y case, a sure indication of
error.

Moreover, it is possible, in every case, to trace out some interest,
apart from the merits of the question, which has led to the objections
against the Messianic interpretation. With the Jews, it was because
they were driven to a strait by the argumentation of the Christians,
that the Messiah must long ago have come, since sceptre and lawgiver
had long ago departed from Judah. The rationalistic interpreters have
evidently been determined by their antipathy to any Messianic
prophecies in the Old Testament. _Hofmann_ and his followers do not in
the least conceal that they are guided by their principle of a
concatenation of prophecy with history.

The opinion, according to which it is maintained that Shiloh is the
name of the well-known locality in Ephraim, has found not a few
defenders. Among these, several, and last of all [Pg 81] _Bleek_, in
the _Observ._; _Hitzig_, on Ps. li. 2; _Diestel_, "der Segen Jacobs,"
translate: "Until he or they come to Shiloh." The sense is thus
supposed to be: "Judah will be the leader of the tribes, in the journey
to Canaan, until they come to Shiloh." There, in consequence of the
tribes being dispersed to the boundaries assigned to them, he would
then lose his leadership.[13] But such an explanation is, in every
point of view, inadmissible. It is very probable that the town Shiloh
did not exist at all, under this name, at the time of Jacob. The name
nowhere occurs in the Pentateuch; and the Book of Joshua (as we shall
show at a subsequent time) contains traces, far from indistinct, that
it arose only after the occupation of the land by the Israelites. But
even supposing that the town of Shiloh already existed tit the time of
Jacob, yet the abrupt mention of a place so little known would
be something strange and unaccountable. It would be out of the
range of Jacob's visions, which nowhere regard mere details, but
have everywhere for their object only the future in its general
outlines. _Further_,--The temporary limitation thus put to the
superiority of Judah would be in glaring contradiction to vers. 8 and
9, where Judah is exalted to be the Lion of God without any limitation
as to time. And, _finally_,--Up to the time of their arrival in Shiloh,
Judah was never in possession of the sceptre and lawgiver;--and this
reason would alone be sufficient to overthrow the opinion which we are
now combating. We have already proved that, by these terms, royal pow