The Blessing of Judah

TORAH
Gen. 47:28-50:26

 

HAFTORAH

1 Kings 2:1-12

 

B’RIT HADASHAH

Acts 7:9-16 (15-16)
Heb. 11:21-22

1 Peter 1:3-9; 2:11-17

Gen. 49:8-12

By means of the blessing that Jacob gives to his son Judah, God sovereignly sets in motion another phase in His unique plan for the redemption of His chosen people, the remnant, who are the seed of the promise made to Abraham.

 

Judah was not Jacob’s first born and, according to tradition, should not have been the recipient of such a blessing. In fact this blessing is a variant of the two previous blessings when Jacob deceived Isaac into giving him the blessing that should have fallen, by tradition, to Esau and again when Jacob unexpectedly turned the tables on tradition, giving Joseph’s son Ephraim, the younger, the blessing that would normally be part of the birthright of Manasseh the elder. (Incidentally, we learn from 48:22 that Joseph, not Reuben, received the double portion reserved for the firstborn.)

 

By these unexpected means, God demonstrates His own hidden (that is to say, sovereign) purpose in creation and simultaneously teaches that “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9). God’s sovereign will is of necessity hidden from our sight and understanding until such a time as it comes to fruition. It is in this sense that the blessing can be understood as being two-dimensional: it not only predicts the events that will unfold toward the close of time, the “latter days” of some translations, but it in fact is instrumental in bringing those events to fruition, “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:11). This illustrates the essential aspect of true prophecy: it not only foretells but is the actual working out of what God wills within creation. Rarely is prophecy understood except in hindsight, that is, until accomplished.

 

So how then are we to understand Jacob’s blessing of Judah?

 

Jacob is clearly prophesying a prominent role for the descendants of Judah. In fact, he is prophesying that kings shall come from Judah who will rule all Israel and who will be victorious over their external enemies as well. Jacob likens the tribe of Judah to a lion (for majesty, dignity and justice) and a lioness (for strength, ferocity and prowess). These qualities must be found in all good rulers and leaders of peoples. The greatest of these earthly kings were David and his son Solomon. According to verse 10d, “to him shall be the obedience of the peoples (or nations).” This was true to some degree in David’s life but more completely in the heyday of Solomon (1 Kings 4:20-21).

 

But is this a prophecy only about David and Solomon alone or even about the dynasty of David? Yes and no. It certainly points to David as being the progenitor of a dynasty of Kings but it goes far beyond that for we learn from the OT that the Messiah would come from the house of Jesse, David’s father. And as such, He is a direct descendant of David, in David’s role as King over all Israel. “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit” (Isa. 11:1-5. See also 2 Sam. 7:12-13; Jer. 23:5). We learn that the earlier prophecies were fulfilled in the person of Yeshua ben Yoseph according to Matt. 1:1-3; Luke3:33; Acts 13:22-23, Rom. 1:3 and Heb. 7:14. So according to the Bible, the Messiah was to come from the tribe of Judah and the house of David. Indeed, in Revelation He is titled the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah” (Rev. 5:5) who is also of the “root of David.”

 

Now what was not fully understood by many people of the OT, and only hinted at in the prophets, mostly in Isaiah, was that the Messiah would come not once but twice, according to God’s sovereign will: His first appearance in humility and servant-hood, and His second in majesty and authority. Verse 10 of our passage seems to describe someone from the tribe of Judah in terms of royalty (i.e. the scepter and ruler’s staff, both emblematic of regal authority). Different Bible versions offer differing translations of 10b: “until tribute comes to him” (ESV, JSB); “until Shiloh come” (KJV, NASB); “until he comes to whom it belongs” (NIV, CJB) and so on. The word shiloh, according to John Sailhamer (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 2, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1990, p. 276) is “simply an untranslated form of the Hebrew expression meaning ‘one to whom it belongs.’ It is not a name as such, [Shiloh, in some Christian traditions was considered one of the names of the Messiah] nor is it to be associated with the site of the tabernacle in the days of Samuel (1 Sam 1:3).”

 

Because of the context as well as later, fuller revelation from the NT, I believe an appropriate translation would agree with that of J. Barton Payne’s, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah until the One come whose it is” (Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, Baker House, Grand Rapids, 1973). Payne also points out that “the same Hebrew syntax is repeated in the confirmatory Messianic prophecy of Ezek21:27.”

