Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren
shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's
children shall bow down before thee. (Gen 49:8)
Judah’s brothers are to “bow down”
before him. The verb ‘šataḥ takes on various nuances of meaning in its
different verbal forms. The hithpael form in the text means to prostrate
oneself before a superior. The term, in the setting of the cult, means “worship.”
It can also refer to spiritual adultery. Jacob used the term to indicate submission
to a ruling person, a monarch. Thus Judah, not Joseph, was held before the
brothers as the royal one in their midst. Moreover, the brothers were not to
share directly in that royal preeminence; they were to acknowledge it and, in
various ways, to benefit from Judah’s domination over them. (Gerard Van
Groningen, Messianic Revelation in the Old Testament, 2 vols. [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1990 repr., Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock,
1997], 1:171)