Works, Book 1 · Discourse 8
DISCOURSE VIII.
GENESIS 49. 10.
The Scepter shall not depart from Iudah, nor a Law-giver from between his feet, until SHILOH come, and unto him shall the gathering of the People be, foreign
IT is a Prophesie of the coming of Christ and the time thereof; namely, when the Scepter should depart from Iudah, then should the coming, reign and Scepter of Messiah begin, and not till then: the end of the one should be the beginning of the other. Whence ariseth our Demonstration against the Iew; If the Scepter be already departed from Iudah, as we know it is many hundred years since, then must Christ needs be come. For the Scepter was not to depart from Iudah, nor a Law-giver from between his feet, until Shiloh came.
For, that Shiloh here is the name of Messiah, appears by the subjunction annexed, that the People or Nations (for it is foreign in the plural number) should be gathered, or be obedient, unto him: Ergo, He is to be a King of the Nations; and who should this be but Christ?
That the ancient Iews so understood it, appears by all the three Targums or Chaldee l'araphrasts. The Targum called of Ierusalem renders expresly, Vntil the time when foreign King Messiah shall come. Ionathan, Vntil the time when Messiah shall come, a little one of his sons, that is, of Iudah's sons; which one of the late Rabbies (saith Buxtorf) expounds, Rex Messiah, qui venit ex David, &c. The King Messiah, who came of David, who was the least among the sons of Iesse his father. Onkelos, Vntil Messiah come, whose is the Kingdom. Likewise in their Talmud, Shiloh is reckoned among the names of Messiah.
Thus we and the ancient Iews agree about the aim and purport of this Scripture. But we Christians believe further, that it is long since fulfilled; howsoever for the very Point of Time when this Scepter departed from Iudah, we vary in our opinions. Some will have it to have been when Pompey first brought the Iewish State under the Roman subjection. Others a little after, when Herod, an Idumaean stranger, yet formerly incorporated into the Iewish State and bloud, was by the Romans invested to be their King, and the Hasmonaean or Maccabaean race (which till then had born the chief rule) by him extinguished. Others, not till the destruction and final dissolution of the Iewish State by Titus.
These are principal moments of time to be pitched upon. But against the first, the subjecting of the Iewish State to the Romans, is objected, First, That it anticipates the time of Christ's birth too much, being sixty years before it. Secondly, That it m…ght as well be affirmed, that the Scepter departed from Iudah, when Nebuchadnezzar carried them captive to Babylon, or when they were subject to the Persian and Greek Monarchies, as when they were made subject to the Romans.
Against the second, of Herod, lies the same exception that did against the former, That it was too early, being thirty years and more before the birth of Christ; and more than twice as much more before his Passion and Ascension, at what time he began his Kingdom. Secondly, That under the reign of Herod the Scepter of Iudah might seem rather to be advanced than departed, forasmuch as they had then a King of their own reigning over them; and though not of Iewish original, yet a Proselyte, and so one of their own body. And if the Scepter were departed from Iudah, because one not of their own Tribe had the soveraign rule over them; why was it not departed all the time the Hasmonaean or Maccabaean families, who were Levites, reigned? No man would say that the Scepter were departed from Poland, though the Polanders should chuse a Swede, a German, or a Frenchman for their King: So neither from Iudah, though a Levite, or Idumaean Proselyte were their Prince.
Against the last point of time, the dissolution of the Iewish Sate by Titus, is excepted, That it is as much too long after either the Nativity or the Passion of Christ,Gen. 49. 10. as the other two were before it, to wit, seventy years after the one, and near forty after the other.
I mean not to enlarge my self any further, in acquainting you with each particular passage agitated concerning these differing opinions, or alledged in the disputing of them; lest I should confound rather than instruct the yonger sort, who I desire might have some smack of these speculations betimes, lest all their life-time after they neglect them, as many do. I have therefore selected only so much as I thought requisite for the understanding of what I aim at, which is, to shew you such a construction of these words, with but a little alteration of the common translating, as, being admitted, will leave no more place for those difficulties wherewith this Question is entangled.
FOR the handling whereof, I will divide the remainder of my Discourse into these two parts: First, I will unfold the words of my Text which seem to have any difficulty or obscurity in them; secondly, I will apply them to the time wherein they were fulfilled.
For the first; I begin with the word Scepter: which is not to be restrained to Kingly Dominion only, but signifies any Power or Majesty of Government, under what form or name soever; whereof a Rod or Staffe was anciently the ensign; whence every Tribe is called foreign (by the word here used) as being united together under one staffe or power of Government. The meaning therefore is not, that Iudah should never cease from having a King, or being a Kingdom; but that it should not cease from being a State, a body Politick, or Common-wealth, having a power of Government and Iurisdiction within it self, until Messiah came: wherefore the Seventy here for Sceptrum or foreign, translate foreign a Ruler, not foreign a King; foreign, say they, foreign, There shall not fail a Ruler from Iudah. For it is certain that Iudah was so far from being a continued Kingdom until Messiah should come, that there was no Kingly Royalty in that Tribe for more than two third parts of that time, namely, not till David, nor after Zedekiah, saving that of the Maccabees (who were Levites) and of Herod (by original an Edomite,) which both put together will not make eighty years; yet were they never without some Ruler or Rulers of their own all that time.
The next word I consider is Law-giver; which it will not be hard to understand, if we mark well what is implied by Scepter: for foreign the word here translated Lawgiver, signifies not only a maker of Laws, but qui jus dicit, he that exerciseth Iurisdiction; and so differs not much from the former, if they be not altogether Synonyma's.
As for the phrase, from between his feet, it means nothing else but of his posierity: for so the Scripture modestly expresseth the place of generation; as it doth also by the word foreign … the thigh. For where we read in Genesis 46. 26. and again in Exodus 1. 5. All the souls that came out of the loins of Iacob, were seventy souls, in the Hebrew it is, All the souls that came out of his thigh: whence, by the way, you may observe the occasion of that Fable, that Bacchus or Dionysius was bornex femore Iovis, out of Iupiter's thigh, which according to the Oriental expression (whence that whole story of Bacchus came) implied no more than that he was Iupiter's son; but the Greeks, not understanding the meaning, converted it into that Fable which you all know.
Now for the word Shiloh, if we derive it as I think we should, it will signifie a Peace-maker… or Saviour, of the verb foreign … which signifies Tranquillus, Pacificus, or Salvus fuit. And if the Masorites had so pleas'd, they might have pointed it foreign, which was the name of the eldest son of Iudah that surviv'd; in the Hebrew Etymology can signifie nothing else but Peaceable or Peace-maker. And whether the Patriarch Iacob, or the holy Ghost directing him, might not chuse this name before any other, to design Messiah in this Prophecy, in respect of the allusion it had to one of Iudah's sons, I will not affirm, but leave to your better consideration. Others, following the Iewish Rabbies, go farther about, to bring the word Shiloh to signifie Filius ejus, his Son, that is, Iudah's; construing the Prophecy thus; The Scepter shall not depart from Iudah, till his son (namely, Messiah) come. For foreign they will have put for the affix Vau, as sometimes it is elsewhere; foreign to be for foreign, Secundina, (that wherein the Infant is wrapped in the womb) and so by a Metonymie to signifie here the Child it self. In a word, they will have foreign to be for foreign, Secundina ejus; and that to mean Filius ejus. But this, methinks, is somewhat too ambiguous, and therefore less probable: but let every one follow his own judgment.
AND now I am come to the Application, to shew at what Point of Time this Prediction was fulfilled. To make the way plain whereunto, I must first alter a little the construction of the remaining words, namely, And unto him shall the gathering of the People, or the Nations, be. For here the word [shall, or shall be] is not in the Hebrew, but added in translating, and so may be left out; the words in the Original being only, foreign Et ei aggregatio, or obedientia, populorum, And to him the gathering, or the obedience, of the people. I construe therefore the word foreign or Vntil foreign, as common to this with the former sentence, namely thus; The Scepter shall not depart from Iudah, &c. until Shiloh come, and the gathering of the people be to him; that is, Until Messiah come, and the People or Nations be gathered unto him, the Scepter shall not depart from Iudah, &c. Where note, that two things are specified to come to pass before the Scepter depart from Iudah, or Iudah ceases from being a Commonwealth: First, The coming of Christ or Shiloh into the world; Secondly, The gathering of the Nations or Gentiles unto him. For I construe the word Vntil, as I told you, as common to both sentences, Vntil Shiloh come, and, Vntil the Nations be gathered unto him.
And now methinks, your thoughts might almost prevent me in designing the Time when this Prediction was fulfilled. Namely, neither when the Iews came first under the Roman subjection; for then Shiloh was not yet come: nor under Herod, or (as some will) seven years after him, when, his son Archelaus being banished, Iudaea was reduced into a Province; for though Christ was then born, to wit, in the end of Herod's reign, yet were not the Nations or Gentiles yet gathered unto him. But at the destruction of the Iewish State by Titus, when both these things were come to pass, (Christ being come, and the Gentiles converted unto his obedience,) then did the Scepter depart from Iudah, and they cease from being any more a Commonwealth.
That this is the true Application of this Prediction, besides the evidence of the Event,Ch. 24. 14. appears by our Saviour's Prophecy of this Destruction of the Iewish State in the Gospel of S. Matthew; where, after he had named some other things to precede it, he adds this for the last Sign, And this Gospel of the Kingdom (saith he) shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all Nations, and then shall the End come, that is, the end of the Iewish State. When the Gentiles, by the preaching of the Apostles, should be gathered unto Christ, then should the Iewish Church and Commonwealth be utterly dissolved; which till then had continued united under some Polity and form of Government from its first beginning. For so it pleased the wisdom of Almighty God, when he would reject the Iews, not to dissolve their State, till he had crected him anew among the Gentiles.