Genesis 49:10, commentary and pictures

Jacob on his deathbed blessed Judah with the promise that his tribe would keep royal authority and its own rulers without break until Shiloh should come. Shiloh is Jesus Christ, the promised Seed from Judah who is the Son of David, the Prince of Life and the peace-giving Redeemer of the world. The loss of self-rule to Rome and a foreign ruler on Mount Zion marked that the appointed time was fulfilled and that Christ had already been born. To him shall the gathering of the people be means that peoples and nations would gather to him under his banner, for he comes as Redeemer not of the Jews only but of the world. Many looked for a royal deliverer to break political bondage, yet he came first in humiliation as a man of sorrows and sacrifice, healing the sick, raising the dead and preaching to the poor, and will come again as King to reign over all the earth.

Blessing's Setting and Terms

The words belong to Jacob's dying blessing to Judah, spoken when his sons gathered about him to receive his blessing and hear his last words of advice. They were uttered nearly seventeen hundred years before Christ's death and bear upon later generations. He spoke as an affectionate father who had forgiven his children and loved them to the last, with no resentful or unforgiving spirit over their wrongs. The word did not come from mere natural paternal feeling, which would have uttered only love and tenderness in dying testimony, but God by the spirit of prophecy elevated his mind above natural feeling. In his last hours angels were all around him and the power of God's grace shone upon him, and under the Spirit of the Lord resting upon him in inspiration he uttered truth even though painful.

It is a joyful prophecy rather than a gloomy one, unlike the words exposing deeds of violence and declaring that God would visit Simeon and Levi for their sins. Its prophetic eye looks hundreds of years ahead to the birth of Christ. It lays open future history and reveals the purposes of God.

The sceptre was a sign of a tribe's governmental authority, and sceptre and lawgiver remaining with Judah meant Judah's continued rule and authority and royal line. Judah would remain a distinct tribe, ruled by one of its own offspring and retaining supremacy through adversity. The kingdom and the promised ruler belong to Judah, with the sceptre given to David's seed, and the sceptre and lawgiver remain with Judah until Shiloh comes. The Messiah was thus to come from Judah's royal line.

Shiloh is Christ, the promised Messiah to come from the tribe of Judah. He is the promised Seed and Sent of God, who came to establish a spiritual kingdom, and also the Apostle and High Priest of the Christian faith. He is the Son of David, the true Lion of the tribe of Judah, to whom all powers will finally bow and all nations render homage. He is the Prince of Life and Redeemer of the world, and the title Shiloh belonging to Jesus the Messiah means the peace-giver. His entering Jerusalem identifies him as this promised Messiah from Judah.

Unto him shall the gathering of the people be means the peoples and nations will gather to him and under his banner. Judah's sceptre and rule continue until Shiloh comes, and then the people gather to him. It foreshadows the hope of deliverance through the world's Redeemer. The sacrifices and tabernacle service typified him and pointed to his perfect offering, and through him God's purpose and the hope of the nations are fulfilled.

Messiah's First Coming Foretold

Jacob's blessing to Judah is an early prophecy reaching hundreds of years forward to the birth of Christ at his first advent. It belongs to the Old Testament witness to Christ and to the line of promise reaching from Adam through the patriarchs and the Jewish system. In that line every prophet bears witness to him, and all history, precept and prophecy shine with his glory as the compacted prophecy of the gospel. Seers beheld him beforehand as the future coming Redeemer to whom the gathering of the people belongs.

The taking of the sceptre from Judah and legislative power from between his feet marks the time of the Messiah's first coming. The waning power of Israel showed the time was fulfilled and his coming was at hand. When a Roman ruler sat in the palace upon Mount Zion it proved by the sure word that Christ was already born, since the Messiah was to appear before a king should cease to reign on David's throne. When the Jews told Pilate they had no king but Caesar, they acknowledged that the sceptre had departed from Judah.

The promise connects the Messiah's coming with the second temple, which was declared superior to the first despite lesser outward splendor because of its special connection with him. That superiority lay in his honoring it with his personal presence and in the gathering of the people to him. Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah who came the first time in humiliation as a sacrifice for the sins of men after that departure of the sceptre. He came as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, brought like a lamb to the slaughter with pierced hands and feet, and the same Jesus will come a second time in the clouds of heaven with the trump of the archangel as king and deliverer to reign over all the earth.

The idol shrines Solomon built for his wives remained as a melancholy sight in ruins until Christ came and looked upon them. They still stood when he saw them, long surviving beyond Solomon's reign. Their survival shows that the consequences of his idolatry remained until Christ's time.

Gathering Hope and Response

The continuance of ruling power with Judah until the coming of Shiloh kept hope alive among faithful Jews who waited for the hope promised to the fathers and strengthened their faith. That promise fed a widespread expectation of a mighty prince who would establish his kingdom in Israel and come as a deliverer to the nations. When humanity had become more degraded through ages of transgression, the appointed fullness of time for the coming of Shiloh the Redeemer to whom the people would be gathered had arrived. In him lay the hope of deliverance through the world's Redeemer and the hope of redemption through the coming Saviour and King.

The gathering to him began to be fulfilled when sympathetic hearts among the multitude in Jerusalem were drawn to Christ. They understood his words and were warmed and comforted by his teaching of God as a tender father and by his works of mercy. They accepted his lessons of love and benevolence in preference to the rigid ceremonies required by the priests. The gathering belongs to him because he comes as Redeemer not of the Jews only but of the world, and on that promise the Samaritans based their faith in the coming Messiah. The sacrifices and tabernacle service typified him and pointed to his perfect offering, and through him God's purpose and the hope of the nations are fulfilled.

Jacob foretold Jesus as Shiloh of the tribe of Judah, the Prince of Life and Redeemer of the world. Jesus entering Jerusalem is therefore the promised Messiah to whom the gathering of the people belongs. As the procession descended the Mount of Olives, Jacob's words answer the question who he is and declare him Shiloh, the coming ruler to whom the people gather.

Many Jews understood the promise as meaning a royal Messiah from Judah who would break their political subjection and make Israel a kingdom of priests. Jesus fulfilled the Messiah's prophetic signs by healing the sick, restoring the afflicted, raising the dead, and preaching the gospel to the poor, and these works testified to his identity. Many nevertheless rejected him because his holiness exposed their sin rather than bringing the earthly rule they expected. The scepter had been given to the seed of David for universal dominion, yet Judah's former privilege did not protect the people from judgment, and for their iniquities they were presented as a people facing destruction.