184 - Jacob - Predictions Based on the Promise [B]

Hebrews Lesson 184      January 31, 2009

^NKJ Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.

We are in Hebrews 11, but we will only be there for a very short time before we find our way back into Genesis this evening. Last time as we looked at Hebrews 11:20, we saw that:

^NKJ Hebrews 11:20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

^NKJ Hebrews 11:21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.

Then it goes on in verse 22 talking about Joseph. Now between verse 20 and verse 21 (last time), I focused on Jacob as he was learning to focus on the promises of God because what bracketed the life of Jacob as he left the land that God had promised to Abraham and confirmed again to Isaac was that he had an encounter with God at Bethel. 

Then again when he came back into the land, he had another encounter with God at a place across the Jordan at Peniel; and again he built an altar at Bethel.  Between those two points in his life, you have that period of time where he is out of the land, but God was teaching and training him and building discipline into his life in relationship to his spiritual growth, learning to wait on the Lord for the Lord to provide the blessing in His time and not trying to engineer it on his own, not trying to somehow manipulate God into getting it or manipulating other people into making it happen. 

One of the hardest things I think for all of us to understand is the timing of the Lord and to just relax and to wait on the Lord and to rest in His timing recognizing that He is the one ultimately who is in control of the circumstances of our life. Jacob passed that test. 

Then coming out of that he had to deal with his conniving, dishonest, disreputable sons and their hatred of his favorite son Joseph. In between verse 20 and verse 21 in Genesis you have the whole episode of Joseph, the variegated many-colored coat that his father had made for him and given to him, the jealousy of his brothers because of the father's favoritism; but also because of the dreams that he had that God gave him that indicated his role, his place in God's plan for the nation. Eventually the sons (his brothers) would bow down to him. There were the two dreams given at the beginning of Genesis 37.

Then there is the whole episode of Joseph being sold into slavery, going to Egypt and then eventually because of the famine the brothers having been sent by Jacob to find food for them so that they could be sustained during the time of famine. They went down and Joseph kept his identity hidden from them. You go through the whole episode where he tests them, eventually reveals his identity to them, and then has the father brought down and the whole clan brought down into Egypt. 

By this time Joseph has had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. These will take the inheritance of Joseph. But in chapter 49 of Genesis, Jacob is going to give one of the most interesting and outstanding prophecies in the Scripture. This is focal point of the statement in Hebrews 11:21:

^NKJ Hebrews 11:21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.

The only thing that the writer of Hebrews focuses on is the blessing related to Manasseh and Ephraim. But I want to spend some time and go through the whole prophecy there to all of the sons, because I wanted to go back and look at this in terms of its relationship to the driving principle of Hebrews 11, and that is that as believers we all live on the basis of unfulfilled promises. 

God made promises to Abram that never came true. He never saw them come true in his lifetime. He made promises to Isaac, to Jacob that to this day have not come true. But one day they will come true. One of the most difficult things for believers to do is to just wait on the Lord especially when we don't see that physical, tangible, measureable, quantifiable result that God seems to promise to us. Therefore we have to live by faith and not by sight as Paul states in 2 Corinthians 5. 

So that ties that concept together with what the writer of Hebrews is demonstrating in chapter 11 starting in verse 1. 

^NKJ Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

In other words, faith is not the same thing as empiricism. You can't quantify, measure the evidence of faith. It is the evidence of what is not seen. It is not based on empiricism, but is based on the promise of God. The promise of God as we've seen is a concept that is repeated several times down through this section. The promise will eventually be fulfilled. That is part of the test for every one of us is to live in the light of these unfulfilled promises. But because we know the character of God, because we know who He is we know that one day those promises will be fulfilled. 

I want to go back and look at these prophecies related to the 12 tribes of Israel and how they all fit together within that as well as the specific prophecy related to the two sons of Joseph. That's going to take more than one hour to go through all of Genesis 49. We won't go through in the detail I did when we were studying Genesis; but we'll hit the high points. 

