Genesis 49:8

Jacob’s words to his sons in Genesis 49 are prophecy from God, and they set out the future character and place of each tribe. In Jacob’s day the firstborn normally received a double share of the inheritance and the leadership of the family. Reuben, the firstborn, lost that place when he defiled his father’s bed (Genesis 35:22), and Simeon and Levi lost it by their violent revenge on Shechem (Genesis 34:25–31). Jacob has just spoken his rebukes over those three (Genesis 49:3–7). Then he turns to Judah, and rebuke gives way to a blessing of leadership and kingship.

Genesis often shows God raising a younger son above his elders. Before Jacob and Esau were born, the LORD said that “the elder shall serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23), and Joseph dreamed of his older brothers bowing to him (Genesis 37:5–11). God chooses freely, by his own wisdom and will, and birth order and custom give way to his purpose.

Judah’s own story shows that this choice rests on God’s grace. In Genesis 38 he sins with Tamar, and that chapter gives him little credit. The Joseph story shows another side of him, and a man who changes. When his brothers meant to kill Joseph, it was Judah who spoke against shedding his blood, though what he proposed was selling him (Genesis 37:26–27). Years later he pledged himself as surety for Benjamin (Genesis 43:8–9), and before Joseph in Egypt he offered to stay as a slave in Benjamin’s place, so that his father would be spared more grief (Genesis 44:32–34). The Judah who receives this blessing is the brother who offered himself for another, and God’s choice of him is all of grace.

“Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies” is the picture of a warrior who has seized his foe by the neck, and it means complete victory. Israel later saw the same picture when Joshua had his captains set their feet on the necks of five defeated kings. After Joshua’s death, when Israel asked who should go up first against the Canaanites, the LORD answered, “Judah shall go up” (Judges 1:1–2). Judah’s greatest warrior was David, whom the LORD made captain over Israel (2 Samuel 5:2) and who subdued enemy after enemy on every side (2 Samuel 8:1–14).

“Thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.” The verb shâchâh means to bow low or lie prostrate, the homage given to a king or to God. Jacob’s word now reaches from Judah’s enemies to his own family, who will give him the honour due to a ruler. The tribe of Judah became the royal tribe. God promised David that his son would reign and that his throne would be established for ever (2 Samuel 7:12–16), and Isaiah foretold a rod out of the stem of Jesse, David’s father, on whom the Spirit of the LORD would rest and who would judge in righteousness (Isaiah 11:1–5).

“Judah is a lion’s whelp.” The word gûwr is a young animal, especially a lion’s cub, so the strength of the grown lion is already in the young one. “From the prey, my son, thou art gone up” shows the young lion rising from its kill. The ṭereph is the prey, and ʻâlâh is the plain verb for going up, the victor leaving the hunt behind. Jacob speaks to Judah directly as “my son” in the middle of the picture.

Then the lion lies down. “He stooped down” is kâraʻ, to bend the knee or sink down, and “he couched” is râbats, to crouch or stretch out, used of animals at rest or poised to spring. The lion that lies down after its hunt is resting in its strength, and its rest is itself a warning. Jacob calls him a lion, ʼărîy, and then an old lion, lâbîyʼ, as the KJV renders it. Taken together, the young lion, the lion and the old lion picture a strength that grows and endures through the generations.

Kings of the nations around Israel, in Egypt, Assyria and Babylon, took the lion as a sign of their rule, so Jacob’s sons would have heard kingship in this picture. Balaam later used the same picture of the whole people: “Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion” (Numbers 23:24).

When Jacob spoke, Israel was a single family in Egypt, with no king and no written law, and the monarchy was centuries away. Yet he speaks of a sceptre and a lawgiver. The word shêbeṭ means a stick, rod, staff, club or sceptre, and it is also the word for a tribe. Here it is the rod a ruler holds as the sign of his authority. “Lawgiver” translates châqaq, which Strong’s gives as to hack or engrave, and then to enact or prescribe, so the lawgiver is the one who issues decrees and judges. “From between his feet” is a way of speaking of a man’s descendants, so this rule will stay with Judah’s offspring.

Jacob’s word came true in the house of David, which gave Judah a line of kings for centuries with Jerusalem as its capital (2 Samuel 7:12–16). Balaam saw the same promise from afar: “there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel” (Numbers 24:17). God had promised Abraham a great nation through which all the families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:2–3), and this verse names the tribe through which that blessing would come.

The last two verses of Judah’s blessing turn from the throne to the land, and they describe it in deliberate exaggeration. Vines are so many and so strong in Judah that a man ties his donkey’s foal to one, as he would to a post. The vine, gephen, is the grape vine, and the “choice vine” is the sôrêqâh (also given as sôrêq), a noble variety known for its dark, excellent grapes. So the plenty is in quality as well as quantity.

“He washed his garments in wine.” The verb kâbaç means to wash, and Strong’s and BDB say the washing was done by treading the cloth underfoot. Wine was precious, and Jacob pictures it so plentiful that Judah uses it as freely as water. “The blood of grapes” is red wine, and dâm, blood, is used of it because the two share their colour. In Scripture grain, wine and oil in abundance are signs of God’s favour, and wine is his gift “that maketh glad the heart of man” (Psalm 104:15). Moses blessed Israel with “a land of corn and wine” (Deuteronomy 33:28), and the prophets look ahead to a day when the mountains drop new wine and the hills flow with milk (Joel 3:18, Amos 9:13–14).

The picture goes on in verse 12. “Red” translates chaklîyl, which Strong’s gives as “darkly flashing”, from a root meaning to be dark. The yayin is wine, fermented grape juice. Châlâb is milk, which Strong’s describes by the richness of the herds and which was a highly prized food. Teeth white with milk belong to a well-fed people with flourishing herds and good pasture. The land later given to Judah, with its hills and valleys fit for vineyards and grazing, did become rich farmland. Its milk recalls the promise of “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8), here given to Judah in its own share.

Every line of Judah’s blessing comes to rest in Jesus. Judah’s brothers were to bow to him, and at the name of Jesus “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth” (Philippians 2:10–11). Judah’s hand was to be on the neck of his enemies, and Christ has triumphed over the powers of darkness (Colossians 2:15). Judah was the lion none could rouse, and Christ is the Lion who has prevailed (Revelation 5:5). The sceptre was to stay in Judah’s line until Shiloh came, and Christ is the heir of David’s throne, whose kingdom lasts for ever (Luke 1:32–33).

The plenty of wine and milk also finds its fulness in him. He gives living water (John 4:10) and is the bread of life (John 6:35), and his kingdom is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17).

Jacob spoke these words over a family of herdsmen in Egypt, and God kept every one of them, through David’s line of kings and at last in his own Son. He chose Judah, the son of Genesis 38 as well as the son who offered himself for Benjamin, and his choice rested on his grace. The promise he made then is ours now, because the gathering of the peoples to Shiloh includes everyone who comes to Christ from any nation.

The King we serve is the Lion whom none can rouse, so his rule is safe from every enemy. He is also the giver of plenty. Jesus tells his disciples that as they seek first the kingdom of God, “all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33), and Paul writes, “my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). Judah’s brothers were told they would praise him and bow to him, and that praise and homage now belong to Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah.