Day of His Appearing – Part One
by Shawn Henry Potter and Lois Carol Potter
renatuspress@gmail.com
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. (Heb 1:1)
One of the themes among God’s many prophetic messages included descriptions regarding the promised Messiah. God revealed that the Messiah would be:
God provided these descriptions of the Messiah to “prepare the way of the Lord.”[9] God wanted his chosen people to recognize and embrace the Messiah. So, in this context, we wonder: Did God also reveal the day of the Messiah’s appearing, either in broad terms or with greater precision?
In part one of this discussion, we consider a verse from the Torah that traditionally has been understood by Jews and Christians alike to identify the broad timing of the Messiah’s appearing – Gen 49:10. We will examine the:
- meaning of the verse,
- fulfillment of the prophecy, and
- popular recognition of the prophecy.
Through this process, we will show that, in the days of Jesus, faithful Jews were living in expectation of the Messiah’s imminent appearance.
English Text
The context of this prophecy spans two chapters, Genesis 48 and 49, where we read that Jacob became ill, blessed the two sons of Joseph, and then blessed each of his twelve sons.
Jacob Blessing Ephraim and Manasseh by Benjamin West
When Jacob addressed Judah (Gen 49:10), Jacob said:
A. According to the Authorized King James Version (KJV):
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.
B. According to the Douay-Rheims Version (DRV):
The sceptre shall not be taken away from Juda,
nor a ruler from his thigh,
till he come that is to be sent,
and he shall be the expectation of nations.
C. According to the English Standard Version (ESV):
The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
The first phrase is identical in all three of these English translations; and the meaning is clear – descendants of Judah will occupy the throne.
The second phrase is similar in all three of these English translations; and the relationship between the second phrase and the first phrase reflects Hebrew parallelism – repeating an idea using other words to emphasize a concept.
Skipping for a moment the third phrase, we note that the fourth phrase in all three of these English translations further defines the third phrase – again reflecting Hebrew parallelism – describing a connection (gathering, expectation, or obedience) between the person mentioned in phrase three and the nations, which is a reference to Gentiles.
Now, returning to the third phrase, we discover three different phrases in these three English translations – “until Shiloh come,” “till he come that is to be sent,” and “until tribute comes to him.” Perhaps an examination of early manuscripts of the Bible will explain these differences.
Codex Leningradensis (Hebrew Masoretic Text)
Codex Leningradensis (AD 1008), folio 30, verso, (Gen 48:17b-49:26a)
Codex Leningradensis (AD 1008), the earliest and best-preserved complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible (folio 30, verso, column 2, lines 19-22) reads:
לֹֽא־יָס֥וּר שֵׁ֙בֶט֙ מִֽיהוּדָ֔ה
וּמְחֹקֵ֖ק מִבֵּ֣ין רַגְלָ֑יו
עַ֚ד כִּֽי־יָבֹ֣א שִׁילֹ֔ה
וְל֖וֹ יִקְּהַ֥ת עַמִּֽים׃
An English translation of this verse is:
The tribe of Judah will not be cut off,
nor the law removed from between his feet,
until Shiloh comes,
and to him the people will be gathered.
English translation A above (KJV) follows the text tradition of Codex Leningradensis.
Codex Amiatinus (Latin Vulgate Text)
Codex Amiatinus (c. AD 700), folio 48, verso (Gen 48:19-49:15a)
Codex Amiatinus (c. AD 700), the earliest and best-preserved complete manuscript of the Latin Vulgate (folio 48, verso, column 2, Lines 24-28) reads:
Non auferetur sceptrum de Juda,
et dux de femorib ejus,
donec veniat qui mittendus est,
et ipse erit expectatio gentium.
An English translation of this verse is:
The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
nor a ruler from his thigh,
until he come that is to be sent,
and he shall be the expectation of the nations.
English translation B above (DRV) follows the text tradition of Codex Amiatinus.
Codex Alexandrinus (Greek Septuagint Text)
Codex Alexandrinus (c. AD 400), folio 32, verso (Gen 48:12b-49:11a)
Codex Alexandrinus (c. AD 400), one of the four earliest and best-preserved complete manuscripts of the Bible (folio 32, verso, column 2, lines 45-49) reads:
οὐκ ἐκλείψει ἄρχων ἐξ Ιουδα
καὶ ἡγούμενος ἐκ τῶν μηρῶν αὐτοῦ
ἕως ἂν ἔλθῃ τὰ ἀποκείμενα αὐτῷ
καὶ αὐτὸς προσδοκία ἐθνῶν.
An English translation of this verse is:
A leader will not cease from Judah,
nor a ruler from his loins,
until that which is laid away should come to him,
and he himself shall be the expectation of the nations.
English translation C above (ESV) follows the text tradition of Codex Alexandrinus.
