Jacob made some amazing predictions about his son Judah in Genesis 49:8-12, but do they relate in some way to us too? Do they, for instance, give some real meaning to Jesus’ command to his disciples in Matthew 6:33, to “seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”?

Because what we’ve got in the prophecy about Judah in Genesis 49 is a pointer to Jesus and the kind of kingdom he’ll be setting up in the future. Verse 8, for instance, says his “hand will be on the neck of his enemies,” which is something we can happily seek and look forward to, because we are stuffed with enemies we have no control over, like the massive corporations sucking us dry in their lust for money, or the leaders of nations draining us dry in their lust for war, or politicians taxing us to death in their messiah-like claim to be saving the planet.  

But one day the Lion of Judah will have them in an unbreakable neck lock and their power will be erased forever (Daniel 7:14). And that’s what king David had his eyes fixed firmly on in Psalm 73, when he couldn’t understand why “the wicked prospered” in his world either (3) – “until,” that is, “I entered the sanctuary of God, then I understood their final destiny” (16-17). 

Well, thanks to the prophecy in Genesis 49:10, we can enter into the sanctuary of God too, where we see Jesus holding the “sceptre of Judah” picturing his royal authority over this planet and “the obedience of the nations being his.” At last, the time when the rule of law for our world will be based on his example, his nature, and what he taught. So in seeking his kingdom first that’s what we’re seeking in our lives right now – knowing that those who obey Jesus now will join him in bringing HIS truly messianic “eternal salvation” to this planet (Hebrews 5:9).

This is what David and those in Hebrews 11 were seeking (Hebrews 11:13-16, 26), that enabled them to obey God and trust him no matter what the world they lived in threw at them. And isn’t that what keeps us going in this untidy world – knowing Jesus will be taking over one day and setting the entire planet up with what God originally planned for it, and he wants us right beside him in the doing of it too.

The prophecy meant for Judah, therefore, has meaning for us too. Because the kingdom it portrayed is in the making right now, in those who believe in faith what’s coming, like those in Hebrews 11, and want to be part of it as well. But “Does Zebulun have meaning for us too?”….(next blog)

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) 

It seems surprising that God would choose Judah as the ancestral line leading up to Jesus, when it was Judah in Genesis 37:20 who supported the plot to “kill Joseph and throw him into a cistern and say a ferocious animal devoured him,” and Judah who then suggested they make money from selling Joseph instead (26-27), and Judah who agreed to soaking Joseph’s robe in goat’s blood and telling their father it was Joseph’s blood (31-33). 

Why on earth, then, would God choose Judah as a prophecy about Jesus – which Jacob has been making obvious so far in Genesis 49 – unless the horrible things Judah did to Joseph also ties in with a prophecy about Jesus. Because there’s a hint of that in verse 11, when Jacob tells Judah, “he will wash his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes.” Is Jacob remembering Judah soaking Joseph’s robe in blood, and relating that to Jesus too? If so, then we have a prophecy about Jesus’ death nearly two thousand years before it happened. 

It ties in with Isaiah 63 too. In verse 1, we have a figure picturing Jesus “robed in splendour,” but at the same time “his garments are stained crimson.” Which ties in with the “richly ornamented robe” Jacob made for Joseph in Genesis 37:3, that Judah and his brothers also stained crimson by soaking it in blood (31).

When asked then, in Isaiah 63:2 – “Why are your garments red, like those of one treading the winepress?” – the one representing Jesus replies: “I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me” (3). Which is exactly what happened to Jesus on the cross. He trod that winepress alone too, left to die a slow agonizing death, abandoned by all, including his disciples. 

The same thing happened to Joseph, dumped in a waterless cistern to die a slow death alone, abandoned by his brothers too. No one even thought about how it must have felt for him.

Except, perhaps, for Judah, because it was Judah who spared Joseph’s life (Genesis 37:26-27). Did Judah have a tiny speck of understanding how Joseph felt, then, and is that why God chose him? And in turn to help us in our understanding too, of how Jesus felt on the cross and seeing his death through his eyes, described in his own heart-wrenching words in Isaiah 63? 

Jacob has one more verse for Judah that could tie in with Jesus too, when he talks about “Eyes like wine; teeth like milk”….(next blog)

Genesis 49:8-12 is one of the great prophecies of the Old Testament, because it foresees Jacob’s fourth son Judah becoming a great nation with an unbroken lineage all the way through to Jesus, and also what Jacob says of his son describes Jesus himself in the future as well. So it’s a prophecy about Jesus nearly two thousand years before he came. 

