Looking at a Cryptic Phrase: A Survey of Parshanut and a New Approach

(1) And Jacob called his sons and said, “Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come.

(2) Assemble and hearken, O sons of Jacob; Hearken to Israel your father:

(3) Reuben, you are my first-born, My might and first fruit of my vigor, Exceeding in rank And exceeding in honor.

(4) Unstable as water, you shall excel no longer; For when you mounted your father’s bed, You brought disgrace—my couch he mounted!

(5) Simeon and Levi are a pair; Their weapons are tools of lawlessness.

(6) Let not my person be included in their council, Let not my being be counted in their assembly. For when angry they slay men, And when pleased they maim oxen.

(7) Cursed be their anger so fierce, And their wrath so relentless. I will divide them in Jacob, Scatter them in Israel.

(8) You, O Judah, your brothers shall praise; Your hand shall be on the nape of your foes; Your father’s sons shall bow low to you.

(9) Judah is a lion’s whelp; On prey, my son, have you grown. He crouches, lies down like a lion, Like the king of beasts—who dare rouse him?

(10) The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet; So that tribute shall come to him And the homage of peoples be his.

(11) He tethers his ass to a vine, His ass’s foal to a choice vine; He washes his garment in wine, His robe in blood of grapes.

(12) His eyes are darker than wine; His teeth are whiter than milk.

(3) עד כי יבא שילה means until the King Messiah will come, whose will be the kingdom (Genesis Rabbah 99:8). Thus too does Onkelos render it. A Midrashic interpretation is: שילה is the same as שי לו, a present unto him, as it is said, (Psalms 76:12) “Let them bring (שי) presents unto him that is to be feared.”

(3) עד כי יבא שילה, the word שילה is a composite of the root שול meaning שולים, boundaries, margins. The other part of the word is based on the root שלה, the root of the word שלום.

(3) שילה; a reference to David’s son, seeing that the meaning of the word is derived from Deuteronomy 28,57 ובשליתה, i.e. “and against her afterbirth, etc.” Onkelos understands the word as referring to the Messiah. He bases himself on the variant spelling here still having the same meaning as שלו, “his.” This is also the way Bereshit Rabbah 99,8 understands the word שילה in our verse. Yaakov would be saying that Yehudah’s preeminence would not be short-lived, but would continue until the coming of the Messiah, the one to whom royalty would belong permanently. The whole blessing to Yehudah could then be compared to a father saying to his son: “accept this token in the meantime until I can give you the real thing!”

(1) לא יסור שבט מיהודה, the position of royalty which all his 12 brothers bestowed on him, i.e. that they all prostrate themselves before him, will not be removed from him until Shiloh. Yehudah, i.e. King Rechavam of Yehudah son of Solomon who wanted to confirm his ascendancy to the throne in Shechem, which is very close to Shechem. (Kings I 12) [In the event, his stupidity in listening to inexperienced irresponsible counselors lost him most of his kingdom so that he ruled only over Yehudah and Binyamin. Ed.]

(3) עד כי יבא שילה, “until the arrival of Shiloh, when the kingdom will be split, and Jerovam will be appointed to rule over ten of the twelve tribes. Yaakov refers to the people after the death of Solomon assembling to appoint Jerovam and to dissent from Rechavam, Solomon’s son and successor. [There is no verse in the Bible stating that this occurred at Shiloh;] perhaps our author understands “shiloh” as a reference to the prophet Achiyah Hashiloni, who had first informed Jerovam that he would become king over the ten tribes in Kings I 11,29, and who resided in Shiloh, as we know from Kings 14,2. Ed.] An alternate explanation: Yaakov simply referred to Achiyah the prophet who stemmed from Shiloh, and who told Jerovam who was at the time fleeing from the wrath of King Solomon that he would become King over ten tribes, but at the same time warning him not to interfere with the Kingdom of Yehudah, a remnant of David’s empire. (Kings I 11,2931.)