Source of Confusion
From our examination of these three early manuscripts, we see that these three different phrases in these three English translations represent three different text traditions – one represented by Codex Leningradensis, one represented by Codex Amiatinus, and one represented by Codex Alexandrinus. But what is the origin of these three text traditions? After all, the English phrases – “until Shiloh come,” “till he come that is to be sent,” and “until tribute comes to him” – seem so dissimilar that it is difficult to imagine ancient scribes erroneously write one for the other.
Is it possible that these three different text traditions emerged during centuries of copying the Hebrew text as one manuscript grew old and was replace by another? As it turns out, this is precisely what happened. In Hebrew, the key words in each phrase look similar to each other: Shiloh – “Peacemaker” (שִׁילֹ֔ה), Sh’luach – “who is sent” (שְׁלֻחַ), and Shelloh – “whose it is” (שֶׁלּוֹ). To further complicate matters, before Jewish scribes in Tiberias, known as Masoretes, added vowel points to the Hebrew text in about AD 600-900, the text in Hebrew Bibles contained only consonants. So, these three words resembled each other to an even greater degree: Shiloh – “Peacemaker” (שלה), Sh’luach – “who is sent” (שלח), and Shelloh – “whose it is” (שלו). Over the course of a thousand years of making copies of manuscripts, even the most devoted and careful scribes might, on occasion, mistake one of these words for another.[10]
The following illustration suggests one possible scenario that could have produced these three text traditions.
Although this illustration suggests one potential scenario where Moses wrote Shiloh (שלה), and scribes mistakenly wrote Sh’luach (שלח) and Shelloh (שלו), it does not reveal whether or not Moses wrote Shiloh (שלה). Alternative illustrations could be drawn to explain similar scenarios where Moses may have written Sh’luach (שלח) or Shelloh (שלו), producing these same three text traditions.
Does this uncertainty about whether Moses wrote Shiloh (שלה), Sh’luach (שלח), or Shelloh (שלו) affect our conclusion that Gen 49:10 is a messianic prophecy? No, not at all.
Why? Because an early Hebrew commentary paraphrases the text in terms of messianic prophecy. The commentary was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Dead Sea Scroll
In August 1952, Archaeologist Gerald Harding, Chief Inspector of Antiquities in the British Mandate of Palestine, Father Roland de Vaux, Director of the École Biblique in Jerusalem, and Father Józef Milik, Translator of Dead Sea Scrolls, excavated Qumran Cave 4 and found a Pesher (commentary) fragment containing Gen 49:10 which they labeled 4Q252. George Brooke, Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at The University of Manchester, dated the fragment, based on paleography, to the period from about 50 BC to the birth of Christ.[11]
4Q252, Fragment 6, Full Spectrum Image
4Q252, Fragment 6, Infrared Image
The text of 4Q252, column 5, lines 1-7, reads as follows:
Martin G. Abegg, Jr., Professor and Co-Director of the Dead Sea Institute at Trinity Western University, translates this text as follows:
A ruler shall not depart from the tribe of Judah. When there shall be dominion for Israel,
(there shall not) be cut off a king in it belonging to David. For the ruler’s staff is the royal covenant
(and the thousan)ds of Israel are the feet, until the Righteous Messiah comes, the shoot of
David, for to him and his seed the Royal Covenant is appointed, indeed with him for perpetuity.[12]
The phrase in line three of 4Q252 – until the Righteous Messiah comes – confirms that Jews who were living in the period from about 50 BC to the birth of Christ understood Gen 49:10, whether they read Shiloh (שלה), Sh’luach (שלח), or Shelloh (שלו), to be a messianic prophecy. “(There shall not) be cut off a king … belonging to David … until the Righteous Messiah comes.” So, just a few years before and during the lifetime of Jesus, Jews were watching and waiting for the fulfillment of this prophecy – and the appearance of the Messiah.
Fulfillment of the Prophecy
Antigonus II Mattathias (c. 80-37 BC), last member of the Hasmonean monarchy, was the last descendant of Judah to become king of Judea. He ascended the throne in 40 BC and was succeeded, in 36 BC, by Herod the Great (c. 72-1 BC), son of the Antipater the Idumean and Cypros the Nabatean Arab.
When Herod ascended the throne, he arrested Antigonus and sent him to Rome for execution. During his defense in Rome, Antigonus argued that Rome should not make Herod king, because he “was no more than a private man, and an Idumean.”[13]
Idumeans (Edomites) were descendants of Esau, brother of Jacob, who were sons of Isaac, son of Abraham. (Gen 36:9) They were not descendants of Judah, son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham. So, when Antigonus argued that Herod was an Idumean, he was saying that Herod’s kingship would (and did) break the line of descendants of Judah who had become king of Judea over the centuries.