And a prophecy about Jesus in two parts: his part as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David who triumphs” in Revelation 5:5, pictured in Genesis 49:8-10 – and his part as “a Lamb” that “had been slain” in Revelation 5:6, pictured in Genesis 49:11-12. 

Genesis 49:11, for instance, mentions “tethering his donkey to a vine, his colt to the choicest branch,” bringing to mind Jesus telling two of his disciples in Matthew 21:2 to untie a donkey and its foal so he could ride the foal into Jerusalem on the way to his death as “the Lamb of God who takes away our sins” (John 1:29). 

Genesis 49:11 then adds that “he will wash his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes,” bringing to mind the question asked in Isaiah 63:1, “Who is this coming with his garments stained crimson?” And then he’s asked directly in verse 2, “Why are your garments red, like those of one treading the winepress?” Whoever this person is, his clothes are stained the colour of grape juice, or as Jacob phrased it, “the blood of grapes.” The stain on his clothes looks exactly like blood, as though they’ve been washed in blood, and lots of it too. 

So who is this person in Isaiah 63? Verse 1 says he’s “robed in splendour, striding forward in the greatness of his strength,” so a mighty powerful being is being pictured here. But then he identifies himself as “speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.” So all his power and splendour is directed toward saving people. Which describes Jesus perfectly in both his parts, as a triumphant King and a blood soaked Saviour “clothed with a robe dipped in blood” (Revelation 19:13).

And Jesus uses wine to picture blood too, when he lifts up a cup of wine in Matthew 26:28 and tells his disciples, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.” So was this what Jacob was also getting at in Genesis 49:11, when using terms that would later be used by Isaiah and by John in Revelation – and also by Jesus himself to describe his death? Isaiah 63, then, indicates Jacob knew about Jesus’ death, but it’s also about “Seeing Jesus’ death through his eyes”….(next blog)  

There are hints in Genesis 49 that Jacob knew there was more to the story about Jesus than being a Lion conquering his enemies and all nations one day obeying him (verses 8-10). 

And we know there’s more because of Zechariah 9:9-10 – “Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey’s colt.” So, yes, on the one hand Jesus is a triumphant king, pictured perfectly by Jacob’s description of him as a Lion, and very much in the pattern of his ancestors David and Solomon, who also rode donkeys as kings (1 Kings 1:33). Jesus then fulfilled Zechariah’s prophecy exactly, riding on the colt of a donkey into Jerusalem to a crowd cheering “Hosanna to the Son of David” in Matthew 21:5, an acknowledgement that Jesus had David’s royal blood in him.

But why was Jesus so specific in telling his two disciples in Matthew 21:2 – “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you’ll find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me”?

And it had to be the mother donkey and her foal, or colt, that Jesus wanted brought to him. Being a colt it had likely not been ridden before, which explains why it was tied up beside its mother and had to be untied. But all this could seem rather unnecessary in its detail, until reading Genesis 49:11, when out of the blue Jacob mentions that “He (the one whom all nations obey in verse 10) will tether his donkey to a vine, his colt to the choicest branch.”

There it is again, and so specific again too, a donkey and its colt – and both “tethered” or tied too, just like the donkey and its colt were tied or tethered in Matthew 21. Which can seem like a rather cryptic clue about Jesus in Genesis 49:11, but not “When you have the key,” the key Jesus himself gave in John 5:39, that “all the Scriptures (the Bible up to that point) are testifying about me.” 

Which is exactly what Jacob has been doing; he’s been giving all sorts of hints about Jesus in Genesis 49:8-10. And he’s still got the rest of verse 11 and verse 12 to go yet in speaking to Judah, so is Jacob “testifying about Jesus” in those verses too?

Well the clues given in those two verses beg the question: “Did Jacob know Jesus would die?”….(next blog)

Jacob is making some obvious parallels between his son Judah and Jesus. He compares Judah to a lion in Genesis 49:9, for example, which ties right in with Jesus being called the “Lion of Judah” in Revelation 5:5. 

Judah is told “your hand will be on the neck of your enemies” in Genesis 49:8, and in verse 9 that he’ll be “like a lion” devouring its prey, putting the fear up anyone daring to challenge him – another obvious parallel with Jesus “reigning until he’s put all his enemies under his feet,” 1 Corinthians 15:25.

And then in Genesis 49:10, Judah is told “The sceptre will not depart” from him – the sceptre picturing royal authority that will always be his, another obvious parallel with Jesus who declared that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” Matthew 28:18, and for always too (Hebrews 1:8).

