The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from
between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the
gathering of the people be.--Gen. xlix. 10.
The Holy Ghost, by the mouth of the dying patriarch, Jacob, has
pointed to the epoch when he, of whom Moses and the prophets did
write, should appear. It is worthy our particular attention, that,
at the period of time when Jesus came, Judea was still governed by a
Jewish king. It is true the power of the royal Asmonean or Maccabean
race was destroyed, and Herod the Great had ascended the throne of
Israel, yet the sceptre was not departed from Judah. Herod was an
Idumean, which nation had, for nearly two centuries, been proselytes
to Judaism, and so incorporated and mingled with the Jews, as to be
regarded as one people. Judea bowed to the Roman power, yet Herod
exercised the regal authority, and was universally acknowledged
as the sovereign of Jewry, when Jesus, the prince of peace, the
king of Israel, appeared a babe at Bethlehem but no sooner was the
Shiloh come, than the sceptre departed from Judah. On the death
of Herod, which happened soon after the birth of Christ, Augustus
Cæsar divided the kingdom of Judea between Archelaus, Herod, and
Philip, the three sons of Herod. Archelaus succeeded to the half of
his father's dominions by the title of tetrarch, but not of king;
his tyranny and oppression were so great, that, in less than ten
years, he was deposed and banished to France by the emperor, who
then reduced Judea to a Roman province, and ruled it afterwards
by procurators or governors, who were sent thither and recalled
at pleasure; the taxes were now paid more directly to the Roman
empire, and gathered by the publicans; the power of life and death
was taken out of the hands of the Jews, and placed in those of the
Roman governors. The Lord, when he is pleased, can make the wrath
of man to praise him, and his enemies to minister to his glory.
This sentiment we have most strikingly illustrated in the conduct
of Caiaphas, who, in the moment he was plotting the destruction of
Jesus, and thirsting for his blood, delivered a very remarkable
prophecy,[16] the exact counterpart of the one we are now
considering, in which he declared Jesus to be the promised Shiloh,
who should gather together in one, all the children of God which
are scattered abroad, not the nations of the Jews only, but the
Gentiles also. Yes, Jesus will seek out and bring his people from
the mountains whence they are scattered; in the cloudy and dark day
he will bring his sons from afar, and his daughters from the ends of
the earth, and there shall be one fold under one shepherd, even the
glorious Shiloh.
[16] John xi. 49-52.