Since 4Q252 reveals that Jews were watching and waiting for the fulfillment of the messianic prophecy in Gen 49:10, and this statement by Antigonus reveals that Jews understood that the kingship of Herod broke the line of descendants of Judah who became king of Judea, we know that Jews understood that the messianic prophecy in Gen 49:10 was fulfilled by the reign of Herod the Great from 36 BC to 1 BC.[14]
Journey of the Magi by James Tissot
Early Christian Witnesses
Early Christians also recognized that the ascension of Herod the Great to the throne of Judea fulfilled the messianic prophecy in Gen 49:10. For example:
- Eusebius of Pamphylia (c. AD 260-339), Bishop of Caesarea Maritima, wrote: “When Herod, the first ruler of foreign blood, became King, the prophecy of Moses received its fulfillment, according to which there should not be wanting a prince of Judah, nor a ruler from his loins, until he come for whom it is reserved. The latter, he also shows, was to be the expectation of the nations.”[15]
- Cyril (c. AD 313-386), Bishop of Jerusalem, explained: “What then is the season, and what the manner of the time [of the appearance of Christ]? It is when, on the failure of the kings descended from Judah, Herod a foreigner succeeds to the kingdom.”[16]
- Augustine (AD 354-430), Bishop of Hippo, wrote: “Because therefore in prophecy has been said, ‘there shall not fail a prince out of Judah,’ etc.: (Gen 49:10) former times are examined, and we find that the Jews always had their kings of the tribe of Judah, and had no foreign king before that Herod who was king when the Lord was born.”[17]
- Sulpicius Severus (c. AD 363-425), Christian historian, wrote: “Then Herod, a foreigner, the son of Antipater of Askelon, asked and received the sovereignty of Judea from the senate and people of Rome. Under him, the Jews began for the first time to have a foreigner as king. For as now the advent of Christ was at hand, it was necessary, according to the predictions of the prophets, that they should be deprived of their own rulers, that they might not look for anything beyond Christ.”[18]
- Salamanes Hermias Sozomenos (c. AD 400-450), Roman lawyer and Christian historian, wrote: “Jacob predicted that the expectation of the nations would be for Christ, as it now is; and he likewise foretold the time in which he came, when he said ‘the rulers of the Hebrews of the tribe of Judah, the tribal leader, shall fail.’ (Gen 49:10) This clearly referred to the reign of Herod, who was an Idumean, on his father’s side, and on his mother’s, an Arabian, and the Jewish nation was delivered to him by the Roman senate and Augustus Caesar.”[19]
Conclusion
To “prepare the way of the Lord,” God revealed by the prophets who the Messiah would be and when the Messiah would appear. God wanted his chosen people – and people everywhere and in every generation – to understand, embrace, and follow the Savior of the world. In part two of this discussion, we examine a messianic prophecy that identifies the day of his appearing with even greater precision.
“A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’” (Isaiah 40:3-4)
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[1] Isaiah 7:14.
[2] Micah 5:2.
[3] Daniel 7:13.
[4] Isaiah 42:6.
[5] Isaiah 53:5.
[6] Psalm 16:10.
[7] Isaiah 53:12.
[8] Isaiah 9:6.
[9] Isaiah 40:3.
[10] Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/genesis/49-10.htm
[11] George J. Brooke, “4Q252 as Early Jewish Commentary” in Revue de Qumran, Novembre 1996, Vol. 17, No. 1/4 (65/68), Hommage a Jozef T. Milik (Novembre 1996), 399. “4Q252 is written in an early Herodian formal bookhand; this is suggested in particular by the size and formation of the final mem and by the distinctive and pronounced turn to the left of the left downstroke of the he. (40) The manuscript belongs in the second half of the first century BCE.” https://www.jstor.org/stable/24610152
[12] Martin G. Abegg, Jr., “The Messiah at Qumran: Are We Still Seeing Double?” page 134, in Dead Sea Discoveries, Vol. 2, No. 2, Messianism (June 1995), pp. 125-144. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4201510
[13] Flavious Josephus, translated by William Whiston, The Works of Josephus (Carol Stream, IL: Hendrickson Publishers, 1987), Antiquities of the Jews, Book XIV, Chapter 15, paragraph 2.
[14] W. E. Filmer, “The Chronology of the Reign of Herod the Great” in Journal of Theological Studies, New Series, Vol. 17, No. 2, (October 1966), 283-298. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23958200
[15] Eusebius of Pamphylia, Bishop of Caesarea Maritima, Church History (c. AD 324), Book I, Chapter 6, paragraph 1, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250101.htm
[16] St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures (c. AD 347), Lecture 12, paragraphs 17-19. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310112.htm
[17] St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Expositions on the Psalms (AD 418), Exposition on Psalm 76, paragraph 1. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801076.htm
[18] Sulpicius Severus, Sacred History (c. AD 403), Book II, Chapter 27, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/35052.htm
[19] Salamanes Hermias Sozomenos, Ecclesiastical History (c. 439), Book II, Chapter 1, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/26021.htm