Discourses on Divers Texts of Scripture, Discourses 1 · Sermon 8
GEN. 49. 10.Gen. 49. 10.
The Scepter shall not depart from Iudah, nor a Law-giver from between his feet, untill SHILOH come, and unto him shall the gathering of the People be.
IT is a Prophecy of the coming of Christ, and the time thereof; namely, when the Scepter shall 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 Jew; 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 Lawgiver from between his feet, untill 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 plurall number,) should be gathered, or obedient, unto him: Ergo, he is to be a King of the Nations; and who should this be but Christ?
That the ancient Jews so understood it, appears by all the three Targums, or Chaldee Paraphrasts. The Targum, called of Jerusalem, renders expresly: Untill the time when foreign, King Messiah shall come: Ionathan: parvulus filiorum ejus, that is, of Iudahs sons, which one of the late Rabbies (saith Buxtorf.) expounds, Rex Messiah, qui venit ex David, qui fuit minimus inter filios Isai Patris sui: Onkelos; Untill Messiah come, whose is the Kingdom. Likewise in their Thalmud, Shiloh is reckoned among the names of Messiah.
Thus we and the Ancient Jews agree, about the aim and purport of this Scripture. But we Christians beleeve 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 Jewish State under the Roman subjection. Others a little after: when Herod, an Idumean stranger, yet formerly incorporated into the Jewish State and blood, 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 finall dissolution of the Jewish State by Titus.
These are principall moments of time, to be pitched upon: But against the first, the subjecting of the Jewish State to the Romans, is objected; First, that it anticipates the time of Christs birth too much, being sixty years before it. Secondly, that it might 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 or 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 then twice as much, 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 then departed; for as much as they had then a King of their own, reigning over them; and though not of Jewish originall, 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 Jewish State by Titus, is excepted, that it is as much too long after, either the Nativity or the Passion of Christ, 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: I have selected onelyonly 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 onelyonly, but signifies any power, or Majesty of Government, under what form or name soever; whereof a rod, or staffe, was anciently the ensigne, 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 Jurisdiction within it self, untill Messiah came: wherefore the Septuagint here for Sceptrum, or foreign, translate foreign, not foreign, say they, foreign. For it is certain, that Iudah was so far from being a continued Kingdom, untill Messiah should come, that there was no Kingly Royalty in that Tribe, for more then 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 originall an Edomite) which both put together, will not make fourscore years; yet were they never without some Ruler, or Rulers of their own, at that time.
The next word I consider, is Law giver, which will not be hard to understand, if we mark well, what is implied by Scepter; for foreign, the word here translated Law giver, signifies not onelyonly a maker of Laws, but qui jus dicit, he that exerciseth Jurisdiction; and so differs not much from the former, if they be not altogether Synonyma.
As for the phrase, from between his feet, it means nothing else, but of his posterity; For so the Scripture modestly expresseth the place of generation; as it doth also by the word foreign, Femur, or Crus. For where we reade in the 26. of this Book of Genesis, and again in the first of Exodus; 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 born ex femore Iovis; which according to the Orientall expression, (whence that whole story of Bacchus came) implied no more, then that he was Iupiters son; but the Greeks, not understanding the meaning, converted it unto 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 survived; and 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 designe Messiah in this Prophecy, in respect of the allusion it had to one of Iudahs sons, I will not affirm; but leave to your better consideration. Others, following the Jewish Rabbies, go farther about, to bring the word Shiloh, to signifie Filius ejus, that is, Iudahs; construing the Prophesie 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 Childe it self. In a word, they will have foreign, to be for foreign, Secundina ejus; and that to mean Filius ejus. But this, me thinks, is somewhat too ambagious, and therefore lesse probable; but let every one follow his own judgement.
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 be, or shall, is not in the Hebrew, but added in translating, and so may be left out; the words in the originall being onelyonly, Et ei aggregatio, or obedientia populorum: I construe therefore the word foreign, or Vntill, foreign, as common to this with the former sentence; namely, thus: The Scepter shall not depart from Iudah, &c. untill Shiloh come, and the gathering of the people be to him: (that is) Untill Messiah come, and the People or Nations be gathered unto him, the Scepter shall not depart: Where note, that two things are specified to come to passe, before the Scepter departs from Iudah, or Iudah ceases from being a Common-wealth: First, the comming of Christ, or Shiloh into the world: Secondly, the gathering of the Nations, or Gentiles unto him. For I construe the word Vntill, as I told you, as common to both sentences, Vntill Shiloh come, and untill the Nations be gathered unto him.
And now, me thinks, your thoughts might almost prevent me, in designing the time when this prediction was fulfilled: namely, neither when the Jews 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, Judaea was reduced into a Province: For though Christ was then born, to wit, in the end of Herods reign, yet were not the Nations or Gentiles yet gathered unto him: But at the destruction of the Jewish State by Titus, when both these things were come to passe, Christ being come, and the Gentiles converted unto his obedience, then did the Scepter depart from Judah, and they cease from being any more a Common-wealth.
That this is the true application of this prediction, besides the evidence of the event, appears by our Saviours Prophesie of this destruction of the Jewish State, in the Gospel of S. Mat; where, after he had named some other things to precede it, he addes this for the last signe; And this Gospel of the Kingdom, saith he, shall be preached in all the world for a witnesse unto all Nations, and then shall the end come: that is, the end of the Jewish State; when the Gentiles, by the preaching of the Apostles, should be gathered unto Christ, then should the Jewish Church and Common-wealth 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 erected him a new among the Gentiles.