"The Scepter" Genesis 49:10 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Then Faramir stood up and spoke in a clear voice, men of Gondor, hear now the steward of this realm.

Behold, one has come to claim the kingship at last.

Here is Aragorn, son of Erathorn, chieftain of the Dunadane of Arnor, captain of the host of the west, bearer of the star of the north, wielder of the sword reforged, victorious in battle, whose hands bring healing.

The elf stone, Elessar of the line of Valandil.

That's good.

Isildur's son, Elindil's son of Numenor, shall he be the king and enter into the city and dwell there?

And all the host and all the people cried, Yea, with one voice.

Then the guards stepped forward, and Faramir opened the casket, and he held up an ancient crown.

It was shaped like the helms of the guards of the citadel, save that it was loftier.

Then to the wonder of many, Aragorn did not put the crown upon his head, but gave it back to Faramir and said, By the labor and valor of many I have come into my inheritance.

In token of this, I would have the ring-bearer bring the crown to me, and let Mithrandir set it upon my head, if he will.

And may they be blessed while the thrones of the Valar endure.

But when Aragorn arose, all that beheld him gazed in silence.

For it seemed to them that he was revealed to them now for the very first time.

And then Farimir cried, Behold the king.

Deep down, you want a king.

We all do.

Tolkien was tapping into a deep-rooted desire that is hardwired into the hearts of all mankind, a desire that cuts across cultures and cuts across centuries.

We want a king, but not just a king, the king.

Some of their names survive, Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, but only as shadows of a faded glory fit only for a history book.

Not all of them were evil, but none of them were good.

We long for the true king.

The king who won't just come and win battles, but will put an end to all war.

The king who won't simply wield his authority, but will dispense justice and righteousness.

The king who will not come merely to burden us with his administration, but will bear the government upon his own shoulders, a government of which there will be no end.

The king who will sit upon the throne to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time and forevermore.

We're not just searching for a king, we're searching for the king of kings.

And we have been searching for a long time.

It all begins in Genesis.

Everything does.

Even the search for the king.

This December, we've been anchoring our Advent series in the book of Genesis, the Book of Beginnings, and it has helped us to see that even from the very beginning, God has been preparing us for the coming of the Christ.

Sometimes in prophecies, sometimes in pictures, God is developing these patterns to prepare our hearts so that we would recognize Jesus when he came.

In Genesis 3, we find this incredible prophecy, the seed of the woman, that God is going to come and he is going to rescue fallen humanity through a divinely born human that would undo the curse and crush the serpent.

In Genesis 8, the story of Noah prepares us to expect that God is going to come and be a savior who will both judge sin and rescue his people through that judgment.

In Genesis 12 and 15 and 17, Abraham's faith in the promise of a son urges us to follow his example and to trust in the promises of the faithful God.

In Genesis 22, God tested that faith by calling Abraham to sacrifice his own son, but there God reveals that it is actually God Himself who will provide the sacrifice that our sin demands.

And now we look at Genesis 49.

And we begin to see that what we should be looking for is a king.

And as you're turning there in your Bibles, I want you to understand the context of what we're about to read together.

In the beginning, God made a promise that He's going to give humanity a savior, the seed of the woman.

But who will the seed be and where will he come from?

Adam and Eve start their family, maybe it'll be one of their sons.

But Cain is a murderer, Abel is murdered, Seth is faithful, but he's not the one.

So the search begins.

Down through the generations we wait and we look, through Noah, through the flood, through Babel, the beginning of nations, he still hasn't come yet.

And then God calls a man, an old man, Abraham, and says to him, The promise is going to come through your family.

And sure enough, Abraham and his wife Sarah have a son named Isaac.

The promise and the search continues.

And then Isaac has a son, Jacob.

And Jacob, who gets renamed Israel, has twelve sons.

And admittedly, they didn't always get along.

There may have been a murder plot, false imprisonment, slavery, typical brother stuff.

But here, at the end of Genesis, they're reunited.

One family.

It's the family of the promise.

And now Jacob, at the end of his life, gathers his sons and passes on to them his fatherly blessings.

It was pretty common in the ancient Near East for fathers to extend blessings to their sons, prayers, and sometimes they would even confer legal rights upon them, the dying wishes of their father.

But in Genesis, those blessings mean much, much more because these fatherly blessings that you read about for the patriarchs in Genesis aren't just hopes or requests.

They are the passing on of the covenant promises from God.

The promises that Jacob had received from his father Isaac, which Isaac had received from his father Abraham, the promises which God himself had made to Abraham in Genesis 12 and in 15 and in 17.

And in essence, the same promise that God had made, stretching all the way back into the garden, the seed from the woman, a serpent crushing, sin atoning, curse undoing, seed of the woman, those are the promises that are in these blessings.

Of course, Jacob blesses all of his sons.