First of all Hebrews 11:21 talks about the fact that what Jacob did when he was dying was two things: 

^NKJ Hebrews 11:21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.

The word for worship is the Greek word proskuneo which is translated as worship, but it means to prostrate oneself before someone in a higher position or position of authority. Literally the word has as its background the meaning of to kiss toward someone. It is the idea of showing obeisance toward someone that someone is in a higher position than oneself, the idea of throwing a kiss in token of respect or homage; to show reverence or homage to someone usually by kneeling or prostrating oneself before Him. In the Septuagint (That's the Greek translation of the Old Testament), it means to bow down, to prostrate oneself in reverence or homage, Genesis 19:1 or 48:12. 

So Jacob is depicted here as worshipping God leaning on the top of his staff. That's the idea. He's not bowing down. It's not a physical term. But he is in submission to God as he is expressing the future traits of each of his sons.

Let's turn to Genesis 49:1 and we'll sort of work our way through probably half of the brothers tonight; and then we will finish up with those next time and try to put this in understanding what's going on here within the framework of the challenge that the writer of Hebrews is putting before his readers, a challenge that is just as important for each of us today.

So Jacob called his son's together and he said:

^NKJ Genesis 49:1 And Jacob called his sons and said, "Gather together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days:

Now this term "last days" is a term that has 3 different meanings that I can discern from looking at the Scriptures. We have seen this term in our study of Hebrews and in Hebrews 1 we read:

^NKJ Hebrews 1:1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,

^NKJ Hebrews 1:2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son,

The "last days" that Hebrews 1:2 is describing is not the same as the "last days" that is spoken of in this context. There are 3 ways, as I stated, that the term "last days" is used. The first is referring to the last days of Israel and that is a term that refers to the events that will take place in relationship to the Jews during the last 7-year period of the times of Gentiles. It is related to Israel. But those last 7 years are still part of the times of the Gentiles, and during those last 7 years God returns to focus on His plan for Israel. Now that may confuse you, but even though God is restoring His focus to Israel it is still the times of the Gentiles. 

Luke 21 says the times of the Gentiles is related to the Gentiles having control over Israel. Now usually that word is translated in a sense that it has to do with trampling down. In fact a number of translations use that word. But it is the word pateo. It's the root word in peripateo which is a word that's frequently translated walk. The peri is a prefix meaning to go around. So peripateo means to walk around. Pateo is the root, and it simply means to walk or to tread upon something. When it is used in certain contexts, for example military conquest that word would indicate a certain harshness of military oppression. 

But that's not the meaning of that word in Luke 21:43 because in Luke 21:43 it talks about during that times of the Gentiles when the Gentiles will pateo Jerusalem. 

But that hasn't been true of 90% of the history in the Church Age. During the Ottoman Empire, Israel was not under military oppression. During many other times it's been very peaceful in Jerusalem. There has not been on a trampling down. But there has been a control, an oversight and a political control of Jerusalem and that's what's being described in that particular passage. 

So the tribulation represents the last 7 years in God's timetable for Israel; but those last 7 years are still part of the times of the Gentiles. That's clear from passages such as Revelation 11:1-2 which we've studied in the past when during the first half of the tribulation the outer court and Jerusalem will be trampled down (same word, pateo) trampled down by the Gentiles. Then during the second half of the tribulation, of course, you have the antichrist taking up his or establishing his seat in the Holy of Holies itself when he is going to be a worshipped as god according to 2 Thessalonians 2:4. That period of the tribulation is still part of the times of the Gentiles until Jesus frees Jerusalem when He returns at the Second Coming. So one way the term "last days" is used is the last days related to Israel.

 The second way in which the term "last days" is used is the last days of the church. This really covers most in the Church Age. It is the last days because it's a broad category. 

So people say, "Are we are living in the last days?"

"Yeah!" 

Timothy was living in the last days. Paul said that in his letters to Timothy, "in these last days people will be of lovers of themselves. They will be in rebellion against authorities and dishonor their parents and numerous other things. They will be giving ear the doctrines of demons." That's been true throughout the Church Age. We've been living in the last days of the church since the time of the apostles. We have the last days related to Daniel's 70^th week and Israel, and we have the last days related to the church. 

Then we have a more general term, which is the way it's used here which refers to sort of a generic time of future events. 

So when Jacob is speaking here he says: 

^NKJ Genesis 49:1 And Jacob called his sons and said, "Gather together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days:

This expresses trends throughout the history of Israel. It generally is the prediction of the future. This is more generic use here. In this chapter he is going to focus on what will take place in the trends in the 12 tribes of the descendants of his sons.

^NKJ Genesis 49:28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke to them. And he blessed them; he blessed each one according to his own blessing.

Three times in that verse you have the word blessing. Genesis 49 is then described (verses 1-27) as a blessing. Now that's another word that really needs a lot of attention these days. It seems like I hear it more and more. We hear a lot of different people using it. Whenever a word gets overused it loses its real meaning and impact. You hear people using the word "bless" all the time. I'm not sure most people really understand what it means. The word blessing is a key word in Genesis; blessing and cursing and the judgment of God are one of the major themes in Genesis. 

The word is used 75 times the book of Genesis and 7 times and these two chapters (48 and 49) which is when we have the blessing on Joseph's two sons in chapter 48 and the other sons in chapter 49. We have 7 times there, which is virtually a tenth of its uses in Genesis and according to the law of proportionality and Bible study, that's significant. That's what this is talking about. 

Blessing here is not necessarily talking about something really good because several of these prophetic statements are not real positive or complimentary of his sons and their descendants. The word "bless" in this context takes on the idea of prophecy, of foretelling the future. We know in many places in the Psalms when you have phrases like "bless God", we can't bless God in the sense of providing something positive for God that He doesn't already have. God doesn't need to be blessed by something and that's not the meaning of the word in those contexts. The word "bless" in those contexts and in a number of other contexts really takes on more of that meaning of the word praise. When the psalmist says "to bless God" he is saying to praise God for what He has done and to give thanks for all that He has done and all that He has provided. This word blessing even in Scripture is a word that has a wide range of meaning. It means to talk about that which is the positive benefits that are provided by God as blessings. It is also used in this context in relationship to statements about the future. Then it is used also as a synonym for praise.

As the as the sons gather around Jacob in chapter 49, his father is going to bless them each one according to his own blessings. These are individually tailored toward each one as his father has observed certain character traits in each one of his sons. He is going to see that these will be carried out in terms of their descendants and this will show certain trends down through the ages.

He's going to worship according to Hebrews 11:21 – worship leaning upon his staff. This word for proskuneo really indicates his act of obedience and obeisance toward God rather than the other word that is often used (lutreia) which indicates service. He is submitting himself to the opinions and the thoughts of God; and in that he is giving a divine viewpoint panorama related to the history of each of these sons. As he does this, the focus of the blessing must be understood within the context of Genesis 49. In Genesis 49 Jacob and his sons are no longer in the Promised Land. They're out of the land. They're down in Egypt where they are hated and despised by the Egyptians. The Egyptians hated the Semites, hated the Jews in a tremendous way, much more than any Ku Klux Klansmen ever hated any black person in America. They wouldn't eat with them; they wouldn't touch them. They did not want to be even in the same room with a Jew. They wanted to isolate them completely even though they provided the slave labor for many of the building projects in Egypt. They had to live completely apart from the Egyptians. 

The question that Joseph and Jacob and his brothers would have is: what about God's plan for us? What about God's promise to Abraham and Isaac of giving us the land? They hadn't become slaves yet. 

