(Genesis) 64 - Jacob's Last Words - I — S. Lewis Johnson

Jacob’s Prophetic Blessing in Genesis 49

Our scripture reading this morning is from Genesis chapter 49, and we have, I think, just about two more messages in the book of Genesis before we finish this wonderful book. I feel, as I have often done in the exposition of a book for the first time, and this is the first time I've gone through Genesis in the detail that we have in this series, that I'm now just at the place where I could make a real study of the book of Genesis.

It has been a great experience for me to study through this first book of the Bible, in which we have so many of the great doctrines of the word of God in germ form here. Now, the chapter that is before us is one of the most interesting in the Old Testament and one of the important chapters on biblical prophecy, containing one of the greatest of the prophecies of the coming of our Lord, and we want to deal with that shortly.

The scripture reading is the first 12 verses of Genesis chapter 49, and so will you turn there with me and listen as I read these verses. Now, remember that Jacob is nearing the end of his life. He has summoned again Joseph and his sons to his bedside, and this is what we read.

Then Jacob summoned his sons and said, assemble yourselves that I may tell you what shall befall you in the days to come. Gather together and hear, O sons of Jacob, and listen to Israel, your father. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, preeminence or preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power, uncontrolled as water.

You shall not have preeminence, because you went up to your father's bed. Then you defiled it. He went up to my couch. Simeon and Levi are brothers. Their swords are implements of violence. Let my soul not enter into their council.

Let not my glory be united with their assembly. The word glory is another term for soul, because in their anger they slew men, and in their self-will they lamed oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel.

I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. Judah, your brother, shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's sons shall bow down to you. Judah is a lion's wealth.

From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He couches, he lies down as a lion, and as a lion, who dares rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

You may have an authorized version before you, and of course it reads, to him shall be the gathering of the peoples. This word probably does mean obedience rather than gathering, but of course you can see that gathering, that idea is in this, for the obedience of the peoples is to him, and thus in their obedience there is a gathering to him.

He ties his foal to the vine, and his donkey's coat to the choice vine. He washes his garments in wine, and his robes in the blood of grapes. Now you can see from this too that the purpose of these last verses is to express the marvelous paradise that shall exist at the following, following the coming of Shiloh.

You can see that it is a picture of excess of abundance and plenty, for they tie their donkeys to the vines, and furthermore there is so much wine that wine has become the means of the washing of clothes, and furthermore blood of grapes is the means by which robes are washed.

Now that expression, the blood of grapes, is interesting because frequently you have people say, I wonder why the Lord Jesus chose bread and wine for the representation of what he did on Calvary's cross, the bread suggesting the giving of his body, and the wine the shedding of his blood.

You can see that there is a tradition in the Old Testament of the juice of the grape being called blood, and his robes in the blood of grapes, and so the likeness between wine and blood is seen here early in the Bible.

So it's not surprising that he should choose the wine as representative of his blood, or the bread as representative of his body, though that is not spoken of here. His eyes are dull from wine, or darker than wine, and his teeth white or whiter than milk.

So the picture is one of plenty following the coming of Shiloh. May the Lord bless this reading of his word. This morning is the first of two studies in the 49th chapter of the book of Genesis, and our topic for both this Sunday and the next will be Jacob's last words.

Prophecy, Criticism, and Jacob’s Final Blessing

Jacob concludes his life in a manner worthy of the patriarchs. His last words are a brilliant prophetic blessing. Now the critics have carped at it. They've said it's a case of Watakinia ex eventibus, or of prophecies that have been derived from the events that have occurred.

They have claimed that they are prophecies fabricated from events that they appear to foresee, but that the prophecies were really written after the events, and that's why there is such an agreement between the prophecies and the events that are supposed to have come later.

Now critics who say that, of course, do not have any real reason for saying that. Attempts have been made to find some, but basically it means that they cannot accept prediction. They cannot believe that it is possible that someone shall look into the future and really see the things that are going to come to pass by virtue of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now if we do come to the word of God in faith, and we have thought this through, and do believe that it is unphilosophical to say that supernatural things cannot come to pass, how can one prove that they cannot come to pass, then we do not have great difficulty with the prophecies such as this one before us.

If you study these prophecies in the light of the history that followed, it becomes evident that they could not have been written after the events. But these are prophecies that Jacob was enabled by God the Holy Spirit to give to his sons.