It’s amazing what Jacob knew about his son’s future and how it would lead up to “the one who comes to whom it all belongs” and the time when “the obedience of the nations is his,” Genesis 49:10 – another obvious reference to Jesus telling his disciples in Matthew 28:19-20 to go to “all nations…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” 

Already, then, 1800 years before Jesus arrived on the scene, Jacob was predicting his coming. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the Jews expected Jesus to be the powerful “lion” of Genesis 49 who would subdue all their enemies and install his kingdom and authority over the world’s kingdoms forever. They certainly understood that part about Jesus, thanks to Jacob. 

But what they didn’t grasp was Jesus coming as a Lamb first, not a Lion. When John the Baptist “saw Jesus coming” in John 1:29, and he cried out, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” that wasn’t what the Jews were looking to Jesus for. They wanted a Lion, not a Lamb. They were right in expecting “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, to triumph,” Revelation 5:5, absolutely, but in verse 6 John adds: “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain…” 

Jesus would also be a Lamb – so why didn’t Jacob include that in his predictions about his son in Genesis 49? Or maybe he did: with a rather cryptic clue perhaps, but not so cryptic “When you have the key”….(next blog) 

In Romans 8:23-24, Paul writes about us “eagerly waiting for our adoption as God’s children” – with the new bodies he promised us too – and it’s our hope in this happening that “saves us.” It’s what keeps us going in a world with so much evil, the hope that one day all evil will be gone. 

How it will all be gone was already being hinted at by Jacob in Genesis 49:8-12, in the amazing parallels between what Judah and his descendants would be like, and Jesus. Which ties in with what John wrote in 1 John 3:8, that “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” – or “liquidate the devil’s activities,” as one translation phrases it. To free the world of evil, in other words. 

And it’s in these parallels between what Jacob said would happen in Judah’s own life in Genesis 49 – and in the life of his most famous descendant, King David – that picture Jesus and HIS power, authority and kingship being accepted by all nations (8-10) as the means by which evil will be eradicated. 

Isaiah wrote of this in Isaiah 11:1 too, of the time when a “shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse (David’s family), and from his roots a Branch (a descendant of David) will bear fruit,” who will “strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked” (4), and “In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious” (10). A world free of evil at last, at the hands of this “Root” from David’s family, clearly identified as Jesus, “the Root of David,” in Revelation 5:5. 

Is this, then, what Jacob was also describing back in Genesis 49:11 – a time when the abundance is so great it’s no problem when “tethering a donkey to a vine and its colt to the choicest branch” if they go ahead and eat the branches and the fruit on them; and there’s so much wine you could wash your clothes in it instead of water. And such staggering abundance did exist in king Solomon’s day. He was “greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth” (1 Kings 10:23). He “lacked nothing” (1 Kings 4:27), and “during his lifetime Judah and Israel lived in safety” (25) and “they ate, drank and were happy” (20). 

But it didn’t last, and Solomon himself “did evil in the eyes of the Lord” (1 Kings 11:6). So who and what was Jacob getting at in Genesis 49, then? Well, it seems that “Jacob knew about Jesus”….(next blog) 

The point of Scripture is to give us hope that evil will be totally defeated and never be a force or influence ever again. 

Scripture also gets the point across very early on in Genesis 3:15, that we are in for a battle, in which evil would cripple us humans and really mess up our lives, but “the seed of the woman,” a human being, would strike a fatal blow on evil, destroying it forever. 

The promise of that fatal blow began with Adam and Eve’s third son, Seth (4:25), whose lineage led to Noah (5:6-32), in whose lifetime evil became so awful that, if it wasn’t for Noah “walking with God,” evil would have triumphed over humanity, either in making everyone evil or causing God to destroy all humans forever (6:1-9).

Noah’s lineage through his son Shem then led to Abram (10:21-31, 11:10-26), and to Abram God promises that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (12:3). That blessing was passed on to Abram’s son, Isaac (26:2-3), to Isaac’s son Jacob (28:1-4), whose name God changed to “Israel” (35:10), and now through Israel God’s promise to Abraham would continue (35:11-12). God also promised Jacob he would make Israel into a great nation (46:3, 48:3-4), and Jacob then told his son Joseph that God would take them all “back to the land of their fathers (Canaan)”(48:21).

While still in Egypt and just before he died, Jacob blessed each of his twelve sons, who would later become “the twelve tribes of Israel” (49:28). It was the blessing on his fourth son, Judah, that stood out from the rest. Never from Judah would “the sceptre depart” (49:10). So Judah would always have royal authority, over both his enemies and his brothers (8), and his “ruler’s staff” – legislative and judicial rule – would continue uninterrupted “from between his feet,” meaning through his descendants. 

