:26 ; Genesis 38:26 ), and certainly in his later days ( Genesis 43:8 ; Genesis 44:18-34 ) shone out with undiminished luster. Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies (i.e. putting his foes to flight, Judah should grasp them by the neck, a prediction remarkably accomplished in the victories of David and Solomon); thy father's children shall bow down before thee . Fulfilled in the elevation of the house of Judah to the throne, which owned as its subjects not simply Judah's mother's children, i.e. the tribes descended from Leah, but also his father's, i.e. all the tribes of Israel Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched down as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? By a bold and striking figure Judah is compared to a young lion, ripening into its full strength and ferocity, roaming through the forests in search of prey, repairing to his mountain den (ἐκ βλάστοῦ ἀνέβης, LXX .) when his booty has been devoured, and there in quiet majesty, full of dignified repose, lying down or crouching in his lair, and calmly resisting all attempts to disturb his leonine serenity. The effect of the picture is also heightened by the alternative image of a lioness, which is particularly fierce in defending its cubs, and which no one would venture to assail when so employed. The use of such figures to describe a strong and invincible hero is by no means infrequent in Scripture ( vide Psalms 7:3 ; Psalms 57:5 ; Isaiah 5:29 ; Ezekiel 19:2-9 ). The scepter shall not depart from Judah, —literally, a scepter ( i.e. an emblem of regal command, hence dominion or sovereignty; ἅρχων, LXX ; Theodotion; ἐξουσία , Symmachus) shall not depart from Judah— nor a lawgiver from between his feet —literally, and a legislator (sc. shall not depart)from between his feet ; מְחֹקֵק , the poel part of חָקַק , to cut, to cut into, hence to decree, to ordain, having the sense of one who decrees; hence leader, as in 5:1-31 :44, dux (Vulgate), ἠγούμενος ( LXX .), or lawgiver, as m Deuteronomy 33:21 and Isaiah 33:22 (Calvin, Dathius, Ainsworth, Rosenmüller, Murphy, Wordsworth, 'Speaker's Commentary'). In view, however, of what appears the requirement of the parallelism, מְחֹקֵק is regarded as not the person, but the thing, that determines or rules, and hence as equivalent to the ruler's staff, or marshal's baton (Gesenius, Furst, Keil, Lange, Bleek, Tuch, Kalisch, and others), in support of which is claimed the phrase "from between his feet," which is supposed to point to the Oriental custom, as depicted on the monuments, of monarchs, when sitting upon their thrones, resting their staves ,between their feet. But the words may likewise signify "from among his descendants," "from among his children's children" (Onkelos), ἐκ τῶν μηρῶν αὐτοῦ ( LXX .). Until Shiloh come . This difficult clause has been very variously rendered. 1. Taking Shiloh as the name of a place, viz; Shiloh in Ephraim ( Joshua 18:1 , Joshua 18:8 , Joshua 18:9 , Joshua 18:10 ; Joshua 19:51 ; 18:31 ; 1 Samuel 1:3 , 1 Samuel 1:9 , 1 Samuel 1:24 ; 1 Samuel 2:14 , &c.;), the sense has been explained as meaning that the leadership of Judah over the other tribes of Israel should not cease until he came to Shiloh (Rabbi Lipmann, Teller, Eichhorn, Bleek, Furst, Tuch, Delitzsch).

But though וַיָּבאֹ שִׁלה , and they came to Shiloh, a similar phrase, is found in 1 Samuel 4:12 , yet against this interpretation maybe urged

2. Regarding Shiloh as an abstract noun, from שָׁלָה to be safe, like גִּלה from גָּלָה , the import of the prophecy has been expressed as asserting that the scepter should not depart from Judah, either until he (Judah) should attain to rest (Hofmann, Kurtz), or until tranquility should come, i.e. until Judah's enemies should be subdued (Gesenius), an interpretation which Rosenmüller properly characterises as " languidum et paine frigidum ." Hence—