Others have said simply it is improbable that a decrepit old man, 147 years of age, should have uttered thoughts that are so clear-cut and virile. Now Robert Orban said he did not even remember when he was young that sometimes he thought he went directly from Dr. Spock to Dr. Scholl.

But Jacob was a man who had traveled 147 years, and he still had a great deal of his mind about him, and this was an important event for him. And so he summoned up all of the clarity of his mind. And God the Holy Spirit gave him clarity that he did not naturally have.

And so he spoke these words with remarkable clarity and with remarkable wisdom. Even Socrates in his Apologies said, I'm about to die, and that's the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power.

The same idea is expressed in the lines written by a poet, the soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, lets in new light through chinks that time hath made. Some have even said that the twelve sons of Jacob are not really the twelve sons, that they are really the twelve sons of the Zodiac.

Passing Faith to the Next Generation

Well Jacob's actions are very wise. It's very nice to bring your family together as you're about to die, and especially if you have twelve sons like he did who are going to be important in the history of Israel.

It wouldn't be bad, you know, for believers when they write up their will and they designate the things that are going to go to their survivors, to their children. It wouldn't be bad at all if they were to require that certain things be read to those who shall be their heirs and others who shall be affected.

Because it is well for us to remember that the things that we pass on are things that are given to us in the grace of God and we hold them in trust. And sometimes our children and other members of the family need to know the things that have guided us in our lives.

The saving and guiding grace of God manifested in the lives of Christians and given forth as last words to members of the family have a peculiar force. So what Jacob did was not simply something that was acceptable, it was something that was wise.

And I suggest to you that it's not bad at all for you to remind those who shall be your heirs of the things that have dominated you in your life. And if you cannot say those things and really mean them, then perhaps it would be wise for your life to be modeled after Jacob.

The Poetic Structure and Purpose of Genesis 49

Now the blessings that he has set forth here are beautifully constructed. I wish it were possible for all of us to read this in the Hebrew text. There is rhythm about the poetry. There are beautiful figures of speech.

There is play on words or paranamasia that is remarkable. It is a poem of exalted character and yet at the same time there is a warm spirit manifested in it. And even in the blessings that turn out to be almost curses for some of the children, there is some instruction for us.

Now some have said it's not even a poem of blessing, it's rather a poem of curses. But that isn't what the Scripture says. In the 28th verse we read, All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them.

He blessed them, everyone with the blessing appropriate to him. And so it was a blessing. And even when he spoke sharply to some of his sons, it was a blessing to have their father speak to them in that way.

Now the midpoint of the chapter may be, in spite of the fact that this statement occurs after the mention of the seventh of the twelve children, verse 18, For thy salvation I wait, O Lord. And there Jacob gives us something of the tenor of the disposition that marked him when he made this remarkable prophecy.

But the high point of the prophecy, no doubt, is the Messianic prophecy concerning Judah the Lown in verse 10. And I want to say right now, in spite of what my friends north of the Mason and Dixon line say, I'm going to pronounce this L-O-W-N, L-I-O-N.

I'm not going to say Ly-on. Every time I go north of the Mason and Dixon line, they say, what were you saying? And I say, well, Lown. That's what we say in the language of Canaan down south of the Mason and Dixon line.

Lown. It's Ly-on. And so they like to put a little Y in there. Now I'm just going to say Lown. So when you hear that kind of word that just sweetly comes across your mind, it's Lown. L-I-O-N. I'm not going to say anything more about it because I have to stop and pronounce the other and I'm liable to lose the train of thought.

So this is the high point. It's the prophecy concerning Judah the Lown, the Lown of the tribe of Judah. Well, let's look now at this great prophecy and particularly we'll look at the twelve verses which contain the prophecies to Reuben, Simeon and Levi, and then Judah.

The Meaning of “The End of the Days”

Now Jacob issues a kind of formal call and that indicates that he's conscious of his solemn look into the future which is being given him by the Holy Spirit. Now the purpose of the call is said to be he wants to tell them what's going to take place in the last days.

This Hebrew expression, which means in the end of the days, is an expression that points to the future and almost always in the Old Testament points to the Messianic age. Now from Jacob's standpoint, of course, he spoke from the standpoint of long before the days of Moses and consequently there were lots of things in the immediate future that are in the end of the days for him.

