seemed to be wrapt up in this, it appears impossible that in such an age salvation could have been regarded as dependant upon any individual. On the contrary, previous historical events would lead to the conclusion, that isolation would retard the desired end; for all the instances of separation and isolation that had hitherto occurred had been such as involved exclusion from the fellowship of the chosen people and from the call they had received, and rendered it necessary that the progressive development from unity to plurality should begin again.

From what we have written, it follows that we are not justified in expecting a priori the announcement of a personal Messiah, or rather that, so far as the history of the patriarchs in the book of Genesis affords us a glance at the progress of the ideas of salvation in that age, we are justified in not expecting such an announcement. Still this decision at the outset should not, and shall not affect in any way our exegetical inquiry into the prophecy in question. For unless an unbiassed exposition of the prophecy should lead to results in harmony with our foregone conclusion, the latter will have no objective worth, and it will be impossible to sustain it. Should a just exposition show, that the prophecy really treats of a personal Saviour, of one single individual as the medium of salvation, we shall not for a moment hesitate to accept this result, and shall willingly admit that we have been deceived in our expectations. But it will then be necessary to assume that the lives of the patriarchs must have presented some historical links of connexion with the promise of a single personal Saviour, and that unless they are to be found in the book of Genesis and have escaped our observation, the author of that book must have omitted to notice them.-Our present task will be to test the opinion, that the passage before us must necessarily be interpreted as predictive of a personal, individual Messiah.1

1 The objections offered to my views by Reinke (1.c. p. 184 sqq.), and Delitzsch (Genesis p. 370), are removed by what has been said above. I fully agree with the remark made by the latter in one of his earlier writings : "History is not the measure, but the occasion of prophecy.” I also agree as fully with what he now says: "We must not prescribe to prophecy, in what way it shall proceed, or decide from the history of any period, how much or how little it can prophesy, for the course of prophecy is often at variance with human logic, as can be proved from unmistakeable examples, and its telescopic vision often looks behind the hills, by which contemporary history is bounded." That the former is not my intention, and that I am

Our first inquiry is, whether the construction and the connection will permit of our rendering the word Shiloh as the subject of the sentence, which it must be if this opinion be correct. We cannot accept without reserve the confident assertion of Hofmann (1.c. p. 117), that “the patriarch could not have turned so completely away from Judah, and finished the sentence, which related to him, by announcing the advent of a person, who is not described as one of Judah's descendants, or even as connected in any with the posterity of Jacob." For although the words and the context undoubtedly sustain the correctness of this view, yet the connexion between Judah and Shiloh, as his descendant, might be regarded as naturally implied. But both the context and the train of thought require that we should render Shiloh as the object. In Hofmann's words: "The expression, until, leads us to expect an announcement of Judah's future history, and of the result of his maintaining uninterrupted possession of his princely rank. And since, when we pass from the first half of the verse to the second, we have no reason to expect any other subject than Judah, we ought to receive proofs not only of the possibility, but also of the necessity of taking Shiloh to be a person and to be the subject of." But, as we shall presently show, no such proof can be given. On the other hand, the structure of the tenth verse will only admit of its being rendered as the object; for if we render it as the subject, we at once destroy the parallelism of thought between the two clauses

not unaware of the latter, will, I hope, be sufficiently attested by what I have already said. But when Delitzsch adds: "In the present instance it is not true that the continuous progress is interrupted, if the word Shiloh in the mouth of Jacob denotes the person of the Messiah, since the next great prophecy (that of Balaam, Num. xxiv. 15 sqq.) views the Messiah under the image of a star or sceptre coming out of Jacob," &c., he does not appear to have read what I have written above respecting Moses, Joshua, and David as historical links to which the idea of an individual Messiah could be attached. Whether Balaam's prophecy actually referred to this, and, if so, to what extent, are questions which cannot be discussed here. But I must confess that I cannot see the drift of Delitzsch's argument. It is with the meaning of Jacob's prophecy that we have to do, not with that of Balaam. I have myself shown that the foundation was laid in the time of Moses for the expectation of a personal Messiah, though I do not admit that it had been laid 400 years before. And this can never be proved by attaching Balaam's prophecy, by of explanation, to that of Jacob. But Delitzsch himself does not interpret Jacob's words as predictive of a personal Messiah. And if this scholar went to the examination of the prophecy with the expectation of finding a personal Messiah, and yet did not find one, this surely favours the conclusion that his expectation was unfounded and mine correct.

way

and this parallelism ולו יקהת עמים and עד כי יבא שילה

is required by the arrangement of the verse. In the two clauses, "till the Messiah come," "and to him the obedience of the nations," there is no parallelism at all, but merely a progress in the thought. If, however, we regard Shiloh as the object, and take Judah as the subject from the previous clause, the two clauses, "till Judah come to rest," "and the obedience of the nations shall be his portion," harmonize beautifully; for the obedience of the nations, who cheerfully and without resistance submit to Judah's rule, forms a part of the rest, which Judah enjoys, after the victorious conflict just described.

