enemies,' and contains not the slightest trace of the expectation of a personal Messiah, if that of Jacob had already announced the expectation in so clear and unmistakable a manner? (iii) The words addressed to Judah in the 'Blessing of Moses' have a positive, as well as a negative, bearing on the question; for they refer back plainly to the words in the 'Blessing of Jacob,' though written (as we believe) at a time when the fortunes of Judah were very low, and they show that it is Judah, and not the Messiah, who is here spoken of: comp. D.xxxiii.7, 'Hear, Jehovah, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people,' with G.xlix.10, 'and to him be the obedience of the peoples.' (iv) The parallelism of the two last lines of G.xlix.10 seems to require Kurtz's interpretation. It is complete, if we render,— 'Till he (Judah) come to Shiloh, And to him be the obedience of the peoples,' where the second clause expresses in a different form the same idea as the first, viz. Judah's coming to a state of glorious rest: whereas HENGSTENBERG (says KURTZ) admits that the parallelism is 'somewhat concealed' by his interpretation, inasmuch as the first clause would thus express the 'coming' of the Messiah, and the second the consequence of that coming, not the coming' itself in another form,—that is to say, the text has, in the second clause, and to him be the obedience of the peoples,' instead of—as it ought to have been in accordance with HENGSTENBERG'S view-and He, to whom shall be the obedience of the peoples.' (v) Besides the present passage, the word Shiloh occurs in more than thirty places of the Old Testament, and occurs in every single instance as the name of a town. In fact, the very phrase which is here employed, 'come to Shiloh,' occurs in 18.iv.12. It is, therefore, most probable that in the passage before us also there is a reference to the town. (vi) The word or is evidently derived from, to enjoy rest,' as both HENGSTENBERG and KURTZ allow. (vii) The name of the town, however it may have really originated, seems to be closely connected in the Book of Joshua with the idea of rest after struggle or victory. Thus we read 'The whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the Tabernacle of the Congregation there; and the land was subdued before them,' Jo.xviii.1; 'And Jehovah gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and Jehovah gave them rest round about,' xxi.43,44. 'Now Jehovah your God hath given rest unto your brethren, as he promised them,' xxii.4. The setting up, therefore, of the Tabernacle at Shiloh was, according to the story, a sign of the conclusion of the conquest and their attaining to rest. (viii) The writer, then, of the Book of Joshua seems to have treated the word Shiloh as equivalent to rest. And so says HENGSTENBERG, ii.p.11, 'There is probably an allusion to the name 'Shiloh' in Jo.xxiii.1, comp. xviii.1.' (ix) It is probable that it is used also for 'rest' in the present passage, with a play upon the name of the place Shiloh-' until he come to Shiloh,'—which was, no doubt, a place well-known in the Jehovist's days: comp. 1K.xiv.2, 4. Such a double meaning would suit the purpose of one, who was composing a vaticinium er evento, as it would render the oracle only the more mysterious. (x) We have a similar paronomasia by the same writer in G.xlviii.22, where he plays upon the word 'Shechem,' which is used in the sense of 'shoulder'=' portion, but with reference also to the place of that name. And, in fact, the Chapter which we are now considering abounds with instances of such play upon words, e.g. in reference to the names ‘Judah,' 'Zebulun,' ‘Issachar,' 'Dan,' 'Gad,' 'Naphtali,' 'Ephraim': see Analysis. 196. Upon the whole, therefore, we conclude that this Blessing on Judah may very probably have been written within the second decade of David's reign. About the twentieth year he had gained his great successes over the Syrians, as described in 2S.x.13-19, when all the kings that were servants to Hadadezer saw that they were smitten before Israel, and made peace with Israel, and served them,' v.19. There now remained only the war with the Ammonites, during which David fell into his grievous sin with Bathsheba, 2S.xi. We might suppose the prophet NATHAN writing the passage before us, while the shouts of some recent victory were still ringing in his ears, and certainly before the guilt of David had been exposed, (about the twenty-first year of his reign, 2S.xii.14,) and brought a gloom upon the glowing prospects of Israel. 197. In fact, after this, David's days were full of bitterness. He finished, indeed, the Ammonite war by taking Rabbah, the chief city of Ammon, 2S.xii.26-31, and he seems to have had some later conflicts with the Philistines, xxi.15; but no other warlike exploit of his is recorded in the Book of Samuel. The dishonour done to Tamar, his daughter, 2S.xiii.14, (comp. that of Dinah, G.xxxiv, and see Anal.