[Transcriber's Note: Images taken from the 1868 edition, found at Books.Google.com., is the source of the text used for this ebook.

Unclear or missing punctuation marks were corrected by reference to the 1854 edition of this work.

Greek and Hebrew words are transcribed using the Unicode format.]

CLARK'S

FOREIGN

THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY

SECOND SERIES.

VOL. 1.

Hengstenberg's Christology of the Old Testament.

VOL. I.

EDINBURGH:

T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.

LONDON: J. GLADDING. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON & CO.

MDCCCLXVIII.

MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH,
PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.

CHRISTOLOGY

OF

THE OLD TESTAMENT,

AND A

COMMENTARY ON THE MESSIANIC PREDICTIONS

BY

E. W. HENGSTENBERG,

DR. AND PROF. OF THEOL. IN BERLIN.

SECOND EDITION, GREATLY IMPROVED.

Translated from the German,

BY THE

REV. THEODORE MEYER.

VOLUME I.

EDINBURGH:

T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.

LONDON: J. GLADDING. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON & CO.

MDCCCLXVIII.

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LIST OF CONTENTS.

[TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.]

The Translator avails himself of his privilege of offering a few prefatory words, chiefly in order to express the deep obligation under which he lies to the Rev. John Laing, Librarian in the New College, Edinburgh, for the valuable assistance which he afforded to him in the translation of this work. Any observation on the work itself or its Author would be superfluous, if not presumptuous, considering the high position which Dr Hengstenberg holds as a Biblical Scholar. High, however, as this position is, the Translator feels confident that it will be raised by the present work, the Author's latest and first; and not only revering Dr Hengstenberg as a beloved Teacher, but being under many obligations to him for proofs of personal kindness and friendship, the Translator sincerely rejoices in this prospect.

As regards the translation itself, it was the Translator's aim to bring out fully the Author's meaning. This object, which ought to be the first in every translation, has been kept steadily in view, and preferred to all others. In rendering Dr Hengstenberg's translation of Scripture-passages, the expressions in our Authorized Version have, as far as possible, been retained. Wherever the division of the text in the latter differed from that of the original text, it has been added in a parenthesis; an exception in this respect having been made in quotations from the Psalms only, in which this difference is almost constant, the inscriptions not being counted in our English Version, while they are in the Hebrew Text.

Edinburgh, January 1854.

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[THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.]

The first edition of the Christology, although the impression was unusually large, had been for years out of print. It was impossible that the work could appear a second time in its original form. The first volume of it—written twenty-five years ago—was a juvenile performance, to which the Author himself had become rather a stranger; and the succeeding volumes required references to, and comparisons with, a large number of publications which subsequently appeared. But for the remodelling and revising which these circumstances rendered necessary, the Author could not find leisure, because new tasks were ever and anon presenting themselves to him; and these he felt himself, as it were, involuntarily impelled to undertake. But now he is led to believe that he could no longer delay. A powerful inclination urges him to comment on the Gospel of St John; but he thinks that the right to gratify this inclination must first be purchased by him by answering a call which proceeds from the more immediate sphere of his vocation, and which he is the less at liberty to disregard, as manifold facts give indication that the Christology has not yet completed its course. The Author dislikes to return to regions which have been already visited by him. He prefers the opening up to himself of paths which are new. It cost him therefore, at first, no little struggle to devote himself for years to the work of mere revision and emendation; but very soon, even here, he learned the truth of the proverb: "If there be obedience in the heart, love will soon enter."

The arrangement in the present edition differs from that which was adopted in the former. It bears a closer resemblance to that which has been followed in the Commentaries on the Psalms, Revelation, and the Song of Solomon. The work opens with a discussion and commentary on the particular Messianic prophecies, in their historical order and connection. The general investigations with which, in the first edition, the work commenced, are, in the present edition, to appear in the form of comprehensive treatises, at the close. The latter have thus obtained a more solid foundation; while the objections which might be raised against this arrangement will have force only until the completion of the whole, which, if it please the Lord, will not be very long delayed. The reader will then, of course, be at liberty, before he enters upon the particular portions, to go over, cursorily in the meantime, the closing treatises,—the proper study of which will be appropriate, however, only after he has made himself acquainted with the particular portions of the main body of the work.

The matter of the two sections of the first part has been entirely rewritten. That of the two last parts appears more as a revisal only,—so executed, however, that not a single line has been reprinted without a renewed and careful examination.

The Author shall take care that the new edition shall not exceed the former one in size. The space intended to be occupied by the enlarged discussions, and by the new investigations, will be gained by omissions. These, however, will be limited to such matters as now clearly appear to be superfluous; so that the old will not retain any value when compared with the new edition. The Author, had he pursued his usual method of representation, would have curtailed many points, particularly the history of the interpretation. But the mode of treating the subject which he had previously adopted, is not without its advantages, and has a certain right to be retained. The former character of the work, in so far as the avoidance of everything properly ascetic is concerned, has been, in the present edition, also retained.

Scientific Theology is at present threatened by serious dangers in our Church. Works of an immediately practical interest more and more exclusively occupy the noblest minds, since the problems which present themselves in this field are indeed unfathomable. But the Lord of the Church will take care that an excellent gift, which He has bestowed upon German Christendom especially, shall not, for any length of time, continue to be neglected. If such were to be the case, a more general decay would be gradually brought on; and even those interests would be injured to which at present, with a zeal, noble indeed, but little thoughtful, solid theological learning is sacrificed.

"Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name give glory."

THE

[MESSIANIC PROPHECIES IN THE PENTATEUCH.]

In the Messianic prophecies contained in Genesis we cannot fail to perceive a remarkable progress in clearness and definiteness.

The first Messianic prediction, which was uttered immediately after the fall of Adam, is also the most indefinite. Opposed to the awful threatening there stands the consolatory promise, that the dominion of sin, and of the evil arising from sin, shall not last for ever, but that the seed of the woman shall, at some future time, overthrow their dreaded conqueror. With the exception of the victory itself, everything is here left undetermined. We are told neither the mode in which it is to be achieved, nor whether it shall be accomplished by some peculiarly gifted race, or family of the progeny of the woman, or by some single individual from among her descendants. There is nothing more than a very slight hint that the latter will be the case.

After the destruction of a whole sinful world, when only Noah with his three sons had been left, the general promise is, to a certain extent, defined. Deliverance is to come from the descendants of Shem; Japhet shall become a partaker of this deliverance; Ham is passed over in silence.

The prophecy becomes still more definite when the Lord begins to prepare the way for the appearance of this deliverance, by separating from the corrupt mass a single individual—Abraham—in order to make him the depositary of His revelations. The Lord, moreover, according to the good pleasure of His will, further specifies which of the descendants of Abraham, to the exclusion of all the rest, is to inherit this dignity, with all its accompanying blessings. From among the posterity of Shem, the Lord sets apart first the family of Abraham, then that of Isaac, and lastly that of Jacob, as the family from which salvation is to come. Yet even these predictions, distinct though they be when compared with those previously uttered, are still very indefinite when compared with those subsequently given, and when seen in the light of the actual fulfilment. Even in these, the blessing only is foretold, but not its author. It still remained a matter of uncertainty whether salvation should be extended to all the other nations of the earth through a single individual, or through an entire people descended from the Patriarchs. The former is obscurely indicated; but the mode in which the blessing was to be imparted was left in darkness.

This obscurity is partially removed by the last Messianic prophecy contained in Gen. xlix. 10. After what had previously taken place, we might well expect that the question as to which of Jacob's twelve sons should have the privilege of becoming the source of deliverance to the whole earth, would not be left undetermined; nor could we imagine that Jacob, when, just before his death, and with the spirit of a prophet, he transferred to his sons the promises which had been given to his ancestors and himself, should have passed over in silence the most important part of them. On the contrary, by being transferred to Judah, the promise of the Messiah acquires not only the expected limitation, but an unexpected increase of clearness and precision. Here, for the first time, the person of the Messiah is brought before us; here also the nature of His kingdom is more distinctly pointed out by His being represented as the peaceful one, and the peacemaker who will unite, under His mild sceptre, all the nations of the whole earth. Judah is, in this passage, placed in the centre of the world's history; he shall obtain dominion, and not lose it until it has been realized to its fullest extent by means of the Shiloh descending from him, to whom all the nations of the earth shall render a willing obedience.

The subject-matter of the last four books of the Pentateuch would naturally prevent us from expecting that the Messianic prophecies should occupy so prominent a place in them as they do in Genesis. The object contemplated in these books is rather to prepare effectually the way for the Messiah, by laying the theocratic institutions on a firm foundation, and by establishing the law which is intended to produce the knowledge of sin, and to settle discipline, and by means of which the image of God is to be impressed on the whole national life. If the hope of the Messiah was to be realized in a proper manner, and to produce its legitimate effect, it was necessary that the people should first be accustomed to this new order of life; that, for the present, their regards should not be too much drawn away from this their proximate and immediate vocation. Yet, even in the last four books there are not wanting allusions to Him who, as the end of the law, was, from the very beginning, to be set before the eyes of the people.

In Num. xxiv. 17-19, Balaam beholds an Israelitish kingdom raised absolutely above the kingdoms of the world, extending over the whole earth, and all-powerful; and he sees it in the form of an ideal king, with reference to Jacob's prophecy contained in Gen. xlix. 10, according to which the kingdom rising in Judah shall find its full and final realization in the person of one king—the Messiah.

We have here the future King of the Jews saluted from the midst of the heathen world, corresponding to the salutation of the manifested one by the wise men from the East: compare Matt. ii. 1, 2.

From the whole position of Moses in the economy of the revelations of God, it is, a priori, scarcely conceivable that he should have contented himself with communicating a prophecy of the Messiah uttered by a non-Israelite. We expect that, as a prefiguration of the testimony which, in the presence of the chief among the apostles, he bore to the Messiah after He had appeared (compare Matt. xvii. 3), he should, on his own behalf, testify his faith in Him, and direct the people to Him. This testimony we have in Deut. xviii. 15-19. It is natural that Moses' attestation should have reference to Christ in so far as He is his antitype. He bears witness to Christ as the true Prophet, as the Mediator of the divine revelation—thus enlarging the slender indications of Christ's prophetical office given in Gen. xlix. 10. A new and important feature of Messianic prophecy is here, for the first time, brought forward; and because of this, the character of the prophecy is that of a germ. Behind the person of the future Prophet, which is as yet ideal, the real person of Him who is the Prophet in an absolute sense, is, in the meantime, concealed. It is reserved for the future development of the prophetic prediction to separate that which is here beheld as still blended in a single picture.

Finally, the doctrine of the Divine Mediator of the unseen God, of the Angel of the Lord, or of the Logos, which forms the theological foundation for the Christology, is already found pervading the Books of Moses.

After this survey, we now proceed to an exposition of the particular passages.

[THE PROTEVANGELIUM.]

As the mission of Christ was rendered necessary by the fall of man, so the first dark intimation of Him was given immediately after the fall. It is found in the sentence of punishment which was passed upon the tempter. Gen. iii. 14, 15. A correct understanding of it, however, can be obtained only after we have ascertained who the tempter was.

It is, in the first place, unquestionable that a real serpent was engaged in the temptation; so that the opinion of those who maintain that the serpent is only a symbolical signification of the evil spirit, cannot be admitted.^[1] There must be unity and uniformity in the interpretation of a connected passage. But the allegorical interpretation of the whole is rendered impossible by the following considerations:—The passage stands in a book of a strictly historical character; it is connected with what follows, where the history of the same pair who, in this section appear as actors, is carried forward; the condition of mankind announced to them in this passage as a punishment, actually exists; there is the absence of every indication from which it might be inferred that the author intended to write an allegory, and not a history; there exist various passages of the New Testament (e.g., 2 Cor. xi. 3; 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14; Rom. v. 12), in which the context of the passage before us is referred to as a real historical fact;—and there are the embarrassment, ambiguity, and arbitrariness shown by the allegorical interpreters whenever they attempt to exhibit the truth intended to be conveyed; whereas perspicuity is a characteristic essential to an allegory.—The subtlety of the serpent, pointed out in chap. iii. 1, is a natural attribute of that animal; and the comparison, in this respect, of the serpent with the other beasts, clearly indicates that a real serpent is spoken of. To such an one the denunciation of the punishment must necessarily, in the first instance, be referred. The last two reasons also exclude the opinion that Satan assumed merely the semblance of a serpent.

The serpent itself cannot, however, have acted independently; it can only have served as an instrument to the evil spirit. The position which the serpent would occupy, in the event of our considering it as the self-acting, independent seducer, would be in direct contradiction to the position assigned to the animal creation throughout Holy Scripture—especially in the history of the creation—and would break down the limits which, according to it, separate man and beast. By such an assumption we should be transferred from the Israelitish territory—which is distinguished by the most sharply defined limitations of the respective spheres of God, angels, men, and beasts—to the heathenish, were these are all mixed up together, and where all the distinctions disappear in the confusion. Such a fact would be altogether isolated and without a parallel in Holy Scripture. Nor is it legitimate to adduce the argument, that the conditions and circumstances of the paradisaic period were different from those of subsequent times. It is indeed true, according to the statements contained in the Mosaic account itself, that the animal world of that time was different from that of the present; but whatever, and how great soever, this difference may have been, it had no reference to the fundamental relation of the beasts; and hence we cannot, from it, explain the high intellectual powers with which the serpent appears endowed, and by the abuse of which it succeeded in seducing men. Man, as the only being on earth created in the likeness and image of God, is, in Gen. i., strictly distinguished from all other living beings, and invested with the dominion over them. Into man alone did God breathe the breath of life (ii. 7); and, according to ii. 19, 20, man recognises the great gulf which is fixed betwixt him and the world of beasts. This gulf would be entirely filled up, the serpent would altogether step beyond the sphere appointed by the Creator to the world of beasts, if there were no background in Gen. iii. 1-5. Further, The words of the serpent are an effect of wickedness: they raise in man doubts as to the love of God, in order thereby to seduce him to apostasy, and bring about the execution upon him of the fearful threatening, "On the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The serpent does not stand in the truth; it speaks lies; it represents to man as the highest good, that which in truth is the highest evil. Such language cannot proceed spontaneously from a being, the creation of which falls within the work of the six days during which the whole animal creation was made. For everything created within this space of time was good, according to the remark constantly repeated in the history of creation. To this we must add the nature of the curse itself, in which a higher reference to an invisible author of the temptation shines clearly through the lower reference to the visible one; and, further, the remark in iii. 1, "Now the serpent was more subtle," etc., evidently points to something beyond the natural subtlety of the serpent, as the result of which the subsequent words cannot be understood, but behind which we may discover the intimation: let him who reads, understand.

The view, that the serpent was the sole independent agent in this transaction, is thus refuted by internal reasons. It is set aside by the testimony of tradition also. It was an opinion universally prevalent among the Jews, that Satan himself had been active in the temptation of the first man. It is found in Philo; and in the Book of Wisdom, ii. 24, it is said, "By the envy of Satan, death came into the world." In the later Jewish writings, Sammael, the head of the evil spirits, is called הנחש הקדמוני "the old serpent," or simply נחש "serpent," because in the form of a serpent he tempted Eve. (See the passage in Eisenmenger's entdecktes Judenthum i. S. 822.) In the sacred books of the Persians also, the agency of Satan in the fall of our first parents is taught. According to the Zendavesta (ed. by Kleuker, Th. 3, S. 84, 85), the first men, Meshia and Meshianeh, were created by God in a state of purity and goodness, and destined for happiness, on condition of humility of heart, obedience to the requirements of the law, and purity in thoughts, words, and actions. But they were deceived by Ahriman, "this mischievous one who from the beginning sought only to deceive, were induced to rebel against God, and forfeited their happiness by the eating of fruits." According to the same book (Th. iii. S. 62), Ahriman in the form of a serpent springs down from heaven to earth; and another evil spirit is called (Th. ii. S. 217) the serpent—Dew. (Compare Rhode, die heilige Sage des Zendvolkes, S. 392.) These facts prove that at the time when the Persian religion received Jewish elements (compare Stuhr, die Religionssysteme des Orientes, S. 373), and hence, soon after the captivity, the doctrine of Satan's agency in the temptation of our first parents was prevalent among the Jews.

But of decisive weight upon this point is the evidence furnished by the New Testament. We must here above all consider the important testimony supplied by the fact of the history of the first and second Adam being parallel (Rom. v. 12 sqq.; 1 Cor. xv. 45 sqq.),—a testimony, the weight and importance of which have, in modern times, been again pointed out by Hahn in his Dogmatik. The necessity of Christ's temptation by the prince of this world, in order that He, by His firm resistance, might deprive him of his dominion over mankind, indicates that Adam was assailed by the same tempter, and, by being overcome, laid the foundation of that dominion.

Among the express verbal testimonies of the New Testament, we must first consider the declarations of the Lord Himself; and among these the passage John viii. 44 requires, above all, to be examined. In that passage the Lord says: ὑμεῖς ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστὲ, καὶ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν θέλετε ποιεῖν. Ἑκεῖνος ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἦν ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς, καὶ ἐν τῆ ἀληθείᾳ οὐχ ἕστηκεν· ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἀλήθεια ἐν αὐτῷ. Ὅταν λαλῇ τὸ ψεῦδος, ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων λαλεῖ· ὅτι ψεύστης ἐστὶ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ. There is, indeed, an element of truth in the opinion, that Satan is in this passage called the murderer of men from the beginning, with reference to the murder by Cain—an opinion lately brought forward again by Nitzsch, Lücke, and others. This is evident from a comparison of 1 John iii. 12, 15, and of Rev. xii. 3. (See my commentary on this passage.) Moreover, the words in ver. 40, "Ye seek to kill Me," have a more direct parallelism in Cain's murder of his brother, than in the death which Satan brought upon our first parents; although it is altogether wrong to maintain, as Lücke does, that Satan at that time committed only a spiritual murder, which could not have come under notice. Bodily death also came upon mankind through the temptation. (Compare Gen. ii. 17, iii. 19; Wisd. ii. 24; Rom. v. 12.) But when the reference to Cain's slaying his brother is brought forward as the sole, or even as the principal one, we must absolutely reject it. Cain's murder of his brother comes into consideration only as an effect of the evil principle which was introduced into human nature by the first temptation; as, indeed, it appears in the book of Genesis itself as the fruit of the poisonous tree, the planting of which is detailed in chap. iii. The same murderous spirit which impelled Satan to bring man under the dominion of death by the lie, "Ye shall not surely die," was busy in Cain also, and seduced him to slay his pious brother. The following reasons forbid an exclusive reference to the deed of Cain:—1. The murdering of man by Satan is brought into the closest connection with his lie. In connection with Cain's deed, however, there was not even the appearance of falsehood; while, in the case before us, lies, false and deceitful promises of high blessings to be attained, and the raising of suspicions against God, were the very means by which he seduced man, and brought him under the power of sin. The words of Jesus, when they are understood according to their simple meaning, carry us back to an event in the primitive times, in which murder and the spirit of falsehood went hand in hand. 2. The co-operation of Satan in Cain's deed is not expressly mentioned in Genesis. That there was any such we can with certainty infer, only if this event be viewed in close connection with what Satan did against our first parents,—if, behind the serpent, Satan be concealed. Whensoever Jesus has to deal with Jews, He does not teach any mysterious doctrines, but makes an open appeal to the events narrated in Scripture. 3. The words, "Ye are of your father the devil," point to the seed of the serpent spoken of in Gen. iii. 15. 4. The words, "From the beginning," direct to an event which happened at the first beginnings of mankind, and in which our first parents took a part. Whatever this may be, the event in question must be the first in which the devil manifested himself as the murderer of man. Now, as by the Jews of that time the temptation of the first man, in consequence of which death entered the world, was attributed to sin—and this appears not only from what has been already said, but also from a passage in the Sohar Chadash, referred to by Tholuck, in which the wicked are called "The children of the old serpent which has slain Adam and all who are descended from him"—it is evident that, by "the murderer of men from the beginning," Jesus can mean only the first tempter of men. That the words, "from the beginning," refer to the fall of the first man, is also clearly shown by the parallel passages 1 John iii. 8, and Rev. xii. 9, xx. 2. 5. Jesus says: Satan stands not in the truth, does not move in its element, because there is no truth in him. This points to a well-known event, in which Satan displayed his lying nature; and such is found only in the account of man's fall. 6. Jesus calls Satan not only a liar, but, by way of emphasis, He designates him as the father of lies. But Satan can be designated thus, only with reference to a lie of his which is charged against him by Scripture, and which preceded all lies on earth. Now that is the lie of which we have an account in Gen. iii. 4, 5. The words, "and the father of it," correspond with the words, "from the beginning."

Another declaration of our Lord is found in St Matthew xiii. 38: τὰ δὲ ζιζάνιά εἰσιν οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ πονηροῦ (i.e., mali, masculinum, according to Bengel), compared with ver. 39: ὁ δὲ ἐχθρὸς ὁ σπείρας αὐτά ἐστιν ὁ διάβολος. The children of the wicked one, or of the devil, who are spoken of in this passage, are the seed of the serpent who is mentioned in Gen. iii. 15, and to whom allusion is made in the words ὁ σπείρας αὐτα also. Less incontrovertible is the passage in St Matthew xxiii. 33, where the Lord addressed the Pharisees as ὄφεις, γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν. (Compare Matt. xii. 34, iii. 7.) Olshausen, in his commentary on Matt. iii. 7, gives it as his opinion that the serpent designates the diabolic nature. But, according to Matt. xii. 34, the point of comparison is only the wickedness (πονηροὶ ὄντες), and it is quite sufficient to refer it to Ps. cxl. 4, where David says of the future enemies of his dynasty and family foreseen by him, "They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips" (compare also Ps. lviii. 5; Deut. xxxii. 33; Isa. lix. 5),—a passage to which special allusion is made in the words, πῶς δύνασθε ἀγαθὰ λαλεῖν, Matt. xii. 34, and in the connection of serpents with vipers, which would be strange when referred to the history of the fall of the first man.

