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Until Messiah Comes
"The scepter shall not
depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes: And
to Him shall be the obedience of the people" (Gen 49:10 NKJV).
Here we quote from the Christian
translation of Genesis 49:10. F.C. Cook provides sound evidence for this
rendering:
The Rabbi Lipmann, in his book
called 'Nizzachon,' suggests that it was the name of the city Shiloh, and that
we should render 'until he (Judah) shall come to Shiloh.' A similar construction
occurs I S. iv, 12 (he 'came to Shiloh'), and it is said that Judah, in the
march to the encampments in the wilderness, always took the first place (Num.
11. 3-9, x. 14), but that, when the Israelites came to Shiloh, they pitched the
tabernacle there (Josh. xviii. 1-10), and, the other tribes departing from
Judah, his principality closed. It
seems fatal to this theory that every ancient version, paraphrase, and
commentator make Shiloh, not the objective case after the verb, but the
subjective or nominative case before the verb...Judah neither lost nor acquired
the preeminence at Shiloh. He was not markedly the leader in the wilderness, for
the people were led by Moses and Aaron; nor did he cease to have whatever
preeminence he may have had when they came to Shiloh...All Jewish antiquity
referred the prophecy to Messiah. Thus the Targum of Onkelos has, 'until the
Messiah come, whose is the kingdom;' the Jerusalem Targum, 'until the time that
the king Messiah shall come, whose is the kingdom'; the Targum of
Pseudo-Jonathan, 'till the king the Messiah shall come, the youngest of his
sons.' So also the Babylonian Talmud ('Sanhedrin,' cap. II Fol. 982), "What
is the Messiah's name? His name is Shiloh, for it is written, 'Until Shiloh
come.' So likewise the Bersehith Rabba, Kimchi, Aben-ezra, Rashi, and other
ancient Rabbins.1
"Until Shiloh"
For these reasons, some
anti-missionaries accept the Christian translation of this verse and concur that
the passage is indeed Messianic, but reject its fulfillment in Jesus (Sigal, p.
9). Levine interprets Gen. 49:10 as being a command that the scepter should
never be taken away from Judah and given to another tribe (Levine, p. 63). But
Gen. 49:10 is given in the prophetic mode. Israel, in blessing his sons, was
prophesying about what would happen to their tribes in the "last days"
(Gen. 49:1). He wasn't commanding them to do anything.
What We Believe
Some Christians interpret Genesis
49:10 to mean that kings from the tribe of Judah will not cease reigning until
Shiloh comes. The anti-missionary does a good job in debunking this view by
showing that the last king of Judah, Zedekiah, was taken away into captivity in
586 B.C. This means that the Messiah should have come before 586 B.C., if their
interpretation of Gen. 49:10 were true. However, that is not the position we
take on the passage.
In order to understand this
prophecy, we must determine in what sense are both the "scepter" and
"a lawgiver" to depart from Judah when the Messiah arrives. Since both
sides agree that the Messiah is to be from the tribe of Judah, the prophecy
could not be referring to the ruling rights being transferred from one tribe to
another. The transfer of authority must be from Judah's temporal rulers to the
Messiah, in whom is vested permanent rulership. In other words, the scepter the
temporal rulers of the tribe of Judah could not depart from them until the
Messiah appeared.
The scepter has reference to the
ruling power (Isa. 14:5, Zech. 10:11) and/or tribal identity. Judah lost both in
the holocaust of A.D. 70.
Genealogical Records Destroyed
Judaism claims that Jesus'
appearance just before the temple's destruction is meaningless in regard to His
Messiahship. In rebuttal, we offer the testimony of the genealogical records.
Since the Messiah had to be a descendant of Abraham (Gen. 22:18), of the tribe
of Judah (Micah 5:1), and of the line of kings coming through David (Isa.
11:1,5; Jer. 23:5), it would stand to reason that His coming should be expected
during the time when there were genealogical records available to test Him on
these most basic credentials.
So precise was God with regard to
the genealogical records that special precautions were taken with Judah, the
tribe from which the Messiah was to come. In the days of Saul, Judah was
numbered apart from the other tribes (1 Samuel 11:8), likewise in the days of
David (2 Samuel 24:9). Solomon's son, Rehoboam, also employed prophets to keep
the genealogical records of the tribe of Judah (2 Chron. 12:15). Apparently,
they understood the significance of Jacob's prophecy concerning the coming of
Shiloh. We learn, however, from The Jewish Encyclopedia, that "all
genealogical rolls kept in the temple were destroyed..." by Titus and his
Roman legions in A.D. 70 (vol. 5, p. 597, column 1). If the Messiah were to
prove His kingly lineage from the written genealogies, He would have had to
appear before that date. Of course Jesus, being from the tribe of Judah (Matt.
1:2-3; Heb. 7:14), did indeed appear before then.
He, therefore, must have been the one spoken of in the law and prophets.
(It wasn't until after Jesus' appearance that false Messiahs started to plague
Israel. Surely, the true currency must be in circulation before the
counterfeiters go into print!)
After A.D. 70 the kingdom of
Judah lost every vestige of tribal identity. No ruler after A.D. 70 can prove he
is from the tribe of Judah. Hence "a lawgiver" has departed from
between Judah's feet. Therefore, the ruling rights must have been bestowed upon
Jesus, the Lawgiver and Judge, before that date. And so we must now serve and
obey Jesus: "...And to Him shall be the obedience of the people."
Moses said of Him, "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from
the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me: unto him ye shall
hearken" (Deut. 18:15).
Paul said, "Therefore God
also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of
those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should
confess that Jesus the Messiah is Lord, to the glory of God the Father"
(Phil. 2:9-11).
No Messiah After The Temple
If a “Messiah” were to come
to us today riding on a donkey, as the Talmud suggests is possible, how would He
prove His genealogy? If it is argued that Jews today can go by their last name
and family tradition, we must point out that this would not have been good
enough in the days of Ezra. In order to prove one's right to be a priest, the
genealogical rolls were meticulously checked. The names of those who were
"not found" in the genealogies were put out of the priesthood (Ezra.
2:61-63). How much more would the faithful in Israel discount someone claiming
to be the "Messiah" whose genealogy could not be proven from the
genealogical registers!
According to the Talmud, the
Sanhedrin lost its right to execute capital punishment forty years before the
destruction of the second temple. (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 41a).
When the members of the Sanhedrin
found themselves deprived over life and death, a general consternation took
possession of them; they covered their heads with ashes, and their bodies with
sackcloth, exclaiming, “Woe is us, for the scepter has departed from Judah,
and the Messiah has not come.”
For many, this was the
handwriting on the wall indicating that the scepter was departing from the
kingdom of Judah. Truly, the Messiah had come and was in their very midst in
fulfillment of this prophecy, but they refused to recognize Him. But as we have
seen, God vindicated His Messianic claim by destroying the temple shortly after
He was murdered.