Jacob’s last prediction about his son Judah is in Genesis 49:12 – “His eyes will be darker than wine, his teeth whiter than milk.” An odd statement, perhaps, but up to this point Jacob has been dropping all sorts of clues in his predictions about Judah that tie in with Jesus, such as comparing Judah to a lion (9) having unending royal authority (10), whose “hand will be on the neck of his enemies (8) and “the obedience of the nations is his” (10).
And then there are hints leading up to Jesus’ death too, in the mention of the donkey and its colt (11), and of Jesus’ actual death in “his garments being washed in wine and his robes in the blood of grapes” (11). And taking into account that it’s the descendants of Judah that lead directly to the birth of Jesus, one cannot help wondering, putting all these bits together, if verse 12 fits in with Jesus too.
But how does “his eyes being darker than wine” fit in with Jesus? There’s a hint in the word “darker,” because in Hebrew it can also mean “shining, sparkling, flashing, brilliant,” which ties in perfectly with Revelation 2:18 describing Jesus as “the Son of God whose eyes are like a flame of fire.” And when Jesus is ready to do battle in Revelation 19:12, “his eyes are like blazing fire.”
Was it Judah’s fiery nature that stirred this thought in Jacob’s mind, then? Jacob knew what Judah was like – and so did God, because it was Judah he chose to lead Israel into battle after Joshua died (Judges 1:1-2), just like the “armies of heaven followed Jesus” in Revelation 19:14. Judah himself, then, fitted the picture of Jesus in the future “treading the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty” (15).
Which is a fearsome picture of Jesus, but is this where Jacob telling Judah “his teeth are whiter than milk” fits in with Jesus too? Because teeth in the Old Testament are often associated with intent to hurt and do evil to a person, as in Job 29:17, Psalm 57:4 and Proverbs 30:14. But that is never Jesus’ intent. His intent is to “break the rod of the wicked” who “subdued nations with relentless aggression,” Isaiah 14:6, so that “All the lands are at rest and at peace” (7). That’s Jesus’ motive, and describing his teeth as whiter than milk fits that motive – “white” picturing purity, as in Psalm 51:7.
And no wonder Jacob used these terms in Genesis 49:12, because he’d also been battered around a bit by YHWH too, but look at the change it had created in him. But “How does Judah relate to us?”….(next blog)
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