And you will find as you go through this prophecy that the point of Jacob's prophecy time-wise is not so much the future of the second advent of the Messiah as it is the entrance into the land of Canaan.

Now the prophets of the Old Testament did not have perspectives such as we are able to have now and so they spoke of the future and they put together prophecies concerning the first coming and the second coming just as if we were to look off, as Chrysostom noted many hundreds of years ago, to mountain peaks in a mountain range, not seeing the valleys that lie between the peaks.

And so the first coming and the second coming are in the same prophecies. Now for Jacob speaking from the vantage point at which he spoke, we have not only the distant future in the coming of Judah's land, but we also have the immediate future of the entrance into the land.

So in the end of the days encompasses not only the Messianic age, but the days that precede that as they themselves look forward to that Messianic age. Now he asks them to gather together twice. He uses two different Hebrew words, but they essentially mean the same thing.

And this double exhortation, assemble yourselves, gather together, is designed to show us that the words that he is uttering are doubly important for us. He begins, as you might expect, with Reuben because Reuben was his firstborn son, the child of Leah.

And there is a horrible contrast between the calling of Reuben as the firstborn son and his condition as it developed in his life. Now the historical situation that Jacob has in mind is described for us in the thirty-fifth chapter and the twenty-second verse, and I don't think we will understand what he says with reference to Reuben if we do not understand that one verse.

So I'm going to remind you, some of you have been with me all along, congratulations. There is such a thing as the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, and I'm so happy to see it manifested in your life.

You were here with lesson number one, and you're now going to be here, I hope, at lesson number sixty-five when we finish the book of Genesis. But in the twenty-second verse, you may remember, there was a rather enigmatical statement about Reuben.

We read, and it came about while Israel was dwelling in that land that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel heard of it. Now nothing is said at that point concerning Jacob's response to the fact that his own son went in and lay with his concubine wife.

Reuben’s Sin and the Loss of the Firstborn Blessing

But now we have his evaluation of that event. He says in the third verse, Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the beginning of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power. His providential position was the firstborn.

In other words, he was to have a double blessing because he was the firstborn. He was to have a double share of the inheritance. He was also to be the priestly head. But that place could be lost by sin, and in 1 Chronicles chapter five it is set forth.

He lost his position by virtue of his sin, and it was such a horrible sin. There is a withering contrast between the majestic phrases of verse three, preeminent in dignity, preeminent in power, and then the phrases of verse four, uncontrolled as water, you shall not have preeminence because you went up to your father's bed.

Then you defiled it. He went up to my couch. And so wildness and weakness and undisciplined behavior are manifested in Reuben. And so the ignominious collapse is set forth very plainly and frankly in the Word of God.

We sometimes talk about a grand passion. Well, words were never written more unflattering about lust than these that Jacob wrote about this son guilty of incest. Now I want you to notice how he does this.

He does not smooth over things at all. If you read this in the Hebrew text, there are two things that mean, that show that he emphasizes that last clause, he went up to my couch. In the Hebrew clause at that point, the couch is thrown forward for emphasis.

And so he says, to my couch, to my very bed, my marriage bed, this son of mine went up. But you'll notice also, not only does he throw the word bed into the first of the clause for emphasis, to my bed he went up, but he uses the third person he's been speaking in the second person.

He says, you shall not have preeminence. You went up to your father's bed, you defiled it. But then he turns to the other brothers who were there, the other eleven, and says to them, he, maybe this is the first time it was revealed to them, he went up to my couch.

And so it is frank. Now when we say that this is a chapter in which there is very little blessing for some, there was not a whole lot of blessing for Reuben, for he was exposed here as a son who was guilty of incest, who lost his rights by virtue of it.

But nevertheless, you know, there is a blessing in being told frankly the spiritual condition in which we are. And so Jacob very frankly and forthrightly speaks to Reuben. Reuben never amounted to much as a tribe after that.

You can go through the Old Testament and check it out for yourself. But the curse of God or the discipline of God rested upon that tribe in the history of Israel. Now the next words that Jacob has are for Simeon and Levi.