Every parent loves all their kids.

But he blesses them with different blessings.

And some of these blessings, as you read them, even sound like curses.

Reuben, the firstborn, defiled his father's bed.

He loses his prominence, and yet he remains powerful.

Simeon and Levi, the vigilantes of the group, possess great might, but they lose their land.

Zebulun gets beachfront property and an ocean view.

Issachar gets a blue-collar reputation.

Dan, the justice dealer, judges with an iron fist, but ends up in corruption.

Gad lives by the sword but gives as good as he gets.

Asher, whose name means happiness, by the way, gets promised rich foods.

I guess you could call that a happy meal.

Naphtali ends up with some of the most beautiful land and becomes the home of heroines like Deborah.

Joseph is the beloved son whose name means increase.

He's promised abundant prosperity that flows straight from God above.

Benjamin, the baby brother, becomes the home of Israel's fiercest warriors.

Left-handed Ehud and towering Saul, brave Jonathan.

Even the pugnacious apostle Paul comes from the tribe of Benjamin.

But there's one blessing that draws our attention this morning: a prophecy of prominence and power, the blessing to Judah that begins in verse 8 through verses 12.

Let's read them now together.

Jacob is called his sons and says in verse 8, Judah, your brothers shall praise you.

Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies.

Your father's sons shall bow down before you.

Judah is a lion's cub.

From the prey, my son, you have gone up.

He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, and as a lioness, who dares rouse him?

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, binding his foal to the vine, and his donkey's colt to the choice vine.

He has washed his garments in wine, and his vesture in the blood of grapes.

His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.

This fatherly blessing that Jacob confers upon Judah far surpasses anything that his brothers receive.

The only brother whose blessing matches Judah's in length is that of Jacob's favorite son Joseph.

You know, Joseph, once upon a time, Jacob gave his favorite son Joseph a coat of many colors.

But whereas Joseph received a coat, what Judah is receiving is a coat of arms.

This is a royal blessing.

It is the picture of authority and majesty.

Judah, the fourth eldest, is going to become the first among his brothers.

And when God reaffirms his covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17, he tells Abraham that kings are going to come from you.

And in this blessing, we begin to get a glimpse, what will this coming king look like?

And you get a picture of him in this five-fold blessing that Judah receives.

First, the blessing lets us know that this king will receive praise.

In verse 8, Jacob says, Judah, your brothers shall praise you.

There's actually a pretty delightful wordplay going on in that sentence.

Judah's name, when he was born, literally means, I will praise Yahweh.

Now Jacob says, Judah, you are the one who's going to receive praise.

It's a pun.

Which is encouraging to me to know that dad jokes are at least 4,000 years old.

And here, Jacob is proclaiming that Judah is going to receive honor, that Judah's might and his strength and his virtue are going to inspire songs that will be written and sung to him by his brothers.

They will praise his name, but not only his brothers, Jacob says.

These words of praise that his brothers proclaim to him aren't just going to be empty words of flattery.

They're going to be connected to acts of obedience and submission.

Every knee, friend and family and foe alike, every knee is going to bow to the king.

Secondly, this blessing confers power.

Three times in verse 9, Jacob describes Judah as a lion.

First, he's a lion cub that's running and pouncing upon its prey.

Then he's a mature lion who's bent down, ready to strike.

And then thirdly, he's called a lioness, or probably just an old lion, who, after killing its prey and eating its fill, has laid down to rest a slumber that only a fool would disturb.

In ancient Israel, just like today, the lion was the symbol of power and strength.

Surely you've seen the great sphinx, the Pharaoh's head on a lion's body.

But this imagery is everywhere in the ancient Near East.

On the Ishtar gate of Babylon, the king is depicted as a lion.

When ancient kings wanted a mascot for their power, they picked the lion.

Even now, from Richard I to Charles III, the English king projects his power by picturing a lion on his coat of arms.

The lion fears neither beast nor man, he easily defeats them both.

In Greek mythology, when Hercules was going to prove his strength, he doesn't have to defeat the Nemean squirrel.

Lions are the pinnacle of strength.

So shall it be for Judah.

In his strength, he will fear none.

He will defeat all challengers, he will eat his fill, and he will lie down and rest in security.

Praise, power, prominence.

In verse 10, this blessing shifts to a prophecy about Judah's prominence in authority.

Verse 10, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet.

And now the royal overtones of this blessing move from implicit to explicit.

Jacob places into the hands of Judah two symbols of royal authority.

First the scepter and then the staff.

The word for scepter is the word shebeth.

Sometimes it means stick, sometimes it means club, but quite often it's just the word for a royal implement of authority.

It's the scepter that the king is carrying in Psalm 2 that enables him to break the nations with his scepter of iron.

It is the scepter of uprightness that God holds in his hand while he sits on his throne in Psalm 45.

