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Patriarchs and Prophets
small portion of Judah’s lot, and such families as afterward became
powerful formed different colonies and settled in territory outside the
borders of the Holy Land. Levi also received no inheritance except
forty-eight cities scattered in different parts of the land. In the case
of this tribe, however, their fidelity to Jehovah when the other tribes
apostatized, secured their appointment to the sacred service of the
sanctuary, and thus the curse was changed into a blessing.
The crowning blessings of the birthright were transferred to Judah.
The significance of the name—which denotes praise,—is unfolded in
the prophetic history of this tribe:
“Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise:
Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies;
Thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.
Judah is a lion’s whelp:
From the prey, my son, thou art gone up:
He stooped down, he couched as a lion,
And as an old lion: who shall rouse him up?
The scepter 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.”
The lion, king of the forest, is a fitting symbol of this tribe, from
which came David, and the Son of David, Shiloh, the true “Lion of the
tribe of Judah,” to whom all powers shall finally bow and all nations
render homage.
For most of his children Jacob foretold a prosperous future. At last
the name of Joseph was reached, and the father’s heart overflowed as
he invoked blessings upon “the head of him that was separate from his
brethren”: