The sceptre shall not depart from Judah
Which some understand of the tribe, that Judah should not cease
from being a tribe, or that it should continue a distinct tribe
until the coming of the Messiah, who was to be of it, and was,
and that it might appear he sprung from it; but this was not
peculiar to this tribe, for the tribe of Benjamin continued, and
so did the tribe of Levi unto the coming of Christ: besides, by
Judah is meant the tribe, and to say a tribe shall not depart
from the tribe, is not only a tautology, but scarcely sense; it
rather signifies dominion, power, and authority, as the sceptre
always does, it being an emblem of it, see ( Numbers
24:17 ) ( Zechariah
10:11 ) and this intends either the government, which was in
the heads and princes of the tribe, which commenced as soon as it
became a tribe, and lasted as long as it remained one, even unto
the times of the Messiah; or kingly power and government, which
the sceptre is generally thought to be an emblem of, and which
first commenced in David, who was of the tribe of Judah, and
continued unto the Babylonish captivity, when another sort of
governors and government took place, designed in the next clause:
nor a lawgiver from between his feet;
which may be rendered disjunctively, "or a lawgiver"; any ruler
or governor, that has jurisdiction over others, though under
another, as the word is used, ( Judges 5:14 ) and the
sense is, that till the Messiah came there should be in the tribe
of Judah, either a king, a sceptre bearer, as there was unto the
captivity; or a governor, though under others, as there were unto
the times of Christ under the Babylonians, Persians, Grecians,
and Romans; such as Gedaliah, Zorobabel and particularly the
sanhedrim, a court of judicature, the members of which chiefly
consisted of the tribe of Judah, and the (ayvn) , or prince of it, was always of that
tribe, and which retained its power to the latter end of Herod's
reign, when Christ was come; and though it was greatly
diminished, it had some power remaining, even at the death of
Christ, but quickly after had none at all: and if by the
"lawgiver" is meant a scribe or a teacher of the law, as all the
Targums, Aben Ezra, Ben Melech, and others interpret it, who used
to sit at the feet of a ruler, judge, or prince of the sanhedrim;
it is notorious there were of these unto, and in the times of the
Messiah: in short, it matters not for the fulfilment of this
prophecy what sort of governors those were after the captivity,
nor of what tribe they were; they were in Judah, and their
government was exercised therein, and that was in the hands of
Judah, and they and that did not depart from thence till Shiloh
came; since those that were of the other tribes, after the return
from the captivity all went by the name of Judah: until
Shiloh come;
which all the three Targums interpret of the Messiah, as do many
of the Jewish writers, ancient and modern F16; and
is the name of the Messiah in their Talmud F17, and
in other writings {r}; and well agrees with him, coming from a
root which signifies to be "quiet", "peaceable", and
"prosperous"; as he was of a quiet and peaceable disposition,
came to make peace between God and men, and made it by the blood
of his cross, and gives spiritual peace to all his followers, and
brings them at length to everlasting peace and happiness; having
prospered and succeeded in the great work of their redemption and
salvation he undertook: and unto him shall the gathering of
the people be;
not of the Jews, though there were great gatherings of them to
hear him preach, and see his miracles; as there were of all his
people to him at his death, and in him as their head and
representative, ( Ephesians
1:10 ) but of the Gentiles; upon his death, the Gospel being
preached to all nations, multitudes among them were converted to
Christ, embraced his doctrines, professed his religion, and abode
by him, see ( Isaiah 11:10
) some render it, the obedience of the people F19, from
the use of the word in ( Proverbs
30:17 ) , which sense agrees with the former; for those who
are truly gathered by the ministry of the word yield an obedience
to his doctrines and ordinances; and others read, "the
expectation of the people" F20; the Messiah being the
desire of all nations, ( Haggai 2:6 ) this, with
what goes before, clearly shows that the Messiah must be come,
since government in every sense has departed from Judah for 1900
years or thereabout, and the Gentiles have embraced the Messiah
and his Gospel the Jews rejected: the various contradictory
senses they put upon this prophecy show the puzzle and confusion
they are in about it, and serve to confirm the true sense of it:
some apply it to the city Shiloh, others to Moses, others to
Saul, others to David; nay, some will have Shiloh to be Jeroboam,
or Ahijah the Shilonite, and even Nebuchadnezzar: there are two
senses they put upon it which deserve the most notice, the one
is, that "Shebet", we render "sceptre", signifies a "rod"; and so
it does, but such a rod as is an ensign of government, as it must
here, by what follows, see ( Ezekiel
19:11 ) , but they would have it to signify either a rod of
correction F21, or a staff of support; but what
correction or affliction has befallen the tribe of Judah peculiar
to it? was it not in a flourishing condition for five hundred
years, under the reign of David's family? and when the rest of
the tribes were carried captive and never returned, Judah
remained in its own land, and, when carried captive, after
seventy years returned again to it; add to which, that this is a
prediction, not of affliction and distress, that should abide in
the tribe of Judah, but of honour and glory to it: and besides,
Judah has had a far greater share of correction since the coming
of the true Messiah than ever it had before: and what support
have the Jews now, or have had for many hundred years, being out
of their land F22, destitute of their privileges,
living among other nations in disgrace, and for the most part in
poverty and distress? the other sense is this, "the sceptre and
lawgiver shall not depart from Judah for ever, when Shiloh comes
F23"; but this is contrary to the
accents which separate and divide the phrase, "between his feet",
from that, "for ever", as this version renders the word; though
(de) never signifies "for
ever", absolutely put, without some antecedent noun or particle;
nor does (yk) signify
"when", but always "until", when it is joined with the particle
(de) , as it is here;
besides, this sense makes the prophecy to pass over some
thousands of years before any notice is taken of Judah's sceptre,
which, according to the Jews, it had thousands of years ago, as
well as contradicts a received notion of their own, that the
Messiah, when he comes, shall not reign for ever, but for a
certain time, and even a small time; some say forty years, some
seventy, and others four hundred {x}.