It is the scepter that the king carries in Amos 1 that entitles him to crush the enemies of Israel.

Kings carry scepters, but alongside the scepter, Judah is given here a ruler's staff.

That's the word that is associated with the mace that the chief lawgiver of a nation would hold to announce when he was distributing justice and carrying out the law.

Now I'm as American as it gets.

John Wayne, apple pie, the whole nine yards.

But like many of you, I sat down on the couch this year to watch with my daughters the coronation of King Charles.

And I can still remember being awed by the image of the king holding in his hand the two scepters of the British monarchy, as his son, the prince, came and knelt before him and pledged his fealty and kissed him.

These two objects perfectly symbolizing that at least as far as the United Kingdom is concerned, all authority belongs to him.

Law, justice, liberty, and righteousness, insofar as the United Kingdom has them, come from him.

And he will distribute them as he sees fit.

This is what Jacob is prophesying for Judah.

Royal authority.

And Jacob says that this royal authority to command and distribute justice will reside in Judah's possession.

Verse 10 says, until tribute comes to him.

Now your translation might say something different in verse 10.

Or perhaps in your Bible, there's a little footnote that is written at the bottom of the page.

In the New American Standard and in the King James Version, that says, until Shiloh comes.

In the CSB, it translates it, until he whose right it is comes.

So what is going on there, right?

It's an enigmatic phrase without an easy explanation.

But the simplest explanation you can get for the word is that it says Shiloh, and in fairness, that's true.

That's what's in the text.

Until Shiloh comes.

Shiloh is a proper noun.

It was the name of a city in Israel, but interestingly, not a city in Judah.

It was a city that fell under the tribe of Ephraim.

It was the center of all the religious ceremony in Israel before the temple was built.

But the grammar of the sentence that Jacob is speaking certainly doesn't sound as if a city is at play here.

He's talking about a person.

And most scholars today think the better way to translate that word is to understand it not as Shiloh, but Shalo, or in English, tribute to him.

What's going on here is that Judah will possess the scepter and the staff until the one to whom tribute belongs comes.

He will hold on to them until the person that they actually belong to comes.

And for what it's worth, that's what the translators of the Septuagint did when they translated Genesis 49.

There's an interesting parallel passage in Ezekiel 21, verse 27, that does the same thing.

Ezekiel 21:27

In that passage, Ezekiel 21, a passage that is addressed, by the way, to the last king of Judah.

The prophet says to him, You wicked prince of Israel, remove your turban, take off your crown, until he to whom it belongs as tribute comes.

This blessing means that Judah is entrusted with royal authority.

He holds the scepter and the staff in his hands, but one day someone is going to come to whom they actually belong.

And when he picks them up again, they will never be laid back down.

Praise, power, prominence, people.

The prophecy continues in verse 10.

This one to whom tribute belongs, when he comes, also to him shall come the obedience of the peoples.

Whoever this king is that is coming out of Judah, he will receive the obedience of the peoples.

Peoples is just the word we would use for nations.

This king is going to come from Judah, he's going to rule in Judah, but he will have the obedience of all the nations.

Every nation, every tribe, every tongue, every people around the world will bow down to him.

He will exercise a worldwide dominion.

And finally, Jacob says.

This king will have prosperity.

The blessing concludes in verses 11 and 12 with three pictures of prosperity and beauty.

One of the commentaries, Derek Kidner, says, Every line of these verses speaks of exuberant, intoxicating abundance.

This Judahite king will bind his foal to the vine and his donkey's cult to the choice vine.

So generally, that's a bad idea.

I realize we're not up to speed on parking culture in ancient Israel, but it's a bad idea to tie your donkey up to a vine because, well, donkeys eat vines.

Like you don't have to be a donkey expert to understand that that is the logical outcome here.

And if you tie your donkey up to a vine, you won't have a vine for very long.

And you probably won't have a donkey for very long.

You will run away, but that seems to be the point.

If his donkey destroys the vine, that's fine.

I can plant another vine.

I got lots of vines.

Did my donkey run away?

That's fine.

No problem.

I've got lots of donkeys.

In our world, this would be like the guy who parks his Lamborghini on the street with the windows down and the keys inside.

He doesn't care.

He can buy as many Lambos as he wants.

Did someone steal it?

That doesn't matter.

Do you know how wealthy I am?

He's so rich in verse 11 that he washes his garments in wine and his vestures in the blood of grapes.

You might be well off, but you're not doing your laundry in Merlot well off.

The picture that Jacob is painting is of a man so extravagantly wealthy that choice wine is as common to him as scrub water.

And in verse 12, he magnifies this prosperity with beauty.

His eyes are darker than wine, his teeth are whiter than milk.

This wealth so pervades his persona that his very appearance is going to be mesmerizing when he shows up.

