lanation
it may be further urged, not only that the [Hebrew: w] _prefix_ occurs
nowhere else in the Pentateuch--an objection which is not in itself
sufficient, since it occurs so early as in the song of Deborah, Judges
v. 7--but also, that the supposed ellipsis would be exceedingly hard.
(Compare _Stange_, _Theol. Symm._ i. S. 238 ff.)

Before we pass on to a consideration of the non-Messianic
interpretation, we shall first state the reasons which bear us out in
assuming that the passage under review contains a prophecy of a
personal Messiah.

It is certainly, with respect to this, a matter of no slight importance
that, with a rare agreement, exegetical tradition finds a promise to
this effect here expressed; and this circumstance has a significance so
much the greater, the less that this agreement extends to the
interpretation of the particulars, especially as regards the Shiloh.
How manifold soever these differences may be, _all antiquity agrees in
interpreting this passage of a personal Messiah_; and we could scarcely
conceive of such an agreement, [Pg 75] unless there had been some
objective foundation for it. As regards, first, the exegetical
tradition of the Jews,--how far soever we may follow it, it finds, in
ver. 10, the Messiah. Thus the LXX. explained it; for, that by "what is
destined to Judah" ([Greek: heos an elthe ta apokeimena auto]) they
understood nothing else than the sending of the Messiah, is shown by
the words following--[Greek: kai autos prosdokia ethnon],--which can
refer only to the Messiah. (Compare Is. xlii. 4 according to the LXX.)
In the same manner the passage was understood by _Aquila_, the Chaldee
Paraphrasts, the _Targum_ of _Onkelos_, of _Jonathan_, and of
_Jerusalem_, the _Talmud_, the _Sohar_, and the ancient book of
_Breshith Rabba_. Several even of the modern commentators, _e.g._,
_Jarchi_, have retained this explanation, although a strong doctrinal
interest, to which others yielded, tempted them to give another
interpretation to this passage, which occupied so prominent a place in
the polemics of the Christians. (Compare the passage in _Raim. Martini
Pug. Fid._ ed. _Carpzov_; _Jac. Alting's_ Shiloh, Franc. 1660, 4to
[also in the opp. t. v.]; _Schoettgen_, _hor. Hebr._ ii. p. 146; and,
most completely, in "_Jac. Patriarch. de Schiloh vatic. a depravatione
Clerici assertum_, op. _Seb. Edzardi_, Londini 1698, p. 103 sq.") The
Samaritans, too, understood the passage as referring to th