LECTURE V.

"THE SHILO H."

GENESIS, xlix. 10.

"The Sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a Lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be."

T was observed of the promise to Abraham that in

IT

it God made the first determination to one particular family of the general promise of a Redeemer before given; which was next determined to Isaac (ch. xxvi. 3, 4); then, of his two sons, to Jacob (ch. xxviii. 13, 14); and then, of Jacob's twelve sons, to Judah, the fourth, as in the words of his father's blessing now read; which form part of that prophecy which the dying patriarch was inspired to utter, when, as the first verse of this chapter tells us, he called his sons together round his bed, "that he might tell them that which should befall them in THE LAST DAYS."

Where, in passing, we should not leave unnoticed the lesson taught us by this remarkable selection of the persons in whose favour this disposition is made, the preference, in each instance, of the younger to the elder: of Isaac to Ishmael; of Jacob

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to Esau; and now of Judah to three of his brethren. These are often quoted as instances of the exercise of the Divine prerogative of election: and so indeed they are; but of election, as subservient to another purpose than the mere declaration of the sovereignty of God; even the revealing of a truth which we more need to learn, and which is a fundamental principle of the doctrine of redemption,that man is not saved in the flesh, but in the power of a new and supernatural life; or, that the order of blessing now to man fallen is not the order of nature, but of grace. In the words of Scripture, that they on whom is conferred " the privilege to become the children of God" are "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God;" regenerated or born anew of His Holy Spirit. Of which the most conspicuous illustration is the instance of Isaac-not only in his being preferred to the first-born, Ishmael, but in the circumstances of his supernatural birth, which was, as it were, a quickening of the dead, as the Apostle observes (Rom. iv. 16-21), a type of the resurrection, and so of the regeneration which is in its power: whence in another place (Gal. iv. 28, 29, in expounding the allegory of Hagar and Sarah), he further teaches us that Ishmael and Isaac are respectively the types of those who are "born after the flesh," and "after the Spirit." [Appendix L.]

And so again of Isaac's two sons, the younger is preferred to the elder: and again among Jacob's sons, Judah to those who in the order of nature

were before him. Not that this election gave to the preferred or their descendants an exclusive interest in the promised salvation: which, not to go farther, the history of the other tribes of Jacob, and the blessing in particular of Levi, and Joseph, and Benjamin, sufficiently disproves. But God would so teach us, that no claim to it is acquired by birth, or race, or other natural advantages; and that, as it is solely of His grace, it must be sought in faith and in absolute submission to His dispensations. Ishmael and his race must receive through Isaac-Esau through Jacob the eleven tribes through Judah-and the Gentiles (as also here revealed) through Israel.

But to proceed to the prophecy.—I do not think it necessary, in addressing my present hearers, to delay to prove that Christ, under the designation of "the Shiloh," is the subject of it; admitted as this is by almost all interpreters, ancient and modern, Jewish* as well as Christian; as it is also the obvious sense of the original text, which, whatever criticism it be subjected to, refuses to bend to any other, and confirmed accordingly by all the ancient versions: the few who have questioned it being either Jews interested in setting aside its testimony to Jesus as the Messiah, or certain neological writers,

E.g. The Targums, or Chaldee Paraphrasts:-of Jerusalem, which renders, "Until the time when King Messiah shall come:" and Onkelos, "Until Messiah comes, whose is the kingdom." In the Talmud also, "Shiloh" is reckoned among the names of the Messiah.

who would endeavour equally to disprove the Messianic interpretation of all the Old Testament prophecies.

Neither is it necessary to the object proposed in these Lectures to detail the various opinions as to the time and manner of the accomplishment of the prophecy advocated by those who are agreed as to the Messianic interpretation; as they may be seen by consulting the authors referred to by Bishop Newton, whose work on the Prophecies is generally known, and read in our Divinity Course. Suffice it to say, that in all (as evidenced by this difference of opinion) the disposition is observable-characteristic of most of the expositions of the prophecies by the later writers in their desire to swell the amount of evidence from this source, to fulfil too much. When, for example, the fulfilment is distributed between the two Advents of the Redeemer, endeavouring to prove the whole to have been accomplished at the first, when, as most frequently happens, the main scope is to the second: by which (as by all arguments which prove too much) the intention is defeated, and the evidence from that part which has been indeed fulfilled is obscured and weakened. The First Promise and the Promise to Abraham have already afforded instances of this, as they are usually explained; and a like premature fulfilment (we shall find) has also in great part been assigned to that now before us, notwithstanding its more defined and circumstantial character.

We shall, first, with the learned prelate just

named, who follows closely in the steps of his contemporary, Bishop Sherlock,-inquire into the import of the prophecy considered in itself; and afterwards show-(not indeed as he proposes to do, "the full and exact completion of it," but)-how far it has been accomplished? and how far, like those preceding, it contemplates the Mission of Christ in results of it which are yet, even at this date, future?

I. In ascertaining the meaning of the prophecy our inquiry must be directed—

1. In the first place, to the sense in which we are to understand "the sceptre" spoken of; a word which, the Bishop observes, "is apt to convey an idea of kingly authority" (a sense which, it must be allowed, belongs properly to the original term, and in which it is frequently used), but which, nevertheless, he concludes "is not the thing intended here;" because at the time Judah had no sceptre (in this sense), nor was to have for many generations afterwards; and that which he had during the monarchy departed at the Babylonish captivity, long before the coming of the Messiah. Whence he would take the word to mean "the rod or staff which belonged to each of the tribes as the ensign of their authority," and read, "The tribeship shall not depart from Judah." "Such authority as Judah had then was to remain with his posterity . . . he should not cease from being a tribe or body politic, having rulers and governors of his own, till a certain period here foretold;" and to the same effect the interpre