"But now we are down in Egypt. We're living in a separate area in Goshen. What is God's plan for us and how will we ever get back to the land that God promised to Abraham? Has God forgotten us? Has He forsaken us? What is God's plan going to be?"

But they would be reminded once again of the promise that God had made to Abraham. In the midst of His promise of the Abraham Covenant, God had foretold to Abraham that there would be a time when his descendants would be out of the land and that they would indeed end up serving those in this foreign land. 

^NKJ Genesis 15:13 Then He said to Abram: "Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years.

So now in their knowledge of this promise they would be aware of the fact that now they were out of the land and this is what would come about in their future. God was still in control even though they were out of the land.

^NKJ Genesis 15:14 "And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

So this would be a promise that they would hold onto during those next 4 centuries until God finally redeemed them under Moses. 

Just to give us a little review in relation to the descendants of Abraham and these 12 sons. Abraham was married to Sarah, and he also took her handmaiden Hagar as his concubine. Through Hager he had a son Ishmael who is not the son of the promise. But Isaac was the son of the promise and the Abrahamic Covenant was reconfirmed to him. Isaac took his wife Rebekah. Rebekah had twins, Esau and Jacob. Esau was the elder; Jacob the younger. We've seen that the principle was to God going against the Law of Primogeniture that the older would serve the younger.  So Esau would serve Jacob. Jacob was the line of the blessing. 

Now Jacob took two wives. He is the only one of the Patriarchs who had multiple wives, who was a polygamist. And he only had two wives. 

The taking of a concubine is not the same as polygamy. We don't necessarily understand that in our culture; but in their culture there was strong legal difference between a concubine and a wife. A concubine had a certain protected status under the Mosaic Law; but she is not considered to be the same as the wife. 

Every now and then you run into people who want to try to make an issue out of the fact that in the Old Testament the Patriarchs were polygamists. And you had problems with David and Solomon and some of the kings because they were following the practice as the pagans. But you really don't see the polygamy practiced by the Patriarchs in any kind of consistent manner. When they did, it always resulted in trouble as it did when Jacob got deceived and he had to marry Leah first, then Rachel.

Through Leah he had two sons: Reuben, Simeon and Levi and Judah. Through then, Rachel could not get pregnant. She was barren. So Rachel gave Jacob her handmaiden Bilhah. Through Bilhah he had the next two: Dan and Naphtali. Then Leah apparently could not have anymore children, so she gave him her handmaiden Zilpah; and through Zilpah he had two more sons: Gad and Asher. Then God opened up Leah's womb again; and she had two more sons, Issachar and Zebulun. God finally allows Rachel to become pregnant and she has two sons, Joseph and Benjamin. The order of the sons taken here in Genesis 49 roughly follows the order of their birth. However Issachar and Zebulun get reversed in the order of the blessing. 

Let's just start and go through the blessing and hit some of the high points as we come to understand God's plan and purpose for the nation of Israel. The first one is Reuben. The key word for Reuben is instability and mediocrity. Of Reuben of Reuben Jacobs says Rueben:

^NKJ Genesis 49:3 "Reuben, you are my firstborn, My might and the beginning of my strength, The excellency of dignity and the excellency of power.

So he's going to have a measure of strength and power; and then he is going to compromise that through his instability.

^NKJ Genesis 49:4 Unstable as water, you shall not excel, Because you went up to your father's bed; Then you defiled it -- He went up to my couch.

Sin wiped out his potential. Sin destroyed every bit of potential of strength that he had and because he defiled his father's bed. He as the firstborn he thought he would assert himself in some sort of what appears to us to be rather perverse act. He went in and seduced his father's wife and defiled the marriage bed.  But it was an act of asserting his own right to power and to the inheritance. Because of that, the marriage bed was defiled. Reuben was the first born of Jacob and Leah and his name means basically "behold a son." As her first son she names him with a name that sounds like the meaning of "behold a son." As such, Reuben was due the double portion of the firstborn son as his inheritance. Thus the inheritance of the father would be divided up among 13 portions for the 12 sons and two of those portions would have gone to Reuben based on Deuteronomy 21:17. But because he defiled his father's bed according to 1 Chronicles 5:1-2, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph so that the blessing would go through the descendants of Joseph. That's in 1 Chronicles 5:1-2. 

Reuben lost his double portion, and he lost his leadership position because of instability. He went into Bilhah his father's concubine in Genesis 35:22, in order to assert his own position. 

You see this same kind of strange thing happen with David and Absalom later on. Absalom is going to take his father's wives in order to show that he is the one who is rightfully king. There's always this kind of a perverted thing that comes out of the two of the ancient Near Eastern context culture. 

Because of his inherent instability, this instability shapes the destiny of his tribe. For example, Dathan and Abiram who will lead a rebellion against Moses and Aaron. They join with the Korah rebellion and they (Dathan and Abiram) are both part of the tribe of Reuben according to Numbers 16. 

Later on in the conquest, the Reubenites become impatient for land. So rather than waiting for the distribution of land after they cross over to Jordan, they want to get their land first on the eastside of the Jordan. God nevertheless mandated that they continue to fight and help their brothers on the west side of the Jordan as they conquered the Canaanites. They were unwilling to wait for the best land and along with Gad and half of the tribe of Manasseh they really chose second best. They show this impatience and instability.

Later on in Judges 4 they are indecisive in the battle against Cicera. We also see in the census that's taken in Numbers 1 compared to Numbers 26, they were one of the only tribes to decrease in their number. Later on they fell into apostasy and in 722 when the Northern Kingdom was destroyed they were taken into captivity by Tiglath-Pileser according to 1 Chronicles 25 and 26. Nothing is mentioned of them again. They just sort of vanish.

The Moabite Stone which we've studied him recently in light of the war between the King of Israel at the time of Ahaziah there in 1 Kings 3 or 4 and they're fighting with the king of Moab there's no mention of Rueben when they list the tribes on the Moabite Stone. This indicates that by that time they are pretty much irrelevant in the tribe of Israel. 

Let's skip over a couple of slides here to a map. This shows the territory that they were initially given which is just to the east of the northern half of the Dead Sea. This today is part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; and it covers a pretty desolate area. Mt. Nebo where Moses went up in order to see the land and where he died is located within the tribal allotment to Reuben. This basically gets lost (taken over by, yielded) to the Moabites. Moab is just to their south.

Then we come to the next the two tribes that are mentioned: the tribe of Simeon and the tribe of Levi. The Hebrew is shimeon or shemon and leve. The Hebrew tends to put the accent on the last syllable. These two brothers just had horrible sin natures, which is highlighted in what Jacob says in verses 5 through 7. 

^NKJ Genesis 49:5 "Simeon and Levi are brothers; Instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place.

^NKJ Genesis 49:6 Let not my soul enter their council; Let not my honor be united to their assembly;

He just doesn't want to have anything to do with these two lovely sons of his.

For in their anger they slew a man, And in their self-will they hamstrung an ox.

^NKJ Genesis 49:7 Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce; And their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob And scatter them in Israel.

The point that is being made here is because of the sinfulness of these two brothers, because they are so cruel, their descendants are not going to have a significant tribal allotment. Now there's going to be a distinction made between Simeon and Levi because Levi will be the progenitor of the priestly tribe, but they will still not have an inheritance in the land. They will be scattered and the Levites will live throughout the land of Israel. The tribe of Simeon will also be dissipated even though they are initially given a tribal allotment that will disappear. 

So let's take them one at a time. Simeon this is second son born to Jacob and Leah. His name relates to the Hebrew verb to hear, shama. Leah gave him this name because of the hope she expressed at his birth that she stated Genesis 29:33.

^NKJ Genesis 29:33 Then she conceived again and bore a son, and said, "Because the LORD has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also." And she called his name Simeon.

