DISSERTATION III.

The Bleffing of Judah, Gen. xlix,

WHEN Jacob drew near his end, he called his fons together, and bleffed them, every one according to his bleffing, benedictionibus fuis propriis ; i. e. giving to each a peculiar bleffing. The part relating to Judah ftands thus:

Ver. 8. Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren fhall praife: thy hand fhall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children fhall bow down before thee.

Ver. 9. Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my Jon, thou art gone up; he flooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?

Ver. 19. The fceptre fhall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

Ver. 11. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his afs's colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes,

There is no prophecy in the Old Testament that has undergone fo many interpretations and critical difquifitions as this now before us. It would make a volume to report exactly the various fentiments of learned men upon this fubject. They who defire to be acquainted with them, may confult Huetius, Mr. Le Clerc, and Mr. Saurin *.

It may be thought, perhaps, great presumption to attempt any thing upon this paffage, after fo much pains bestowed on it by men of great figure in learning: but as I have no intention to make fhew of much learning, or much reading, but only to offer a plain natural sense of the most important paffage in this prophecy, which feems to me to arife from the very ftate and circumftances of things, at the time this prophecy was delivered, I hope it will not be thought the effect of vanity or oftentation.

There is a paffage in the book Ecclefiafticus, which will ferve as a key to open to us the nature of the bleffings bestowed on the twelve tribes by their father Jacob. This author, the Son of Sirach, obferves, that God gave his covenant to Abraham, eftablished it with Ifaac, and made it reft upon the head of Jacob. Thus far the entire bleffing, and all the parts of it, vefted in fingle perfons only: but in the next step there is an alteration; for God divided Jacob's portions, among the twelve tribes did he part

< Demonftratio Evangelica, Cap. iv. Prop. 9.

d Comment. in locum.

• Difcours Hiftoriques, &c. Difc. 41.

f Ecclus. xliv. 19, &c.

: Vor. 23.

them. There is no queftion but that this paffage relates to the settlement and the blessing of the tribes by Jacob, in the xlviiith and xlixth of Genefis; and it fhews us, that the feveral bleffings, given to the feveral tribes, are but parts or portions of the bleffing which Jacob received from Ifaac; Ifaac from Abraham; and Abraham immediately from God. In this view then, the feveral bleffings mentioned in the xlixth of Genefis, and limited to the feveral tribes, must be confidered as an expofition of the original bleffing given to Abraham: and the bleffing from which the others are derived muft limit and determine the sense of the particulars; which cannot be extended beyond the bounds of the first promise.

Setting afide the authority of the Son of Sirach, it is reasonable to think that this was the cafe from the custom and practice in Abraham's family, in which the bleffing of the father was regularly conveyed to the fon. And when we fee Jacob bleffing all his children, what can we suppose else, but that he is tranfmitting to his pofterity the bleffing which he himself received. If we look to the beginning of the xlviiith of Genefis, where Jacob adopts Ephraim and Manaffeh, the two fons of Jofeph, and conftitutes them heads of tribes in his family, and confequently entitles them to a fhare, among his own fons, of the land of Canaan; there will be no room to doubt of this matter. For Jacob founds his right of allotting the land of Canaan, in the manner he does, upon God's grant of that land to himself: Jacob faid unto Jofeph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and bleed me, and faid unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply

thee, and I will make of thee a mullitude of people; and will give this land to thy feed after thee for an everlafting poffeffion. And now thy two fons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land f Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. ver.

3, 4, 5.

Jacob prefaces his grant to Jofeph's family with a recital only of God's promife to make him fruitful, and to give the land of Canaan to him and his feed; for his gift to Jofeph's family went not beyond the terms of this grant.

But the bleffing of Abraham, derived to his chofen feed, confifted of two parts; the promise of the land of Canaan, and the promise of that fon, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be bleffed. These two promises went infeparably together from the beginning, and we fhall find they continued in fome degree to do fo to the end.

Let us fee now in what terms thefe two promifes are conveyed.