Let us now turn from the Lord to His disciples. Just as is done in the account of the transaction itself, Paul, in 2 Cor. xi. 3 (ὡς ὁ ὄφις Εὔαν ἐξηπάτησεν ἐν τῇ πανουργίᾳ αὐτοῦ), places the invisible cause of the temptation in the background, and speaks of the visible one only. But that behind the serpent he beholds Satan, appears immediately from ver. 14 and 15: Καὶ οὐ θαυμαστόν· αὐτὸς γὰρ ὁ Σατανᾶς μετασχηματίζεται εἰς ἄγγελον φωτός. Οὐ μέγα οὖν εἰ καὶ οἱ διάκονοι αὐτοῦ μετασχηματίζονται ὡς διάκονοι δικαιοσύνης, where the μετασχηματίζεται is explained by Bengel: "Transformat se: Præsens, i.e., solet se transformare. Fecit id jam in Paradiso." The Apostle alludes to an event narrated in Scripture, where Satan shows himself in this character. But such an occurrence is not found anywhere else than in Gen. iii. 4, 5, the only passage where Satan represents himself as the friend and saviour of men. We have here the explanation of the ἐξηπάτησεν in ver. 3.—In Rom. xvi. 20, the words, Ὁ δὲ Θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης συντρίψει τὸν Σατανᾶν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας ὑμῶν, contain an allusion to Gen. iii. 15, too plain to be mistaken. The Apostle recognises, in the promise of the victory over the serpent given there, a pledge of the victory over Satan. The words of Paul to Elymas in Acts xiii. 10, "O thou child of the devil," likewise contain a distinct reference to that which, in the history of man's fall, is written concerning the serpent. In the charge of subtlety, mischief, and enmity to all righteousness which he brings against him, there is an evident allusion to Genesis.

In 1 John iii. 8, Ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστίν· ὅτι ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς ὁ διάβολος ἁμαρτάνει, allusion is made to a most heinous sin committed by Satan at the first beginnings of the human race. But of such a sin there is no account, unless Satan be concealed behind the serpent.—In Rev. xii. 9 (comp. xx. 2), Satan is called the great dragon, and the old serpent; the last of which designations refers to the passage now under consideration.

The agency of Satan in the fall of man has been controverted, on the plea that, had such been in operation, it ought to have been mentioned. But the absence of any such mention may be explained on the ground that it is not the intention of the holy writers to give any information respecting the existence of the devil, but rather to give an account of his real manifestation, to which, afterwards, the doctrine connected itself. The judgment of the reader should not, as it were, be anticipated. The simple fact is communicated to him, in order that, from it, he may form his own opinion.

Further,—It has been asserted that, in the entire Old Testament, and until the time of the Babylonian captivity, no trace of an evil spirit is to be found, and that, hence, it cannot be conceived that his existence is here presupposed. But this assertion may now be regarded as obsolete and without foundation. Closely connected with the affirmation, to which allusion has just been made, is the opinion which assigns the Book of Job to the time of the captivity, an opinion which is now almost universally abandoned. This book must necessarily have been written before the time of the captivity, because Jeremiah refers to it, both in his Prophecies (e.g., Jer. xx. 15 sq., which passage evidently rests on Job iii.) and in his Lamentations. (Compare, for a fuller discussion of this subject, Küper's "Jeremias libror. Sacrorum interpres atque Vindex") The reference in Amos iv. 3 to Job ix. 8, and several allusions occurring in the Prophecies of Isaiah (e.g., chap. xl. 2 and lxi. 7, which refer to the issue of Job's history, which is here viewed as a prophecy of the future fate of the Church; the peculiar use of צבא in xl. 2, which alludes to Job vii. 1; chap. li. 9, which rests on Job xxvi. 13), lead us still farther back. The assertion of those also who feel themselves compelled to acknowledge the pre-exilic origin of the book, but who maintain, at the same time, that the Satan of this book is not the Satan of the later books of the Old Testament, but rather a good angel who only holds an odious office, is more and more admitted to be futile; so that we must indeed wonder how even Beck (Lehrwissenschaft i. S. 249) could be carried away by it, and could make the attempt to support this pretended fact by the supposition, that the apostasy of part of the angels from God, and their kingdom of darkness, are ever advancing and progressing. The principal evil spirit is, in Zech. iii. 1, introduced as the adversary of the holy ones of God; and this very name is sufficient to contradict such a supposition, for the name is descriptive of the wickedness of the character. He who, under all circumstances, is an "adversary," must certainly carry the principle of hatred in his heart. He moves about on the earth for the purpose of finding materials for his accusations, and grounds on which he may raise suspicions. It is a characteristic feature, that he whose darkness does not comprehend the light, knows of no other piety but that which has its origin in the hope of reward. It is quite evident that it is the desire of his heart to destroy Job by sufferings. The only circumstance which seems to give any countenance to the supposition is, that he appears in the midst of the angels, before the throne of God. But this circumstance is deprived of all its significancy, if the fact be kept in view—which, indeed, is most evident—that the book is, from beginning to end, of a purely poetical character. The form of it is easily accounted for by the intention to impress this most important thought: that Satan stands in absolute dependence upon God; that, with all his hatred to the children of God, he can do nothing against them, but must, on the contrary, rather subserve the accomplishment of the thoughts of God's love regarding them.—Isaiah likewise points to evil spirits in chap. xiii. 21, xxxiv. 14. (Compare my Comment. on Rev. xviii. 2.)—But even in some passages of the Pentateuch itself, the doctrine regarding Satan is brought before us. It is true that it has been erroneously supposed to be contained in Deut. xxxii. 17 (compare on this opinion, my Comment. on Ps. cvi. 37); but only bigotry and prejudice can refuse to admit that, under the Asael, to whom, according to Lev. xvi., a goat was sent into the wilderness, Satan is to be understood. (The arguments in support of this view will be found in the author's "Egypt and the Books of Moses," p. 168 ff.)^[2]

But we must advert to two additional considerations. First,—To every one who is in the least familiar with the territory of divine revelation, and who has any conception of the relation in which the Books of Moses stand to the whole succeeding revelation, it will, a priori, be inconceivable, that a doctrine which afterwards occupies so prominent a position in the revealed books should not have already existed, in the germ at least, in the Books of Moses. Secondly,—We should altogether lose the origin and foundation of the doctrine concerning Satan, if he be removed from, or explained away in, the history of the fall. That the first indication of this doctrine cannot by any means be found in the Book of Job, has already been pointed out by Hofmann, who remarks in the Schriftbeweis i. S. 378, that Satan appears in this book as a well-known being, as much so as are the sons of God. Nor is Lev. xvi. an appropriate place for introducing, for the first time, this doctrine into the knowledge of the people. The doctrinal essence of the symbolical action there prescribed is this:—that Satan, the enemy of the Congregation of God, has no power over those who are reconciled to God; that, with their sins forgiven by God, they may joyfully appear before, and mock and triumph over, him. The whole ritual must have had in it something altogether strange for the Congregation of the Lord, if they had not already known of Satan from some other source. The questions: Who is Asael? What have we to do with him? must have forced themselves upon every one's mind. It is not the custom of Scripture to introduce its doctrines so abruptly, to prescribe any duty which is destitute of the solid foundation of previous instruction.

If thus we may consider it as proved, (1) that the serpent was an agent in the temptation, and (2) that it served only as an instrument to Satan, the real tempter,—then we have also thereby proved that the curse denounced against the tempter must have a double sense. It must, in the first place, refer to the instrument; but, in its chief import, it must bear upon the real tempter, for it was properly he alone who had done that which merited the punishment and the curse. Let us now, upon this principle, proceed to the interpretation of our passage.

It is said in ver. 14: "And Jehovah Elohim said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou shalt be cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust thou shalt eat all the days of thy life."—If we do not look beyond the serpent, these words have in them something incomprehensible, inasmuch as the serpent is destitute of that responsibility which alone could justify so severe a sentence. There is no difficulty attached to the idea that the serpent must suffer. It shares this fate along with all the other irrational earthly creation, which is made subject to vanity (Rom. viii. 20), and which must accompany man, for whose sake it was created, through all the stages of his existence. But the question here at issue is not about mere suffering, but about well-merited punishment. The serpent is not, like the whole remaining earth, cursed for the sake of man (Gen. iii. 17), but it is cursed because "it has done this." Punishment presupposes being created in the image of God, and, according to chap. i., such a creation is peculiar only to man. But as soon as we assume the co-operation of an invisible author of the temptation, by whom the serpent was animated, everything which is here threatened against the visible instrument acquires a symbolical meaning. The degradation inflicted upon the latter,—the announcement of the defeat which it is to sustain in the warfare with man,—represent in a figure the fate of the real tempter only. The instrument used by him in the temptation is at the same time the symbol of the punishment which he is destined to endure.

Although it be said that the serpent should be "cursed above all cattle," etc., this does not necessarily imply that the other animals are also cursed, any more than the words, "subtle above all the beasts," imply that all other beasts are subtle. It is certainly not always necessary that the whole existing difference should be pointed out. The sense is simply: Thou shalt be more cursed than all cattle. In a similar manner it is said, in the song of Deborah, concerning Jael, "Blessed above women shall Jael be," Judges v. 24; for this does not imply that all other women are blessed, but means only that, whether they be blessed or not, Jael, at all events, is the most blessed.

The eating of dust must not be interpreted literally, as if the serpent were to feed upon dust; but, since it is to creep on the ground, it cannot be but that it swallow dust along with its food. Thus we find in Ps. cii., in "the prayer of the afflicted," ver. 10, "For I have eaten ashes like bread," used of occasional swallowing of ashes. As an expression of deepest humiliation, the licking of dust is used in Mic. vii. 17, where it is said of the enemies of the Church, "They shall lick dust like the serpent." In Is. xlix. 23, compared with Ps. lii. 9, the licking up the dust of the feet is likewise inflicted upon the humbled enemies. If, undoubtedly, there be, even in these passages, a slight reference to the one before us, the allusion to it is still plainer in Is. lxv. 25, where it is said, "And dust shall be the serpent's meat." Of the denunciation in Gen. iii. 14, 15, the eating of dust alone shall remain, while the bruising of the heel shall come to an end. And while all other creatures shall escape from the doom which has come upon them in consequence of the fall of man, the serpent—the instrument used in the temptation—shall, agreeably to the words in the sentence of punishment, "All the days of thy life," remain condemned to a perpetual abasement, thus prefiguring the fate of the real tempter, for whom there is no share in the redemption.

The opinion which has been again of late defended by Hofmann and Baumgarten, that the serpent had before the fall the same shape as after it, only that after the fall it possesses as a punishment what before the fall was its nature, stands plainly opposed to the context. Even a priori, and in accordance with Satan's usual mode of proceeding, it is probable that he, who loves to transform himself into an angel of light, should have chosen an attractive and charming instrument of temptation. This view loses all that is strange in it, if only we consider the change of the serpent, not as an isolated thing, but in connection with the great change which, after the fall of man, affected the whole nature (comp. Gen. i. 31, according to which the entire animal creation had, previously to the fall, impressed upon it the image of man's innocence and peace, and the law of destruction did not pervade it, Gen. iii. 17; Rom. viii. 20); and if only we keep in mind that, before the fall, the whole animal world was essentially different from what it is now, so that we cannot by any means think of forming to ourselves a distinct Image of the serpent, as Luther and others have done.

The serpent is thus, by its disgusting form, and by the degradation of its whole being, doomed to be the visible representative of the kingdom of darkness, and of its head, to whom it had served as an instrument. But the words, when applied to the head himself, give expression to the idea: "extreme contempt, the shame, and abasement shall be thy lot." Thus Calmet remarks on this passage: "This enemy of mankind crawls, as it were, on his belly, on account of the shame and disgrace to which he is reduced." Satan imagined that, by means of the fall of man, he would enlarge his kingdom and extend his power. But to the eye of God the matter appeared in a totally different light, because, along with the fall, He beheld the redemption.

Ver. 15. "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise its heel." In the two other passages where the word שוף occurs (Ps. cxxxix. 11 [compare my commentary on that passage] and Job ix. 17), it undeniably signifies: "to crush," "to bruise." This signification, therefore, which is confirmed by the Chaldee Paraphrast, and which Paul also follows in Rom. xvi. 20 (συντρίψει, whilst the LXX. have τηρήσει), must here also be retained. It is only in appearance that, in the second passage referred to, the signification "to crush" seems to be inappropriate; for there, "to crush" is used in the sense of "to destroy," "to annihilate," just as in Jonah iv. 7, "to strike" is used of the sting of an insect, because its effect is similar to that produced by a stroke. The words ראש and עקב are a second accusative governed by the verb, whereby the place of the action is more distinctly marked out. That by "head" and "heel"—a majus and a minus—a victory of mankind over the seed of the serpent should be signified, was seen by Calvin, who says, "Meanwhile we see how graciously the Lord deals even in the punishment of men, inasmuch as He does not give the serpent power to do more than wound the heel, while to man is given the power of wounding its head. For the words 'head' and 'heel' point out only what is superior and what is inferior." That these words are by no means intended to describe the mutual antipathy between men and serpents, is rendered evident by the consideration, that, if such were the intention, no special punishment would be denounced against the serpent, while, according to the context, such denunciation is certainly designed by the writer. The words treat of the punishment of the serpent; it is only in ver. 16 that the sentence against man is proclaimed. It is true that the bite of a serpent is dangerous when it is applied even to the heel, for the poison thence

penetrates the whole body; but to this fact in natural history there is here no allusion, nor is the biting of the serpent at all the point here in question. The contrast between head and heel is simply that which exists between the noble and less noble parts,—those parts of which the injury is commonly curable or incurable. The objection: "The serpent creeps, man walks upright; if then an enmity exists between them, how can it be otherwise than that man wounds its head, and that it wounds his heel?" entirely overlooks the consideration, that, according to ver. 14, it is in consequence of the divine curse that the serpent creeps in the dust. In this degraded condition—a condition which is not natural, but inflicted as a punishment—it is implied that the serpent can attack man at his heel only. This plain connection between ver. 15 and 14 is evidently overlooked by those who hold the opinion, that this mutual enmity is pernicious equally to man and serpent. The very circumstance that the serpent is condemned to go on its belly, and to eat dust, whilst man retains that erect walk in which the image of God is reflected, paves the way for the announcement of the victory in ver. 16.

Experience bears ample witness to the truth of the divine sentence, that there shall, in future, be enmity between the seed of the serpent and mankind, in so far as this sentence refers to the instrument of the temptation; for abhorrence of the serpent is natural to man. Thus Calvin remarks: "It is in consequence of a secret natural instinct that man abhors them; and as often as the sight of a serpent fills us with horror, the recollection of our apostasy is renewed."

But, in the fate of the serpent which is here announced, there is an indication of the doom of the spiritual author of the temptation. It has been objected that any reference to Satan is inadmissible, because the "seed of the serpent" here spoken of cannot designate wicked men, who are "children of the devil;" for these, too, belong to the seed of the woman, and cannot, therefore, be put in opposition to it. But against this objection Storr, in his treatise, de Protevangelio, remarks: "We easily see that many of the seed of the woman likewise belong to the seed of the serpent; but they have become unworthy of that name, since they apostatized to the common enemy of their race." It is quite true that, by the seed of the woman, her whole progeny is designated; but they who enter into communion with the hereditary enemy of the human race are viewed as having excommunicated themselves. Compare Gen. xxi. 12, where Isaac alone is declared to be the true descendant of Abraham, and his other sons are, as false descendants, excluded. Moreover, not only wicked men, but also the angels of Satan (Matt. xxv. 41; Rev. xii. 7-9), belong to the seed of the serpent.

The greater number of the earlier Christian interpreters were of opinion that, by the seed of the woman, the Messiah is directly pointed at. But to this opinion it may be objected, that it does violence to the language to understand, by the seed of the woman, any single individual; and the more so, since we are compelled to understand, by the seed of the serpent, a plurality of individuals, viz., the spiritual children of Satan, the heads and members of the kingdom of darkness. Further,—As far as the sentence has reference to the serpent, the human race alone can be understood by the seed of the woman; and to this, therefore, the victory over the invisible author of the temptation must also be adjudged. The reference to the human race is also indicated by the connection between "her seed" in this verse, and the words, "Thou shalt bring forth sons," in ver. 16. Finally,—As the person of the Messiah does not yet distinctly appear even in the promises to the Patriarchs, this passage cannot well be explained of a personal Messiah; inasmuch as, by such an explanation, the progressive expansion of the Messianic prophecy in Genesis would be destroyed.

If, however, by the seed of the woman we understand the entire progeny of the woman, we obtain the following sense: "It is true that thou hast now inflicted upon the woman a severe wound, and that thou and thine associates will continue to assail her: but, notwithstanding thine eager desire to injure, thou shalt be able to inflict on mankind only such wounds as are curable; while, on the contrary, the posterity of the woman shall, at some future period, vanquish thee, and make thee feel all thy weakness."

This interpretation is found as early as in the Targum of Jonathan, and in that of Jerusalem, where, by the seed of the woman, are understood the Jews, who, at the time of the Messiah, shall overcome Sammael. Thus, too, does Paul explain it in Rom. xvi. 20, where the promise is regarded as referring to Christians as a body. It has found, subsequently, an able defender in Calvin^[3] and, in modern times, in Herder.^[4] The treatise of Storr, too (in the Opusc. ii.), is devoted to its defence.

Even according to this interpretation, the passage justly bears the name of the Protevangelium, which has been given to it by the Church. It is only in general terms, indeed, that the future victory of the kingdom of light over that of darkness is foretold, and not the person of the Redeemer who should lead in the warfare, and bestow the strength which should be necessary for maintaining it. Anything beyond this we are not even entitled to expect at the first beginnings of the human race; a gradual progress is observable in the kingdom of grace, as well as in that of nature.

It is certainly, however, not a matter of chance that the posterity of the woman is not broken up into a plurality, but that, in order to designate it, expressions in the singular (זרע and הוא) are chosen. This unity, which, in the meanwhile, it is true, is only ideal, was chosen with regard to the person of the Redeemer, who comprehends within Himself the whole human race. And it is not less significant, and has certainly a deeper ground, that the victory over the serpent is assigned to the seed of the woman, not to the posterity of Adam; and though, indeed, the circumstance that the woman was first deceived may have been the proximate cause of it, yet it cannot be exclusively referred to, and derived from, it. By these remarks we come still nearer to the view of the ancient Church.

[ ^[1]] So, e.g. Cramer in the Nebenarbeiten zur Theologischen Literatur, St. 2.

[ ^[2]] The positive reasons by which I there proved the reference to Satan, have not been invalidated by the objections of Hofmann in his Schriftbeweis i. 379. He says: As an adjective formed in a manner similar to קלקל (Num. xxi. 6) must have an intransitive signification, it cannot mean "separated," but according to its derivation from עזל = אזל, it means: "altogether gone away." But this argument has no force. The real import of the form of the word is gradation, and frequent repetition. Instances of a passive signification are given in Ewald's Lehrbuch der Hebr. Sprache, § 157 c.: compare, e.g., Deut. xxxii. 5. There is so much the stronger reason for adopting the passive signification, that in Arabic also,—which alone can be consulted, as the comparison with the Hebrew אזל has no sure foundation on which to rest,—the root has the signification: remotus, sepositus fuit, and the participle: a ceteris se sejungens. Compare Egypt and the B. M., p. 169.

[ ^[3]] He says,—This, therefore, is the sense of the passage: "The human race, whom Satan had endeavoured to destroy, shall at length be victorious. But, meanwhile, we must bear in mind the mode in which, according to Scripture, that victory is to be achieved. According to his own pleasure, Satan has, through all centuries, led captive the sons of men, and even to this day he continues that sad victory. But, since a stronger one has come down from heaven to subdue him, the whole Church of God shall, under her Head, and like Him, be victorious."

[ ^[4]] Briefe das Studium der Theologie betr. ii. S. 225 (Tüb. 1808): "The serpent had injured them; it had become to them a symbol of evil, of seduction, and at the same time of God's curse, of contempt and punishment. To men the encouraging prospect was held out, that they, the seed of the woman, were stronger and nobler than the serpent, and all evil. They should tread upon the head of the serpent, while the latter should be able to avenge itself only by a slight wound in their heel. In short, the good should gain the ascendancy over the evil. Such was the prospect. How clear or how obscure it was to the first human pair, it is not our present purpose to inquire. It is enough that the noblest warrior against evil, the most valiant bruiser of the serpent's head from among the descendants of Eve, was comprehended in this prospect, and indeed pre-eminently referred to. Thus, then, only an outline, as it were, was given to them in a figure, the import of which only future times saw more clearly developed."

[THE BLESSINGS OF NOAH UPON SHEM AND JAPHETH]

(Gen. ix. 18-27.)

Ver. 20. "And Noah began and became an husbandman, and planted vineyards."—This does not imply that Noah was the first who began to till the ground, and, more especially, to cultivate the vine; for Cain, too, was a tiller of the ground, Gen. iv. 2. The sense rather is, that Noah, after the flood, again took up this calling. Moreover, the remark has not an independent import; it serves only to prepare the way for the communication of the subsequent account of Noah's drunkenness. By this remark, a defence of Noah on account of his drunkenness is entirely cut off. Against such a defence Luther expressed himself in very strong terms: "They," says he, "who would defend the Patriarch in this, wantonly reject the consolation which the Holy Ghost considered to be necessary to the Church—the consolation, namely, that even the greatest saints may, at times, stumble and fall."^[1]

Ver. 21. "And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent."

Ver. 22. "And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without."—David is reproved in 2 Sam. xii. 14, for having given occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme. The same reproof might justly be administered to Noah also. Ham rejoiced to find a nakedness in him whose reproving earnestness had often been a burden to his sinful soul. Luther remarks: "There is no doubt that he (Noah) must have done much which was offensive to his proud, high-minded, and presumptuous son.... For this reason we must not regard this deed of Ham as mere child's play, as an action destitute of all significance; but as the result of the bitterest hatred and resentment of Satan, by which he prepares and excites his members against the true Church, and specially against those who are in the ministry. Let them, therefore, give earnest heed as to whether, either in their persons or in their offices, they give any occasion for blasphemy. We have in this history an example of divine terrors and judgment, that we may take warning from the danger of Ham, and not venture to be rash in judging, though we should see that a secular or ecclesiastical authority, or even our parents, do err and fall."