What she's referring to is the fact that Jacob really didn't want to marry her and she wasn't his favorite. That wasn't the one he wanted to marry. 

She's saying, "Because Jacob really ignores me and treats me poorly because his favorite is Rachel, God has blessed me by giving me a son. He has heard of my distress."

Simeon's name was a reminder of that. When the text here describes them as brothers (Simeon and Levi are brothers), that's sort of odd because there are six sons to Jacob and to Leah. Why does God through Jacob emphasize this? He is emphasizing the fact that their character is similar. They're grouped together here and coupled together as a team because they shared similar sin nature trends, trends towards anger and bitterness and vindictiveness and cruelty. They seem to have been motivated by a deep seeded anger. This was particularly seen in that just horrific and perverse episode that occurred back in Genesis when Dinah is raped by Shechem the son of Hamor and these two (Simeon and Levi) come up with a plan to wreak vengeance upon the inhabitants of Shechem by faking an alliance with having all of the men in the town that they will have this wedding. They will all be invited, but first they have to be circumcised. After all the men are circumcised and being laid up in post operative pain, then Levi and Simeon came in and killed them all. This is what is referred to there in verses 6 and 7 is their anger and their self will and their anger and their cruelty. Because of this, the consequence is going to be that they're going to be removed from any kind of position of political influence in Israel. They will be dispersed and scattered among the various tribes in Israel. Levi had no possession whatsoever. 

Simeon is given a territorial possession down in the south, completely surrounded by the green area, which was the tribal allotment to Judah. Simeon included the area of Ziklag and Beersheba; and yet Simeon sort of dissipated and intermarried in Judah and it's not long into the history of the Southern Kingdom that Simeon basically disappears into the tribe of Judah. 

So they don't have any real significance. Later on during the time of the divided kingdom what remained of the Simeonites moved so far south of the land of Edom that they eventually began to intermarry there and also lost much of their identity in relationship to having a distinct possession.

Levi is a tribe of priests. God is going to bless them. Levi is the third son born to Jacob and Leah. His name means attached or joined and this was a pun based on Leah's feelings of rejection by Jacob. It was given to him also because of the hope that Leah expressed at the time his birth that somehow this would make her more attractive to Jacob. 

^NKJ Genesis 29:34 She conceived again and bore a son, and said, "Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons." Therefore his name was called Levi.

Originally the Levites were not priests. That did not come about for another 400 years until the time of year of their Jewish redemption, deliverance from slavery in Egypt. At that time is when the Levitical tribe was set aside and this was inaugurated with a specific covenant with the tribe of Levi mentioned in Numbers 18:19. This meant that none of the Levites would have any inheritance directly within the tribes. They would be scattered among all the tribes and it was the responsibility of the other tribes to provide for the support of the priests and Levites. 

Then we come to the next key prophecy, and that's the prophecy related to Judah. Judah is the most significant of course because of the messianic implications of this particular prophecy, which begins in verse 8. 

^NKJ Genesis 49:8 "Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;

…indicating a position of conquest.

Your father's children shall bow down before you.

^NKJ Genesis 49:9 Judah is a lion's whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who shall rouse him?

^NKJ Genesis 49:10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah,

…indicating that this would be the tribe that produced the rulers of Israel.

Never would that disappear. They would always have a ruler on the throne, which of course foreshadows the Lord Jesus Christ who is from the tribe of Judah. 

Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people.

^NKJ Genesis 49:11 Binding his donkey to the vine, And his donkey's colt to the choice vine, He washed his garments in wine, And his clothes in the blood of grapes.

