el (Num. xxiv. 17) corresponds, in ver. 7, his _king_:
"And his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be
exalted,"--_i.e._, not merely a single royal person, but the
Israelitish kingdom. But we can here the less legitimately separate
sceptre and kingdom from each other, because, even in the earlier
promises made to the Patriarch, there is the prophecy of the rising of
a kingdom among their descendants,--of a kingdom, too, that shall
extend beyond the boundary of that posterity itself. (Compare Gen.
xvii. 6, "Kings shall come out of thee;" ver. 16, "And she shall become
nations. Icings of nations shall be of her." See also Gen. xxxv.
11.) In vol. ii. of the _Dissertations on the Genuineness of the
Pentateuch_, p. 166 f., we detailed the natural foundations which there
existed for foreseeing the establishment of a kingdom in Israel. It is
evident that the promise which was formally given to the whole
posterity of the Patriarchs, is here appropriated specially to Judah,
who, for [Pg 65] the benefit of the whole people, is to have the
sceptre.[4] From what has been remarked, it appears that the fulfilment
of this prophecy began first with David; up to that time Judah had been
only "a lion's whelp." "In the person of Saul," as Calvin remarks,
"there was an abortive effort; but there came out at length in David,
under the authority and legitimate arrangement of God, the sovereignty
of Judah, according to the prophecy of Jacob." It also appears, from
what has been observed, that _Reinke_, S. 45 of his Monography, _Die
Weissagung Jacobs ueber Schilo_, Muenster 1849 (a work written with great
diligence), is mistaken in determining the sense to be,[5] that Judah
as a tribe would not perish, and his superiority not cease, until out
of him Shiloh, etc.; and that he is wrong, too, in maintaining, S. 133,
that the continuance of the royal dignity, and the superiority over all
the tribes until the time of Christ, were not required by these words.
From the remarks which we have made, even more than that is
required,--the _continuance_, namely, _of Judah's dominion over the
Gentiles_; for otherwise it would be necessary to make a violent
separation of these words from the preceding ones. That which has given
rise to such interpretations and assertions, viz., the apparent
difficulty encountered in pointing out the fulfilment,[6] is by no
means removed by such an explanation. For, if we look to the surface
only, what had be