Ver. 23. "And Shem and Japheth took the garment."—Luther says: "Such an outward and lovely reverence they could not have shown to their father, if they had not, inwardly and in their hearts, been rightly disposed towards God, and had not considered their father as a high priest and king set over them by divine appointment." The mode of expression indicates that the real impulse proceeded from Shem, and that, as a prefiguration of what was to take place, Japheth only showed susceptibility for the good, and a willingness to join with him. It is true that the singular ויקח is not, by itself, decisive. When the verb precedes, it is not absolutely necessary that it should agree with the subject in gender and number; but the use of the singular is, nevertheless, remarkable. If Shem and Japheth had been equally active, the latter also would, at once, have been present to the mind of the writer. Under these circumstances, there is the less reason for supposing that the use of the singular can be merely accidental, especially as the words, "and he told his two brethren without," immediately precede. But all doubt is removed by a second allusion, which goes hand in hand with the first, and which is contained in the following verse.

Ver. 24. "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him."—That Ham was older than Japheth, appears from the circumstance that the order in which the sons of Noah are introduced is uniformly thus: Shem, Ham, Japheth; or, beginning, as in chap. x., from the youngest, Japheth, Ham, Shem,—where, however, in ver. 21, the words added immediately after Shem—"the elder brother of Japheth," expressly indicate that, for a certain purpose, the writer has proceeded in order from the youngest to the oldest. It is altogether in vain that some have attempted to prove from chap. xi. 10 (according to which Shem was, two years after the flood, only a hundred years old), compared with chap. v. 32 (according to which Noah began to beget when he was five hundred years old), that Shem was not the first-born. The words in chap. v. 32 are: "And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth." That the chronology can here be determined in a way which only approximates to the truth, is implied, as a matter of course, in the statement, that all the three sons were begotten when Noah was five hundred years of age; nothing more is meant than that Noah begat them after he had finished his fifth, or at the beginning of his sixth, century. (Compare Ranke's Untersuchungen.) It is just an indefinite statement of time which points forward to another genealogy, in which the details will be given with greater precision. Ham everywhere stands between the two; but that, nevertheless, he is, in this passage, called the younger son, can be explained only on the ground that, in the case before us, Shem and Ham are the two more especially noticed—Shem as positively good, and Ham as positively evil, while Japheth only takes part with Shem. We have thus laid an excellent foundation for the right understanding of the subsequent prophetic utterance of Noah—for the announcement, namely, of Japheth's dwelling in the tents of Shem.

Ver. 25. "And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren."—Luther says: "Good old Noah, who is regarded by his son as a foolish and stupid old man, deserving only of mockery, appears here in truly prophetic majesty, and announces to his sons a divine revelation of what shall come to pass in future days; thus verifying what Paul says in 2 Cor. xii., that God's strength is made perfect in weakness."

According to the opinion now current, Canaan is said to mean "lowland," and to be transferred from the land to the people, and from the people to the pretended ancestor. But this opinion is shown to be untenable by the considerations, that, according to historical tradition, Canaan appears first as the name of the ancestor;—that the verb כנע is never used of natural lowness, but always of humiliation;—that in our passage, where the name first occurs, it stands in connection with servitude;—that the masculine form of the noun (on the adjective termination an, compare Ewald's Lehrb. d. Heb. Spr. § 163, b.) is not applicable to the country;—that the country Canaan is so far from being a lowland, that it appears, everywhere in the Pentateuch, as a land of hills (see Deut. xi. 2, iii. 25, where the land itself is even called, "that goodly mountain");^[2]—and, finally, that, from all appearance, Canaan is primarily the name, not of the country, but of the people—the former being called ארור כנען, the land of Canaan.

The real etymology of the name is almost expressly given in Judges iv. 23; ויכנע, "and God bowed down, or humbled, on that day Jabin the king of Canaan." Compare also Deut. ix. 3, where, in reference to the Canaanites, it is said, הוא יכניעם, "He will humble or subdue them;" and Nehem. ix. 24: "Thou bowedest down before them the inhabitants of the land—the Canaanites." Our passage also proceeds upon this interpretation of the name. We are the rather induced to assume a connection betwixt the name "Canaan," and the words, "a servant of servants shall he be," as in the case of Japheth also there is certainly an allusion to the signification of the name, and probably in the case of Shem also. Perhaps even the name Ham, i.e., "the blackish one," may be connected with the character which he here displays—a suggestion which we do not here follow up. We refer, however, for an analogy, to what has been remarked in our Commentary on the Psalms, in the Introduction of Ps. vii.

Canaan means: "the submissive one." It is a name which the people themselves, on whose monuments it appears, would never have appropriated to themselves (just as in the case of the Egyptians also, on which point Gesenius in the Thesaurus, and my work Egypt, etc., p. 210, may be compared), unless it had been proper to them from their very origin. Ham gave this name to his son from the obedience which he demanded, but did not himself yield. The son was to be the servant of the father (for the name suggests servile obedience), who was as despotical to his inferiors as he was rebellious against his superiors. When the father gave that name to his son, he thought only of submissiveness to his orders; but God, who, in His mysterious providence, disposes of all these matters, had another submissiveness in view.

But why is Canaan cursed and not Ham? For an answer to this question, we are at liberty neither to fall back upon the sovereign decree of God, as Calvin does, nor to say with Hofmann: "Canaan is the youngest son of Ham (Gen. x. 6); and because Ham, the youngest son of Noah, had caused so much grief to the father, he, in return, is to experience great grief from his youngest son." This latter view rests upon false historical suppositions. We have already proved that Ham was not the youngest son of Noah; and it by no means follows from Gen. x. 6, that Canaan was the youngest son of Ham. Canaan's name is mentioned last among the sons of Ham, because the whole account of Ham's family was to be combined with the detailed enumeration of Canaan's descendants, who stood in so important a relation to Israel. The boundary line as regards Shem is formed, quite naturally, by that branch of Ham's family which stood in so important a relation to the main branch of the family of Shem. But, as little reliance can be placed upon the theological grounds of that conjecture; for the question at issue is not the withdrawal of outward advantages. Canaan is cursed, and it is just the sting of his servitude that it is the consequence of the curse. It would indeed sadly affect the biblical doctrine of recompense, if cursing and blessing were dependent upon such external reasons as, in the case before us, upon the circumstance that Canaan was so unfortunate as to be the youngest son.

The right answer to the question is without doubt this:—Ham is punished in his son, just as he himself had sinned against his father. He is punished in this son, because he followed most decidedly the example of his father's impiety and wickedness. To this view we are led by the whole doctrine of Holy Scripture concerning the visitation of the guilt of the fathers upon the children. (Compare the author's "Dissertations on the Genuineness of the Pentateuch," vol. ii. p. 373.) To this view we are also led by the passage in Gen. xv. 16: "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." According to this passage, the curse on Canaan can be realized upon him, only when his own iniquity has been fully matured. This his iniquity is presupposed by his curse. If he were to be punished on account of the guilt of the father,—a guilt in which he had no share,—then indeed no delay would have been necessary. To this view we are farther led by what is reported in Genesis concerning the moral depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah, which, in the development of the sinful germ inherent in the race, had outrun all others, and were, therefore, before all others, overtaken by punishment. (To this view we are further led by what is reported in Genesis concerning the moral depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah, which, in the development of the sinful germ inherent in the race, had outrun all others, and were therefore, before all others, overtaken by punishment) To this view we are led, further, by Lev. xviii. and the parallel passages, where the Canaanites appear as a nation of abominations which the land spues out; and, finally, by what ancient heathen writers report regarding the deep corruption of the Phœnicians and Carthaginians.

The remainder of Ham's posterity are passed over in silence; it is only in the sequel that we expect information regarding them. But the foreboding arises, that their deliverance will be more difficult of accomplishment than that of Japheth, although the circumstance that Canaan is singled out from among them affords us decided hope for the rest.

But not even the exclusion of Ham is to be considered as an unavoidable fate resting upon him. Heathenism alone knows such a curse. The subjective conditions of the curse imply the possibility of becoming free from it. To this, there is an express testimony in the circumstance, that the promise to the Patriarchs is not limited. David received the remnant of the Canaanitish Jebusites into the congregation of the Lord. (Compare remarks on Zech. ix. 7.) And, in the Gospels, the Canaanitish woman appears as a representative of her nation, and as a proof the possibility, granted to them, of breaking through the fetters of the curse. (Compare also the remarkable passage, Ezek. xvi. 46.)

"The curse is contrasted with the blessing pronounced on Shem and Japheth, and the second member of ver. 25 is, in vers. 26, 27, used as a repetition in reference to each of the two brethren, who were, in it, viewed together."—(Tuch.)

Ver. 26. "And he said: Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem; and Canaan shall be a servant to them."—The Patriarch Noah,—a just man, and one who walked before God (Gen. vi. 9),—a man raised on high, as David says of himself in 2 Sam. xxiii. 1,—a man whose utterances are not mere individual wishes, but, at the same time, prophecies,—sees such rich blessings in store for his son, that, instead of announcing them to him, he immediately breaks out into the praise of God, who is the Author of them, and from whom the piety of Shem,^[3] the foundation of this salvation, was derived, just as Moses, in Deut. xxx. 20, instead of blessing Gad, blesses him by whom Gad is enlarged. The manner in which God is here spoken of indicates, indirectly, what that is in which the blessing consists. First,—God is not called by the name Elohim (which is expressive of merely the most general outlines of His nature), but by the name Jehovah, which has reference to His manifested personality, to His revelations, and to His institutions for salvation.^[4] Secondly,—Jehovah is called the God of Shem,—the first passage of Holy Scripture in which God is called the God of some person. Both these circumstances indicate that God is to enter into an altogether peculiar relation to the descendants of Shem; that He will reveal Himself to them; establish His kingdom among them, and make them partakers of both His earthly and His heavenly blessings. Thus Luther says: "This is indeed perceptible and clear, that he thus binds closely together God and his son Shem, and, as it were, commits the one to the other. In this, he indeed indicates the mystery of which Paul treats in Rom. xi. 11 sq., and Christ, in John iv. 22, that salvation cometh from the Jews, but that, nevertheless, the heathen shall become partakers of it. For although Shem alone be the real root and trunk, yet into this tree the Gentiles are, as a strange branch, graffed, and enjoy the fatness and sap which are in the elect tree. This light Noah, through the Holy Spirit, sees, and although he speaks dark words, he yet prophesies very plainly, that the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be planted in the world, and shall grow up among the race of Shem, and not among that of Japheth." As yet Shem and Japheth were on an equal footing. In the preceding part of the narrative, nothing had been communicated by which God had, in His relation to Shem, given up His nature as Elohim, and had become his God. It is only by anticipation, then, that God can, in His relation to Shem, be designated as Jehovah, and as the God of Shem. The thought can, when fully brought out, be this alone: "Blessed be God, who will, in future, reveal Himself as Jehovah, and as the God of Shem."

If it be overlooked that, in this appellation of God, there is implied the indirect designation of the blessings which are to be conferred on Shem (just as in Gen. xxiv. 27 the words, "Blessed be Jehovah, the God of my master Abraham," imply the thought: because He has manifested Himself as Jehovah, and as the God of my master; which thought is then further carried out in the subsequent words: "And who hath not left destitute my master of His mercy and His truth;"—and just as it is also in the utterance of Zacharias in Luke i. 68, where the words, "Blessed be the Lord [κύριος], the God of Israel," imply the thought: because He has manifested Himself as the Lord [in the New Testament, κύριος is used where the Old has Jehovah], the God of Israel),—if this be overlooked, we obtain only a weak and inadequate thought, very unsuitable to the context, the purport of which evidently is to celebrate Shem, and to mark him out as worthy of his name. So it is according to Hofmann, who, in the words, "Blessed—Shem," finds only an expression of gratitude for the gift of this good son, and who limits the announcement of blessings to the single one—that Canaan shall be Shem's servant. Against this feeble interpretation we must adduce these considerations also: that nowhere does the gift of the good son form, even indirectly, the subject in question;—that thus we should lose the opposition of the curse and the blessing (which requires that, under the "Blessed be Jehovah," we should have concealed the "Blessed be Shem"), just as we should, the contrast between Jehovah here and Elohim in the following verse;—and, lastly, that what, in the following verse, is said of Japheth's dwelling in the tents of Shem, would thus be deprived of its necessary foundation.

It is said: "Canaan shall be a servant to them." The suffix ־־ָ־מוֹ, which cannot be used for the singular, any more than can the suffix ־־ָ־ם, for which it is only the fuller poetical form (the instances of a different use, adduced by Ewald, § 247, d., can easily be explained in accordance with the rule), indicates that the announcement has no reference to the personal relation of Shem and Ham, but that they come into view solely as the heads of families.

Ver. 27. "

May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be a servant to them."—These words, in the first instance, contain the blessing pronounced upon Japheth; but they entitle us to infer from them, at the same time, a glorious blessing destined for Shem, which is the source of blessing to Japheth also. They thus complete the promise of the preceding verse, which directly refers to Shem.

The first clause of this verse has received a great variety of interpretations. The word יַפְתְּ, which refers to, and is explanatory of, the name יֶפֶת (i.e. Japheth), is the future apoc. Hiphil of פָּתָה. The Piel of this verb has in Hebrew commonly the signification: "to persuade, or prevail upon any one to do anything." Hence many interpreters translate with Calvin: "May God allure Japheth that he may dwell in the tents of Shem." Luther also, in his Commentary, thus explains it: "God will kindly speak to Japheth;" while, in his translation, he has: "May God enlarge Japheth."—But to this interpretation it has been rightly objected, that the verb פתה is found only in Piel, not in Hiphil, with the signification "to persuade;" that, commonly, it signifies "to persuade" only in a bad sense; and that, in this sense, it is never construed with ל, but always with the accusative.—All interpreters now agree that (in conformity with the LXX. [πλατύναι ὁ Θεὸς τῷ Ἰάφεθ], the Vulgate [dilatet Deus Japhet], and Onkelos) יַפְתְּ must be derived from פתה in its primary signification, "to be wide, large," in which it is found in Prov. xx. 19 (where שפתיו is accusative denoting the place), and which signification is the common one in Aramaic. But they then again disagree, inasmuch as some think of a local extension: God shall give to Japheth a numerous posterity, which shall take possession of extended territories; while others find here expressed the idea of general prosperity: God shall prosper Japheth, shall bring him into a free and unstraitened position.

Both of these views partake of alike mistake from regarding the words per se, and as disconnected from the following announcement of Japheth's dwelling in the tents of Shem. It must also be objected to them, that in the case of Shem, only one feature of the blessing is pointed out, viz., that God will be to him Jehovah, his God; and so, likewise, only one feature of the curse in the case of Ham. When those words are isolated, separated from what follows, and understood of extension, this difficulty arises, that Ham enjoys this extension in common with Japheth, as is shown by a glance at Gen. x. If, on the other hand, we understand them as expressive of prosperity (according to Hofmann: "general prosperity in the affairs of outward life"), this explanation is destitute of a sufficient foundation, and there is nothing reported in the sequel regarding the fulfilment of such a promise. To this we must further add, that the verb יפת is, on account of its immediate nearness to the proper name, too little expressive, and that, hence, we must expect to find its meaning more fully brought out in what follows.

But if it be acknowledged that the extension appears here as a blessing, in so far only as it leads to the dwelling in the tents of Shem, mentioned in the subsequent clause of the verse, and that the blessing can consist in nothing else, there is then no essential difference betwixt the two interpretations. But we decide in favour of the latter view, because the corresponding verb הרחיב, "to make wide, to enlarge," when construed with ל, is always used in the signification: "to bring into a free, unstraitened, easy, happy position." (See, e.g., Gen. xxvi. 22; Ps. iv. 2; Prov. xviii. 16; 2 Sam. xxii. 20.) Even when followed by an accusative, the verb is found with this signification in Deut. xxxiii. 20: "Blessed be He that enlargeth Gad." (In this passage, too, the word has been understood as denoting extension; and Deut. xii. 20, xix. 8, have been appealed to in support of the opinion; but this appeal is inadmissible, because extension of the borders is the thing which is there spoken of. The allusion to the signification of the name Gad = good luck [Gen. xxx. 11: "And Leah said, For good luck;^[5] and she called his name Gad">[, is favourable to our view, as well as the circumstance, that in this case the subsequent words are only an expansion of the general thought, and more closely determine the happiness. Jehovah, who enlarges Gad, according to the words which follow, "He dwelleth like a lion, and teareth the arm with the crown of the head," is contrasted with the enemies who wish to drive him into a strait. If room be made for him, he becomes happy, as it were, by enlargement.) To understand יַפְתְּ of prosperity and happiness, is countenanced also by the consideration that, in such circumstances, the name Japheth appears much more appropriate in the mouth of Noah, by whom it was uttered at a time when extension could be but little thought of, and that it corresponds much better with the name Shem.

Elohim is to enlarge Japheth. Elohim here stands in strict contrast with Jehovah, the God of Shem. It is only by dwelling in the tents of Shem, that Japheth passes over into the territory of Jehovah,—up to that time, he belongs to the territory of Elohim. But Elohim leads him to Jehovah. It is a contrast in all respects similar to that which we have in Gen. xiv., where, in verse 19, Melchizedek speaks of "the most high God," whose priest he is, according to verse 20; while Abraham, on the contrary, speaks, in verse 22, of "Jehovah the most high God."

There is a difference of opinion regarding the determination of the subject in the second clause of the verse: "and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem." According to a very ancient interpretation, Elohim is to be supplied as such; from which the following sense would be obtained: "God shall indeed enlarge and prosper Japheth, but He shall dwell in the tents of Shem." The inferior blessing of Japheth would thus be contrasted with the superior one of Shem, among whose posterity God should, by His gracious presence, glorify Himself,—first in the tabernacle, then in the temple, and lastly, should, in the highest sense, dwell by the incarnation of His Son. Thus Onkelos: "God shall extend Japheth, and His Shechinah shall dwell in the tents of Shem." The ancient book Breshith Rabba remarks on this passage: "The Shechinah dwells only in the tents of Shem." (See Schöttgen, de Messia, p. 441.) Theodoret also (Interrog. 58 in Genesin) advances this explanation, and ably brings out this sense. It has of late been again defended by Hofmann and Baumgarten. But against this view there are decisive arguments, which show that Japheth alone can be the subject. To mention only a few:—It cannot be doubted that it is on purpose that Noah, when speaking of Shem, has chosen the name Jehovah, and that, as soon as he comes to Japheth, he makes use of the name Elohim. We cannot, therefore, suppose that here, where, according to this interpretation, he would just touch upon the essential point in the peculiar relation of Jehovah to the descendants of Shem—the Israelites, he should have made use of the general name of Elohim, as in the case of Japheth. The subject—Jehovah—could not in this case have been omitted before ישכן. Further,—By such an interpretation we are involved in inextricable difficulties as regards the last clause of the verse. The words, "And Canaan shall be a servant to them," can neither be referred to Shem alone—for, in that case, they would be an useless repetition, as in ver. 25 Canaan had been doomed to be a servant to his brethren—nor can they be referred to Shem and Japheth at the same time; the analogy of the למו in the preceding verse, where the plural referred to the plurality represented by the one Shem, forbids this. If, then, the last clause can refer to Japheth only, the clause in which the dwelling in the tents of Shem is spoken of, must likewise be referred to Japheth. To these arguments we may further add, that there is something altogether strange in the expression: "God shall dwell in the tents of Shem." There is, in Holy Scripture, frequent mention of God's dwelling in His tabernacle, on His holy hill, in Zion, in the midst of the children of Israel. Believers also are said to dwell in the tabernacle or temple of God; but nowhere is God spoken of as dwelling in the tents of Israel. Further,—If we refer the second clause to Shem, the first, in its detached position, would be too general, too indefinite, and too loose to admit of the blessing of Japheth being concluded with it. We must not, moreover, lose sight of the consideration, that when we refer the second clause also to Japheth, there springs up a beautiful connection between the relation of Shem and Japheth to each other in the present, and during their future progress. As the reaction against the corruption of Ham had originated with Shem, and Japheth had only joined him in it; so in future also, the real home of piety and salvation will be with Shem, to whom Japheth, in the felt need of salvation, shall come near. Finally,—The analogy of the promise made to the Patriarch, according to which all the nations of the earth shall be blessed by the seed of Abraham, is in favour of our referring the second clause to Japheth. And if the Lord, alluding to our passage, says, in Luke xvi. 9, "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations" (σκηνή = אהל), He expresses the view which we are now defending. For, in that passage, it is not God who receives, but man: they who, by their prayers, are more advanced, come to the help of those who have made less progress; those who have already attained to the enjoyment of salvation, make them partakers who stand in need of salvation.

Of those who correctly consider Japheth to be the subject, several (J. D. Michaelis, Vater, Gesenius, Winer, Knobel) give the translation: "and he shall dwell in renowned habitations." But it is quite evident that this sense is admissible only as a secondary one: as such, we must indeed admit it in a context in which the appellative signification of the proper names is never lost sight of. That שם is here, however, primarily a proper name, is shown by the preceding verse.

The translation, "Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem," is, then, the correct one. But now the question is,—How are these words to be understood? According to the views of many interpreters, it is intimated by Japheth's dwelling in the tents of Shem, that the true religion would be preserved among the posterity of Shem, and would pass over from them to the descendants of Japheth, who should be received into the community of the worshippers of the true God. So Jonathan explained its meaning: "The Lord shall make glorious the end of Japheth; his sons shall be proselytes, and shall dwell in the schools of Shem." So also Jerome: "Since it is said, And he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, this is a prophecy concerning us, who, after the rejection of Israel, enjoy the instruction and knowledge of the Scriptures." Augustine also (c. Faustum xii. 24) understands by the tents of Shem, "the churches which the apostles, the sons of the prophets, have built up."

But although this explanation be, in the main, correct, it cannot, per se, satisfy us. It must be reconciled with that other explanation given by Bochart (Phaleg. iii. 1 c. 147 sqq.), Calmet, Clericus, and others, according to which the passage is to be understood literally, as foretelling that the posterity of Japheth should, at some future time, gain possession of the country belonging to the descendants of Shem, and should reduce them to subjection.

