less distinct than in Gen. xii. 3, xxvi. 4, xxviii. 14, where Jehovah himself bestows and describes the blessing. But this is equally applicable to Gen. xxvii. 29, where Isaac bestows the blessing upon Jacob. The relation between these striking variations in the patriarchal blessing has already been examined and put in the proper light (vid. Vol.i. § 72. 4, and my Einheit der Genesis, p. 94, 95). We see here the difference between the objective proclamation of the blessing on the part of God, and the subjective apprehension of that blessing on the part of the patriarchs. On this point I need not repeat what I have already written.

Hengstenberg continues (p. 67), "Is it not probable that, as formerly from among the sons of Abraham and Isaac, so now from among the sons of Jacob, he should be pointed out who should become the depository of this promise, which was acquiring more and more of a definite shape ?" We reply (1), It is not true that this blessing had acquired more and more of a definite shape from the time of Abraham's call to that of Jacob's death. On the contrary, the whole of the descriptions and repetitions referred to above, which extended over the entire patriarchal age, did not open it a hair's-breadth wider, and nowhere, I say nowhere, did it receive a more definite shape till Gen. xlix. This is a fact of great significance, that the blessing, however often it was repeated, was not extended or more clearly defined during the whole of the patriarchal age. And for that reason we have at least no a priori ground for expecting, that under Jacob, who stood upon the same footing, under the same influences, with the same hopes, this blessing would make such enormous progress in the attainment of a more definite shape. (2), It shows an utter want of insight into the nature of the progress observable in the patriarchal age, when Hengstenberg, in so unreserved a manner, desires and expects, that because a distinction had been made between Isaac and Ishmael, and between Jacob and Esau, the blessing being transmitted to the one to the exclusion of the other, therefore the same distinction should be made by the blessing of Jacob among his twelve sons. Did Judah, then, stand in exactly the same relation to his eleven brethren as Isaac to Ishmael, or Jacob to Esau ? Did the selection of Judah from the twelve amount to a rejection of the rest, a severance from the tree of the history of salvation? (3), I have maintained that there is some progress apparent in Jacob's blessing, viz., in the

elevation of Judah above his brethren, but I cannot possibly class this elevation with the distinction made between Isaac and Ishmael, or between Jacob and Esau.

Again, at p. 68, we read: "If we do not admit the reference in this passage to the Messiah, then a very large department of the future, which was notoriously accessible to Jacob, is left untouched by his announcement."-This sentence is left without

any proof. But an ipse dixit is not admissible in the field of science. Let Hengstenberg demonstrate to us, therefore, that the expectation of a personal Messiah was a "department of the future which was notoriously accessible to Jacob!" -Till then, I shall very properly continue to doubt it. Still, the Spirit of God, by whose inspiration Jacob prophesied, was not necessarily restricted to that department of the future which was notoriously accessible to Jacob; and therefore the Spirit of God may have opened up to him for the first time a department of the future which had not been accessible before. Let us assume, then, for the moment, that Hengstenberg has given a correct interpretation of Gen. xlix. 10. In that case the expectation of a personal Messiah would be set forth in this passage in a manner so clear and intelligible, so definite and free from ambiguity, that the anticipation of a personal Messiah must henceforth have pointed out a department of the future notoriously accessible to every Israelite, and therefore most certainly to Moses. It is an indisputable fact, however, that in his blessing on the twelve tribes, which is completely parallel and analogous to Jacob's blessing on his sons, Moses does not make the slightest reference to a personal Messiah. Hence, if Hengstenberg's exegesis of Gen. xlix. 10 be the correct one, there is an entire department of the future which was accessible to Moses, and yet which is not in any way referred to in his announcement. It is evident, therefore, that either Hengstenberg's mode of arguing is inadmissible, or his assertion that, after Jacob's prophecy, the expectation of a personal Messiah was a department of the future notoriously accessible to every Israelite, is incorrect.

"If," he proceeds (p. 68), “the reference of the passage to a personal Messiah be explained away, we should certainly be at a loss to discover, where the fundamental prophecy of the Messiah can possibly be found. We should then, in the first place, be thrown upon the Messianic Psalms-especially Ps. ii. and

2

CX.

But as it is the office of prophecy alone to make known to the congregation truths absolutely new, it would subvert the whole relation of Psalm-poetry to prophecy if, in these Psalms, we were to seek for the origin of the expectations of a personal Messiah. They are unintelligible unless we recognise in Shiloh the first name of the Messiah."-Is this proof? Is there any

one holding our views, who would think of appealing to Ps. ii. and cx. as the primary prophecy, the source and starting point of the expectation of a personal Messiah? Have we not 2 Sam. vii. ? And why should not this be regarded as the primary prophecy on which Ps. ii. and cx. are based?

Lastly, on p. 70 he says: "But the historical point of connexion for the announcement of a personal Messiah, which here at once, like a flash of lightning, illuminates the darkness, is by no means so completely wanting as is commonly asserted.