(241.xvi.N.B.)-the murder of his son Amnon, the ravisher, by Tamar's own brother, Absalom, v.29, (as Shechem is slain by Dinah's own brothers, G.xxxiv.26,)— the rebellion of Absalom, xv.10,-the defection of Ahitophel, xv.12,xvi.23, Bathsheba's grandfather, (comp. 2S.xi.3, xxiii.34) -the flight of David from Jerusalem, xv.30, the insulting curses of Shimei, xvi.5-8,-the incestuous outrage upon David's wives, xvi.22, the miserable death of Absalom, xviii.14,33,-the revolt of Sheba, xx.1,2,-the violence of Joab, xx.10,-the numbering of the people, which is described as bringing a pestilence on Israel, xxiv.1-15,-these fill up the remainder of the story of his life in the Book of Samuel, with lamentation, mourning, and woe.' And even his last days are disturbed with the insurrection of his eldest son Adonijah, 1K.i.5, and the intrigues of Nathan, Zadok, Benaiah, and Bathsheba, on the part of Solomon, his youngest son, v.11-49. 198. It seems very unlikely, then, that the passage before us could have been written after David's great sin. Before that event, he stood forth, no doubt, in the eyes of Nathan and the other great men of that day, as a glorious conqueror, the 'lion' of the tribe of Judah. Nay, I would even venture to suggest that the Jehovistic portions of Joshua may have been written with an eye to David himself. If Samuel was paired with Moses in the eyes of his disciples, as he is by Jeremiah, xv.1, in the only passage where he mentions Moses at all,-if the work of government and legislation, of which the Great Seer for many years had been the centre and moving-spring in Israel, bringing into order and consistency the rude elements of a long-enslaved and uncivilised people, 1S.vii.3,xiii. 19-22, resembled in their view, as it certainly must have greatly resembled, the work ascribed to Moses in the Pentateuch, then David, the young follower of Samuel, may have been regarded as the 'Joshua' of those days, the leader who should subdue the Jebusites, 28.v. 6-10, smite the Philistines, v.20,25, vanquish all foes of the peace of Israel without and within, and settle the people down securely, under the kingdom, in the possession of the promised land. 199. There may, then, be a special significance in the reference to Shiloh, in this passage, more especially when we observe that of the three passages quoted in (195.vii) which refer to 'Shiloh' as the place of 'rest' for Israel, viz. xviii.1,xxi. 43,44, xxii.4, two-and, probably, all-appear, according to (7) in Chap. I, to belong to the older matter of the Pentateuch, i.e. to the Jehovistic writer of this very Chapter of Genesis, and not to the later Deuteronomistic insertions. It would seem, then, as we have said, that this Blessing on Judah' must have been written at some time during the second decade of David's reign, perhaps about the twelfth or fourteenth year, B.C.1042, when the opposition of the northern tribes was at an end, so that his father's scns had bowed' to him, and when he had already come to rest' after his first great victories, over the Jebusites and Philistines, 2S.v.6-9,17-25, and still, as we are told, v.10,— 6 'went going and growing, and Jehovah of Hosts was with him.' And it is noticeable that the very same expression is used to describe the state of Israel under David at this time, just after the Tabernacle had been set up on Mount Zion, 2S.vi.17,— 'Jehovah had given-rest to him round-about,' 2S.vii.1, as is used to describe the state of Israel under Joshua, just after the Tabernacle had been set up at Shiloh, Jo.xviii.1,'And Jehovah had given-rest to thein round-about,' Jo.xxi.44. 132 CHAPTER XIII. JACOB'S BLESSING ON JOSEPH, REUBEN, ETC. 200. JACOB'S BLESSING ON JOSEPH, v.22-26. 'A fruitful branch is Joseph, A fruitful branch by a spring; The sprouts mount over the wall. And they embittered him and strove with him, Yet his bow abode in permanence, And the arms of his hands were made strong, May they be upon the head of Joseph, And on the crown of the pre-eminent of his brethren!' * This line is pronounced by LAND, p.77, to be so corrupt, that it is quite unintelligible. He produces a number of attempts from ancient and modern translators to obtain a meaning from it, which are all equally unsatisfactory. The LXX has èxeîdev ὁ κατισχύσας Ἰσραὴλ παρὰ Θεοῦ τοῦ πατρός σου, Cod. Vat.; ἐκ. ὁ κατισχ. σε Ἰακὼβ παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τοῦ π. σ. Cod. Alex. † The Sam. Text, Sam. Vers., and Syr. have this reading, for " N. The reading, mountains of eternity' instead of y, mountains, unto &c.,' is manifestly supported, not only by the parallel expression in the next clause, Diy niya, 'hills of everlasting,' but by the fact that in D.xxxiii.15 we have 7, 'mountains of old,' corresponding to the very same parallel expression. |