[ [5]] In the first edition of this work, the author had likewise maintained that view.
[ [6]] It was this difficulty which led Grotius to adopt the feeble exposition, "That teachers out of Judah's posterity would lead the people until the times of the Messiah, who would be the highest leader and commander of Jews and Gentiles."
[ [7]] Calvin says: "If any one should object, that the words of Jacob convey a different meaning, we would answer him, that whatever promises God gave concerning the outward condition of the Church, they were so far limited that God might, in the meantime, exercise His judgments in the punishment of men's sins, and prove the faith of His people. And indeed it was not a light trial when, at the third succession, the tribe of Judah was deprived of the greater part of his territory. A more severe one followed when, before the eyes of the father, the sons of the king were slain, his own eyes put out, and himself was carried to Babylon, and given over to servitude and exile along with the whole royal family. But the heaviest trial of all came, when the people returned to their land, and were so far from seeing their expectations fulfilled, that they were, on the contrary, subjected to a sad dispersion. But even then, the saints beheld with the eye of faith the sceptre hidden under ground; neither did their hearts fail, nor their courage give way, so that they desisted not from continuing their course."
[ [8]] Many expositors, following the LXX. (ἐκ τῶν μηρῶν αὐτοῦ), the Vulgate (de femore ejus), and the Chaldee Paraphrast, understand this expression as a designation of origin and production. But in that case, we must assume a very hard ellipsis, viz., "he who is to proceed." Moreover,
this explanation is destructive of the parallelism, according to which, "from between his feet" must correspond with "from Judah."
[ [9]] The signification, "expectation," given to this word by the LXX. (καὶ αὐτὸς προσδοκία ἐθνῶν), Jerome, and other translators, is founded upon the erroneous derivation of the word from קוה. In the other passage (Prov. xxx. 17), where the LXX. translate, "the age of his mother," they have confounded the root יקה with קהה, "to be blunted."
[ [10]] Gousset says: The word can signify something good only, on account of the passage, Prov. xxx. 17, namely, something which adorns the relation of the son to his mother, the despising of which is a crime on the part of the son, and which deserves that he should be sent εἰς κόρακας. And not less so from its being used in Gen. xlix. 10 in reference to the Shiloh, where, thereby, not one or a few, but all the nations without exception, are bound to Him by a tie similar to that which exists betwixt mother and son.
[ [11]] Thus Luther says: "This sceptre of Judah shall continue, and shall not be taken from him, till the hero come; but when He comes, then the sceptre also shall depart. The kingdom or sceptre has fallen; the Jews are scattered throughout the whole world, and, therefore, the Messiah has certainly come; for, at His appearing, the sceptre should be taken from Judah."
[ [12]] In the volume containing the Dissertations on the Genuineness of Daniel, etc. Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark.
[ [13]] Delitzsch (who had formerly been a defender of the explanation of a personal Messiah) differs, in his Commentary on Genesis, from this view, only in so far, that he supposes that, while Judah's dominion over the tribes comes to an end in Shiloh, his dominion over the nations dates from that period. But this explanation must be objected to on the ground, that the dominion bestowed upon Judah is not merely a dominion over the tribes, but over the world.