The phrase, "and they dwelt in their tents," is, in 1 Chron. v. 10, used to express the relation of conquerors and conquered. There is no parallel passage which could indubitably prove that "dwelling in the tents of some one" could ever, by itself, denote spiritual communion with him. If Shem had come to Japheth with the announcement of salvation only, it is not likely that a dwelling of Japheth in the tents of Shem would have been spoken of. Even the last clause of the verse—"and Canaan shall be a servant to them"—when compared with the preceding verse, according to which Canaan is, in the first place, to be Shem's servant only, supposes that Japheth will step beyond his borders, and will invade the territory naturally belonging to Shem. If Japheth assume the dominion of Shem over Canaan, he must then dwell in the tents of Shem in a sense different from the merely spiritual one. Finally—Even in other passages of the Pentateuch, an invasion of Shem's territory by Japheth is foretold. In Num. xxiv. 24, Balaam says: "And ships shall come from the coast of Chittim and shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber, and he also shall perish." "We have here (compare my monography on Balaam) the announcement of a future conquest of the Asiatic kingdoms by nations from Europe, such as was historically realized in the Asiatic dominion of the Greeks and Romans."

On the other hand, however, it must not by any means be supposed that Noah should, in favour of Japheth, have weakened the power of the brilliant promise given to Shem by the announcement of such a sad event; for it is evidently his intention to exalt Shem above his brethren, as highly as he had excelled them both in his piety towards his father.

The difficulties which stand in the way of either explanation are easily removed by the following consideration. The occupation of the land of Shem by Japheth is the condition of Japheth's dwelling in the tents of Shem. Why this dwelling is a blessing to Japheth—"God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell," etc.—appears from what precedes, according to which, God reveals Himself to Shem as Jehovah, and becomes his God. To be received into the fellowship of Jehovah—to find Him in the tents of Shem—constitutes the blessing promised to Japheth. But if such be the case, there can be no more room for speaking of an announcement of any event adverse to Shem. Underneath the adversity, joy is hidden. It will here be fulfilled in its highest sense, that the conquered give laws to the conquerors.

"And Canaan shall be a servant to them." The servitude of Canaan was completed by Japheth, among whose sons (Gen. x. 2) Madai also appears; so that even the Medo-Persian kingdom is one of Japheth's. Phœnicia was completely overthrown by him. Haughty Tyrus fell to the ground. Zech. ix. 3, 4, when announcing the Greek dominion (compare ver. 13), says: "And Tyrus did build herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver like dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets. Behold, the Lord will cast her out, and He will smite her power in the sea, and she shall be devoured with fire."

The objection raised by Tuch and Hofmann, that the Greeks and Romans made Shem also their servant, is, after what has been remarked, destitute of all weight, inasmuch as the servitude then had reference only to the lower territory. Shem and Judah were not injured in that which, in ver. 26, had been pointed at as their chief and peculiar good. On the contrary, it shone out, on that occasion, in its highest glory. Canaan, however, lost that upon which he set the highest value. In the case of Canaan, the servitude was the consequence of the curse; but in the case of Shem, the outward servitude was a consequence of the blessing, the most emphatic verification of the words: "Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem."

It must indeed fill us with adoring wonder when we see how clearly and distinctly the outlines of the world's history, as well as of the history of Salvation, are here traced. "This," says Calvin, "is indeed a support to our faith of no common strength, that the calling of the Gentiles was not only predestined in God's eternal decree, but also publicly proclaimed by the mouth of the Patriarch; so that we are not required to believe that by a sudden and fortuitous event merely, the inheritance of eternal life was proclaimed to all men in common."

It is not a matter of chance that this prophecy was given immediately after the deluge, which stands out as so great an event in the history of the fallen human race,—the first event, indeed, subsequent to the fall, with which the Protevangelium was connected. A new period begins with the calling of Abraham, and in it we obtain another link in the chain of the prophecies,—a link which fits as exactly into that which is now under consideration, as did this into the Protevangelium. The import of this prophecy is: "The kingdom of God shall be established in Shem, and Japheth shall be received into its community."—The meaning of the prophecy which is now to engage our attention is: "By the posterity of the Patriarchs all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." The promise to the Patriarchs differs, however, from the prophecy upon which we have just commented, not only in the natural progress—that from among the descendants of Shem a narrower circle is separated—but in this circumstance also, that in the former the blessing is extended to all the nations of the earth, while in the latter Ham is passed over in silence. This difference, however, has its main foundation in the historical circumstances of the latter prophecy; although, it is true, the complete silence which is observed regarding him, calls forth apprehensions about his being less susceptible of salvation, or, at least, of his not occupying any prominent position in the development of the kingdom of God. Here, where the object was to punish Ham for his wickedness, not the prosperous, but the adverse events impending upon him in his posterity, are brought prominently out; while, on the other hand, to Shem and Japheth blessings alone are foretold.

[ ^[1]] The object of this event, as pointed out by Calvin, viz., that God intended to give to all coming ages, in the person of Noah, a warning and an exhortation to temperance, would likewise be frustrated by this unwarrantable apology.

[ ^[2]] The reverse is the case with reference to Aram, which is essentially a lowland, while these critics would have us to believe that it means "highland." (Compare Baur on Amos, S. 229.)

[ ^[3]] Bochart remarks: "He cursed the guilty one in his own person, because the source and nourishment of evil is in man himself. But, rejoiced at Shem's piety, he rather blessed the Lord, because he knew that God is the Author of everything which is good."

[ ^[4]] With reference to the difference between these two names, compare the disquisitions in the author's "Genuineness of the Pent.," vol. i. p. 213 ff.

[ ^[5]] Our English authorized version translates the first clause of this verse thus: "And Leah said, A troop cometh,"—a rendering which cannot be objected to on etymological grounds, and which receives some support from Gen. xlix. 19. The ancient versions, however, are quite unanimous in assigning to the גד in בגד the signification of "fortune," "good luck;" and render it either: "in or for good luck;" "luckily," "happily" (so the LXX. et Vulg.), or, following Onkelos and the Mazorets: "good luck has come."—(Tr.)

[THE PROMISE TO THE PATRIARCHS.]

A great epoch is, in Genesis, ushered in with the history of the time of the Patriarchs. Luther says: "This is the third period in which Holy Scripture begins the history of the Church with a new family." In a befitting manner, the representation is opened in Gen. xii. 1-3 by an account of the first revelation of God, given to Abraham at Haran, in which the way is opened up for all that follows, and in which the dispensations of God are brought before us in a rapid survey. Abraham is to forsake everything, and then God will give him everything.

Gen. xii. 1. "And the Lord said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy hone, and from thy father's house, into a land that I will show thee. Ver. 2. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing. Ver. 3. And I will bless them that bless thee, and him who curseth thee I will curse: and in thee all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

"Into a land that I will show thee." From what follows, it appears that, in the very same revelation, the country was afterwards more definitely pointed out; for Abraham, without having received any new revelation, goes to Canaan, For the sake of brevity, the writer gives the details only afterwards, when he has occasion to report how they were carried out. The land which God will show to Abraham, stands contrasted with that in which he is at home,—in which he and his whole being had taken root. This contrast points out the greatness of the sacrifice which God demands of Abraham. With a like intent we have the accumulation of expressions—"out of thy land," etc.—corresponding to a similar one when the command was given to sacrifice Isaac (Gen. xxii. 2), and forming the condition of the promise which follows. This promise is intended to make the sacrifice a light thing to Abraham, by pointing out what he is to receive if he give up everything which stands in the way of his living to God. A similar call comes to all who feel impelled to renounce the world in order to serve God. This call to Abraham is peculiar only as to its form; as to its essence, it is ever repeating itself. This will appear the more distinctly, when we inquire into the true reason of the outward separation here demanded of Abraham. It can be Intended only as a means of the internal separation. In the circle in which he lived, sin had already made a mighty progress, as appears from Josh. xxiv. 2,—a passage which shows us that idolatry had already made its way into the family of Abraham. In order to withdraw him from the influences of this corruption, Abraham is removed from the circle in which he had grown up, and in which he had hitherto moved. That the special thing here demanded is only the result of the general duty of renunciation and self-denial, which is here, in Abraham, laid upon the whole Church, appears from the circumstance, that the promise was renewed at a subsequent period, when, with a willing heart, he had offered up his son Isaac as a spiritual sacrifice to his God. The carnal, ungodly love to Isaac is thus placed on a level with the attachment to the land, etc., which came betwixt him and his God. The general idea, that self-renunciation lies at the foundation, is brought out in Psalm xlv. 11.

The words, "And thou shalt be a blessing," imply more than the words, "I will bless thee:" they are intentionally placed in the centre of the whole promise. Abraham shall, as it were, be an embodied blessing—himself blessed, and the cause of blessing to all those who bless him—to all the generations of the earth who shall, at some future period, enter into this loving and grateful relation to him. On the ground of Abraham's self-denial, and unreserved surrender, blessing is poured out upon him, blessing also on his account and through him. The blessing connected with him begins with himself, and extends over all the families of the earth.

"And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee I will curse. The blessing is based upon the turning to Him who has appointed Abraham for a blessing, as we may learn from the example of Melchizedek, Gen. xiv. 19. They who bless are themselves not far from the kingdom of God; blessing, therefore, is the preparatory step towards being blessed. (Compare Matt. x. 40-42.)

"And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Luther says: "Now there follows the right promise, which ought to be written in golden letters, and proclaimed in all lands, and for which we ought to praise and glorify."

The promise stands here in close connection with the Mosaic history of the creation. According to that, man, as such, bears upon him the impress of the divine image. Gen. i. 26, and is the depository of the divine breath. Gen. ii. 7. From such a beginning, we cannot conceive of any limitation of salvation which is not, at the same time, a means of its universal extension. It must therefore be in entire accordance with the nature of the thing, that even here, where the setting apart of a particular chosen race takes its rise, there should be an intimation of its universally comprehensive object. There is, in the circumstance of families being spoken of, a distinct reference to the history of creation; משפחה everywhere corresponds exactly with our word "family." It is everywhere used only of the subdivisions in the greater body of the nation or tribe. The expression, then, points to the higher unity of the whole human race, as it has its foundation in the fact that all partake in common of the divine image.

The announcement of the blessing in this passage leads us back to the curse pronounced in consequence of sin, Gen. iii. 17: "Cursed is the ground (Adamah) for thy sake." (Compare Gen. v. 29.) This curse is, at some future time, to be abolished by Abraham. We can account for the mention of the families of the "Adamah" only by supposing that a reference to this passage was fully intended; for it was just the "Adamah" (primarily, "land") which had there been designated as the object of the curse.

In announcing that all the families shall be blessed in Abraham, the writer refers also to the judgment described in Gen. xi., by which the family of mankind,—which, according to the intention of God, ought to have been united,—was dispersed and separated. When viewed in this connection, we expect that the blessing will manifest itself in the healing of the deep wound inflicted upon mankind, in the re-establishment of the lost unity, and in the gathering again of the scattered human race around Abraham as their centre.

Beyond this, no other disclosure about the nature of this salvation is given. But that it consisted essentially in the union with God accomplished through the medium of Abraham, and that everything else could be viewed as emanating only from this source, was implied simply in the circumstance, that all the blessing which Abraham enjoyed for himself had its origin in this, that he could call God his God; just as, in Gen. ix., it had been declared as the blessing of Shem, that Jehovah should be his God, and as the blessing of Japheth, that he was called to become a partaker of this blessing. The blessings which were either bestowed upon or promised to the Patriarchs and their descendants, had for their object the advancement of knowledge and the practice of true religion, and had been bestowed or promised only under this condition (compare Gen. xvii. 1, xvii. 17-19, xxii. 16-18, xxvi. 5); they could not hence expect anything else than that their posterity would, in so far, be the cause of the salvation of the heathen nations, that the latter should, by means of the former, be made partakers of the blessings of true religion.

With regard to the manner in which this blessing was to come to the Gentiles, no intimation was given by the words themselves. The person of the Redeemer is not yet brought before us in them; the indication of that was reserved for a later stage in the progress of revelation.^[1]

The last clause of ver. 3 cannot, by any means, take away from the import of the preceding one; the announcement of the blessing which, through Abraham, is to come upon all the families of the earth, does not repeal the foregoing one, according to which all shall be cursed who curse him. This view is confirmed by an allusion to this announcement in Zech. xiv. 16-19, where the words, "the families of the earth," must be regarded as a quotation. In ver. 16, the prophet says that all the Gentiles shall go up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles; but then, in vers. 17-19, he intimates the punishment of those who should refuse to go up. Luther says: "If you wish to comprehend in a few words the history of the Church from the time of Abraham down to our days, then consider diligently these four verses. For in them you will find the blessing; but you will see also, that those who curse the Church are cursed, in turn, by God; so that they must perish, while the eternal seed of the Church stands unmoved and unshaken. For which reason, this text agrees with the first promise given in Paradise, concerning the seed which is to bruise the serpent's head. For the Church is not without enemies, but is assailed and harassed so that she groans under it; but yet, by this seed, she is invincible, and shall at length be victorious, and triumphant over all her enemies, in eternity."

References to this fundamental prophecy are found in other parts of the Old Testament, besides the passage just quoted from Zechariah. In the 28th verse of Ps. xxii., which was written by David, it is said: "All the ends of the world shall remember, and turn unto the Lord; and all the families of the Gentiles shall worship before Thee." The realization of the blessing announced in Genesis, to all the families of the earth, appears in this psalm as being connected with the wonderful deliverance of the just. Another reference is in Ps. lxxii., which was written by Solomon. In ver. 17 of this psalm it is said of Solomon's great Antitype: "And they shall bless themselves in Him, all nations shall bless Him." In these words the realization of the Abrahamitic blessing is distinctly connected with the person of the Redeemer.

Among the New Testament references, the most remarkable is in John viii. There, in ver. 53, the Jews say to Christ: "Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? Whom makest thou thyself?" Jesus, in ver. 56, answers: "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad," In ver. 57 the Jews reply: "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" In ver. 58 Jesus thus says to them: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am."

Let us here, in the first place, consider only the declaration of Jesus, that Abraham rejoiced to see His day, and was glad. It is altogether out of the question to think of any such explanation of this as the one given by Lücke, after the example of Lampe namely: "that Abraham, in the heavenly life, as a blessed spirit with God, saw the day of the Lord, and in heaven rejoiced in the fulfilment." For it is the custom of Jesus to argue with the Jews from Scripture; and He cannot, therefore, here be appealing to an assumed fact which could not be proved from it. The answer of the Jews, in ver. 57, is likewise opposed to such an explanation, inasmuch as it proceeds from a supposition which Jesus had acknowledged to be true, namely, that the question at issue was a meeting of Christ with Abraham not mentioned in history; and in ver. 58 Christ sets aside their argument, "Thou art not yet fifty years old." But Lücke must himself bear testimony against his own interpretation, inasmuch as, according to it, he is obliged to speak of "the very foolish question of the adversaries."^[2]

Jesus saw Abraham, and Abraham saw Jesus. Not the person, but the day of Christ, was future to Abraham. And this can be explained only by Jesus' being concealed behind Jehovah who appeared to him, and gave him the promise, that in him and his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. This blessing of all the families of the earth is the day of Jehovah,—the day when He will be glorified on the earth.

The key to the right understanding of this is furnished by the doctrine of the Angel of the Lord, which meets us as early as in Genesis. From the passages in which, at the appearances and revelations of Jehovah, the mediation of the Angel is expressly mentioned, we infer that it (the mediation) took place even when Jehovah by Himself is spoken of; and the more so, since, even in the former series of passages, the simple name of Jehovah is commonly varied by that of the Angel of Jehovah. The Evangelist John's whole doctrine of the Logos points to the personal identity of Jesus with the Angel of the Lord. Not less so does the passage, John xii. 41; and there is unquestionably a purpose which cannot be misunderstood in the fact, that, throughout the discourses of Jesus, as reported by John, the declaration that God sent Him occurs with such frequency and regularity. But we can scarcely conceive of any other purpose than that of marking out Jesus as the Angel or Messenger of Jehovah spoken of in the writings of the Old Testament. Compare, e.g., xii. 44, 45: "Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me, but on Him that sent Me; and he that seeth Me, seeth Him that sent Me." So also iv. 34, v. 23, 24, 30, 37, vi. 38-40, vii. 16, 28, 33, viii. 16, 18, 26, 29, ix. 4, xii. 49, xiii. 20, xiv. 24, xv. 21, xvi. 5.

Let us now, in addition, turn to the words, "Abraham rejoiced to see (literally, that he might see) My day." It cannot be liable to any doubt, that these words express the heartfelt, joyful desire of Abraham to see that day, and that Bengel correctly explains it by the words: gestivit cum desiderio. It is true, ἀγαλλιάομαι signifies, by itself, only "to rejoice;" but it has added to it the idea of joyful desire by its being connected with ἵνα. The words now under consideration are expressive of Abraham's joy and longing in the spirit for the manifestation of the day of Jehovah and of Christ, while those in the last clause of the verse express the gratification of this longing, which was produced by his receiving the promise that all the families of the earth should be blessed.

The ardent desire of Abraham to see the day of Christ implies that he already knew Christ, which can be the case only on the supposition of Christ's concealment in Jehovah. This longing desire is not expressly mentioned in Genesis, but it is most intimately connected with all living faith, and must necessarily precede such divine communications. The seed of the divine promises is everywhere sown only in a well prepared soil. That the promise in 2 Sam. vii. was to David, in like manner, a gratification of his anxious desire—an answer to prayer—we are not, it is true, expressly told in the historical record; and yet, that it was so, is evident from the words of Ps. xxi. 3: "Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips." There is here, then, express mention made of that which is a matter of course, and which forms the necessary condition of that which was reported in Genesis.

We are furnished by the Book of Genesis itself with the right explanation of what is meant by the day of Christ, about which interpreters have so frequently erred. It is not the time of His first appearing, but, in accordance with the New Testament mode of expression (e.g., Phil. i. 10), the time of His glorification. The day of Christ is the time when the promise, "In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed," shall be fulfilled.

Peter quotes this promise in Acts iii. 25, 26. Among the families of the earth he enumerates, first and chiefly, the people of the Old Testament dispensation; and he does so with perfect propriety, since there is no warrant whatever for limiting it to the Gentiles.

Paul probably refers to this promise when, in Rom. iv. 13, he speaks of a promise given to Abraham and his seed that he should be the heir of the world. A blessing imparted to the whole world is a spiritual victory obtained over the world. The world is, in a spiritual sense, conquered by Abraham and his seed. Express references are found in Gal. iii. 8, 14, 16.

The same promise is repeated to Abraham in Gen. xviii. 18. Instead of the משפחות האדמה (the families of the earth), the גויי הארץ (the nations of the earth) are there mentioned; the family-connection is lost sight of, and the comprehensiveness only—the catholic character of the blessing—is prominently brought out. This promise is a third time repeated to Abraham in chap. xxii. 18, on a very appropriate occasion, even that on which, by his endurance of the greatest trial, and by his willingness to sacrifice to God even what was dearest to him, he had proved himself a worthy heir of it. It is certainly not a matter of mere accident that this promise is just three times given to Abraham. There is in this a correspondence with the three individuals to whom the same promise is addressed. Abraham, however, as the first of them, and as the father of the faithful, could not be put on the same footing with the others. Instead of "in thee,"

or "by thee" (בך), we read in xxii. 18, "in" or "by thy seed" (בזרעך). The same promise is confirmed to Isaac in chap. xxvi. 14, and it is transferred to Jacob in chap. xxviii. 14. But while, in the first and second passages, it is said, "by thee," and in the third and fourth, "by thy seed," we read, in the passage last mentioned, "by thee and thy seed." This evidently shows that, in those passages where we find "by thee" standing alone, we are not at liberty to explain it as meaning simply: "by thy seed." It is not only the seed of Abraham, but Abraham himself also, who is to be the medium of blessing to the nations, as the foundation-stone of the large building of the Church of God, as the father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh, and as the father of all believers.

There is a deep reason for the fact that, wherever the posterity of the Patriarchs are spoken of as the instruments of blessing, the singular is always used. This circumstance is pointed out by Paul in Gal. iii. 16. The Apostle does not in the least think of maintaining that, by זרע "seed," only a single individual could be signified. Such an opinion, no one who understood Hebrew could for a moment entertain; and Rom. iv. 13 shows that Paul was indeed very far from doing so. The further development of the promise (which took place within the limits of Genesis itself, in chap. xlix. 10), as well as its fulfilment (it is, indeed, with reference to the promise now under consideration that the lineal descent of Christ from Abraham is established at the commencement of Matthew's Gospel), showed that the real cause of the salvation bestowed upon the Gentiles was not the seed of Abraham as a whole, but one from among them, or rather He, in whom this whole posterity was comprehended and concentrated. Now, all to which Paul intends to draw our attention is the fact, that the Lord, who, when He gave the promise, had already in view its fulfilment which He had Himself to accomplish, did not unintentionally choose an expression which, besides the comprehensive meaning which would most naturally suggest itself to the Patriarchs, admitted also of the more restricted one which was confirmed by the fulfilment. In the Protevangelium, and in the promise of the Prophet in Deut. xviii., we have a case quite analogous to this; and in 2 Sam. vii. there is likewise a case which is, to a certain extent, parallel.

In two passages out of the five—in chap. xxii. 18 and xxvi. 4—the Hithpael of the verb ברך instead of the Niphal is found. We meet with it also again in the derived passage in Ps. lxxii. 17, where it is said of the great King to come, "And they shall bless themselves in Him, all nations shall bless Him." In xxii. 18 and xxvi. 4, we shall be allowed to translate only thus: "They shall bless themselves in thy seed." For the Hithpael of ברך always signifies "to bless oneself;" and the person from whom the blessing is derived (Isa. lxv. 16; Jer. iv. 2), or whose blessing is desired, is connected with it by means of the preposition ב. (Compare Gen. xlviii. 20: "In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh.") From the nature of the case, it is evident that only the latter can be meant here. This is shown also by the derived passage in Ps. lxxii. 17, where the words, "they shall bless themselves in Him," are explained by the subsequent expression, "they shall bless Him."