Now this last verse as we'll see in a minute has definite allusions to what is going to happen when the Lord Jesus Christ returns and destroys His enemies.  That whole imagery of washing His garments in wine, we touched on this Tuesday night in Revelation 19 when the Lamb returns. It's as if His robes are dipped in blood. We'll see in other passengers that picture Him coming up from Edom. His initial return is to Bozrah and as He returns, brings the Jews from Bozrah to Jerusalem. His garments are stained with blood. Blood is the color of wine or wine is the color of blood reminiscent of that. That's the picture here.  He washed garments in wine and His clothes in the blood of grapes. This is an allusion and a prophecy related to the Messiah coming, the Messiah from the tribe of Judah who will come and will bring about this blood bath that occurs at the end of the tribulation period. 

Genesis 49:12 concludes that prophecy. 

^NKJ Genesis 49:12 His eyes are darker than wine, And his teeth whiter than milk.

So as we look at these verses, I just want to point out a few things about Judah. Judah is going to be a leader of his brothers. This was indicated by the initial statement made when Leah named him. 

^NKJ Genesis 29:35 And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, "Now I will praise the LORD." Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she stopped bearing.

So Judah is formed on a root that has the idea of praise, a root word that has the idea of praise or sounds like it means praise. He's called this so his brother's will praise him because of his leadership. He showed some failures later or but in Genesis 44 after Joseph has been taken to Egypt he begins to show some leadership in relation to the famine and Benjamin. This shows that even though he was pretty messed up earlier, this aspect of his character began to manifest itself. 

In the wilderness march when Israel came out of the Land, the tribe of Judah went first in order of march according to Numbers 10:14. 

Also, Judah had the largest tribal allotment in Canaan as well was the largest population according to Numbers 1 and Numbers 26. 

When we look at the promise related to the lion aspect, this is tied in when we get to Revelation 5:5.

^NKJ Revelation 5:5 But one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals."

So Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah. This directly fulfills the promise, the prophecy of verses 10 and 12.

^NKJ Genesis 49:10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people.

Now this phrase related to the coming of Shiloh is a term that has a certain level of uncertainty. Generally, it is taken that Shiloh is a title up for the Messiah, for the Lord Jesus Christ; and therefore He is often referred to as Shiloh. But there is also is another school of thought that sees the meaning of Shiloh as meaning "to whom it belongs" and looks at a passage where this word is used in Ezekiel 21:27 which states:

^NKJ Ezekiel 21:27 Overthrown, overthrown, I will make it overthrown! It shall be no longer, Until He comes whose right it is, And I will give it to Him." '

Or "who's right it is or who it belongs and I will give it to him." The ancient Greek translation of the Septuagint interpreted Shiloh in this way that it really means to whom it belongs. So that way Shiloh would not be taken as a as a title, but the Genesis 49:10 would be translated "Nor a law giver from between his feet until He who's right it is comes." That is again a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. I think the evidence from the Hebrew fits that interpretation better than the view that Shiloh is a personal name for the Lord Jesus Christ, even though there's a lot of discussion and debate on that, it seems to me to be the best solution. 

We look at the tribal allotment here. Again you can see in the lower left side to the west of the Dead Sea. That's the area shaded for Judah all the way from Jerusalem in the northwest across to the to the Mediterranean and all of the area to the south including all of what is now the Gaza Strip as well as the area of the Palestinian territory down round Hebron and those areas around Bethlehem. All of that would be part of the tribe of Judah. 

Now we have several phrases in here that are of significance I think prophetically. First of all in verse 11 we have the phrase "binding his donkey to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine." This certainly relates to a language related to a colt and vine that we find the Lord used a lot in relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ when He returns because this is language that is used to speak to the prosperity and the blessing that is used and that describes the Millennial Kingdom. Normally you would not be tying a colt to a vine because most vines aren't very thick and they're not very sturdy. It wouldn't be long before you came back and find that the colt has wandered off, pulled itself lose from the vine. This indicates that the choice vine is so thick and so strong and producing so much that it's so prosperous that the colt can't get lose. So this was to indicate the idiom of the prosperity, the strength of the vines and how prosperous the land was.