 

Gen. 49:10 speaks not in general terms but specifically of an individual who will rule—not only his own nation of Israel, but all nations (“peoples”, ESV). This theme of course is taken up in several places in the Bible including Psalm 2:8;Dan. 7:13-14 and Rev. 5:5, 9.

 

What is being described by these few verses is a further elaboration of the promise found back in Gen. 3:15 in which the hint of a Saviour (i.e. her offspring, singular) is given, but now more fully disclosed in our present passage. The passage, in describing the obedience of the peoples in future tense is alluding to a future reign, one in which at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10-11, see also Isa. 45:23).

 

As prophecy, this short passage makes it clear that a Messiah will indeed return to take up the rulership, not just of Judah, but a united Israel as well. Moreover, we know by comparing this predictive passage with several others—especially in the Revelation—that this Messiah is to be identified first with Israel when, for example, He is spoken of as the “lion of Judah”—Judah being a metonymy for all Israel, and again where in Rev. 19:11-16 He is eloquently and clearly described, “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.  He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.” This passage is in full agreement with Isaiah who declares, “In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious” (Isa. 11:10) which predicts the coming to faith of Gentiles as well as Jews.

 

So we have here a picture of the returning King Messiah, removed as it were for a time in order to ensure that all who have been appointed for salvation have “come in to their fullness”, including all born again believers, Jew and Gentile alike “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:47b-48). But this King Messiah will no longer be a “servant.” Indeed as we see from Revelation, He is coming to exact payment from the reprobates and to dispense blessings and rewards to the elect from all generations.

 

Does this bring us hope or fear, confidence or uncertainty? The NT prophet and apostle John speaks of these things in his letters. He reminds us that we are able to know we love God, and are therefore loved by Him, when we are keeping His commandments—His easy yoke and His light burden, Matt. 11:30—“And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments”; “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us”; “And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it” (1 John 2:3; 3:24; 2 John 1:6).

 

Keeping the commandments is, when performed out of love, not burdensome. Nor can we keep the commandments without God’s sovereign grace. Only His intervention—through faith by the Holy Spirit—will re-vivify our spiritually dead souls and enable us –through wills now fully redeemed and so truly free—to demonstrate our love to God and His precious Son by our obedience to His commandments, which are the same commandments as found in the so-called OT. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart”; “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” (Deut. 6:4-6; Lev. 19:18. See also Matt. 22:37, pars; Mark 12:31, pars.). These, among other such commandments are still in effect for all those called as His disciples. Not only so, but by quoting these commandments and using their teachings as an aspect of His teachings, He not only legitimizes them, He makes them His own, therefore still binding. And since in quoting these and other commandments and teachings, He in effect is demonstrating that the whole teaching of the OT—the Torah—is still operative in the lives of believers. Therefore, let us pay close attention to these things lest we should become disqualified from winning the prize.

AMEN

I Will Be Their God, They Shall Be My People

TORAH
Gen. 44:18-47:27

HAFTORAH

Eze. 37:15-28

B’RIT HADASHAH

Acts 7:9-16 (13-15)

 

Gen. 45:7; Eze. 37:15-28

Ezekiel, who was a priest of Adonai as well as a prophet, wrote this prophecy during the captivity of Israel by the Babylonians and their king, Nebuchadnezzar. The first temple had been destroyed, the country had been laid waste and all but the very poor and unskilled had been forced into exile in Babylon. A national tragedy threatened the very existence of this people. Prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah had foretold this catastrophic event but from the point of view of the average Judean exile, nothing worse could have happened.

The sticks being referred to by Ezekiel were tribal “totems” as in Num. 17:2, “Speak to the people of Israel, and get from them staffs, one for each fathers' house, from all their chiefs according to their fathers' houses, twelve staffs. Write each man's name on his staff.” The fathers mentioned in this verse are the twelve sons of Jacob. In Numbers, each staff represented the tribe composed of the descendants of one of the twelve sons, thus they represent the fullness of the nation of Israel. In this particular passage, there are two sticks, which represent the two most important Hebrew tribes, that of Ephraim in the north (descended from Joseph’s son, Israel’s grandson) and Judah, a son of Jacob, in the south. The identity of every other tribe is located in one of these two, so that again, these sticks represent the complete fullness of Israel.