But it is certainly not accidental that the Hithpael is on both sides inclosed by the Niphal, and that the latter stands not only twice at the beginning, but also at the end. Hence we are not at liberty to force upon the Hithpael the signification of the Niphal; but the passages in which the Hithpael occurs must be supplemented from the real fundamental passages. "To bless oneself in" is the preparatory step to being "blessed by." The acknowledgment of the blessing calls forth the wish to be a partaker of it. (Compare Isa. xlv. 14, where, in consequence of the rich blessings poured out upon Israel, the nations make the request to be received among them.) Oftentimes in the Psalms utterance is given to the expectation that, through the blessing resting on the people of God, the Gentiles will be allowed to seek communion in it. (

See my Commentary on Ps. vol. iii. p. lxxvii.) But especially in Ps. lxxii. does it clearly appear how "blessing oneself in" is connected with "being blessed by." The very same people who bless themselves in the glorious King to come, hasten to Him to partake in the fulness of the blessings which He dispenses. He has dominion from sea to sea; they that dwell in the wilderness bow before Him; all kings worship Him; all nations serve Him.

Several commentators (Clericus, Gesenius, de Wette, Maurer, Knobel, and, in substance, Hofmann also) attempt to explain the fundamental passage by the derived ones, and force upon Niphal the signification of Hithpael; so that the sense would be only that a great and, as it were, proverbial happiness and prosperity belonged to Abraham: "Holding up this name as a pattern, most of the eastern nations will comprehend all blessings in these or similar words: 'God bless thee as He blessed Abraham.'" But this explanation is, according to the usus loquendi, incorrect, inasmuch as the Niphal is used only in the signification "to be blessed," and never means "to bless oneself," or "to have or find one's blessing in something." To a difference in the significations of the Niphal and the Hithpael, we are led also by the circumstance that the Hithpael is connected only with the seed—"they shall bless themselves in thy seed,"—and the Niphal only with the person of the Patriarch: "they shall be blessed in thee," and "in thee and thy seed." The Patriarchs themselves are the source of blessing, but, if these nations blessed themselves, they wish for themselves the blessing of their descendants exhibited before their eyes. The reference in Zech. xiv. 17, 18 to the promise made to the Patriarchs presupposes the Messianic character, and the passive signification of נברכו. In like manner, all the quotations of it in the New Testament rest on the passive signification. It is from this view of it that the Lord says that Abraham saw His day; that, in Rom. iv. 13, Paul finds, in this promise, the prophecy of His conquering the world; and that, in Gal. iii. 14, he speaks of the blessing of Abraham upon the Gentiles through Christ Jesus. Gal. iii. 8 and Acts iii. 25 render נברכו by ἐνευλογηθήσονται. The explanation, "they shall wish prosperity or happiness to each other," is destructive of the gradation, so evident in the fundamental passage,—blessing for, on account of, and by Abraham; it cannot account for the constant, solemn repetition of this proclamation which everywhere appears as the acme of the promises given to the Patriarch; it destroys the correspondence existing between this blessing upon all the families of the earth, and the curse which, after the fall, was inflicted upon the earth; it does away with the contrast, so clearly marked, between the union of the families of the earth effected by the blessing, and their dispersion, narrated in chap. xi.; it demolishes the connection existing between the prophecy of Japheth's dwelling in the tents of Shem (ix. 27), on the one hand, and the Ruler proceeding from Judah, to whom shall be the obedience of the nations (xlix. 10), on the other; and it severs all the necessary connecting links which unite these prophecies with one another.

Another attempt to deprive this promise of its Messianic character—that, namely, made by Bertholdt (de ortu theol. Vet. Hebr. p. 102) and others, who would have us to understand, by the families and nations of the earth, the Canaanitish nations—does not require any minute examination, as the weakness of these productions of rationalistic tendency are so glaringly manifest.

[ ^[1]] Herder says, in his Briefe das Studium der Theol. betr. ii. S. 278: "If, in Abraham's descendants, all the nations of the earth were to be blessed, Abraham might and should have conceived of this blessing in all its generality, so that everything whereby his nation deserved well of the nations of the earth, was implied in it. If, then, Christ also belongs to the number of those noble individuals who deserved so well, the blessing refers to Him, not indirectly, but directly; and if Christ be the chief of all this number, it then most directly, and in preference to all others, refers to Him;—although, in this germ, Abraham did not distinctly perceive His person, did not, nor could, except by special revelation, in this bud, so plainly discover the full growth of His merits."

[ ^[2]] Even in this he was preceded by Lampe, who remarks: "Christ had spoken of seeing the day; the Jews speak about seeing the person. He had spoken of Abraham's seeing; they speak of Christ's seeing."

[THE BLESSING OF JACOB UPON JUDAH]

(Gen. xlix. 8-10.)

Ver. 8. "Judah, thou, thy brethren shall praise thee; thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies; before thee shall bow down the sons of thy father. Ver. 9. A lion's whelp is Judah; from the prey, my son, thou goest up; he stoopeth down, he coucheth as a lion, and as a full-grown lion, who shall rouse him up? Ver. 10. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto Him the people shall adhere."

Thus does dying Jacob, in announcing "what shall befall his sons in the end of the days" (ver. 1), speak to Judah, after having dismissed those of his sons to whom, in the name of the Lord, he must tell hard things—things which did not, however, exclude them from the salvation common to all of them (ver. 28), although their shadow made the light of Judah shine so much the more brightly.^[1]

In ver. 8 everything depends upon a right determination of the meaning of the name Judah. Being formed from the Future in Hophal, it signifies: "He (viz., God) shall be praised." This explanation rests upon Gen. xxix. 35, where Leah, after the birth of Judah, says, "Now will I praise the Lord;" and then follow the words: "therefore she called his name Judah." It rests likewise on the common use of the verb ידה, the Hiphil of which is, according to Maurer, almost constantly used of "praising God," and is, as it were, set apart and sanctified for that purpose. After having enumerated a multitude of passages, Gesenius says, in his Thesaurus: "In all these passages it refers to the praise of God, and it is only rarely (Gen. xlix. 8 compared with Job xl. 14) that it refers to the praise of men." Even these few exceptions are such only in appearance. In Job xl. 14, he whom God will praise is not an ordinary man, but a god-man. By the subsequent words in Gen. xlix. 8, "Before thee shall bow down," something divine is ascribed to Judah; we need not therefore be astonished that, by the word יודוך, he is raised above the merely human standing. They only who do not know the Lion of the tribe of Judah, have any reason to explain away, by a forced exposition, the slight allusion to a superhuman dignity of the tribe of Judah. The greater number of expositors, referring to the subsequent words, "thy brethren shall praise thee," explain the name by the expression, "blessed one." But, even though we should retain the sure explanation which has been given above, the idea now mentioned falls very naturally in with it. He who, in the fullest sense, is a "God's-praise" (Gottlob), whose very existence becomes the cause of exclaiming, δόξα τῷ Θεῷ, praise be to God, will assuredly receive praise from the brethren.—"Judah thou" stands (according to Gen. xxvii. 36; Matt. xvi. 18) either for, "Thou art Judah," i.e., thou art rightly called so, or, according to Gen. xxiv. 60, for, "Thou Judah," i.e., I have something particular to tell thee (compare the emphatic "I" in Gen. xxiv. 27).—On the expression, "Thine hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies," i.e., thou shalt put to flight all thine enemies, and press them hard while they are fleeing, compare Exod. xxiii. 27, "I will make all thine enemies (turn their) backs unto thee," and Ps. xviii. 41, where David says, in the name of his family, in which Judah centred, as did Israel in Judah, "Thou hast given me mine enemies (to be) a back." If, however, we inquire how this prophecy was fulfilled, we must not overlook the circumstance that the subjects of it are sinful men, and that, for this reason, God could never give up the right of visiting their iniquity,—a right which has its foundation in His very nature. Three sentences of condemnation precede the blessing upon Judah, and this indicates that Judah too will be weighed in the balance of justice. "The excellency of dignity and the excellency of power," which, in ver. 3, were taken from Reuben, are here adjudged to Judah. The circumstance of his being the first-born could not protect the former against the loss of his privileges; and just as little will the divine election deliver Judah from a visitation for his sins, although, by that election, the total loss of his privileges is rendered impossible. These two ordinations—the election and the visitation of sin in the elect—stand by the side of each other; and the latter could not be stayed, even at the time when Judah had reached its height in the Lion from out of his tribe; for although the Shepherd was blameless, yet the flock was not so. The ordination of election is, however, far from being thereby darkened; it only shines by a brighter light. Often painful indeed were the defeats which Judah had to sustain; often enough—as during the centuries which elapsed between the destruction of David's kingdom and the coming of Christ—was the promise, "Thy hand shall be in the necks of thine enemies," reversed. But when we behold Judah ever and anon returning and rising to the dignity here bestowed upon him,—when the advance then always keeps equal pace with the preceding depths of humiliation (we need think only of David's time, and compare it with the period of the Judges),—then indeed it appears all the more clearly, that the hand of God is ever active in bringing this promise to a sure and firm fulfilment. In the history of the world there is only one power—that of Judah—in which, notwithstanding all defeats, the promise, "Thy hand shall be in the necks of thine enemies," is ever, after all, fulfilled anew; only one power, the victorious energy of which may indeed be overcome by sleep, but never by death; only one power which can speak as does David in the name of his family in Ps. xviii. 38-40: "I pursue mine enemies and overtake them, I do not return till they are consumed; I crush them, and they cannot rise: they fall under my feet. And Thou girdest me with strength for the war, Thou bowest down those that rise against me."—Luther remarks on this passage: "These promises must be understood in spirit and faith. This may be seen from the history of David, where it often appears as if God had altogether forgotten him, and what He had promised to him. After he had already been elected, he was, for ten years, not able to obtain a fixed place, or residence in the whole kingdom; and when at last he took hold of the reins of government, he fell into great, grievous, heinous sin, and was sore vexed when he had to bear the punishment of it. Therefore these two things—promise and faith—must always be combined; and it is necessary that a man who has a divine promise know well the art which Paul teaches in Rom. iv. 18, to believe in hope even against hope.—The kingdom of Israel, too, was assailed by so great weakness, and pressed down by so many burdens, that it appeared as if every moment it would fall; and this was especially the case when sin, and punishment in consequence of sin, broke in upon them, as, for instance, after David's adultery with Bathsheba, and oftentimes besides. Yet, even in all such temptations, it always remains, on account of the promise."—It must be carefully observed that the words, "Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies," are placed between, "Thy brethren shall praise thee," and "Before thee shall bow down the sons of thy father," and that, immediately after this, Judah's victorious power against the enemies of God's people is again pointed out. This teaches us that the exalted position which Judah, when compared with his brethren, occupies, rests mainly on this:—that he is their fore-champion in the warfare against the world, and that God has endowed him with conquering power against the enemies of His kingdom. The history of David is best calculated to show and convince us, how closely these two things are connected with each other. That he was called to verify the truth of the promise given to Judah, "Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies," was first seen in his victory over Goliath the Philistine, fore-champion of the world's power. After David's word had been fulfilled, "The Lord who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear. He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine," and the Philistines had fled, seeing that their champion was dead (1 Sam. xvii. 37-51), then also were fulfilled the other words: "Thy brethren shall praise thee, the sons of thy father shall bow before thee." "And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music. And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands."—And in Sam. xviii. 16, it is said: "But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he went out and came in before them;"—and in 2 Sam. v. 2, when the ten tribes acknowledged David as their king, they said: "Also in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel." David would never have succeeded in overcoming the jealousy and envy of the other tribes, unless the promise, "Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies," had been fulfilled in him.—Before Judah shall how down the sons of his father. I have already remarked, in my commentary on Rev. xix. 10, that there is very little ground for the common distinction between religious and civil προσκύνησις (bowing down, worship). The true distinction is between that προσκύνησις which is given to God, either directly or indirectly, in those who bear His image, in the representatives of His gifts and offices,—and that προσκύνησις which is exacted apart from, and against God. "The God of Scripture demands to be honoured in those who bear His image, who hold His offices,—in father and mother and old men (Lev. xix. 32), in princes (Exod. xxii. 28), in the office of the judge (Deut. i. 17; Exod. xxi. 6, xxii. 7, 8). It is wicked to refuse this honour, and its natural expression in the bowing of the body, under the pretext, that it is due to God alone. It is to be refused only where there is some danger that, thereby, any independent honour would be ascribed to the mere vessel of the divine glory." In what the προσκύνησις consists, which Judah is to receive from his brethren, we see distinctly from Isa. xlv. 14, where the heathen, at the time of the salvation, fall down before Israel: "Thus saith the Lord, The labour of Egypt and merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and be thine: they shall go behind thee; in chains they shall walk; and they shall fall down before thee, and they shall make supplication unto thee (saying). Only in thee is God, and there is no God else." The ground of Judah's adoration on the part of his brethren is this:—that God's glory is visibly upon him, that by glorious deeds and victories the seal is impressed upon him: "with us is God" (Immanuel). And this found its most glorious fulfilment in the Lion of the tribe of Judah, in Christ, of whom it is said in Phil. ii. 9-11: "Wherefore God has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of all those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father." That, in its final accomplishment, this prophecy referred to Christ, was known to Jacob as certainly as he makes Judah centre in the Shiloh. This Solomon also knew, when, in Ps. lxxii. 11 (compare Ps. xlv. 12), he ascribes to his great Antitype what is here ascribed to Judah: "All kings shall worship Him, and all nations shall serve Him." The consequence of the worship "by kings and nations" is the worshipping "by the sons of the father." Jacob thus transfers to Judah that which Isaac had promised to him: "People shall serve thee, and nations shall worship thee: be lord over thy brethren, and thy mother's sons shall worship before thee:" Gen. xxvii. 29.

In ver. 9 Judah is first designated a young lion,—a name which is intended to indicate, that the victorious power ascribed to Judah exists, as yet, only in the germ. It required that centuries should pass away before he grew up to be a lion, a full-grown lion. By the long period which thus intervened between the promise and its fulfilment, the divine election is the more strikingly manifested. (Several interpreters have been of opinion that there is no difference between the young lion, the lion, and the full-grown lion. But it is shown by Ezek. xix. 3—"And she brought up one of her גורים, and it became a כפיר, and it learnt to tear prey,"—that גור אריה is a young lion not yet able to catch prey.^[2]) In the words, "From the prey, my son, thou art gone up," the prey is the terminus a quo: for עלה with מן is always used of the place from which it is gone up (see Josh. iv. 17, x. 9; Song of Sol. iv. 2): the terminus ad quem is the usual abode, as is shown by what follows. The residence of the conqueror and ruler is conceived of as being elevated. Joseph, according to Gen. xlvi. 31, goes up to Pharaoh, and in ver. 29 of the same chapter he goes up to meet his father. The expression "to go up" is commonly used of those who come from other countries to Canaan. But the "going up" in the passage under review implies also the "going down" into the lower regions to seek for prey, just as in Ps. lxviii. 19, where it is said of the Lord, after He had fought for His people, and had been victorious, "Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led captivity captive: Thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them." "To dwell" means there, that, after having accomplished all this, thou mayest dwell gloriously, and be inaccessible to the vengeance of the conquered, in thy usual place of abode. The sense is the same in the passage before us. Luther is therefore wrong in explaining it thus: "Thou hast risen high, my son, by great victories,"—as are others also who translate it, "From the prey thou growest up." Such a view of this clause would, moreover, break up the connection, and all that follows would appear without preparation.^[3]

The words, "He stoopeth down, he croucheth as a lion, and as a full-grown lion; who shall rouse him up?" contain a transition and allusion to what we are subsequently told concerning Shiloh. Even here we are presented with a picture of peace,—a peace, however, which is not to the prejudice of victorious power, as in the case of Issachar (vers. 14, 15), but which, on the contrary, preserves it undiminished. If the promise, "From the prey, my son, thou art gone up," found its first glorious, although only preliminary, fulfilment in the reign of David (compare the enumeration of his victories in 2 Sam. viii.), the words, "He stoopeth down, he coucheth," etc., are the most appropriate inscription for the portal of Solomon's reign. But, in Christ, the pre-eminence in the reign both of war and peace is united.—That לביא is not "the lioness," but only the poetical designation of the lion, appears from just the very passage which is so commonly adduced in support of the former signification, viz., Job iv. 11; for the sons of the lion spoken of in that passage are the sons of the wicked (compare Job xxvii. 14).

A parallel to the words in ver. 10, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah," is formed by the departing of the sceptre from Egypt, in Zech. x. 11: "And the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away." All dominion of the world over the people of God is only temporary; and so also, the dominion of the people of God over the world, as it centres in Judah, can sustain only a temporary interruption: its departure is everywhere in appearance only; and when it departs, it is only that it may return with enhanced weight.—The sceptre is the emblem of dominion. The words, "A sceptre rises out of Israel" (Num. xxiv. 17), are explained in chap. xxiv. 19 by the words, "Dominion shall come out of Jacob." The question as to the subjects of this dominion must be determined from the preceding words; for there shall not depart from Judah what Judah, according to these words, possesses. Hence they are (1) the brethren of Judah, and (2) the enemies of Israel. The latter can the less properly be excluded, because of these alone the whole of the preceding verse treated. In the words of Balaam, in Num. xxiv. 17 (which refer to the passage under consideration), "There cometh a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre riseth out of Israel, and smiteth the territories of Moab, and destroyeth all the sons of the tumult," there is viewed, in the sceptre, only the victorious and destructive power which he shall display in his relation to the world; but the subjects of dominion are, in that passage, according to ver. 19, the heathens also. The sceptre is pre-eminently an ensign of kings. Hence, to the sceptre and star out of Israel (Num. xxiv. 17) corresponds, in ver. 7, his king: "And his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted,"—i.e., not merely a single royal person, but the Israelitish kingdom. But we can here the less legitimately separate sceptre and kingdom from each other, because, even in the earlier promises made to the Patriarch, there is the prophecy of the rising of a kingdom among their descendants,—of a kingdom, too, that shall extend beyond the boundary of that posterity itself. (Compare Gen. xvii. 6, "Kings shall come out of thee;" ver. 16, "And she shall become nations. Icings of nations shall be of her." See also Gen. xxxv. 11.) In vol. ii. of the Dissertations on the Genuineness of the Pentateuch, p. 166 f., we detailed the natural foundations which there existed for foreseeing the establishment of a kingdom in Israel. It is evident that the promise which was formally given to the whole posterity of the Patriarchs, is here appropriated specially to Judah, who, for the benefit of the whole people, is to have the sceptre.^[4] From what has been remarked, it appears that the fulfilment of this prophecy began first with David; up to that time Judah had been only "a lion's whelp." "In the person of Saul," as Calvin remarks, "there was an abortive effort; but there came out at length in David, under the authority and legitimate arrangement of God, the sovereignty of Judah, according to the prophecy of Jacob." It also appears, from what has been observed, that Reinke, S. 45 of his Monography, Die Weissagung Jacobs über Schilo, Münster 1849 (a work written with great diligence), is mistaken in determining the sense to be,^[5] that Judah as a tribe would not perish, and his superiority not cease, until out of him Shiloh, etc.; and that he is wrong, too, in maintaining, S. 133, that the continuance of the royal dignity, and the superiority over all the tribes until the time of Christ, were not required by these words. From the remarks which we have made, even more than that is required,—the continuance, namely, of Judah's dominion over the Gentiles; for otherwise it would be necessary to make a violent separation of these words from the preceding ones. That which has given rise to such interpretations and assertions, viz., the apparent difficulty encountered in pointing out the fulfilment,^[6] is by no means removed by such an explanation. For, if we look to the surface only, what had been left of the superiority of the tribe of Judah, at the time when Christ appeared? But if we look deeper, we shall find no reason for such feeble interpretations. The fulness of strength which, notwithstanding the deepest humiliation, still dwelt in the sceptre of Judah at the time when Christ appeared, is made manifest by the very appearance of Christ—the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Although faint-heartedness, perceiving only what is immediately before the eyes, might have said, "The sceptre has departed from Judah," to every one who was not blinded it must have been evident, at the very moment when Christ appeared, that the sceptre had not departed from Judah. We must not allow ourselves to be perplexed by any events and arguments adduced to prove that the sceptre has departed from Judah; for the very same events and arguments would militate against the eternal dominion of his house which had been promised to David, and would therefore make us doubtful of that also. All these events and arguments lose their significancy, when we remark, that this departing is only an apparent, not a definitive one;—that God never, by His promises, binds the hands of His punitive justice;—that His election goes always hand-in-hand with the visitation of the sins of the elected; but that, in the end, the election will stand in all its validity.^[1] To Judah applies exactly what in Ps. lxxxix. 31-35 is said of David: "If his children forsake My law, and walk not in My judgments; if they break My statutes, and keep not My commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, My loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer My faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips." But the greater the degradation that had come upon Judah, the more consoling is this promise. If we see that neither the decline of David's and Judah's dominion after Solomon, nor the apparently total disappearance of David's kingdom which took place after the Chaldee catastrophe, and continued for centuries; nor the altogether comfortless condition (when looking only at what Is visible) which Jeremiah describes in the words: "Judah is captive in affliction and great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, and findeth no rest. The anointed of the Lord, who was our consolation, is taken in their pits, he of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen. Slaves are ruling over us, and there is none to deliver us from their hand;"—if we see that all these things did not prevent the fulfilment of the words, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh come;"—that, notwithstanding all these things, it most gloriously manifested itself in the appearance of Christ, that the dominion remained still with Judah;—why should we be dismayed though the river of the kingdom of God should sometimes lose itself in the sand? Why should we not be firmly confident that in due time it shall spring forth again with its clear and powerful waters?—But the Jews are not benefited by this distinction betwixt the definitive departing of the sceptre, and one which is merely temporary. The latter must necessarily be distinguished from the former by this:—that even in the times of abasement, there must be single symptoms which still indicate the continuance of the sceptre; and this was evidently the case in the times before Christ. In Jehoshaphat, Uzziah, and Hezekiah, the sceptre of Judah brought forth new leaves; after their return from the captivity, the place, at least, was pointed out by Zerubbabel, which the Davidic kingdom would, at some future period, again occupy. The victories of the times of the Maccabees, though they themselves were not of the tribe of Judah, served to manifest clearly that the lion's strength and the lion's courage had not yet departed from Judah. It is not without significance that Judas Maccabeus had his name thus. And under all these events the family of David always remained distinct, and capable of being traced out. But nothing of all this is to be found with the Jews during the 1800 years after Christ; and hence the vanity of their hope that, in some future time, it will be made evident by the appearance of Shiloh, that the supremacy and dominion of Judah are not lost.