3. Believing Shiloh to be the name of a person, the majority of commentators, both Jewish and Christian, and ancient as well as modern, agree that the Messiah is the person referred to, and understand Jacob as fore-announcing that the time of his appearance would not be till the staff of regal power had dropped from the hands of Judah; only, the widest possible diversity exists among those who discover a Messianic reference in the prediction as to the exact significance of the term Shiloh. Some render it his son, or progeny, or (great) descendant, from an imaginary root, שִׁל , which, after Chaldee and Arabic analogies, is supposed to mean "offspring" (Targum of Jonathan, Kimchi, Calvin, Ainsworth, and others); others, deriving it from שָׁלַח , to send, compare it with Siloam ( John 9:7 ) and Shiloah ( Isaiah 8:6 ), and interpret it as qui mittendus eat (Vulgate, Pererius, A Lapide, Grotius); a third class of expositors, connecting it with שָׁלָה , to be safe or at rest, view it us a nomen appellatum, signifying the Pacificator, the Rest-giver, the Tranquillizer, the Peace (Luther, Venema, Rosenmüller, Hengstenberg, Keil, Gerlach, Murphy, &c.;); while a fourth resolve it into אֲשֶׁר לוֹ , and conjecture it to signify, he to whom it ( sc . the scepter or the kingdom) belongs, or he whose right it is, as in Ezekiel 21:27 ( LXX ; ἕως ἐὰν ἔλθῃ τα ἀποκείμενα αὐτῷ; Aquila and Symmachus, ῷ ἀπόκειται; Onkelos, Syriac, Saadias, Targum of Jerusalem, et alii ). It seems indisputable that the preponderance of authority is in favor of the last two interpretations, and if שִׁילֹה be the correct reading, instead of שִׁלֹה (= שֶׁלֹּה = אֲשֶׁר לוֹ ), as the majority of MSS . attest, it will be difficult to withhold from the former, "the Tranquillizer," the palm of superiority. The translations of Dathius ( quamdiu prolem habebit, ei genres obedient ) , who professes to follow Guleher, who understands the words as a prophecy of the perpetuity of Judah's kingdom, fulfilled in David ( 2 Samuel 7:1-29 .), and of Lange ("until he himself comes home as the Shiloh or Rest-bringer"), who also discerns in Judah a typical foreshadowing of the Messiah, may be mentioned as examples of ingenious, but scarcely convincing, exposition. And unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Not "καὶ αὐτὸς προσδοκία ἐθνῶν" ( LXX .), ipse erit expectatio gentium (Vulgate), with which also agrees the Syriac, or "to him nations will flock" (Samaritan), σύστημα λαῶν (Aquila), but to him, i.e. Shiloh, will be not aggregatio populorum (Calvin), but the submission or willing obedience (a word occurring elsewhere only in Proverbs 30:17 ) of nations or peoples (Onkelos, Targum of Jonathan, Kimchi, Aben Ezra, Dathius, Rosenmuller, Keil, Kalisch, Gerlach, Murphy, Tayler Lewis, 'Speaker's Commentary'). Binding his foal unto the vine, i.e. not Shiloh, but Judah. The verb אֹסְרִי has the archaic י appended, as in Genesis 31:39 ; Deuteronomy 33:16 ; Zechariah 11:17 — and his ass's colt unto the choice vine . The שׂרֵקַה (fem. of שׂרֵק ) was a nobler kind of vine which grew in Syria, with small berries, roundish and of a dark color, with soft and hardly perceptible stones. בְּנִי is an archaic form of the construct stats which occurs only here. He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes. The word סוּת is a ἅπαξ λεγόμενον , and is either put by aphaeresis for כּסוּת which occurs in the Samaritan Version, or is derived from סָוָה , an uncertain root, signifying to cover (Gesenius, Kalisch). His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk . Otherwise rendered "redder than wine," and "whiter than milk" ( LXX ; Vulgate, Targum of Jerusalem, et alii ) , as a description of Judah's person, which scarcely seems so appropriate as the received translation (Calvin, Rosenmuller, Keil, Kalisch, Murphy, Lange, and others), which, completes the preceding picture of Judah's prosperity. Not only would Judah's soil be so fertile that its vines should be employed for trying asses and colts to their branches, but the grapes of those vines should be so plentiful and luscious as to make wine run like the water in which he washed his clothes, while the wine and milk should be so exhilarating and invigorating as to imp-art a sparkling brilliance to the eyes and a charming whiteness to the teeth. The aged prophet, it has been appropriately remarked, has here no thought of debauchery, but only paints before the mind's eye a picture of the richest and most ornate enjoyment (Lange). Minime consentaneum esse videtur profusam intemperiem et projectionem in benedictione censeri (Calvin).