I believe this act of naming and combining the staffs is more than a symbolic proclamation and may in fact be a form of divinely sanctioned sympathetic magic. (The prophet Hosea carried out similar acts.) The commentators Jamieson, Fausset and Brown describe it as “a prophecy in action” of the re-unification of all the tribes of Israel. The prophecy was meant partly to offer immediate hope and comfort at one of the darkest periods in Jewish history. It was more than that however. It was also a divine promise to bring the fractured nation of Israel back into a state of grace and blessing on the Land that God had previously promised to the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, after a period (or several periods) of chastisement by God for the sins of His people, particularly idolatry, apostasy and spiritual fornication. Ezekiel speaks for God in chapter two, verses three to five, “And he said to me, ‘Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations [Ephraim and Judah] of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants [i.e. the exiles in Babylon, Ezekiel’s own generation] also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord God.” And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them.’”

The Assyrians had already conquered and exiled the northern tribes and they had become virtually extinct as any kind of Hebrew entity by time of this prophecy. They had become absorbed by gentile peoples and had become a kind of “hybrid” nation. This prophecy however, is saying to the remnant of both houses of Israel that there will come a time when God will call all His people—His chosen people—back to the land of Canaan. This passage is an extended “sermon” that Ezekiel began back at verse one with his prophecy of the Valley of Dry Bones.

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’” So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”

Ezekiel is here prophesying that God will bring back and re-constitute the nation, (but not necessarily all the individuals within it). But he is also saying, as did Jeremiah before him, that in effect God would re-create His people by giving them a new covenant, one that He will write on their hearts. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.  And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer. 31:33). This new covenant will be the “constitution” of the repatriated nation but it will be unlike the last since it will be administered by a new David. Ezekiel speaks prophetically of David as God’s servant and king who will reign over a reunited Israel and who will be its shepherd. However, David had been dead for several hundred years. So we must see something else being referred to here. Ezekiel is in fact referring to the Messiah, who is David’s descendant and of course is in fact Yeshua.  That it is not the historic King David who is being referred to is confirmed by the prophet Isaiah, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness” (Isa. 42:1, 6-7).

Now the new covenant was not new in the sense of being different or innovative. Rather, it was new in the sense of being renewed, even, if you will, updated, through Christ and the Holy Spirit. That is to say, it is that covenant made with Israel at Sinai but which God is renewing and is in fact applying to the hearts of His people through the Holy Spirit—the Ruach HaKodesh. Indeed, the LXX uses the Greek word kainos, which has this sense of renewal, in its description of the new covenant. In addition, this covenant was made with Israel as a whole. For the Church to apply it directly to itself  is entirely wrong; although it can be applied to Gentiles in another sense, as did Paul in Chapter eleven of his letter to the Romans, and chapter two of his letter to the Ephesians. Lending support to the Church’s belief that the new covenant applies to her is Hebrews 8:7, which seems to be saying that the first covenant [with Israel] was faulty and had to be replaced, and because it was faulty it was being revoked and replaced with a new covenant, which the Church felt justified in hijacking. But reading the very next two verses we learn that it was not the covenant that was faulty—since it came from God and so fulfilled perfectly the purpose for which it was intended—but rather the people’s obedience to it that was faulty and that necessitated a renewal of the original, not a replacement of it. This is what Christ meant when He spoke of “building His church” in Matt. 16:18. It is also what James had in mind when, in Acts 15:16-18 he quotes the prophet Amos, “After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.”

Even so, this new covenant does not apply to every ethnic Jew either. Isaiah (among others) makes this abundantly clear, “In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness” (Isa 10:20-22). In other words, all those who do not accept the new (and final) covenant, administered and mediated by the Messiah, will not be called back to the Promised Land, and who will therefore be recipients of God’s wrath.

I believe the passage from Ezekiel is referring to the millennial age to come, not the final post-resurrection glory. It is a physical blessing in this current world, after the great tribulation and will be characterized by peace, abundance and joy (although not perfectly). The believing remnant of Israel alive at the time will have been brought back by God—every person. But since the dead are not yet resurrected they cannot not share in this millennial period. God is not here calling the dead to life but rather He is fulfilling His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the original covenant that created the Hebrew people. But as we learn from Romans, Gentiles too will have a share in this new covenant because of God’s sovereign will to make it so through His Messiah, Yeshua.

Gentiles will share in the eternal Kingdom through faith or trust—even as it has always been for all God’s people, whether Jew or Gentile. As Paul says, God will cause Israel to be jealous through the salvation of the Gentile elect (not the visible Church) and thereby come to faith (Rom. 11:11). God will then bring them back to join their Messianic brothers and sisters and the grafted-in Gentiles in the Holy Land. This happens in time, not outside of time—we are not here speaking of the last day or final judgment. This passage from Ezekiel is speaking of the millennial reward, the day when, according to Isaiah, “The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain” says the LORD (Isa. 65:25, italics added).

This is a glorious hope for God’s elect remnant—Jew and Gentile alike. And while those who are asleep in Christ will not see this wonderful time, they receive their compensation by being in the very presence of their Lord, Christ Jesus, Yeshua ha Massiach, in a state of perfect bliss, awaiting the ultimate fulfillment in the New Heaven and New Jerusalem.

AMEN

 

Trust in God’s Promises?

TORAH

Gen. 41:1-44:17

HAFTORAH

2 Kings 3:15-4:1

B’RIT HADASHAH

Acts 7:9-16 (11-12)

Gen. 42:1-38

The theme of this comment is Jacob’s lack of trust in the providence and promises (but also the corrections to reestablish justice and order) of God. See also Gen. 37:23-28 for the triggering act for which God would later exact payment. God will bless His people, but will also curse His chosen nation, as well as individuals, for their injustices. He often uses apparently evil circumstances (as seen from the purely human perspective) to chastise but also often uses the very same circumstances to bring about ultimate good (Rom. 8:28).

Compare Jacob’s response to negative circumstances with that of Job, who lost all his children, all his possessions and even his health. Job too was perplexed; he could not understand why God would allow the catastrophes to happen to him, nevertheless the Bible says, “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong” (Job 1:20-22). While he could not understand, still he did not despair. He accepted God’s apparent chastisement with acceptance born of an inner trust, the same trust experienced and modeled by Abraham on the mountain of sacrifice.

Jacob—even though God confirmed with him the earlier promises made to Abraham and Isaac—still could not bring himself to trust God. All his life he had tried to shape events by relying on his own native intelligence and efforts, even going so far as to wrestle with God’s angel at Bethel. Nevertheless, even this “close encounter” did not convince him to “let go and let God.” He resorted primarily to craftiness and deceptive stealth all his life. (At the end of his life, though, Jacob finally did come to have trust in God through the blessing he gave his grandchildren, the two sons of Joseph—read Heb. 11:21; Gen. 48:16.)

Because of Jacob’s lack of trust, God would have been justified in rejecting him and his children outright and permanently. But God did not do that. Instead, he chastised Jacob for his lack of trust by means of Joseph’s deceit, recounted in our current passage. God used Joseph to chastise his own family for their iniquities, including their deplorable treatment of Joseph. (Even Rueben—who was a righteous man by the standard of the world—had to undergo the trial of chastisement. He was not spared any more than those brothers of his who were quite ready to kill Joseph because of their jealousy.)

But Joseph was also the instrument chosen by God to ultimately be a blessing to Jacob’s family as well as the Gentile nations. God brought the famine on the land so that these other events would unfold within, and because of, His sovereign grace. And had it not been so—if God had chosen not to exert such sovereign control (hypothetically speaking of course)—who is to say if there would ever have been a King David, a Joseph and Mary, a Saviour or an evangelizing apostle?

All the events, all the persons with their quirks and foibles, all the unfolding of this history was (and still is) merely an expression of God’s hidden but sovereign will to carry out His ultimate plan of redemption.

Nor does this plan deny the free agency of the human will. To quote the Rabbi Akiva, “All is foreseen, choice is granted, and the world is judged in kindness.”

It is one of the great mysteries of the Bible that God is presented as utterly sovereign (omnipotent and omniscient) but at the same time unwilling to take away the freedom of the will with which He imbued us at our creation, notwithstanding that at the same time our wills—unaided—are corrupt. We are spiritually dead because of our sin.  What a marvelous paradox!

So what can we learn from this part of Joseph’s story? How can we appropriate the message—knowing that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16)?

When we read this story, it’s a little like looking at fish in an aquarium. We see the filters and heaters, the lights and other necessary elements of aquarium maintenance. The fish however are ignorant of these things. They are ignorant of the necessity of all the contrivances and all the activities of the aquarist—including the provision of food—to maintain the healthy lives of all the fish.

So it is with us. Our lives are too often lived as though God does not exist, or if He does, He seems to have no concern for us or our welfare and is at best a mere observer of the human condition. Consequently, we try to compensate by trying to provide for all our needs by ourselves. We deny hope—which is really the assurance of things not seen, that is, God and His perfect love for those who love Him—by which we may accept all things as manifestations of God’s perfect will.

How willing and able are we to cast our bread upon the waters—in the firm expectation that we will be given even greater abundance through the grace of our God, King of the universe?

This world has such a hold on us!

AMEN