Along with the sceptre which shall not depart from Judah, the lawgiver is mentioned, for whom many would, quite arbitrarily, substitute the commander's staff. Is. xxxiii. 22 is explanatory of this passage; "For the Lord our Judge, the Lord our Lawgiver, the Lord our King, He will save us"—where the lawgiver is put on a level with the judge and king. Gesenius translates it by: our commander.

The lawgiver shall not depart "from between his feet." This is a poetical expression for "from him." He is, as it were, to have the lawgiver wherever he moves or stands. Explanatory of this is the passage in Judges v. 27, where, in the Song of Deborah, it is said of Jael, "He bowed between her feet, he fell, he lay down." That which any one has between his feet, is accordingly his territory on which he moves, that within his reach. In the latter passage the prose expression would have been, "beside her," and in the passage under consideration, "from him."^[8]

Sceptre and lawgiver shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh come. Here everything depends upon fixing the derivation and signification of this word. There cannot be any doubt, and, indeed, it is now almost universally admitted, that it is derived from שלה, "to rest." In the first edition of this work, the author gave it as his opinion, that its formation was analogous to that of כידור, "tumult of war," from כדר, "to be troubled," קיטר, "smoke," from שִׁלֹחַ ,קטר from שלח; and many (Hofmann, Kurtz, Reinke) have stedfastly maintained this opinion even until now. But the author must confess that the objections raised against this derivation by Tuch are well-founded. "In the first place," Tuch remarks, "it is well known that forms like קיטר do not constitute any special class in the etymology, but have originated from Piel forms (Ewald, Lehrb. d. Hebr. Spr. § 156 b), as is very clearly shown by קימוש, being found by the side of קִמּוֹשׁ. But the o in the final syllable of these words is not an o unchangeable, according to the rules of etymology, and could, therefore, not remain in a root לח; and there is not found, in general, any form of a root לח analogous to קיטר." But far more decisive is another reason. "The nomina Gentilia גילני (2 Sam. xv. 12), שילני (1 Kings xi. 29, xii. 15), lead us from the supposed form to the substantive termination ־וֹן which a liquida may drop, and express the remaining vowel ו by ה." (Compare Ewald, § 163.) Now that Shiloh is an abbreviation of Shilon is proved, not only by the nomen gentile, but also by the fact, that the ruins of the town which received its name from the Shiloh in our passage, are, up to the present moment, called Seilun, and that Josephus writes Silo as well as Silun, Σιλοῦν (compare Robinson, Travels iii. 1, p. 305); and, finally, by the analogy of the name שלמה, which is formed after the manner of שילה, and likewise shortened from שלמון. We must confess that Tuch is right also when he asserts: "That it is quite impossible to give the word the signification of an appellative noun, since it is only in proper names, in which the signification of the suffix of derivation is of less consequence, that on is shortened into o." The only exception is that of אבדה, "hell," in Prov. xxvii. 20; but even this is only an apparent exception, and is quite in accordance with the rule laid down, inasmuch as "hell" is, in this passage, personified,—as is frequently the case in other passages. (Compare Rev. ix. 11.) But this case very plainly shows that we are not at liberty to apply, as Tuch does, the measure of our proper names to those of Scripture, which are used in a more comprehensive sense. The Samaritan translation is, therefore, right in retaining the "Shiloh." As the passage under review is the first in which the person of the Redeemer meets us, so Shiloh is also the first name of the Redeemer,—a name expressive of His nature, and quite in correspondence with the names in Is. ix. 5, and with the name Immanuel in Is. vii. 14. With respect to the signification of the name, the termination on, according to Ewald, § 163, forms adjectives and abstract nouns. The analogy of the name שלמה, which is formed after the manner of שילה, indicates that it has here an adjective signification, and, like Solomon, Shiloh denotes "the man of rest," corresponds to the "Prince of Peace" in Is. ix. 5, and, viewed in its character of a proper name, is like the German "Friedrich" = Frederick, i.e., "rich in peace," "the Peaceful one."

To Shiloh the nations shall adhere. The word יקהה is commonly understood as meaning "obedience."^[9] But it does not denote every kind of obedience, but only that which is spontaneous, and has its root in piety. This is clearly shown by the only passage in which, besides the one under consideration, the word יקהה is found, Prov. xxx. 17: "An eye that mocketh at his father, and despises the יקהה of his mother."^[10] To this view we are led also by the Arabic, where the word

, does not denote obedience in general, but willing obedience, docility, in the viii. sq. ל dicto audientem se præbuit more discipuli. (Compare Camus in Schulten, on Prov. l. c.) Cognate is

, "to take care," "to guard oneself," specially of the conflict with the higher powers of life, in the viii. semet custodivit ah aliqua re, et absolute timuit coluitque Deum, pius fuit. From it is derived יקה pius in Prov. xxx. 1, where the son of Jakeh speaks to "With me is God, and I prevail" (Heb. Itheal and Ucal.)

Luther, although he has misunderstood the right meaning of Shiloh, has yet beautifully comprehended the sense of the whole passage. "This is a golden text," he says, "and well worthy of remembrance, namely: that the kingdom of Christ will not be such a kingdom as that of David was, of whom it is said, 1 Chron. xxviii. 3, that he was a man of war and had shed much blood. The kingdom of Shiloh, which succeeded it, is not a kingdom so powerful and bloody, but consists in this,—that the word, by which it is ruled or administered, is heard, believed, and obeyed. All will be done by means of preaching; and this will just be the sign by which the kingdom of Christ is distinguished from the other kingdoms of this world, which are governed by the sword and by physical power." To this point also Luther draws attention, that our prophecy affords a powerful support to the ministers of the Word: "It will be done by the proclamation of the promise, and Shiloh will be present with it, and will be efficient and powerful through our tongue and mouth."

That by the nations are not meant either the Canaanites in particular, or the tribes of Israel, but the nations in general, appears, partly, from the connection with what precedes—those who now willingly obey are evidently the enemies spoken of in vers. 8, 9,—and, partly, from the reference to the earlier promises of Genesis, all of which refer to nations in general. If a limitation had been intended, an express indication of it would have been necessary. The analogy of the parallel Messianic passages likewise militates against such a limitation; e.g., Ps. lxxii. 8: "He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." (Compare also Is. xi. 10.)

In the Shiloh, the whole dignity of Judah as Lord and Ruler is to be concentrated. It hence follows, that the nations who will not willingly obey Him as Shiloh, must experience the destructive power of His sceptre (Num. xxiv. 17; Ps. ii. 9), and that behind the attractive kingdom of peace, there is concealed the destructive dominion of the lion.

Several interpreters have determined the sense as follows:—The dominion of Judah should continue until the appearing of Shiloh; but that then he should lose it.^[11] We, on the contrary, conceive the sense to be this: "That the tribe of Judah should not lose the dominion until he attain to its highest realization by Shiloh, who should be descended from him, and to whom all the nations of the earth should render obedience."

Against this interpretation no difficulty can be raised from the עד כי. It is true that this term has always a reference to the terminus ad quem only, and includes it; but it is as certain that, very frequently, a terminus ad quem is mentioned which is not intended to be the last, but only one of special importance; so that what lies beyond it is lost sight of. (Compare the author's Dissert. on the Genuin. of Daniel, pp. 55-56.) If only sceptre and lawgiver were secured to Judah up to the time of Shiloh's coming, then, as a matter of course, they were so afterwards. That, previous to the coming of Shiloh, great dangers would threaten the sceptre of Judah, is indicated by Jacob, since he lays so much stress upon the sceptre's not departing until that time. Hence we expect circumstances that will almost amount to a departing of the sceptre.

But the positive reason for this interpretation is, that if, according to the other opinion, Judah were told that the dominion of his tribe were, at some future period, to cease, this would not be in harmony with the tone of the remainder of the address to Judah, which is altogether of a cheerful character. And then,—Jacob would, in that case, not have allowed the Messianic promise to remain in its indefinite state; from former analogies, we should have been induced to expect that he would transfer it to one of his sons. And finally,—from the analogy of the other Messianic prophecies, as well as from history, it seems not to be admissible to contrast the dominion of Judah with the kingdom of the Messiah. The dominion of Judah does not by any means terminate in Christ; it rather centres in Him.

We are not expressly told that the Shiloh will be descended from Judah; but this is supposed to be self-evident, and is not, therefore, expressly mentioned. If it were otherwise, the Shiloh would not have been alluded to in connection with Judah at all. A restriction of the promise to Judah, such as would take place if the Shiloh did not belong to him, is the less legitimate, inasmuch as, in vers. 8, 9, victory and dominion, without any limitation, are promised to Judah.

Having thus adduced the positive arguments in support of our view of this passage, let us now further examine the opinions of those who differ from us. Here, then, we must first of all consider those which are at one with us in the acknowledgment that this passage contains the promise of a personal Messiah.

1. Some interpreters (Jonathan, Luther, Calvin, Knapp, Dogm.) are of opinion that שילה is compounded of the noun שיל, "child," and the suffix of the third person: "Until his (i.e., Judah's) son or descendant, the Messiah, shall come." (Luther, somewhat differently.) But this supposed signification of שיל is destitute of any tenable foundation. That by such an explanation, moreover, there is a dissolution of the connection betwixt the Shiloh in this passage, and Shiloh the name of a place, which is written in precisely the same manner, is decisive against both the view just given forth and that which follows.

2. Others (the last of them. Sack in the second edition of his Apolog.) suppose the word to be erroneously pointed. They propose to read שֶׁלֹּה, compounded of ש for אשר, and the suffix ה for ו. They suppose the language to be elliptical: "Until He come to whom the dominion or sceptre belongs, or is due." The principal argument in support of this exposition is, that most of the ancient translators seem to have followed this punctuation. It is true that this is doubtful as regards Onkelos and the Targum of Jerusalem, which translate, "Donec veniat Messias, cujus est regnum;" for we may well suppose that here שילה is simply rendered by משיחא, while the following clause adds a complement from Ezek. xxi. 32, which is founded upon the passage now under review. But it is certain that the LXX. supposed the punctuation to be שֶׁלֹּה. They translate: ἕως ἂν ἔλθῃ τὰ ἀποκείμενα αὐτῷ (Thus read the two oldest manuscripts—the Vatican and Alexandrian. The other reading, ᾧ ἀπόκειται, has no doubt crept in from the later Greek translations, notwithstanding the charge which Justinus [Dial. c. Tryph. § 120] raises against the Jews, that they had substituted the τὰ ἀποκείμενα αὐτῷ for the earlier ᾧ ἀπόκειται. Comp. Stroth in Eichhorn's Repert. ii. 95; Hohne's edition of the LXX.) Aquila and Symmachus, who translate, ᾧ ἀπόκειται, as well as the Syriac and Saadias, who translate, Ille cujus est, follow the same reading. But the defenders of this exposition are wrong in inferring, from the circumstance of the ancient translations having followed this punctuation, that it was generally received. Had such been the case, how could it be explained that it should no more be found in any of our manuscripts? For the circumstance that forty manuscripts collected by de Rossi have שלה written without a י, cannot be considered as of great weight; since it is merely a defective way of writing, occurring frequently in similar words. But if we consider the fact, which may be established upon historical grounds, that the Jews watched with most anxious care the uncorrupted preservation of the received text of Holy Scripture, according to its consonants and pronunciation; that they did not even venture to receive into the text any emendation, though it should have recommended itself as in the highest degree probable; while, on the other hand, the ancient Jewish and Christian translators took great liberties in this respect, and, in the manifold perplexities into which, owing to their insufficient resources and knowledge, they fell, helped themselves as best they could;—it will certainly appear to us most probable, that even the ancient translators found our vocalization of the word as the received one, but felt themselves obliged to depart from it, because they could, in accordance with it, give no suitable derivation; whilst the punctuation adopted by them agreed perfectly with the traditional reference of the passage to the Messiah. But if this be the case, the authority of the ancient translations can here be of no greater weight than that of any modern interpreter; and, in the case under review, we are at liberty to urge all those considerations which are, in general, advanced against any change in the vocalization, unless there be most urgent reasons for it. The ancient translators, moreover, can have less weight with us, because we can distinctly perceive that a misapprehension of Ezek. xxi. 32 (27)—on which passage we shall afterwards comment—gave rise to their error. Against this explanation it may be further urged, not only that the ש prefix occurs nowhere else in the Pentateuch—an objection which is not in itself sufficient, since it occurs so early as in the song of Deborah, Judges v. 7—but also, that the supposed ellipsis would be exceedingly hard. (Compare Stange, Theol. Symm. i. S. 238 ff.)

Before we pass on to a consideration of the non-Messianic interpretation, we shall first state the reasons which bear us out in assuming that the passage under review contains a prophecy of a personal Messiah.

It is certainly, with respect to this, a matter of no slight importance that, with a rare agreement, exegetical tradition finds a promise to this effect here expressed; and this circumstance has a significance so much the greater, the less that this agreement extends to the interpretation of the particulars, especially as regards the Shiloh. How manifold soever these differences may be, all antiquity agrees in interpreting this passage of a personal Messiah; and we could scarcely

conceive of such an agreement, unless there had been some objective foundation for it. As regards, first, the exegetical tradition of the Jews,—how far soever we may follow it, it finds, in ver. 10, the Messiah. Thus the LXX. explained it; for, that by "what is destined to Judah" (ἕως ἂν ἔλθῃ τὰ ἀποκείμενα αὐτῷ) they understood nothing else than the sending of the Messiah, is shown by the words following—καὶ αὐτὸς προσδοκία ἐθνῶν,—which can refer only to the Messiah. (Compare Is. xlii. 4 according to the LXX.) In the same manner the passage was understood by Aquila, the Chaldee Paraphrasts, the Targum of Onkelos, of Jonathan, and of Jerusalem, the Talmud, the Sohar, and the ancient book of Breshith Rabba. Several even of the modern commentators, e.g., Jarchi, have retained this explanation, although a strong doctrinal interest, to which others yielded, tempted them to give another interpretation to this passage, which occupied so prominent a place in the polemics of the Christians. (Compare the passage in Raim. Martini Pug. Fid. ed. Carpzov; Jac. Alting's Shiloh, Franc. 1660, 4to [also in the opp. t. v.]; Schöttgen, hor. Hebr. ii. p. 146; and, most completely, in "Jac. Patriarch. de Schiloh vatic. a depravatione Clerici assertum, op. Seb. Edzardi, Londini 1698, p. 103 sq.") The Samaritans, too, understood the passage as referring to the Messiah. (Compare Samarit. Briefwechsel, communicated by Schnurrer in Eichhorn's Repert. ix. S. 27.) It is true that from other passages ("Epist. Samarit. ad Jobum Ludolfum," in Eichhorn's Repert. xiii. S. 281-9, compared with de Sacy "de Vers. Samarit. Arab. Pentateuchi in Eichhorn's Biblioth." x. S. 54) it appears that, in accordance with their doctrine of a double Messiah—one who had already appeared, and one who was still to come—they referred our passage, partly to the former, and denied its reference to the real Messiah. But this is of no importance. For, as Gesenius also has remarked (Carmina Samaritana, p. 75), the doctrine of a double Messiah is of recent origin with the Samaritans as well as with the Jews; and hence, it is very probable that the reference to the real Messiah was, formerly, the generally prevailing one, which was, even afterwards, to a large extent retained, as is shown by the passage first quoted.—Finally, In the Christian Church the Messianic interpretation has been the prevailing one ever since the earliest times. We find it as early as Justin Martyr. The Greek and Latin Fathers agree in it. (Compare the statements in Reinke.) Even Grotius could not but admit that this passage referred to the Messiah; and Clericus stands quite alone and isolated, in his time, as an objector against the Messianic interpretation of it.

But even in the Canon itself, this passage is understood of a personal Messiah. David, Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, look upon it in this light. (Concerning this point, compare the inquiries in the subsequent portions of this work.)

The entire relation of the Pentateuch to the succeeding sacred literature, and the circumstance that the former constitutes the foundation of the latter, and contains, in the germ, all that is afterwards more fully developed, entitle us to expect, that the Messianic idea has also found its expression in those books. The more prominent the place occupied, in the later books, by the announcement of a personal Messiah, the more unlikely it will be to him who has acquired right fundamental views regarding the Pentateuch, to conceive that this announcement should be wanting in it—the announcement, especially, of the Messiah in His kingly office; for it is this office of the Messiah which, in the Old Testament, generally takes a prominent place, and is, before all others, represented in the subsequent books. But there cannot be any doubt, that the promise of a personal Messiah in His kingly office, if it be found in the Old Testament at all, must exist in the passage which we are now considering.

The promises which first were given to Jacob's parents, and thereafter transferred to him, included two things:—first, a numerous progeny, and the possession of Canaan for them;—and secondly, the blessing which, through them, was to come upon all nations. How, then, could it be expected that Jacob, in transferring these blessings to his sons, and while in spirit seeing them already in possession of the promised land, and describing the places of abode which they would occupy, and what should befall them, should have entirely lost sight of the second object, which was much the more important, and as often repeated? Is it not, on the contrary, probable that, as formerly, from among the sons of Abraham and Isaac, so now, from among the sons of Jacob, he should be pointed out who should, according to the will of God, become the depositary of this promise, which was acquiring more and more of a definite shape? The contrary of this we can the less imagine, because, according to ver. 2, Jacob is to tell his sons that which shall befall them "at the end of the days." The expression, "the end of the days," is always used of that only which lies at the end of the course which is seen by the speaker. (Compare my work on Balaam,^[12] p. 465 f.) Accordingly, it indicates, in this passage, that Jacob's announcement must comprehend the whole of the future sphere which was accessible to him. But if we do not admit the reference, in this passage, to the Messiah, then a whole territory of future time, notoriously accessible to Jacob, is left untouched by his announcement.—From the beginning of Genesis, we find the expectation of an universal salvation; and at every new separation, the depositary of this salvation, and its mediator for the whole remaining world, are regularly pointed out. At first, salvation is promised to the whole human race, then to the family of Shem, then to Abraham, then to Isaac, then to Jacob. "Now that the patriarchal trias, since Jacob, has extended into a dodekas forming the historical transition from the family of the promise to the nation of the promise, the question arises, from which of the twelve tribes salvation, i.e., the victory of mankind, and the blessing of the nations, is to come." (Delitzsch, Prophetische Theologie, S. 293.) Should Genesis become to such a degree inconsistent with itself as not to answer a question which itself has called forth? But that answer is contained in the passage under consideration, only if Shiloh be taken for the personal name of the Redeemer. Unless we have recourse to artificial explanations, the announcement of Judah's being the bearer of salvation is to be found in our passage, only when, at the same time, the first indication of the person of the Messiah is perceived in it.

If the reference of the passage to a personal Messiah be explained away, we should certainly be at a loss to discover where the fundamental prophecy of such an one could possibly be found. We should then, in the first place, be thrown upon the Messianic Psalms, especially Ps. ii. and cx. But as it is the office of prophecy only to introduce to the knowledge of the congregation truths absolutely new, it would subvert the whole relation of psalm-poetry to prophecy, if in these psalms we were to seek for the origin of the expectations of a personal Messiah. These psalms become intelligible, only if in Shiloh we recognise the first name of the Messiah. The passage in question, in combination with the prophetical announcement of the eternal dominion of the house of David, afforded the complete objective foundation for the subjective poetry of the Psalms. The eternity of dominion here promised to Judah was, as we learn from 2 Sam. vii., transferred to David. The exalted person in whom, according to our passage, the dominion of Judah was to culminate, must then necessarily belong to the house of David. Further,—If the passage under review be understood of the Messiah, we have an excellent fountainhead for all the prophecies of a personal Messiah; in its significant, enigmatical, and expressive brevity, it is most suitable for such a purpose. But if its reference to the Messiah be explained away, we are deprived altogether of a suitable starting-point. In the Davidic psalms, the Messianic prophecy already more strongly resembles a stream than a fountain.

So great is the weight of these reasons for the Messianic interpretation, that we might reasonably have expected that such expositors at least as stand on the ground of positive Christianity should abandon it only from overwhelming reasons, or, at least, from such only as are in the highest degree probable. But in this expectation we have been disappointed. The most superficial objections have been considered sufficient by Hofmann, Kurtz, and others, to induce them to disregard the consensus of the whole Christian Church. We cannot, indeed, but be astonished at this.

Kurtz, following the example of Hofmann, says: "The organic progress of prophecy, and its correlative connection with history, which must be maintained in all its stages, forbid us, most decidedly, to assign to the expectation of a personal Messiah, a period so early as that of the Patriarchs. The clearly expressed aim of the whole history of this period is the expansion into a great nation; its whole tendency is directed towards the growth of the multiplicity of a people from the unity of the Patriarchs. As long as the subject of the history was the increase into a nation, the idea of a single personal Saviour could not, by any means, take root. Such could occur only after they had actually expanded into a great nation in history, and the necessity had been felt of concentrating the multiplicity of the expanded, into the unity of a single, individual, i.e., after one had appeared as the deliverer and saviour, as the leader and ruler of the whole nation. It is therefore only after Moses, Joshua, and David, that the expectation of a personal Messiah could arise."—Do you mean to teach God wisdom? we might ask, in answer to such argumentation. To chain prophecy to history in such a manner, is in reality nothing short of destroying it. How much soever people may choose to varnish it, this is but another form of Naturalism, against the influence of which no one is secure, because it is in the atmosphere of our day. Men who occupy a ground of argumentation so narrow-minded and trifling,—who would rather shape history than heartily surrender themselves to it, and find out, meditate upon, and follow the footsteps of God in it,—will be compelled to erase even the promise in Gen. xii. 3, "In thee all the families of the earth shall be blessed," yea, even the words, "I will make of thee a great nation," with which the promise begins; for even that violates the natural order. But the historical point of connection for the announcement of a personal Messiah, which here at once, like a flash of lightning, illuminates the darkness, is not at all wanting to such a degree as is commonly asserted. On the contrary, if the blessing upon the heathen be allowed to stand, the expectation of a personal Saviour must necessarily arise from a consideration of the known events of history, and meet the immediate revelation of such an one by God. The whole history of the time of the Patriarchs bears a biographical character. Single individuals are, in it, the depositaries of the divine promises, the channels of the divine life. All the blessings of salvation which the congregation possessed at the time when Jacob's blessing was uttered, had come to them through single individuals. Why, then, should the highest Salvation come to them in any other way? Why should not Abraham be as fit a type of the Messiah as Moses, Joshua, and David,—Abraham, of whom God, in Gen. xx. 7, says to Abimelech, the heathen king, "Now therefore restore the man his wife, for he is a prophet; and if he prays for thee, thou shalt live?" Or why not Joseph, who, according to Gen. xlvii. 12, "nourished his father and his brethren, and all his father's household," and whom the grateful Egyptians called "the Saviour of the World?"