Simeon and Levi: Violence, Vengeance, and Discipline

And these two brothers, also the sons of one mother, were the ones who were guilty of the vendetta described in chapter 34. There is a great difference between a massacre that is set forth by God as the divine will and a personal vendetta.

You remember the story in chapter 34, Dana was violated, their sister was violated by one of the Shechemites. And then that man wanted to marry Dana. And so finally there was an agreement of sorts made and it was said to the Shechemites that if they would be circumcised, then the children of Israel would live among them and have part of their land.

But the sons Simeon and Levi waited until those men were circumcised and then when they were in great pain, they took their weapons and slew all of the men of the city. Now Jacob regarded that as the execution of vengeance by men instead of God and so he spoke of how they had brought reproach upon his name because of what they had done.

Well that's what he's speaking about here. He says Simeon and Levi are brothers, their swords are implements of violence. They are two of a pair, they are two sons of Leah. And then he says, let my soul not enter into their counsel, let not my glory be united with their assembly because in their anger they slew men and in their self-will they lamed oxen.

Not only did they slay the men, but they went around cutting the tendon of the oxen that caused the animals also to suffer. So it was excessive, ruthless spite. Personal vengeance. You know, the Bible says vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord.

But frequently when people do us wrong, we say, just think, they've done that to me and God has done nothing about it. And so then we attempt to do something about it. In this case, that's the same kind of reasoning.

God has done nothing about it. And so we will take it into our own hands. And it was murder. In the final analysis, anger is always an attack on the sovereign providence of God. And so he speaks, cursed be their anger for it was fierce and their wrath for it is cruel.

I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. And so they were banded together for their harm and he will disperse them for their good. You can trace the history of these two tribes and you'll see the fulfillment of it.

Simeon was scattered. Levi was scattered in a very interesting way because Levi did not inherit any of the land. They inherited certain cities in the land, twelve cities. And they were scattered in the land because they became the priestly tribe.

That was a blessing. They were the ones who were responsible for the ministry of the tabernacle and the ministry of the priesthood. And the reason for that is that they were reversed or they reversed their own position by the way in which they stood with Moses in the sin of the golden calf.

For when there was undisciplined in the land of Israel then and a lot of rotting that was going on, Moses stood up and said, who will stand for the Lord? And the whole tribe of Levi stood with him. And the result was that in discipline God through the Levites slew three thousand of the children of Israel guilty of idolatry.

And so Levi has reversed, but not reversed the prophecy. I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. Simeon scattered in judgment, Levi scattered in blessing because of the later history of that particular tribe.

In Levi have come some of the great names of the Bible, Moses, Aaron, Phinehas, Samuel, Jehoiada, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Maccabees, John the Baptist, one of the great tribes, the tribe of Levi. But now we come to Judah.

Judah’s Dominance, Kingship, and Messianic Hope

Really there are three oracles concerning Judah and you will notice it if you look carefully at 8, 9, and 10. He says, Judah, your brother shall praise you. Verse 9, Judah is a lion's whelp. 10, the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet.

Now if you look at this in the Hebrew text, you'll notice that it is a case of three oracles and you can tell that not only from the subject matter, but also from the metrical arrangement of the verses.

So we'll look at it in that way. Incidentally, Judah has some of the great names from that tribe. There is Caleb and Boaz and David and Solomon and Hezekiah and Daniel and of course the greatest of all, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was the lion of the tribe of Judah.

Now there are three notes here in this prophecy of Judah. One is the note of dominance and that is set forth in verse 8, Judah, your brother shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies.

And then there is the note of courage and strength in verse 9. He says, Judah is a lion's whelp. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He couches, he lies down as a lion or as a lioness. And so great stress rests upon the courage and strength of the lion and therefore of Judah.

And finally in verse 10, there is the oracle of the regal rule of Judah. The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from beneath his feet until shallow comes. And the last two verses describe the overflowing abundance that shall follow his coming.

There's a kind of note of glad animation in these words that are spoken concerning Judah and especially so because what he gives us in Judah is a miniature of the biblical scheme of history because that's what we do have.

We have the coming of the Son of God and we have as a result of that the great blessing that shall flow from his second advent. And so the note of dominance, the note of courage and strength, and then the note of rule is just a foreview of everything that the Bible teaches us.

