The
Lion of Judah; Zebulon; Issachar. Genesis 49:8-14
Genesis
49:8 NASB “Judah,
your brothers shall praise you; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;
Your father’s sons shall bow down to you. [9] Judah is a lion’s whelp; From the prey, my son, you have
gone up. He couches, he lies down as a lion, And as a lion, who dares rouse him
up? [10] The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from
between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him {shall be} the obedience of
the peoples. [11] He ties {his} foal to the vine, And his donkey’s colt to the
choice vine; He washes his garments in wine, And his robes in the blood of
grapes. [12] His eyes are dull from wine, And his teeth white from milk.”
This
is a very long prophecy. The other long one is related to Joseph near the end
of the chapter. There are four distinct prophecies embedded here. The first is
that Judah would be the leader of the twelve. The second is that he will be a
conqueror. Third, an eternal ruler will come from him—Shiloh. And the
fourth is that there will be a judgment coming that is associated with the
coming of Shiloh.
The
first chapter of Judges gives a summary of the conquest of the land as each
tribe begins to take control of their particular inheritance. Judah is the
first mentioned in Judges 1:2 NASB “The LORD said, ‘Judah
shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand.’ [3] Then Judah said
to Simeon his brother, ‘Come up with me into the territory allotted me, that we
may fight against the Canaanites; and I in turn will go with you into the
territory allotted you.’ So Simeon went with him.” Notice they are closely
connected because the allotment of Simeon is within that of Judah, so that is
why Judah and Simeon ally themselves together in Judges chapter one to go up
against the Canaanites. [4] “Judah went up, and the LORD gave the
Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands, and they defeated ten thousand
men at Bezek. [5] They found Adoni-bezek in Bezek and fought against him, and they
defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites.” Adoni is the name for lord; Bezek
is the name of the town, and so the dynastic name or the title of the leader
was Adoni-bezek. [6] “But Adoni-bezek fled; and they pursued him and caught him
and cut off his thumbs and big toes.” This was one of the early disarmament
policies. Without thumbs and toes he couldn’t hold a sword or a spear, and his
balance would be off and he couldn’t engage in hand-to-hand combat. But what
was the mandate of God in this holy war? Did God tell them to disarm the
Canaanites. No, God told them to kill the Canaanites. So right away we see that
Judah and Simeon begin to compromise the standard of God, and they adopt pagan
practices of maiming and disarmament. [8] “Then the sons of Judah fought
against Jerusalem and captured it and struck it with the edge of the sword and
set the city on fire.” So they were the first to conquer Jerusalem, but it
wasn’t really within their territory. Jerusalem is right on the border with
Judah and Benjamin and even though Judah conquered Jerusalem it was the
responsibility of Benjamin to hold it and to occupy it, and they failed. The
Jebusites came back and regained control and it wasn’t until the time of David
that Jerusalem was finally conquered and taken under the control of the Jews.
[9] “Afterward the sons of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites
living in the hill country and in the Negev and in the lowland. [10] So Judah
went against the Canaanites who lived in Hebron (now the name of Hebron
formerly {was} Kiriath-arba); and they struck Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai.
[11] Then from there he went against the inhabitants of Debir (now the name of
Debir formerly {was} Kiriath-sepher).”
Judah
and Simeon fight together in verse 17 and attack the Canaanites: “Then Judah
went with Simeon his brother, and they struck the Canaanites living in Zephath,
and utterly destroyed it. So the name of the city was called Hormah.” [19] Now
the LORD was with
Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive
out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots.” The Jews
didn’t have that technology yet, and rather than trusting God, now they begin
to get defeated. God would have given them the victory but they had compromised
already. So in Judges chapter one there is this progressive compromise that
takes place among the Jews. We read also that in terms of his conquest, 2
Samuel 22:41, a quote of this passage regarding their military prowess: NASB
“You have also made my enemies turn {their} backs to me, And I destroyed those
who hated me.”
In
Genesis 49:9 we read something different about Judah: “Judah is a lion’s whelp;
From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He couches,
he lies down as a lion, And as a lion, who dares rouse him up?” A lion is a
majestic animal, powerful, fast and strong. The emphasis is on leadership and
the idea that no one could be as powerful as Judah—“who dares rouse him?”
In 49:10 we see that this is the tribe that will be the ruling tribe. From the very
beginning we see that God intended for Israel to have a human king. In
Deuteronomy there are laws related to the king. The king was responsible to
take a copy of the law and handwrite his own copy of the law in front of the
priests. This was part of his training to make sure that the king would read
the law.
There
is some debate over that the particular phrase, “until Shiloh comes.” Arnold
Fruchtembaum takes a position from Ezekiel 21:27 that Shiloh isn’t a title for
the Lord Jesus Christ, it really should be read differently: “A ruin, a ruin, a
ruin, I will make it. This also will be no more until He comes whose right it
is, and I will give it {to Him.}” There is a parallel, a similarity between the
Hebrew words there for Shiloh. The trouble is you have to change one letter in
the text to make that work and so there is doubt that that particular
interpretation can be supported. Shiloh is supported as a name of the Messiah
in the Talmud, and the most ancient Jewish commentary on the book of Genesis
also takes the name Shiloh here to be a title for the Messiah. It could be a
derivative of the word shalom, the word for peace, and of course, the Prince of Peace is
one of the titles for the Messiah in Isaiah 9:6 and Micah 5:5. The last
metaphor here suggests two different things. One thing that is suggested here
is prosperity and health, v. 12, but in v. 11 the language is so reminiscent of
want happens with the Messiah. He is binding his donkey to the vine, and his
donkey’s colt to the choice vine. That is reminiscent of the fact that the
Messiah enters into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey.