All the blessings of salvation, which the congregation possessed at the time when Jacob's blessing was uttered, had come to them through single individuals. Why should not Abraham be as fit a type of the Messiah as Moses, Joshua, and David? Or why not Joseph, who, according to Gen. xlvii. 2, 'nourished his father and his brethren, and all his father's household,' and whom the grateful Egyptians called 'the Saviour of the world."-This is evidently the most plausible, or rather the only plausible argument which Hengstenberg has employed in opposition to my interpretation. And yet it is mere plausibility, which vanishes as soon as any one takes the trouble to examine my arguments more closely. I have said, for example, that in Jacob's time the Messianic expectation was still bound up with the promise and expectation, that the unity of the family would be expanded into the plurality of a nation. The entrance of salvation could not be regarded as dependent upon the selection and singling out of any individual. On the contrary, from the nature of their previous historical experience, this could only be regarded as deferring the end desired. For whilst, on the one hand, the multiplication of the family into a great nation, and the possession of a land of their own, had been made prominent in all the promises, as the first and for the present the only conditions of the entrance of salvation, on the other hand, when any had hitherto been singled out, it had always involved the exclusion of others from the chosen commu

It was not

nity and the necessity for a fresh commencement. till the unity of the family had been expanded into the plurality of the nation, and it had been historically demonstrated that it was not only advantageous but necessary, that this plurality should be recondensed into the unity of one helping, saving, and governing individual, that the true foundation was laid, on which the expectation of a personal Messiah could be based.

(13). On p. 76 sqq. Hengstenberg traces the blessing on Judah through the entire history of Israel, for the purpose of showing that this prophecy was made prominent in every period of the Old Testament, and particularly that the Shiloh passage was understood by the biblical writers and prophets in the same way in which he has interpreted it. But we have still only arguments in which confident assertions are used as substitutes for proof. Thus in p. 83 he says: "There cannot be a doubt that David gave his son the name Solomon, because he hoped that he would be a type of the Shiloh" predicted by Jacob. We cannot be required to examine these arguments one by one, and treat them as they deserve. I will merely notice two points more. On p. 79 Hengstenberg mentions the blessing of Moses. He very properly maintains that this is connected with the blessing of Jacob, and that it carries it forward. How then, we ask, are we to explain the fact that Moses' blessing on Judah does not contain the slightest trace of the expectation of a personal Messiah, if that of Jacob had already announced this expectation in so clear and unmistakeable a manner, and had placed it on so firm and indestructible a foundation? My answer to this question may be found in Vol. i. § 98. 2. But what is Hengstenberg's reply from his standpoint ? The most charitable supposition, which I gladly adopt, is that he makes no reply. For if the answer is to be found in p. 79, where he says, "even the remarkable brevity of this utterance (Moses' blessing on Judah) points back to the blessing of Jacob; and with this brevity the length of the blessing upon Levi, of whom too little had been said by Jacob, corresponds,”—I must say that I have seldom met with anything more flimsy. For why is the blessing on Joseph so long in both instances, if length and brevity alternated in the two blessings?

In conclusion, I will again refer to Ezek. xxi. 32. It is time

should cease to be taken עַד־בֹא אֲשֶׁר לוֹ הַמִּשְׁפָּט that the words

as the rule by which to render and explain the word Shiloh, in

Gen. xlix. 10, especially after the theory, that is but

has been most properly אֲשֶׁר לוֹ = שֶׁלּוֹ = שֶׁלה another form of

given up as utterly fallacious. Moreover, we should altogether abstain from attributing to the prophet Ezekiel such a play upon words, as Hengstenberg imputes to him when he says (p. 86): "the words, which Ezekiel puts in the place of Shiloh, on the ground of Ps. lxxii., allude to the letters of the latter word which form the initials (?) of the words in Ezekiel. That is the main letter in is shown by the common abbreviation of it into, and that the in is unessential, is proved by the circumstance, that the name of the place is often written." If the passage in Ezekiel bore any conscious reference to Gen. xlix. 10, and this I no longer dispute, it is not to be regarded as an explanation or confirmation of it, but simply as a free allusion to the passage, which the prophet has enriched with the fulness of his own more expanded views in relation to the coming Messiah.

DEATH OF JACOB AND JOSEPH,

§ 4. (Gen. xlix. 28-1. 26).—When the patriarch had thus looked forward with prophetic eye; had seen his descendants in possession of the land of his pilgrimage; and had announced in prophetic words the vision he had seen: he concluded by uttering with renewed earnestness the last wish of his life, that he might be buried there, in the land of his reminiscences and hopes, and in the family grave of his fathers. The execution of this wish, of which Joseph had already given him an assurance on oath, he now pressed most urgently upon all his sons. His account with life was closed, and he died at the age of 147 years. (1). Joseph had the body embalmed by his physicians in the Egyptian mode, and after the usual period of mourning, obtained Pharaoh's permission, and went with all his brethren and their households to convey the corpse to its place of destination.