“Until,” that is, “he comes,” verse 10, “to whom all this rightly belongs, and the obedience of the nations is his.” Never did Judah’s descendants receive such global obedience. A taste of it, yes, in the reigns of David and Solomon, both in Judah’s lineage, but no fatal blow to evil as promised in Genesis 3:15. No lion of Judah managed that UNTIL a “Son of David” came (Matthew 21:9), later identified as Jesus in Revelation 5:5 “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David” who “triumphed” over evil. And it’s back in Genesis 49 that Jacob sees “A world free of evil” too….(next blog)

“You are a lion’s cub, O Judah,” Jacob said of his son in Genesis 49:9. He saw in Judah the power and potential of a young lion. And he was right too, because Judah became a powerful leader.

It was Judah in Judges 1 who took the lead in attacking the Canaanites and Perizzites “and they struck down ten thousand men at Bezek” (4). And in verse 8, “The men of Judah attacked Jerusalem and took it,” and in verse 9, they defeated the Canaanites “in the hill country, the Negev and the western foothills,” and in “Hebron” too (10). Nowhere, it seems, was safe from the mighty growing lion cub of Judah, but understandably so, for “The Lord was with the men of Judah” (19). 

Jacob then continues in Genesis 49:9, “from the prey, my son, you are gone up,” picturing a lion now in its prime easily overcoming its prey, returning to its lair “up” in the mountains, confident in its formidable strength, and fearless of any enemies trying to steal its prey. And such was the tribe of Judah, gaining in confidence and strength with each victory, so that “Like a lion” (9) in its full grown majesty it calmly “crouches” over its prey, unafraid while it eats and “lies down” to rest afterwards.  

And “like a lioness (9), who dares to rouse him?” – a lioness being known for its ferociousness when defending its cubs. So Jacob foresaw all this in his son, that one day the nation of Judah would arise and become so powerful that “During Solomon’s lifetime Judah and Israel lived in safety, each man under his own vine and fig tree” (1 Kings 4:25), as calm and at peace as a lion that has no challengers.

Jacob then tells his son Judah in Genesis 49:10, “The sceptre will not depart from Judah.” A “sceptre” was a rod or long staff symbolizing royal authority, like the gold sceptre king Xerxes held out to Queen Esther to approve her approaching him (Esther 5:2). Royal authority, therefore, was predicted by Jacob to never leave Judah, for God not only “chose Judah to be the ruler” (1 Chronicles 28:4), he also had Nathan the prophet tell king David from the tribe of Judah in 2 Samuel 7:16, that “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever,” exactly as Jacob predicted.

Judah the lion cub would grow to be a mighty lion, picturing a fearless and formidable ruler whose royal authority and dynasty would never end. So “Who was this mighty lion of Judah?”….(next blog)

1 Chronicles 5:2 describes Judah as “the strongest of his brothers and a ruler came from him.” He did not get the firstborn rights of Reuben because Jacob gave them “to the sons of Joseph son of Israel” (1) – but in Genesis 49:8, Jacob predicted that his sons would acknowledge Judah’s leadership and authority over the family – or as Jacob phrased it, “your father’s sons will bow down to you.” 

And clearly God intended it to be that way, because when “the Israelites set out from the Desert of Sinai and traveled from place to place” in Numbers 10:12, it was “Judah who went first under their standard” (14). Judah was God’s choice to lead the way. 

And after Joshua died, Judges 1:1-2, “the people of Israel asked, ‘Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them?’ And the Lord said, ‘Judah shall go up; behold I have given the land into his hand.’” So Judah was God’s choice to lead them into battle too.

Jacob also predicted back in Genesis 49:8 that Judah would have his “hand on the neck of your enemies.” Which was perfectly fulfilled in the life of king David of Judah, who sang of it in Psalm 18:32, “It is God who arms me with strength,” and in verses 37-40: “I pursued my enemies and overtook them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed. I crushed them so they couldn’t rise. You armed me with strength for battle; you made my adversaries bow at my feet. You made my enemies turn their backs in flight, and I destroyed my foes” (also in 2 Samuel 22:40-41).

This was when Israel became a power to be reckoned with, led by the Jewish kings David and Solomon. And it was God who meant this to happen, because it was he who chose David to be Israel’s king, 1 Samuel 16:12, “and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power,” making it very clear he was God’s choice of leader, verse 13.

Is it any coincidence, then, that people who have no interest in – or respect for God – hate Jews? Maybe they think Jews are awful people, as even Christians have thought through the ages, but it was God who chose Judah, and God who created a line of descendants from Judah that led to king David, and from king David a line of descendants that led to Jesus, who would inherit “the throne of his father David, and reign over the house of Jacob forever,” Luke 1:31-33. And it’s all been God’s doing, which began with his choice of Judah, and Jacob’s description of him in Genesis 49, when he called “Judah: a lion’s cub”….(next blog)