The foregoing remarks apply to every interpretation, which refers the expression to a personal Messiah. We shall now examine them singly. One of the earliest would read buj instead of and regards the former as equivalent to

is then supplied fromn the previous שֶׁבֶט אֲשֶׁר לוֹ שֶׁלּוֹ שֶׁלה

clause, and the whole passage rendered thus: "Judah shall retain the sceptre, until he come, to whom it (viz., the sceptre) belongs." The Septuagint rendering is based upon this view: ews ἐὰν ἐλθῃ τα ἀποκείμενα αυτῷ (donec veniant quae ei reservata sunt), or, according to another reading, & åπókeɩTaι (donec veniat, cui reservatum est); and most of the early versions translate the words in a similar way. The principal defenders of this view in modern times have been Jahn (vaticinia mess. ii. 179 sqq., Einl. i. 507 sqq.); Sack, christl. Apol. ii. A. S. 266 sqq.; Larsow (Uebers. d. Genesis); and Herd (mess. Weiss. ii., p. 33 sqq.). But this explanation will not bear an impartial examination; for, first, the favourite ellipsis is unparalleled in its harshness; secondly, we are compelled to act in the most arbitrary manner, by pronouncing the original reading, whereas it is found in very few MSS., and is evidently merely scriptio defectiva for the common reading; and lastly, we must declare in a dictatorial way the admissibility of the inadmissible pointing,

But even supposing that this were granted, or שלה for שָׁלה

if we determined to follow v. Bohlen and read at once, even then the sense and the connexion of the verse would compel us to protest against the interpretation. For if it were said,

"Judah shall retain the sceptre, till he come whose it is (to whom it belongs)," there would be a most inappropriate contrast drawn between Judah, who holds the sceptre, and the Messiah, to whom it belongs, from which it would follow, that the sceptre does not belong to Judah; and there would also be a not less. unfounded announcement that Judah, the blessed, would one day resign, i.e., lose the sceptre.-There are two things which seem to favour this explanation, the unanimity of the earlier translators, and an analogous passage in Ezek. xxi. 32, ib ¬ựn na-ty OEWAJ, , which might be regarded as an exposition and paraphrase of our word (Shiloh). But the two testimonies may be reduced to one, for the early translators have evidently taken the passage in Ezekiel as the foundation of their rendering of the obscure or doubtful word Shiloh, which explains their general agreement. And the proof afforded by the passage in Ezekiel also loses its worth; for whilst there is an undeniable identity of thought between the translators and Ezekiel, the original Hebrew of the passage in Genesis and the passage in Ezekiel have too little in common, to lead us for a moment to suppose that there was any reference in the latter to the former. Moreover, the two passages are totally different in other respects, for whilst Ezekiel announces ruin and devastation, which will last till he come, to whom the government belongs, the passage in Genesis would speak of victory and government, which will last till he come, to whom the government belongs.

A far more plausible interpretation is that which derives the word Shiloh from the root, adopts the meaning rest, and, regarding this as abstract for concrete, renders it the bringer of rest. This view is the most prevalent of all. Among its more modern supporters are Rosenmüller (ad. h. 1.), Winer (hebr. lex. s. h. v.), Baumgarten-Crusius (bibl. theol. p. 368), Hengstenberg (christol. i. 59 sqq., Engl. transl.), Reinke (ut supra), and many others. The supposition, that the abstract is used for the concrete, is undoubtedly admissible, and we adhere to the derivation of Shiloh from in the appellative sense of "rest," or "the place in which rest is found," in spite of the opposition of Tuch (Comm. p. 575 sqq.), and Delitzsch (Comm. p. 372 sqq), who do not appear to me to have answered the arguments by which Hengstenberg (Christol. i. 59 transl.), and

Hofmann (Weiss. i. 116), have defended this derivation.-An objection might, no doubt,. be offered to the rendering tranquillator, as does not mean to bring peace, but to enjoy peace (Gesenius, lex. salvus, securus, maxime de eo qui prospera fortuna secure utitur); but might be taken as descriptive of a person, in whom the full enjoyment of rest and peace is first apparent. We should therefore decide at once in favour of this view, were it not for the two difficulties, which have been more fully explained above, (1), That Shiloh must be regarded as the object of the verb, according to the sense, the context, and the structure of the verse; and (2), That the expectation of a personal Messiah was entirely foreign to the patriarchal age.

The second objection does not affect the explanation given by Gesenius (lex. s. v.), who preserves the abstract signification of the word, and translates the passage : "until the rest (sc. of the Messianic age) come, and to him (sc. Judah) the obedience of the nations." But the first objection still applies, and in addition to that, the reference of the suffix in to Judah is no longer admissible, if another subject be introduced, as the nominative of, in the intermediate clause. The suffix would then necessarily refer to Shiloh, the nominative of the verb, and the latter must in that case be regarded as a concrete noun. (Vid. Hofmann, ut sup. 116).

Some of the earlier expositors (Jonathan, Calvin, &c.) imagine Shiloh to mean his (i.e. Judah's) son or descendant. But there is no foundation whatever for the assumption that the word, with the meaning son, ever existed. (Vid. Hengstenberg, Christol. p. 63, 64 transl.)

Of all the explanations, which reject the Messianic reference, the only one of any importance is that which supposes Shiloh to be the name of the well-known city of Ephraim, where the tabernacle was erected when the Israelites entered the promised land. This opinion is supported by Eichhorn, Ammon, Bleek (de libri Gen. origine), Tuch, Hitzig (ad Ps. ii. 2), and others. The meaning of the passage is supposed to be that the tribe of Judah should take the first place, and be the leader of the tribes during the whole of the march through the desert, until they arrived at Shiloh. The only thing that can be said in favour of this explanation is, that in every other passage of the Old Tes