But
then there is this other phrase: “He washes his garments in wine, And his robes
in the blood of grapes.” This seems to pick up the same imagery as is in Isaiah
63:3 which is a picture of the violence and the bloodshed that occurs when
Jesus Christ returns at the second coming and destroys His enemies down in Edom
and rescues the Jews who have fled into the wilderness. Then the Lord leads
them as an army against the Antichrist up to Jerusalem. “I have trodden the
wine trough alone, And from the peoples there was no man with Me. I also trod
them in My anger And trampled them in My wrath; And
their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, And I stained all My raiment.”
This is also the imagery picked up in Revelation 19:3 when the Lord Jesus
Christ returns on a white horse. It says He was clothed with a robe dipped in
blood. This is not a little dip, this is a picture of Him coming with His
garments dripping with blood because He has slain and destroyed His enemies. So
when we look at this prophecy in Genesis 49:11, 12 it seems that it is an
allusion to the role of then Messiah at the second coming to establish His
kingdom.
The
past part, in v. 12, “His eyes are dull from wine, And his teeth white from
milk,” is a metaphor for health and prosperity again. So this gives us an idea
of the future for Judah.
Then
we get to Zebulun, the sixth son of Jacob and Leah. In Genesis 30:14 we read of
a rather bizarre episode: NASB “Now in the days of wheat harvest
Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother
Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, ‘Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.’
[15] But she said to her, ‘Is it a small matter for you to take my husband? And
would you take my son’s mandrakes also?’ So Rachel said, ‘Therefore he may lie
with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.’” Mandrakes were thought
to be a form of aphrodisiac. [16] “When Jacob came in from the field in the
evening, then Leah went out to meet him and said, ‘You must come in to me, for
I have surely hired you with my son’s mandrakes.’ So he lay with her that
night. [17] God gave heed to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth
son.” The fifth son was Issachar. The sixth son was Zebulun, and instead of
taking them in order Jacob goes to Zebulun first and then he will talk about
Issachar. Genesis 30:20 NASB “Then Leah said, ‘God has endowed me
with a good gift; now my husband will dwell with me, because I have borne him six
sons.’ So she named him Zebulun.” So Zebulun has to do with staying, a place of
haven, a place of rest. So Leah is thinking that as
she had given Jacob six sons, nobody else has done that good so he is going to
stay with her. She obviously had a tremendous love for Jacob but it was
unrequited and Jacob gave all his attention to Rachel.
In
the prophecy of Genesis 49:13 NASB “Zebulun will dwell at the
seashore; And he {shall be} a haven for ships, And his flank {shall be} toward
Sidon.” So Zebulun’s allotment is between the Mediterranean and the Sea of
Galilee, the area later known as Galilee. Nazareth is in the tribal allotment
of Zebulun. Zebulun did expand until he had land along the Mediterranean. This
is reflected also in Moses’ blessings on the tribe in Deuteronomy 33:18 NASB
“Of Zebulun he said, ‘Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going forth, And, Issachar, in
your tents.[19] They will call peoples {to} the mountain; There they will offer
righteous sacrifices; For they will draw out the abundance of the seas, And the
hidden treasures of the sand.’” That picks up the same theme, that there would
be prosperity for Zebulun as a result of trade. The location of the tribe of
Zebulun also takes in the Esdraelon Valley which is also known as the plain of
Armageddon. One of the foremost men mentioned in Numbers 1:9 and 2:7 was Eliab
the son of Helon, and he represented Zebulun when Moses ordered a census of the
tribe, and he was also the commander of the troops. During the time of the
Judges, after the conquest, the most famous man from the tribe of Zebulun was
Elon who judged Israel for ten years—Judges 12:11, 12. There is a huge
battle described in Judges chapter five and the tribe of Zebulun is
specifically singled out for praise because of their response to the call to
battle and because of the way they conducted themselves in the battle.
Later
on in Scripture in 1 Chronicles 12:32, 33 there is a mention of both Issachar
and Zebulun in terms of their military efforts. NASB “Of the sons of
Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should
do, their chiefs {were} two hundred; and all their kinsmen {were} at their
command. [33] Of Zebulun, there were 50,000 who went out in the army, who could
draw up in battle formation with all kinds of weapons of war and helped {David}
with an undivided heart.” There is also a mention of Issachar, the next one we
come to in our study of Genesis 49. This is one of the very few references to
Issachar in all of Scripture and of the tribe, but they were perceptive and
understood what was happening in terms of the military condition, the invasion
of foreigners in Israel, they understood the times and so they knew exactly
what to do and how to conduct themselves in a military operation.
Genesis
49:14 NASB “Issachar is a strong donkey, Lying down between the
sheepfolds. [15] When he saw that a resting place was good And that the land
was pleasant, He bowed his shoulder to bear {burdens,} And became a slave at
forced labor.” The imagery here is an imagery of strength, an imagery of
service. A donkey is a beast of burden, he carries things, and so Issachar is
pictured as a labor force. The donkey has two saddlebags across his back filled
to capacity. The point of this is that Issachar became a worker, but eventually
would end up becoming enslaved. This is a reference to what took place during
the Assyrian invasion in 722 BC. Little is known historically about the man Issachar.