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gives us the heavenly one! If the aged Israel is taken to his rest, O, how gloriously is the gap filled up when the God of that Israel becomes the God of his sons, and his sons' sons! And so a day comes when he and they shall meet and mingle where there are no more tears, nor sorrow, nor separation, nor crying.

In these narratives there is a pilgrim-like air. We feel its influence as we read. May we never forget, wherever we dwell, or whatever rank we hold, that we are pilgrims, and strangers, and sojourners, looking for a better country and eternal mansions!

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It is extremely difficult, in the course of the few expository remarks that your time permits me to give on the lesson that we read, to present a full and satisfactory analysis of the varied and significant predictions here pronounced upon the tribes of Israel. It does happen, too, that our most noble translation, for such unquestionably it is, in this chapter, is not the most happy in its rendering some expressions of the original Hebrew not the most happy in this sense only, that it does not convey, so clearly and so distinctly, the ideas of the original. I alluded before to a translation that has been executed by Dr. A. Benisch, professor of Hebrew to the Jews' and General Literary and Scientific Institution; lecturer, pro tem., to the Western Synagogue, St. Alban's place, published with the approval of the chief Rabbi. He is a Jew one who has no partiality to Christianity whatever; on the contrary, one who believes that the Messiah has not yet come. He has simply, as a Hebrew scholar, executed a translation of the whole of the Pentateuch; and I must say, that, in some passages, as far as I am competent to judge and compare, his translation is more correct than ours. At the same time, there is not the least difference in any one vital point; and his translation tells more, I think, against the Jew, and altogether, I may say, in favor of the Christian's belief that the Messiah predicted in the Pentateuch has already come. I

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will just read this forty-ninth chapter, as it is rendered by him. This, I may repeat, is a Jew's translation from the original Hebrew; and, therefore, the sceptic cannot possibly accuse him of any partiality to Christianity, or of any tampering with the original in order to support the Christian view : "And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the remoteness of days." Now, "remoteness of days" is better than "last days," because this latter expression is generally employed to denote the end of this dispensation, whereas "remoteness of days" is more applicable to the end of the Jewish dispensation, or the period of the existence of the twelve tribes. "Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father. Reuben, thou art my first-born, my vigor, and the beginning of my manhood, superiority in dignity and superiority in power. Thy precipitancy is like the waters; thou shalt not be superior, because thou wentest up to thy father's place of repose; then profanedst thou my couch by going up. Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of violence are their swords. O my soul, come not thou into their secret deliberation; into their assembly, my glory, be not thou united; for in their wrath they slew a man, and in their self-will they lamed an ox." Our translation is, "They digged down a wall;" but the Jew translator is right, and our translation is wrong. The Hebrew word for a wall is shor; the Hebrew word for an ox is shur; the difference between the "o" and the "u" consisting in the position of a point. There is no question that our translators have mistaken it. "They digged down a wall," means nothing; but the ox or the bull are always used in Scripture to denote princes, "Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round," — that is, princes of Bashan (Psa. 22; 12); and the expression, "They lamed an ox," is applicable to their conduct with regard to the great prince,

Joseph, whom they tried to prevent getting that destined dignity which he ultimately attained, and which they impeded slightly, but failed to prevent altogether. "Cursed be their wrath, for it was powerful; and their fierceness, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. Judah, thee thy brethren shall praise; thy hand is in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's sons shall prostrate themselves before thee. A young lion is Judah; from the prey, my son, thou goest up; he stooped down, he crouched as a lion, and as a fierce lioness; who shall rouse him?" The next verse I wish you particularly to notice; for there you will see how the Jew translator is at one with our translators on the most vital portion of the prophecy. Certain recent Jews have tried to interpret "Shiloh," not as derived from the Hebrew word "to be at peace," but as a pronoun, and to render it "to him; " but every effort that they have made in that direction, and they must know it, has proved abortive; and the most splendid demonstration that such is the case, is the translation of this Jew, an accomplished scholar, who translates the verse as follows: "The rod shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and his be the obedience of peoples." The Jew, v, you observe, translates the verse substantially as we do, because, as a scholar, he could see no other alternative, knowing that the efforts of those who have tried to interpret it otherwise, have failed. The rest of the chapter is rendered by him as follows: Binding unto the ass his foal, and to the vine-branch the son of his she-ass, he washed in wine his attire, and in the blood of grapes his raiment; his eyes are red from wine, and the whiteness of his teeth is with milk. Zebulun towards the coast of seas shall dwell, and he shall be for an haven of ships, and his border shall be unto Zidon. Issachar is a bony ass, crouching between the folds; and he saw that repose was good, and the land that it was pleasant;

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and he inclined his shoulder to receive the burthen, and became a servant unto tribute. Dan shall pronounce judgment on his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, a viper in the path, that biteth the horseheels, so that his rider shall fall backward. I hope for thy aid, O Lord. Gad, an assailing troop shall assail him, but he shall assail the heel. Out of Asher cometh his fat bread, and he shall give dainties for a king. Naphtali is a hind set forth; he giveth sayings of pleasantness. A son of faithfulness is Joseph, even a son of fruitfulness by a well; daughters tread on the wall, and they embittered him, and were numerous; and the archers were hostile to him. But his bow abideth in strength, and the arms of his hands remain supple and vigorous, by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. From thence he became the feeder, the stone of Israel; from the God of thy father, who shall help thee, and the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the murmuring deep, that croucheth under, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, even to the boundaries of the everlasting hills. They shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that is a Nazarite among his brethren. Benjamin is a wolf that teareth, and in the morning eateth his prey, and at even he divideth the spoil. All these are the twelve tribes of Israel; and this is it that their father spake unto them when he blessed them, every man, according to his blessing, he blessed them. And he commanded them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people. Bury me with my fathers, in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite — in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham obtained with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah

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