Right now, the lion is waiting in his lair, in his den, having overcome the serpent and he's coming the second time. And when he comes the second time, he will destroy the opposition against the throne of God and he will establish his kingdom of plenty upon the earth.

Now we look at it and I want you to notice first the oracle of dominance in verse eight. Judah your brother shall praise you, your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies, your father's son shall bow down to you.

Now Judah's name means praise and he plays on the name of Judah here. He says, Judah your brother shall Judaize you or Yehudah, Yehudah is the name for Judah and Yadah is the name for praise. And so he uses both of those terms here.

Yehudah, your brother Yadah shall praise you. So he speaks then of Judah as the one whom the brother shall praise. Now that was the name that was given to Judah by his mother. Back in chapter 29 and verse 35 again, we read, and she conceived again and bore a son and said, this time I will praise the Lord.

Therefore, she named him Judah. Then she, that is Leah, stopped bearing. So Judah's name was praise. And of course he looks on to our Lord Jesus Christ. It's not surprising that in the Bible he is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah because he came from that tribe and Judah right from the beginning is the tribe that has rule among the sons.

And it is our Lord Jesus who is the messianic King who comes and rules. And so Judah then is an illustration of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the fact that he is described as a lion is the figure that is taken up in the New Testament and used of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the lion. And so it's also not surprising that it should be said that his brother should praise him. In fact, we who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior have been praising him down through the centuries.

When his birth was announced, his mother praised the Lord. My soul doth magnify the Lord. She praised him. All who know him and know what it is to have won the victory in him, praise him. And we praise him also because his hand is on the neck of his enemies.

And you can think of the lion who takes another animal and puts his paws around the neck and squeezes in such a way that finally the breath goes out of the animal and it is dead. That's what's transpired at Calvary's cross when the Lord Jesus Christ there took the sins of sinners upon himself and bore those sins to the full.

And there defeated the serpent. There defeated the opponents of the Lord God and won the victory over sin and over Satan. And so we praise him. As Christians, we praise the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, looking out over the audience, I'm not sure about that.

Some of us do anyway. The rest of you, I'm wondering about you. But really, seriously, we do praise him because we have salvation through the victory of the lion of the tribe of Judah. Now, the next oracle is an oracle of courage and strength, and it's the picture of conquest.

He says, Judah is a lion's whelp, from the prey, my son, you have gone up. So he he's picturing a lion who has been out foraging for food and the lion sees an animal and he attacks the animal and he conquers the animal.

He kills the animal and then he feeds upon the animal and then he goes back to his den. You ever seen an animal settle down upon its haunches, a lion? There is nothing that is more agile and more beautiful than a lion sitting down.

Just perfect control of strength. And then the lion sits there with its paws out in front of him. That's the picture that he presents here. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He couches. He lies down as a lion, as a lioness.

Who dares raise him up? And no one wants to try to raise up a lion. It's a picture then of Judah as a lion. And so when we read in the New Testament in that great fourth and fifth chapter of the book of Revelation about the lion of the tribe of Judah, we're not surprised that it should be a victory.

You remember the picture there in those chapters. John in the apocalypse is given a picture of the throne of heaven, beautiful picture of the throne, and then of the angelic hosts gathered around, the elders and the living creatures and the other angels in vast numbers.

And then in the fifth chapter, he looks and sees in the right hand of the one who sits on the throne, a book. And that book is sealed with seven seals. It's an illustration. It's a figure of a will or a disposition of the affairs of the earth.

And the affairs of the earth include rule over the earth. And John looks and no one seems to be worthy to open the book. Well, that's for John, a signal that something is wrong, because if no one's able to open the book, then we not only are not going to have rule over the whole of the earth, as God anticipated and called man to in the first chapter of the book of Genesis, but we don't even have the forgiveness of sins.

And so John begins to weep and one of the angels says, John, stop weeping. The lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed to open the book. What a beautiful expression that is, because it's a picture of the fact that when man has failed because of his sin, the lion of the tribe of Judah has not failed.

He has come, he has entered into mortal conflict with Satan on the cross, and he has won the victory. Overcoming principalities and powers, he's triumphed over them openly in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And John looks around and sees not a lion, but of all things, a lamb. Now, he sees this lamb as it had been slaughtered. Now, everybody knows what a slaughtered lamb is who knows anything about the Bible.

