Monday, October 2, 2023

R. Reed Lessing and Andrew E. Steinmann on Messianic Expectation in Genesis 49

  

JACOB SPEAKS OF THE FUTURE
FOR HIS SONS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS
(GENESIS 49:1-28)

 

As he lay on his deathbed, Jacob called his sons to hear what would happen to them and their descendants in the days to come. Jacob’s prophecy would proceed son by son with predictions for each of the tribes of Israel. One might expect that the eldest son would receive the greatest blessing—the promise that the Messiah would come from his line. But as often happens in Genesis, the first born son did not receive the greater promise. Reuben, Jacob’s first son, was disqualified because he had committed adultery with one of his father’s concubines (Gn 4(;3-4; see Gn 35:22).

 

The next two sons in line—Simeon and Levi—were also excluded from the messianic line because of their sin. They had deceived and then brutally killed all the men of Shechem because one of those men had raped their sister Dinah (Gn 34). Their outrage and fierce anger led them to excessive acts of violence against an entire city.

 

Next, Jacob spoke to his fourth son, Judah, and his prominence: “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; you hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you” (Gn 49:8). To emphasize the importance of this blessing, Jacob used a threefold play on words: “Judah (yehuda) . . . praise you (yoduka) . . . (yadeka) . . .” Whereas Judah and his brothers had been bowing before Joseph, (Gn 37:9-10; 42:6; 43:26) Jacob now predicted that in the future the most preeminent tribe of Israel would be Judah.

 

Following this, Jacob introduced a new metaphor to describe Judah: “Judah is a lion’s club; from the pray, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a loin and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?” (Gn 49:9). Not only would Judah as a lion be regal but also no one would dare to disturb him just as no one would intrude upon a lion with his captured prey. As we will see, this figure of the loin of Judah will become an important messianic metaphor in the rest of Scripture. It will be used again in the prophecies of Balaam (Nu 23:24; 24:9), as well as by Isaiah and Amos, who pictured Yahweh, Israel’s God, coming to defend Zion like a loin. (Is 31:4; Am 1:2; 3:8) Thus, Genesis 49 and Isaiah 31 offer a picture of the two natures of the coming Savior: His human nature (a man from the line of Judah) and His divine nature (the God of Israel who defends and rescues His people). These two natures of the Messiah are presented again in the New Testament, where Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the one worthy to receive worship as God (Rv 5:5-14).

 

Following this, Jacob depicted Judah as royalty: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Gn 49:10). The signs of kingship are bestowed upon Judah: a scepter and a leader’s staff. The staff is pictured as “between his feet.” Since antiquity, this reference to feet has been interpreted as a euphemism for the sexual organs. Thus, Judah is described as fathering royal leadership throughout the coming generations (Gt 33:7; Mi 5:2). Indeed, the great Old Testament king David was from the tribe of Judah, and the New Testament acknowledges Jesus as the ultimate king from Judah through David’s line. He was recognized as the greater king when people called Him “Son of David,” (Mt 1:1; 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30-31; 21:9, 15; Mk 10:47-48; Lk 18:38-39) a point that the Jewish scribes could not dispute (Mk 12:35; Lk 20:41). Moreover, from Judah will come a king not simply for Israel but also for all nations, since “the obedience of the peoples” belong to Him. (Is 9:6-7; Lk 1:31-33; Rv 11:15; see especially Gn 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14)

 

The phrase translated above as “until tribute comes to him” is one of the most difficult passages to understand in the Old Testament. The Hebrew text could be simply translated as “until Shiloh comes.” While the word Shiloh has been understood in various ways, it is best to understand it as one of the many descriptive names given to the Messiah in the Old Testament. (For other such names, see Is 7:14 [Mt 1:23]; 9:6; Jer 23:6; Zech 3:8) The name Shiloh most probably means “rest” or “prosperous” (from the Hebrew root šlh). It pictures the Messiah as a man from the tribe of Judah who will bring rest and prosperity to Israel and the nations (Mt 1:28; Rv 14:13). This view of Shiloh as a name for the Messiah is confirmed from antiquity since several early Jewish interpretations of this passage simply substitute Messiah for Shiloh when discussing this passage. (For further reading, see 4Q Patriarchal Blessing; Targum Onkelos; Targum Pseudo-Jonathan; Talmud baba Sanhedrin 98b)

 

The final portion of Jacob’s blessing on Judah goes on to depict the lush benefits of the Messiah’s reign in highly figurative terms:

 

Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.

 

The donkey is associated in later messianic passages with the coming of the Messiah. (Zec 9:9; Mt 21:5; Jn 12:15) Here Judah ties his donkey to a vine, something one would not normally do since the donkey likely would eat the valuable grapevine. However, the picture is one of such great abundance brought by the Messiah that the vine is viewed inconsequential. In addition, the Messiah will wash his clothes in wine. Once again, the normally expensive wine will be as common as water, so that it can be used in this most unusual way. Finally, the Messiah’s beauty is described in terms of His “eyes . . . darker than wine” and His “teeth whiter than milk.” The message is clear. The messianic age will be one of the great abundance (cf. Jn 10:10). (R. Reed Lessing and Andrew E. Steinmann, The Messianic Message: Predictions, Patterns, and the Presence of Jesus in the Old Testament [St. Louis, Miss.: Concordia Publishing House, 2023], 47-50)