Just as untenable is a second argument against the Messianic explanation,—namely, that there is no parallelism between the two clauses, "until Shiloh comes," "and to Him shall be the obedience of the nations," but only a pure progress of thought. The laws of parallelism are not iron fetters; and, moreover, the parallelism in substance fully exists here, if only it be acknowledged that יקהה does not signify any kind of obedience, but only a willing surrender. The words, "until Shiloh comes, and to Him shall be the obedience of the nations," are identical in meaning with, "until He cometh, who bringeth rest, and whom the nations shall willingly obey." The second member thus serves to explain the first; the sense would be substantially preserved although one of the members were wanting. The parallelism is slightly concealed only by the circumstance that the words run, "to Him the obedience of the nations,"—instead of, "He to whom shall be the obedience of the nations."

Let us now take a survey of the principal non-Messianic interpretations. A suspicion as to their having any foundation at all in the subject itself must surely be raised by their variety and multiplicity, as well as by the circumstance, that they who object to the Messianic explanation can never, in any way, succeed in uniting with each other, but that, with them, one interpretation is sure to be overthrown by another. Such is, in every case, a sure indication of error.

Moreover, it is possible, in every case, to trace out some interest, apart from the merits of the question, which has led to the objections against the Messianic interpretation. With the Jews, it was because they were driven to a strait by the argumentation of the Christians, that the Messiah must long ago have come, since sceptre and lawgiver had long ago departed from Judah. The rationalistic interpreters have evidently been determined by their antipathy to any Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. Hofmann and his followers do not in the least conceal that they are guided by their principle of a concatenation of prophecy with history.

The opinion, according to which it is maintained that Shiloh is the name of the well-known locality in Ephraim, has found not a few defenders. Among these, several, and last of all Bleek, in the Observ.; Hitzig, on Ps. li. 2; Diestel, "der Segen Jacobs," translate: "Until he or they come to Shiloh." The sense is thus supposed to be: "Judah will be the leader of the tribes, in the journey to Canaan, until they come to Shiloh." There, in consequence of the tribes being dispersed to the boundaries assigned to them, he would then lose his leadership.^[13] But such an explanation is, in every point of view, inadmissible. It is very probable that the town Shiloh did not exist at all, under this name, at the time of Jacob. The name nowhere occurs in the Pentateuch; and the Book of Joshua (as we shall show at a subsequent time) contains traces, far from indistinct, that it arose only after the occupation of the land by the Israelites. But even supposing that the town of Shiloh already existed tit the time of Jacob, yet the abrupt mention of a place so little known would be something strange and unaccountable. It would be out of the range of Jacob's visions, which nowhere regard mere details, but have everywhere for their object only the future in its general outlines. Further,—The temporary limitation thus put to the superiority of Judah would be in glaring contradiction to vers. 8 and 9, where Judah is exalted to be the Lion of God without any limitation as to time. And, finally,—Up to the time of their arrival

in Shiloh, Judah was never in possession of the sceptre and lawgiver;—and this reason would alone be sufficient to overthrow the opinion which we are now combating. We have already proved that, by these terms, royal power and dominion are designated, and that, for this reason, the beginning of the fulfilment cannot be sought for in any period previous to the time of David. But even if we were to come down to the mere leadership of Judah, we could demonstrate that even this did not belong to him. His marching in front of the others cannot, even in the remotest degree, be considered as a leadership. Moses, who belonged to another tribe, had been solemnly called by God to the chief command. Nor was Joshua of the tribe of Judah. In him, on the contrary, there appeared the germ of Ephraim's superiority, which continued through the whole period of the Judges, and which came to an end only by David's having been raised to the royal dignity. (Compare my commentary on Ps. lxxviii.)

Others (Tuch, Maurer) give the explanation: "As long as they come to Shiloh." This, according to them, the "poet" meant to be identical with: "in all eternity." They think that his (the "poet's") meaning was, that the holy tabernacle, which at his time (Tuch assigns the composition of Jacob's blessing to the period of Samuel) was at Shiloh, would remain there to all eternity. To this exposition it would be alone sufficient to object that, according to it, the phrase עד כי, which uniformly means only "until," is taken in the signification "as long as." Further,—History plainly enough shows how little the sanctuary was considered to be bound to Shiloh; to which place it had been brought, not in consequence of an express divine declaration, but only in accordance with Joshua's own views. When the ark of the covenant was carried away by the Philistines, this was considered as an express declaration of God, that He would no longer dwell in Shiloh. How different was the case as regards Jerusalem! Notwithstanding the destruction by the Chaldees, the city continued to be the seat of the sanctuary. Further,—This view implies a strange blending of gross error—viz., the supposition that the sanctuary would remain for ever in Shiloh—and of true prophecy, viz., the announcement, uttered at the time of Ephraim's leadership, of the dominion of the tribe of Judah, which was first realized in David's royalty. The only ground in support of the Ephraimitic Shiloh—the fact, namely, that Shiloh, wherever else it occurs in the Old Testament, always signifies the name of the place—we hope to invalidate by and by; when it will be seen that the town received its name only on the ground of the passage now under consideration.

Other opponents of the Messianic interpretation take Shiloh as a nomen appellativum, in the signification of rest. They translate either, "Until rest cometh and people obey him" (thus Vater, Gesenius, Knobel), or, "Until he comes (or, they come) to rest" (thus Hofmann, Kurtz, and others). By "rest," they understand either the political rest enjoyed under David and Solomon, or they find here expressed the idea of eternal rest in the expected Messianic time. Thus do Gesenius, Hofmann, and Kurtz understand it. The last-named determines the sense thus: "Judah shall remain in the uninterrupted possession of a princely position among his brethren, until through warfare and by victory he shall have realized the aim, object, and consummation of his sovereignty in the attained enjoyment of happy rest and undisturbed peace, and in the willing and joyful obedience of the nations." But this explanation is to be suspected, simply from the circumstance, that, in whatever other place Shiloh occurs, it is used as a nomen proprium; while it is entirely overthrown by the circumstance, that, according to its form, as already deduced, Shiloh can be nothing else than a nomen proprium.^[14] We here only remark, by way of anticipation, that David, Solomon, Isaiah, and Ezekiel bear testimony against this explanation. An interpretation which dissevers the connection betwixt Shiloh and Shiloh, betwixt Shiloh and Solomon, betwixt Shiloh and the Prince of Peace, betwixt Shiloh and Him "whose is the judgment," must be, thereby, self-condemned. Against the explanation, "Until he comes to rest," it may also be urged, that the Accusative could not here stand after a verb of motion; it was too natural to consider Shiloh as the subject. If it had been intended in any other sense, a preposition would have been absolutely requisite.

We further remark, that vers. 11 and 12, which ancient and modern interpreters, e.g., Kurtz, have attempted to bring into artificial connection with ver. 10, simply "finish the picture of Judah's happiness by a description of the luxurious fulness of his rich territory" (Tuch). Their tenor is quite different from that which precedes, where a pre-eminence was assigned to Judah; for they contain nothing beyond a simple, positive declaration. What is in them assigned to Judah, belongs to him only as a part of the whole, as a fellow-heir of the country flowing with milk and honey, and corresponds entirely with the blessings upon the other sons, which are, almost all of them, only individual applications of the general blessing. It is evidently parallel to what, in vers. 25, 26, is said of Joseph, and in ver 20 of Asher. That which Jacob here assigns to Judah, was formerly, in Gen. xxvii. 28, assigned by Isaac to Jacob, and in him to the whole people: "God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine." Hence, it is not at all necessary to examine history for the purpose of ascertaining whether Judah was distinguished above the other tribes, by plenty of wine and milk.

We need not lose much time in discussing the attempts which have been made to assign the blessing of Jacob to a later period. The futility of all of them is proved by the circumstance, that we have not here before us any special predictions, such as are peculiar to vaticinia post eventum, but general prophetical outlines, individual applications of the general blessings, exemplifications. Whatever seems, at first sight, to be different, melts away while handling it. Thus, for example, the blessings which Israel enjoyed by his dwelling on the sea-side, are pointed out in the blessing upon Zebulun, because he had his name from the dwelling, Gen. xxi. 20. That Zebulun is here viewed only as a part of the whole, appears from the fact that, afterwards, he did not live by the sea at all. In the case of Issachar, it was the individuality of the ancestor Jacob which gave him occasion to describe, from his own example, the dangers of an indolent rest. History does not say anything of Issachar alone having yielded to these dangers in a peculiar degree. In the case of Joseph, the events personal to the son are transferred to the tribe, and in the tribe, to the whole nation. In an inimitable manner the tender love of the father towards his son and provider meets us here. The only thing which goes beyond the human sphere of Jacob, is the prediction by which Judah is placed in the centre of the world's history. But it is just this which, even in its beginnings, goes beyond the time at which this pretended vaticinium post eventum is placed by Tuch, Bleek, and Ewald; for, by this assumption of theirs, they are necessarily limited to the time before David, if they wish to avoid the insurmountable difficulties which arise from what is said of Levi and of Joseph. But to the man who looks deeper, vers. 8-10 are just the seal of the divinity, and hence of the genuineness also, of this prophecy, and, with all his heart, he will hate such miserable conjectures.^[15]

Let us now follow through history Jacob's blessing upon Judah. From this inquiry it will appear how deep has been the impression made by it upon the people of the covenant. On this occasion also, it will be seen still more distinctly what the right is which rationalistic criticism has to declare this fundamental prophecy to be the recent production of an obscure poet. The chain-like character of Holy Scripture will be seen in a very striking light.

In Num. ii. regulations are laid down respecting the order in which the tribes are to encamp about the tabernacle, and in which they are to set forth. "On the east side, towards which the entrance of the sanctuary is directed, and hence in the front, Judah, as the principal tribe, is encamped; and the two sons of his mother—Issachar and Zebulun—who were born immediately after him, pitch next to him. On the south side there is the camp, with the standard, of Reuben; and next to him are his brother Simeon, who was born immediately after him, and Gad, one of the sons of his mother's maid. The west side is assigned to the sons of Rachel, with Ephraim at their head. And, finally, on the north side, the three other sons of the maids, viz., Dan, Asher, and Naphtali, have their position. In the same order as they encamp they are also to set forth." (Baumgarten.)

Judah is the chief tribe on the chief side. This distinction is not based on the deeds hitherto performed by Judah, nor is it the result of any revelation which Moses received upon the subject. It is regarded as a matter of course. And yet, there must necessarily have been some foundation for such a distinction, because, otherwise, it would have called forth the opposition of the other tribes, especially of that of Ephraim. Such a foundation, however, is afforded only by the blessing of Jacob, in which the tribe of Judah appears as the leading one. The complete realization of this prediction is left, indeed, in the hand of God; but the bearer of honours so great, even although future, must, in the prospect of that future, enjoy, even in the present, a certain distinction; such distinction, however, as does not at all imply sovereignty.

But we are compelled to have recourse to Genesis, and especially to chap. xlix., the more because the whole arrangement of the camp has evidently its foundation in Genesis, and the key to a whole series of facts in it can be found only in chap. xlix. If we ask why it is that the tribes of Issachar and Zebulun are subordinate to Judah; that Reuben, Simeon, and Gad, that Ephraim and Benjamin, that Dan, Asher, and Naphtali are encamped by each other; it is in Genesis alone that we are furnished with the answer.

The position which Reuben occupies specially points to Gen. xlix. As the first-born, he ought to stand at the head; but here we find him occupying the second place. In Gen. xlix. Jacob says to him, on account of his guilt, "Thou shalt not excel;" and "the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power," which up to that time he had possessed, are transferred to Judah. Yet Moses has so much regard to his original dignity, that he places him immediately after Judah; the utterance of Jacob did not entitle him to assign to him a lower position. Further,—The reason why Dan stands at the head of the sons of the maids is explained only in Gen. xlix. 16-18, where Dan is specially distinguished among them, and where it is specially said of him, "Dan shall judge his people."

If the blessing of Jacob be the production of a later time, then the order of the encampment, which rests upon it, must necessarily be so also; but such an idea will at once be discarded by every man of sound judgment. Even they who refuse to acknowledge Moses as the author of the Pentateuch, admit that those regulations which bear reference only to the condition of things in the wilderness must have originated from him.

But exactly the same order which Moses in Num. ii. prescribes for the encampment and setting forth of the tribes, is found again in chap. vii., where there is described the offerings which the princes of the tribes offered at the dedication of the altar. Every prince has here a day to himself, and here also does Judah occupy the first place: "And he that offered his offering the first day was Nahshon, the son of Amminadab, of the tribe of Judah."—If any one should venture to set down this chapter also, with all its details, as a fabrication of later times, he would only betray an utter absence of all scientific judgment.

According to Num. x. 14, Judah led the march when they set forth from Sinai.

Balaam's prophecies, the genuineness of which is proved by so many weighty arguments (compare the enumeration of them in my work on Balaam), rest, in general, on the fundamental prophecies of Genesis, but especially on the blessing of Jacob upon Judah.

In Num. xxiii. 24, Balaam says: "Behold, a people, like a full-grown lion he rises, and like a lion he lifts himself up. Not shall he lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain." This conclusion of Balaam's second prophecy, which at once demolishes Balak's vain hopes of victory, by pointing out the dreadful power of Israel, unconquerable by all his enemies, and crushing them all, has an intentional reference to Gen. xlix. 9,—a reference specially suitable for such a conclusion. What was there ascribed to Judah is here transferred to Israel, whose fore-champion Judah is. "Dost thou think," says Balaam to Balak, "of being able to overcome them, to stop them in their course towards the mark held out to them? Behold, according to an old revelation of their God, they are a people destroying their enemies with the lion's strength. Therefore, get thee out of their way, lest such a fate befall thee."

In Num. xxiv. 9, Balaam says, "He couches, he lies as a lion, and as a great lion, who shall stir him up?" As in the preceding prophecy he had pointed out Israel's dreadful power which secures to him victory in the battle, so here he shows how, even after having finished the battle, this power so intimidates his enemies, that they do not venture to disturb his peace. That which Jacob had said of Judah, is, with intended literality, here transferred to Israel.

In Num. xxiv. 17, we read: "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh: a star goeth out of Jacob, and a sceptre riseth out of Israel, and smiteth the borders of Moab, and destroyeth all the sons of the tumult."—As the two preceding utterances carry us back to Gen. xlix. 9, so this one refers to ver. 10, where the sceptre, the emblem of dominion, denotes, just as it does in this passage, dominion itself, and where to Judah, and in him to all Israel, the kingdom is promised which shall at last be consummated in the Shiloh. The meaning of the words, "A sceptre riseth out of Israel," is explained in ver. 19 by the words, "Dominion shall come out of Jacob." Jacob has in view the internal relations among his descendants, and hence he speaks specially of Judah; but Balaam, in accordance with his object, speaks of Israel only. Jacob points, at the close, to Shiloh's just and peaceful dominion; but Balaam, who has to do with the enraged and obstinate enemies of Israel, points out, from among the effects produced by the star and sceptre, only the victorious might, and destructive power which these will display in the conflict with the enemies of Israel.

In the blessing of Moses, Deut. xxxii.

7, it is said of Judah: "Hear, Lord, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people; with his hands he fights for himself, and be Thou an help to him from his enemies." Even the remarkable brevity of this utterance points back to the blessing of Jacob. With this brevity, the length of the blessing upon Levi, who had been treated too summarily by Jacob, forms a striking contrast. In the case of Reuben also, the attempt to pour oil into the wounds then inflicted is visible. The whole announcement is based upon the supposition that Judah is the fore-champion of Israel; and this supposition refers us back to Gen. xlix. This appears especially in the words, "Bring him to his people," on which light is thrown only by Gen. xlix. It is for his people that Judah engages in foreign wars, and the Lord, fulfilling the words, "From the prey, my son, thou goest up," brings him safely to his people.^[16]

There can be no doubt that in Shiloh, as the name of a place, there is a reference to Gen. xlix. 10. They who rightly denied that Shiloh could, in that passage, be understood as the name of the place, could, nevertheless, not feel satisfied as long as they allowed a twofold Shiloh to exist unconnected with each other. The agreement in the very rare and peculiar form, which nowhere else occurs, cannot well be a matter of accident.

In the Pentateuch, Shiloh does not occur at all as the name of a place. In the passage where Shiloh is first mentioned—in Josh. xvi. 6—another name is beside it, and prefixed to it. According to that passage, the former name was Taanah. (They who are of opinion that this place was different from Shiloh, can find no support from the authority of Eusebius; it is not said Taanah by Shiloh, but Taanath-Shiloh.) After that place had become the seat of the Sanctuary, the holy name Shiloh took the place of the former natural one. The reason why this name was given to it is indicated in Josh. xviii. 1: "And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there; and the land was subdued before them." Compare also xxi. 44, xxii. 4, where it is remarked that at that time "the Lord gave them rest round about." (See Bachiene, Palestina ii. 3, S. 409 ff.) In the subjection of the country,—in the rest which the Lord had given them from all round about, they saw an earnest of, and a prelude to, the obedience of the nations in general, and to the state of perfect rest which should take place at some future time with the appearing of Shiloh. Victory, peace! (Siegfried!) such was the watchword corresponding to the elevated consciousness of the people. It is an elevation quite similar to that which we so often perceive in the Psalms. "Sometimes there rises the hope that the Gentiles shall, at some future period, be received among the people of God—a hope based upon the experience of the Lord's victorious power in the present, in which faith perceives a pledge of the future subjection of the world's power under His sceptre. Thus, in vers. 29-32 of Ps. lxviii., which was composed by David on the occasion of his having, by the help of the Lord, conquered his most dangerous enemies, the Aramites and Ammonites; in Ps. xlvii., written on the occasion of Jehoshaphat's victory over several heathen nations; and in Ps. lxxxvii., composed on the ground of the joyful events under Hezekiah, the germ of the hope for the conversion of the heathen, which had all along lain dormant in the people, was developed."^[17]

After the main power of the Canaanites had been broken by the expeditions of all Israel under Joshua, Judah begins, at the command of God, to expel the Canaanites from the territory assigned to him. In Judges i. 1, 2, we read: "And the children of Israel asked the Lord, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites at the beginning to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up; behold, I deliver the land into his hands." They were concerned to find out the tribe who, by the decree of God, had been destined to be the fore-champion for his brethren, and with whom they might be sure of a happy commencement of the war. The short answer, "Judah shall go up," would scarcely have been justified, had it not had a foundation in a previous declaration of God's will. It indicates that Jacob's blessing upon Judah still possessed its power.

In like manner, in the war against Benjamin, according to divine direction, Judah goes up first to the battle, forms the vanguard. Judges xx. 18. The intentional identity of the expression used here and in chap. i., leads us to the supposition that the words, "Judah shall go up," have, in both passages, the same foundation.

From both of these events, we are led to expect that Judah may be called to occupy a still more important position. The announcement of Jacob regarding Judah, to which the words, "Judah shall go up," refer, finds, in these events, evidently but a poor beginning of its complete fulfilment. All, however, which was required in the meantime, was the indication, by gentle touches, of the position which Judah was called to occupy in future times. It is just God's way to take time in carrying out His elections; all human conditions must first disappear. After these two intimations, at the end of the time of Joshua (for Judges i. 1, 2, belongs to that period; the words, "And it came to pass after the death of Joshua," do not refer to what follows immediately after, but only to the contents of the book as a whole), and at the beginning of the time of the Judges, Judah retires out of view. During the whole period of the Judges, Ephraim held the supremacy. Under David, the validity of the election suddenly appeared, and the announcement of Jacob found a glorious fulfilment; but again, such an one only as pointed to a still more glorious fulfilment in the future. Before this took place, however,—before Shiloh came, to whom the obedience of the people was promised, the lamp of Judah was once more to be extinguished, so that, to human eyes, it should be invisible for many centuries.

In 1 Chron. xxviii. 4, David says: "And the Lord God of Israel chose me out of all the house of my father to be king over Israel for ever; for He hath chosen Judah to be the ruler, and in the house of Judah, the house of my father, and in the house of my father. He liked me to make me king over all Israel." David here points to an event by which Judah was raised to be the ruling tribe; and such an election is nowhere else to be found than in Gen. xlix. We cannot for a moment suppose that Judah was elected only in, and with, the election of David. Against such a supposition militates the fact, that even the election of David's house is represented in history as being distinct from the election of David himself; for in 1 Sam. xvi. the decree of God is first made known, that one of Jesse's sons is to be king; and it is only afterwards that we are told which of them is to be chosen. The expression too, "He hath chosen Judah to be the ruler," is decisive against it; for this expression has an evident reference to the sceptre and lawgiver in Gen. xlix. But if any doubt should still remain, it would be entirely removed by the parallel passage in 1 Chron. v. 2, where, in the words, "For Judah was mighty among his brethren, and of him the prince was to come," there is an allusion, which cannot be mistaken, to Gen. xlix.