The lamb is the animal of sacrifice. It's the submissive animal as it pictures the coming of the Messiah, who is submissive. He'll not even break a bruised reed. He'll not even bruise that. He's that gentle.

But having been slaughtered, he's the sacrifice. And so it proclaims as plainly as it could be that there is no approach to God apart from the shedding of blood. So he sees the lamb as it has been slaughtered, sacrifice.

But now, who has ever seen a lamb slaughtered in sacrifice get up and stand? But John sees this lamb standing in heaven, the slaughtered lamb standing, because, of course, he represents a risen Savior who has entered into the victory of the cross, has won the victory, and now stands by virtue of the power of the resurrection.

It is he, John is told, who has overcome. And he has been able to take the book in his hands, and because of that, he is going to rule and reign, and the whole rest of the book of Revelation is a detailed, through those great judgments, detailed picture of how the lamb is going to rule and reign.

But at the same time, he's the lawn of the tribe of Judah as well. You know, I've just come back from England, and as is so often the case, when you go over there, you go into lots of castles and palaces and then also even some manor homes of individuals who've been prominent in that part of the world, and you often go in the door, and shortly after you're in, you see the coat of arms, and you look at it and say, oh, I wish I had a coat of arms like that.

Johnson, from South Carolina and Alabama, and look at this beautiful coat of arms signifying all of the majesty of that particular family. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ, if he had a coat of arms that would be on it, the lawn couchant, because it beautifully pictures him.

That belongs to Prince Emmanuel, because he's the lawn's whelp, and he has overcome. So if I ever enter into my mansion in heaven, I expect to find on that great building in which we shall all have a part, I expect to find a coat of arms, and it's going to have a lawn on it, the lawn of the tribe of Judah.

The Scepter, Shiloh, and the Rest of Faith

Now, coming to the tenth verse, of course, this is the important prophecy, and verses eight and nine have given us a sense of expectation, and now we find it. Dominion and sovereignty are his. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet.

And I can see the lawn in his den and in his lair. He's couching there, and he's full and satisfied, and no one dares raise him up, and there between his legs is the ruler's staff. That would be on the coat of arms, too, because it belongs to him.

The scepter on his head, the ruler's staff between his paws, a picture of the Lord Jesus. The scepter shall not depart until Shiloh comes. Isn't it remarkable that the lawn of the tribe of Judah, or Judah's tribe, has remained even to the present day?

You study the history of Israel, and Judah became the dominant tribe. It became the tribe that was prominent. And finally, the Lord Jesus Christ came, and they put above the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

Jew is the term from Judah, the King of the Jews, not King of Israel, the King of the Jews. For then the term Jew has come to represent the whole of the twelve tribes. And so today we speak of the Jews and we refer to those who are Israelites.

So that name has become dominant, and it was even over the cross. And in the future, it shall be dominant because our Lord Jesus is Judah's greatest son. And it is he who shall rule and reign, and the scepter shall never depart from Judah.

Judah still has it. Judah's greater son is in heaven now, waiting for the time when he shall come and rule and reign. Now he says the scepter shall not depart from Judah or the ruler's staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes.

Now, it's unsafe for me to dogmatize over the meaning of Shiloh. If you've studied anything of the Bible at all here in particularly in Genesis 49, you will know there's been a great deal of discussion of this term Shiloh.

Some have suggested it's a place. That's unlikely. Some have suggested it's related to the Hebrew word for sin, which is Shalach. Now, of course, our Lord Jesus was one who was sent. He was commissioned with all of the insignia of the majesty of heaven and sent forth as the son to do redemptive work.

But it's unlikely that it's a reference to one sent. It has even been suggested that this word is derived from a root that means son, and some have suggested that meaning, until the son shall come. But that's very unlikely.

Of course, our Lord is the son. He is the son of God, and he had to come as God. Otherwise, we should have no real ultimate assurance that we do have redemption. Then others have taken the word from a Hebrew word that means to be at rest or to be safe.

The verb Shalah have taken it to mean rest giver. Now, of course, that's very beautiful and very true. Our Lord Jesus is the rest giver. Everybody else tells us we must do this in order to be saved. They say, observe the ordinances, be baptized, sit at the Lord's table, be a good person, be educated, be cultured, do good works, all of the kinds of things that involve activity.