This then is what the king is going to look like.

He's going to be worthy of and receiving praise, praise from family and friend and foe alike.

Everyone will bow down and worship him.

Powerful.

He's going to conquer and defeat every enemy who dares to resist him.

He's going to hold in his hands authority and might and justice and righteousness.

He's going to gather around him people from every tribe and every nation and every tongue on the earth.

And in possessing all wealth and abundance and privilege and beauty, he will dispense them in his kingdom.

Who wouldn't want that guy to be their king?

But who is he?

It's not Judah.

Judah is the first one to receive this blessing, but he doesn't fulfill it.

And it's clear that Jacob isn't merely talking to Judah, he's talking through Judah.

This prophetic blessing that began in the garden that floated over the flood, settled onto the family of Abraham, and is now being carried along through Isaac, through Jacob, through Judah to one of his descendants.

The search for the king is on.

Judah's descendants grow in strength and power just as Jacob predicted that they would, and the promise grows with them.

In Numbers 24, the wicked prophet Balaam, who probably wishes he tied his donkey to a vine, cannot help but prophesy the truth, and he declares a vision of the coming king.

I see him, but not now.

I behold him, but not near.

A star shall come forth from Jacob, a scepter shall rise from Israel.

And eventually this royal promise falls on a young boy from the tribe of Judah, a shepherd small in stature, but mighty in power.

David, chosen by God, becomes the bearer of this royal promise.

And he looks for a time as if he might be the king they've been waiting for.

Certainly he receives praise after all, he's killed his tens of thousands.

And he has power and prominence, but no, he wasn't the promised one.

Although God did make a promise to David in 2 Samuel chapter 7 that the true king would be one of his sons.

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

And sure enough, a son comes.

Solomon seemed promising, praised for all of his wisdom.

His prosperity is still talked about today.

And the nations flocked to him.

The queen of Sheba came to bow before him.

But no, he wasn't the promised one either.

One by one, each of the Judahite kings revealed themselves to be just temporary placeholders.

Waypoints along the weight for the true king.

And then the monarchy disappears.

Israel is conquered.

The throne sits empty.

Greeks and Romans, with their rulers and their puppet princes, rule over Israel while she still waits.

Until one day, wise men visit from the east.

And they ask the question that all of Israel should have been asking: where is born the king of the Jews?

They had seen the star, the star that Balaam had talked about in Numbers 24 rising.

The king was coming.

They asked and they heard he would be born in Bethlehem.

Of course he'd be born in Bethlehem.

Where else could the son of David be born?

And there they found him, the king of kings, the lion of the tribe of Judah, lying in a manger.

He came not in pomp and regalia, but in compassionate humility, the divine son kept safe by a common family.

And he came and he was greeted with praise.

Angels sang, shepherds flocked, wise men knelt.

He came with the power of a perfect life to conquer sin and defeat death.

He came, the firstborn of creation.

Into the creation he made to undo the curse and set right all that had been broken.

He came to draw all men to himself.

He came bearing the riches of heaven to give life more abundantly to us.

As his people rejected him.

His disciples abandoned him, scattered as their shepherd was struck.

The only possessions he had, his garments, gambled away by the soldiers who killed him.

The king is dead.

But long live the king.

Because three days later, by the power of his divine life, he conquered death and rose from the grave.

And when he did, his disciples asked him the most natural question you could imagine asking Jesus.

Lord, is it now that you are going to restore the kingdom?

Will David's throne be filled again?

Will you finally drive out all of the pretenders to the throne and now reign here in glory?

But the king answers them with a correction and a command.

It's not for you to know the hour or the day.

It is for you to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the world.

And with that the king departed, promising to return again.

The search is over.

But the wait continues.

And like so many faithful ones before us, we long for the coming of the Lion of Judah.

And until he returns, we serve as witnesses to the king.

But make no mistake about it, he is coming again.

And the apostle John was given a glimpse into the throne room of heaven in anticipation of that day.

And what does he see?

Revelation 5.

Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals, and I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?

And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it.

And I began to weep loudly, because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or look into it.

And one of the elders said to me, Weep no more.

Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.

And between the throne and the four living creatures, and among the elders I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.

And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.

And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures, and the twenty-four elders fell down before the lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, and they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and open its seals.

For you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God, from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.

Then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them, saying, To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.

And the four living creatures said, Amen.

From Genesis through Revelation, all of it calls us to long for the coming of the Lion of Judah, the seed, the Savior, the Son, the substitute, the King.

Let's pray.

Almighty God, we worship you, enthroned in heaven, and we worship your Son, our King.

We look forward to the day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, the King of Kings.

God, as we celebrate with our families this Christmas season, let us understand its royal significance.

Let us worship you.

Let us adore you.

In the name of Christ our King, we pray.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.