There cannot be a doubt that David gave to his son the name Solomon, because he hoped that, in his just and peaceful reign, he would be a type of the Shiloh whom the nation should willingly obey, just as, in his own reign, there had been the first grand fulfilment of what Jacob had prophesied of Judah's lion-courage, and lion-strength,—of Judah's sceptre and lawgiver. We have here the counterpart of the fact, that the children of Israel, after the first occupation of the country, gave to the seat of the sanctuary the name of Shiloh. In the case of Solomon, both the name and the substance point to Shiloh. With regard to the name, three out of the four letters of which the name שלמה consists, are common to it with Shiloh. The signification is precisely the same; so also is the form. In שלמה as well as in שילה we meet with the very rare case of the ן at the end being thrown off. In Ewald's Grammar, § 163, these two names are, for this reason, pointed out and placed immediately beside each other. And, with regard to the agreement in the substance, we refer to 1 Chron. xxii. 9, where Nathan says to David: "Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about; for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days." We refer, further, to 1 Kings v. 4, where Solomon says to Hiram: "And now the Lord my God hath given me rest round about; there is neither adversary nor evil obstacle." We refer, finally, to 1 Kings v. 4, 5 (iv. 24, 25): "He had dominion over all the region on the other side of the river, from Tiphsah even to Gaza, over all the kings on the other side of the river, and he had peace from all his servants round about. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and fig-tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon."^[18]

But if any further doubt should remain as regards the typical relation in which Solomon stands to Shiloh, it would be removed by Ps. lxxii., which discards the very idea that Solomon could be anything more than a type,—that any hope had ever been entertained of his being himself the Shiloh. Even David's Messianic Psalms bear witness against such an opinion. In harmony with the words of our Lord in Matt. xii. 42, "A greater than Solomon is here," Solomon In this Psalm points beyond himself. In his own just and peaceful dominion, he beholds a type of the kingdom of the Prince of Peace, who, by His justice and love, shall obtain dominion over the world, and whom all kings shall worship, and all the heathen shall serve. How closely this Psalm is connected with Gen. xlix. is pointed out by Ezekiel, in a passage of which we shall immediately treat.

In ver. 9 of Ps. lx., which was composed by David, the words, "Judah is my lawgiver"—equivalent to, Judah is my, i.e., Israel's ruling tribe—point to Gen. xlix. 10, according to which the lawgiver shall not depart from Judah; just as ver. 13, "Give us help from the enemy," alludes to Deut. xxxiii. 7, where it is said of Judah, "Be thou a help to him from his enemies," and ver. 14, to Num. xxiv. 18.

That the Prince of Peace spoken of in Is. ix. 5, under whom there is "no end to the increase of government and of peace," refers to the Peaceful One, to whom the nations render obedience, will not be doubted by those who have recognised the connection in which Solomon and Ps. lxxii. stand to the Shiloh. Nor will such fail to recognise an allusion to the Shiloh in all the other passages of the Prophets, in which the Messiah is described as the Author of rest and peace; e.g., Mic. iv. 1-4; Is. ii. 2-4; Zech. ix. 10; and the less so, the more clearly it appears, from passages of Ezekiel, what influence Gen. xlix. exercised over the prophetic consciousness. Isaiah significantly alludes to it in other passages also. In chap. xxix. 1, 2, he says: "Woe to Ariel, (i.e., Lion of God), the city where David encamped! Add ye year to year, let the feasts revolve. And I distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and affliction, but it shall be unto me as Ariel;"—the meaning of which is: Jerusalem will, in times to come, endure heavy affliction (through Asshur), but the world-conquering power of the kingdom of God will manifest itself in her deliverance. The name Ariel is emphatically placed at the beginning, and, in it, the Prophet gives to the congregation of God a guarantee for her deliverance. That which Jacob had said of Judah, who, to him, appeared as the invincible lion of God, is here applied to Zion, the city where David encamped, the centre of the kingdom of Judah.

Ezekiel, in his lamentation over the princes of Israel who, in his time, were standing just at the brink of the abyss, says in chap. xix. 2: "Thy mother was a lioness, who lay down among lionesses, and brought up her whelps among young lions." The mother is the congregation of Judah. The image of the lion points to the blessing of Jacob, and its fulfilment in history. "Judah once couched in a threatening position, endangering his adversaries,^[19] in the midst of lions, i.e., among the other powerful kingdoms fond of conquests." (Hävernick.)

In Ezek. xxi. 15, 18 (10-15), the Lord, with an evident allusion to Gen. xlix. 10, announces the (temporary) destruction of the sceptre of His son (i.e., Israel or Judah), a sceptre which despises all other sceptres.

In vers. 30-32 (25-27) of the same chapter, Ezekiel foretells, in the name of the Lord, a complete overturning of all relations, a total revolution, in which the Davidic kingdom especially is brought down, a condition of affairs in which rest and safety will not anywhere be found. This state of things is to continue "until He comes to whom is the judgment; to Him I will give it."

The reference of this passage to Gen. xlix. cannot be mistaken. It was recognised, indeed, by the ancient translators; only that most of them erroneously found in it an explanation instead of an allusion.

Instead of the words, "to whom is the judgment," we should, from the expression used in Gen. xlix. 10, "Until Shiloh cometh," have expected, "to whom is peace;" but Ezekiel has filled up Gen. xlix. 10 from Ps. lxxii. 1-5, where judgment and righteousness appear as the basis of the peace which the Anointed One shall bring. And peace occupies the background in Ezekiel also. The advent of Him to whom is the judgment, in contrast with the injustice and wickedness of those who were hitherto the bearers of the sceptre, puts an end to strife, confusion, and destruction. That, in like manner, in Gen. xlix., the judgment occupies the background, we see plainly, from the commentary upon that passage furnished by Ps. lxxii., as well as from Is. ix. and ii. In Ps. lxxii., peace comes into consideration, only in so far as it is a product and consequence of justice, which is an attribute of the King, and is by him infused into the life of the nation. In vers. 1-50, the thought is: "God gives righteousness to His King, and in consequence of it, righteousness and the fear of God become indigenous to the people, and these again bring peace in their train."

Every word in Ezekiel is taken from Gen. xlix. and Ps. lxxii. From the latter are taken the words, "judgment," and "I will give it." (Compare Ps. lxxii. 1: "Give the King thy judgments.") The combination of these two passages points out their close connection, and indicates that Ps. lxxii. is to be viewed as a comment. Onkelos, who thus translates the passage in Gen. xlix., "Until Messiah comes, to whom the kingdom is due, and Him the people shall obey," has very properly only supplemented the declaration of Jacob from Ezekiel, or, at least, has taken thence the explanation of Shiloh.

But, at the same time, the words אשר לי המשפט, which, on the basis of Ps. lxxii., Ezekiel puts in the place of שילה, allude to the letters of the latter word which forms the initials of the words in Ezekiel. That ש is the main letter in אשר, is shown by the common abbreviation of it into ש; and that the י in שילה is unessential, is proved by the circumstance that the name of the place is often written שלה, and that even in Gen. xlix. 10, a number of manuscripts have this orthography.

"From the allusion to a prophecy so well known, and so frequently used, the brevity of the prophecy in Ezekiel is to be explained. It forms a most powerful conclusion and resting-point for the prophetic discourse." (Hävernick.)

There cannot be any doubt that Ezekiel found in Gen. xlix. 10, the prophecy of a personal Messiah. They, therefore, who assert that no such prophecy is contained in our passage, must, at the same time, assert that Ezekiel misunderstood it; yea, even more, that, even as early as at that period, a false view of that passage was generally prevalent. For, the manner in which Ezekiel alludes to it presupposes that, at that time, the view which found in it a personal Messiah was generally held. If we observe still further, that Ezekiel connected the allusion to Ps. lxxii. with that to Gen. xlix., we cannot hesitate for a moment to admit that he understood the name Shiloh to be Rest-maker, Peace-maker; only, that on the ground of Ps. lxxii., he mentions the cause instead of the effect. He had, moreover, the stronger reason for designating the bearer of peace as the bearer of judgment, because, in his time, the want of judgment had evidently produced the absence of peace, and the general confusion, misery, and destruction.

"As in Gen. xlix. the Patriarch sees a light rising at a far distance, and spreading its brightness over the darkness of centuries, so in Ezekiel also, the same ray of glorious hope lightens through the dark night of confusion and unutterable misery in which he sees himself enveloped."

Kurtz, S. 266, has altogether denied the connection of the passage in Ezekiel with Gen. xlix. These two passages are, as he thinks, altogether different, inasmuch as Ezekiel announces destruction and desolation which shall continue until He comes to whom is the judgment, while Gen. xlix., when understood of a personal Messiah, announces dominion which shall continue until Shiloh comes. But Ezekiel does not contradict Gen. xlix. 10. He gives only the supplement necessary for preventing this passage from being considered as a permission to sin, and from becoming a support of false security. Ezekiel, too, assumes a continuation of the dominion. If that were not concealed behind the destruction, how could "the coming of Him to whom is the judgment" be pointed out as the limit of that destruction? The tree indeed is cut down, but the root remains in its full vigour.

When Jacob announces that the sceptre shall not depart until Shiloh, the prince of peace, cometh, he can thereby mean only that it would not depart definitively; for, otherwise, he would have belied his own experience. From the way by which the Lord had led him, he had sufficiently learnt that God's promises to sinful men must be taken cum grano salis; that they never exclude the visitation of the elect on account of their sins, and that it is only in the end that God will bring all to a glorious fulfilment. When he went to Mesopotamia, God had said to him, "I am with thee, and I will keep thee in all places whither thou goest," Gen. xxviii. 15; and yet the deceit which he had practised upon his father and brother was recompensed to him there by the deceit of Laban, and he was obliged to say, "In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night, and my sleep departed from mine eyes," Gen. xxxi. 40. When he came from the land of the two rivers, God blessed him and gave him the honourable name of Israel, Gen. xxxii.; and yet he had soon thereafter to experience grievous distress on account of Dinah and Joseph; and in chap. xxxvii. 34, 35, we are told concerning him: "And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, I shall go down into the grave unto my son in sorrow." In the kingdom of God there are no other promises than such as resemble those rivers which flow alternately above and below ground, since it is certain that all the subjects of the promises are affected by sin.

Ezekiel xliii. 15 likewise refers to the blessing of Jacob upon Judah. The altar for the burnt-offerings in the new temple is first called Harel = the mountain of God, and afterwards Ariel = the Lion of God,—indicating that what had been promised to Judah in Gen. xlix., viz., the Lion's nature and invincible power, victorious over all enemies, has its root in the altar,—in the circumstance that the people of God are a people whose sins are forgiven, who dedicate themselves to God, and give Him thanks and praise.

A very remarkable reference to Gen. xlix. meets us at the very threshold of the New Testament. In Luke ii. 13, 14, the heavenly host praise God, saying: "Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace." The words, "glory" or "praise be to God," are an allusion to Judah, and to the glorious things foretold in Gen. xlix. of him who centres in Christ. Christ is the true Judah,—He by whom God is glorified, John xiv. 13. The words, "on earth peace," contain the explanation of the name Shiloh, the first name under which the Saviour is celebrated in the Old Testament.

As the words with which the Saviour is first introduced into the world allude to Gen. xlix., so the Lord Himself, before His departure, alludes to this fundamental Messianic prophecy in John xiv. 27: "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you;" and in xvi. 33: "These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace." So also, after His resurrection, Christ says, in the circle of His disciples, "Peace be unto you," John xx. 19, 21, 26.

The last book of the entire Holy Scripture—the Apocalypse—likewise points back to the remarkable prophecy of Christ at the close of its first book. In Rev. v. 5, we read: "And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed." "The designation of Christ as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, rests on Gen. xlix. 9. Judah appears there as a lion, in order to denote his warlike and victorious powers. But Judah himself, according to the blessing of dying Jacob, is at some future period to centre in the Messiah. As a type, he had formerly centred already in David, in whom the lion-nature of the tribe of Judah was manifested." This allusion shows that even what Is said in vers. 8, 9, found its complete fulfilment only in Christ, and that vers. 8, 9, are parallel to the entire ver. 10, and not to its first half only.

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,

this explanation is destructive of the parallelism, according to which, "from between his feet" must correspond with "from Judah."

[ ^[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."

[BALAAM'S PROPHECY.]

(Numb. xxiv. 17-19.)

Carried by the Spirit into the far distant future, Balaam sees here how a star goeth out of Jacob and a sceptre riseth out of Israel, and how this sceptre smiteth Moab, by whose enmity the Seer had been brought from a distant region for the destruction of Israel. And not Moab only shall be smitten, but its southern neighbour, Edom, too shall be subdued, whose hatred against Israel had already been prefigured in its ancestor, and had now begun to display Itself; and In general, all the enemies of the people of God shall be cast down to the ground by the Ruler out of Jacob.

Ver. 17. "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh. A star goeth out of Jacob, and a sceptre riseth out of Israel, and smiteth the borders of Moab, and destroyeth all the sons of the tumult. Ver. 18. And Edom shall be a possession, and Seir shall be a possession—his enemies, and Israel acquireth might. Ver. 19. And a Ruler shall come out of Jacob, and destroyeth what remaineth out of the city."

The star is, in Scripture, the symbol of the splendour of power. The sceptre leads us back to Gen. xlix. 10; and, in general, the announcements of Balaam have, throughout, the promises and hopes of the Patriarchs for their foundation. As in the fundamental passage, so here also, the sceptre, the symbol of dominion, stands for dominion itself. The substance of the two figurative expressions is briefly stated in ver. 19, in the words, "They shall rule out of Jacob," which are tantamount to, "A Ruler shall come out of Jacob."

A difference of opinion exists regarding the glorious King who is here announced. From the earliest times, the Jews understood thereby the Messiah, either exclusively, or, at least, principally, so as to admit of a secondary reference to David. Onkelos translates: "When a King shall rise out of Jacob, and out of Israel Messiah shall be anointed;"—Jonathan: "When a valiant King shall rise out of the house of Jacob, and out of Israel, Messiah, and a strong Sceptre shall be anointed." The Book of Sohar remarks on the words, "I see him, but now:" "This was in part fulfilled at that time; it will be completely fulfilled in the days of Messiah." (Compare the passages in Jos. de Voisin, in the Prooem. on R. Martini Pugio fid. p. 68; R. Martini iii. 3, c. 11; Schöttgen, "Jesus Messias," S. 151.) How widely this opinion was spread among the Jews, is sufficiently apparent from the circumstance, that the renowned pseudo-Messiah in the time of Hadrian adopted, with reference to the passage under review, the surname Barcochba, i.e., Son of the Star.—From the Jews, this interpretation very soon passed over to the Christians, who rightly found a warrant for it in the narrative of the star of the wise men from the East. Cyril of Jerusalem defended the Messianic interpretation against Julian. (Compare Julian, ed. Spanh. p. 263 c. See other passages from the fathers of the Church in Calov.) According to Theodoret (Quest. 44 in Numb.), there were, indeed, some to whom "Balaam appeared to have foretold nothing concerning our Saviour;" but this opinion was rejected as profane. The Messianic interpretation has, in a narrower and wider sense—i.e., as referring in the first instance to David, but in the highest and proper sense to Christ—become the prevailing one in the Evangelical Church also. It was defended even by such interpreters as Calvin and Clericus, who, as to other passages, differed from the prevailing Messianic interpretation. (Compare especially Mieg, de Stella et Sceptro Baleamitico in the Thes. Nov. p. 423 sqq., and Boullier, Dissert. Syll. Amsterdam 1750, Diss. I.) On the other hand, the Messianic interpretation found a zealous and ingenious opponent, first in Verschnir in the Bibl. Brem. nova, reprinted in his Opusc. He was joined by the rationalistic interpreters, who maintained an exclusive reference to David. But Rosenmüller and Baumgarten-Crusius (bibl. Theol. S. 369) returned to the Messianic interpretation.

The question at issue is chiefly this:—Whether by the star and sceptre some single Israelitish king is designated, or rather, an ideal person—the personified Israelitish kingdom. The latter view I proved, in my work on Balaam, to be the correct one, for the following reasons:—1. The reference to a certain Israelitish king is against the analogy of the other prophecies of the Pentateuch. A single person, especially a single king of future time, is nowhere announced in it,—except the Messiah, whose announcement, however, is different from that of David. But, on the other hand, the rise of the kingdom in Israel is announced as early as in the promise to the Patriarchs, on which all of Balaam's declarations rest throughout. It is only to this that the words, "A star goeth out of Jacob, and a sceptre riseth out of Israel," can refer,—according to the analogy of Gen. xvii. 6: "Kings shall come out of thee;" ver. 16: "And she shall become nations, kings of people shall be of her;" and xxxv. 11: "Kings shall come out of thy loins." 2. The reference to a single king would be against the analogy of Balaam's prophecies, inasmuch as these nowhere refer to a single individual. 3. The sceptre does not, in itself, lead us to think of an individual, since it does not designate a ruler, but dominion in general. But that which especially militates against the reference to an individual is the comparison with the fundamental passage, Gen. xlix. 10, in which Judah, and in him all Israel, does not receive the promise of a single king, but of the kingdom which shall at last be consummated in the Shiloh. 4. In favour of this general interpretation is also ver. 19, in which the words, "And dominion shall come out of Jacob," or literally, "They shall rule out of Jacob," may be considered as just a commentary on the words, "A sceptre riseth out of Israel." So also is ver. 7, "More elevated than Agag be his king," where the king of Israel is an ideal person—the personification of the kingdom. Agag, i.e., the fiery one, is not a proper name, but a surname of all Amalekite kings. The Amalekite kingdom—which here represents the world's power, opposed to the kingdom of God, because at the time of the Seer the Amalekites were the most powerful among the people who were hostile to Israel (compare ver. 20, where they are called the beginning of the heathen nations, i.e., the most powerful of them)—is here put in opposition to the Israelitish kingdom, and the latter will show itself superior to all worldly power.

The arguments which thus prove the reference of Balaam's prophecy to an Israelitish kingdom, disprove also, not only the exclusive reference to David, but also the exclusive reference to Christ; although they imply at the same time that the prophecy, in its final reference, has Christ for its subject. The Israelitish kingdom, indeed, attained to the full height of its destiny only in and with the Messiah; without the Messiah, the Israelitish kingdom is a trunk without a head. The prophecy thus centres in Christ. We are, however, not entitled to suppose that the prophet himself was not aware of this; on the contrary, we cannot but assume that Balaam must have known it. It is with intention that he does not speak of a plurality of Israelitish kings. The Israelitish kingdom, on the contrary, appears to him in the from of an ideal king, because he knows that, at some period, it will find Its full realization in the person of one king. For the same reason, Moses also describes the prophetic order, in the first instance, as an ideal prophet. That Balaam knew that the Israelitish kingdom would centre in the Messiah, is shown by the reference which his prophecy has to that of dying Jacob, in Gen. xlix. 10, from which the figure of the sceptre is borrowed. According to the latter passage, the whole dignity of Judah as ruler and lord over the whole heathen world is to centre in one elevated individual—the Shiloh. As to the letter, Balaam's prophecy falls short of the prophecy to which it refers, and on which it is founded, in two points. Instead of Judah, it mentions Israel; and instead of the invincible kingdom which is at last to centre in the Messiah, it represents the invincible kingdom only in general. But in both cases, this generality is easily accounted for by the external direction of Balaam's prophecy: a more definite tendency was of importance only for those who were within. We are fully entitled to suppose that Balaam himself knew what was contained in the fundamental passage. To the same result we are led by the contents of the prophecy itself. Balaam here brings into view an Israelitish kingdom, all-powerful on earth, and raised absolutely above the world's power. He does not stop with the victory over Moab and Edom—even this victory appears to him as an absolute and lasting one, and hence, essentially different from the temporary submission to David—but, from the particular, which only serves to exemplify the idea in reference to the historical relations existing at the present, he passes on, in ver. 19, to the general, the total overthrow of the whole hostile world's power. Indeed, such a progress is probably found even in ver. 17 itself. If at the close of it we read, "And destroyeth all the sons of the tumult," the word all, which is wanting in Jer. xlviii. 45, indicates that by the sons of the tumult we are to understand not only the Moabites, but the whole species to which they belonged, the whole heathen world, whose nature is restlessness, desire for strife, and the spirit of conquest,—the opposites of meekness and gentleness, which are the virtues characteristic of the subjects of the kingdom of God. In ver. 18, the particular is likewise followed by the general. But while ver. 17 and 18 contain, in each of the two particular features, a previous short allusion to the general, ver. 19 most expressly and intentionally reduces the particular to the general. The absolute elevation above the world's power, attributed by Balaam to the Israelitish kingdom, leads not only beyond the idea of a single king of the ordinary stamp, but also beyond that of the entire ordinary kingdom.

The objections urged against the Messianic interpretation are based either on a misunderstanding, or upon a superficial view of the passage. They who maintain that the judging activity of the Messiah is here brought forward in a manner too one-sided, forget that this part only could here be treated of. As Balaam's discourse formed the answer to Balak's message—"Come, curse me this people; peradventure we shall prevail to smite them and drive them out of the land,"—its natural subject was: Israel's position towards their enemies; and Balaam had expressly stated, in ver. 14, that he would treat of that subject. Balaam had to do with an enemy of Israel, and his chief aim was to represent to him the vanity of all his hostile efforts. The partial view arises, therefore, from the nature of the case; and only in that case could doubts arise as to the ultimate reference to the Messiah, if the other view were altogether denied. But such is by no means the case; for the words in ver. 9, "Blessed is he that blesseth thee," distinctly point it out. They who object to the Messianic interpretation on the ground that, at the time of Christ, the Moabites had disappeared from the stage of history, overlook the circumstance, that the Moabites here, as well as in Is. xi., where the complete destruction of Moab is likewise assigned to the times of the Messiah, are viewed only in their character as enemies to the congregation of God. If the prophecy were fulfilled upon the Moabites, even at the time when they still existed as a nation, not as Moabites, but as the enemies of the people of God; then the limit of their national existence cannot be the limit of the fulfilment of the prophecy. A case quite analogous is found in Mic. v. 4, 5, where the prophet characterizes the enemies of the kingdom of God at the time of the Messiah by the name of Asshur, although it appears, from other passages, that he distinctly knew that Asshur must, long ere that time, have disappeared from the scene of history.

The Messianic character of the prophecy being thus established, it will be impossible to misunderstand the internal relation between the star of Balaam and the star of the wise men from the East. The star of Balaam is the emblem of the kingdom which will rise in Israel. The star of the Magi is the symbol of the Ruler in whom the kingly power appears concentrated. The appearance of the star embodying the image of the prophet, indicates that the last and highest fulfilment of his prophecies is now to take place.

[MOSES' PROMISE OF THE PROPHET.]

(Deut. xviii. 15-19.)

Ver. 15. "A prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me, Jehovah thy God will raise up: unto him ye shall hearken. Ver. 16. According to all that thou desiredst of Jehovah thy God in Horeb, in the day of the assembly, when thou didst say, I will not hear any farther the voice of Jehovah my God, and will not see this great fire any more, that I die not. Ver. 17. Then Jehovah said unto me. They have well spoken. Ver. 18. A prophet I will raise them up from among their brethren, like unto thee; and I will put My words into his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. Ver. 19. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto My words which he shall speak in My name, I will require it of him."