JOSEPH#34 | JOSEPH IN EGYPT #16 | LAST WORDS OF JACOB #5
Pastor Christopher Choo
Lesson 3630
JOSEPH#34
JOSEPH IN EGYPT #16
LAST WORDS OF JACOB #5
JACOB PROPHESIZES OVER THE SONS OF LEAH #2 ( GEN. 49:3-5 )
Jacob gave a "prophetic blessing" to his sons that pictures in grand outlines the future history of a nation yet to come into existence.
In his blessing, he viewed how each son and their descendants would be a part of the "redemptive" nation.
The blessing embraces the whole history of Israel from Jacob's time until its ultimate completion.
4. JUDAH
Judah is the son to whom the role of national leadership falls.
His name means, "He for whom Yahweh is praised" (Genesis 49:8).
The people of Israel will praise the LORD God for what He shall bring about through the tribe of Judah. His mother was praising God when she named her child Judah (Gen. 29:35).
In this prophecy, Judah will receive praise from his brothers for supremacy in Israel.
From the line of Judah will come to King David, the greatest of all kings.
Moreover, whatever preeminence Judah might have had has been eclipsed by the Messiah Jesus Christ - who indisputably is the most famous descendant of Judah.
However, Judah's glaring imperfections are not spared in the somewhat brutal words of his father's prophecy.
He receives the longest blessing in Genesis 49 - five verses 8-12 in all - which is similar in length to Joseph's prophecy which had five verses too (verses 22-26).
Let us read his prophecy line by line:
1. Verse 8: "your brothers shall praise you"-"your father's sons shall bow down to you."
2. Verse 9: Judah is compared to a lion, the most kingly of beasts (compare others: lssachar, donkey; Naphtali, deer; Benjamin, wolf).
3. In verse 9, the words "on prey, my son, you have gone up" also can be read as "on the prey of my son you have gone up"- using the same lexical root for "prey" as occurred in Genesis 37, when Jacob said that his son Joseph must have been "torn" by a wild beast.
Genesis 37:33
- His father recognized it. “It is my son’s robe,” he said. “A vicious animal has devoured him. Joseph has been torn to pieces!”
This is a subtle reminder not to take the firstborn rights from Joseph - just as Jacob himself did from Esau by his subterfuge and grab for power.
4. Verse 10: "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his legs; so that tribute shall come to him, and the homage of peoples shall be his" - royal language indeed at first hearing!
But if spoken ironically it has veiled references to his sexual sin with Tamar his daughter-in-law whom he treated as a prostitute.
This verse is thus a chastisement with a hidden warning to conduct himself as a reputable king at all times.
5. The words in verse 10 "so that tribute shall come to him" also can be read as "until Shiloh comes."
In other words, the fulfillment of the promise to Judah is when Shiloh comes (Genesis 49:10c-12).
Who is this Shiloh to come?
In Hebrew, the name Shiloh means "a giver of rest ".
The word Shiloh could be derived from the same root word as Shalom, meaning "to have rest."
Jesus is the Peace-giver who made reconciliation between God and sinful man by means of His death on the cross.
Therefore, the sovereignty of Judah's rule reaches its highest point in the Messiah. Cf. Isaiah 61:1-2; Luke 4:16-21
Today's lesson brings to the fore God's requirement for a king as a godly leader.
He may have his inborn sins of character but to maintain his throne and kingdom he must resolve to be like the Messiah to come. For only a sinless king deserves to rule God's eternal kingdom as His Prince of Peace, to be an accepted Mediator to reconcile sinful man to an all-holy God.
Modern-day Jews take their name from him as a race. Let us pray that the fulfillment of Jacob's prophecy will be realised when " all of Israel shall be saved" under the Lordship of Yeshua their Shiloh - the giver of Rest and Peace.