Then the next phrase:

And his clothes in the blood of grapes.

 …foreshadows various passages such as Isaiah 63:3:

^NKJ Isaiah 63:3 " I have trodden the winepress alone, And from the peoples no one was with Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, And trampled them in My fury; Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, And I have stained all My robes.

This is used when the Lord prophetically pictures the Messiah coming to destroy the enemies of Israel. This is fulfilled in Revelation 19:13. So this indicates again the future role of Judah to rule and reign in Israel.

That brings us to the next a key person, which is Zebulun. There's not a lot that is said about Zebulun in the Scriptures so I think we can move through Zebulun and Issachar rather rapidly. 

Zebulun it says:

^NKJ Genesis 49:13 "Zebulun shall dwell by the haven of the sea; He shall become a haven for ships, And his border shall adjoin Sidon.

Now when we look at his birth, he is called Zebulun because God has again blessed Leah. He is the 6^th son though. It skips over Issachar and Zebulun is treated first here, them Issachar. 

Genesis 30:20 Leah says:

^NKJ Genesis 30:20 And Leah said, "God has endowed me with a good endowment; now my husband will dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons." So she called his name Zebulun.

Zebid is the Hebrew for gift. That's the root of ZBD the three-letter root. This is her hope that this will change the relationship that she has with Jacob. She must have really loved Jacob; but Jacob doesn't seem to have treated her very well. 

According to the map here we see the tribe of Zebulun is actually given this territory, which is rather landlocked. He's not against the sea. Zebulun is land locked, doesn't seem to be fulfilling this prophecy about being a haven for ships. But it does seem to indicate that his border shall adjoin Sidon. 

This would be I think an unfulfilled prophecy. But during the Millennial Kingdom Zebulun's land will go to sea. This is the area of Haifa a tremendous seaport, the only natural seaport in Israel and so during the Millennial Kingdom Zebulun's land will go to the Mediterranean; and that is when this will be fulfilled.

The next one that is mentioned is Issachar who is the one. Issachar is then mentioned in the next couple of verses related to a donkey. 

^NKJ Genesis 49:14 "Issachar is a strong donkey, Lying down between two burdens;

^NKJ Genesis 49:15 He saw that rest was good, And that the land was pleasant; He bowed his shoulder to bear a burden, And became a band of slaves

Issachar's name means "he will bring great reward." He's the 9^th son of Jacob and he's the fifth one by Leah. 

^NKJ Genesis 30:17 And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.

^NKJ Genesis 30:18 Leah said, "God has given me my wages, because I have given my maid to my husband." So she called his name Issachar.

She thinks of this as a reward. He's called a great donkey or a great ass as one translation has it. That's not negative. The donkey was the main beast of burden. That was the John Deere tractor of the ancient world so this is a great compliment when it compares him to donkey. He is useful. He is of great strength, and he accomplishes a lot. But he fails because he also tends to have a strain of laziness. The text says he lies down between two burdens meaning that he doesn't carry them. He is somewhat like Reuben who is unstable. He is strong, but he's unstable so he doesn't live up to his potential and never accomplishes it. 

Notice the tribal territory of Issachar here is in that area toward the end of the of valley of Armageddon The Valley as Ezdralon includes the area of Mount Morah where Gideon's 300 fought and Mount Tabor which is where Deborah and Barak fought in this area. Many events in the Old Testament happened within the tribal allotment of Issachar. This is also the same area roughly where the city of Jezreel was located. Issachar is at the heart of the Northern Kingdom in terms of tribal allotment. Yet Issachar had all that power was in such a great position and never really utilized it.

Now that takes us through about the first half of the sons. Next time we'll get into the next son which is Dan which has some interesting things about him especially since he's identified with a serpent and a viper in verse 17. There are those who've indicated that they think that means that is from the tribe of Dan that the false prophet comes. We'll look at that when we come back next time.

Let's bow our heads in closing prayer. 

Illustrations