In our text last week, which was sort of the beginning of Jacob's prophecies to his children, we saw that he was living up in that Nile region and they had so much that was given to them because of the bountiful harvest they were experiencing and God's blessing in the midst of this famine. They lived there for five years during the famine Because they were two years into the famine of seven years when they came over there under Joseph. And the family increased to about 170 people. And Jacob now is going into his deathbed and he's ready to die, but the story just stretches this out for almost two chapters. And he makes an oath regarding his burial, and he brings his son, Joseph, over. And he knew how loyal Joseph was. Joseph was the kind of guy that when he was asked to do something, he did it. He did it. He didn't quibble about it. He didn't forget about it. He didn't deny it. He didn't say, I'm turning away from Dad. He just did it. And Joseph was loyal to his dad and loyal to his God, more importantly. So Jacob had trusted Joseph from the earliest days. That's what caused all Joseph's problems with his brothers. They didn't like the fact that he was given superiority over him. But they didn't deserve it. He did. what happens here is Israel calls Joseph in to be his executor of his estate and he has a solemn oath to give him and the practice of the time was for the one receiving the oath and agreeing to it place his hand under the thigh of the person that was giving it and they would then agree to do what the deal was and Jacob here is referring to going to sleep with his fathers, and he's saying, in essence, as we put together a lot of other verses in the Old Testament that are the same as this, is that he's going to the hereafter. He's going to be with his relatives. It's a conscious existence we have on the other side. Our bodies go into the ground, but our spirits go to the other side. We are alive and conscious. and understanding our environment. As a matter of fact, we're going to be more alive there than we have ever been here. There won't be anything to cloud our perception. There's no sickness. There's no colds. There's no hate. Nothing. I mean, the clarity of our thought process is going to be significantly greater than that. Now he wanted to be buried at the cave of Machpelah. He did not want to be buried in Egypt. So he told Joseph, don't bury me here, don't bury me here. And in order to affirm this, he pulls himself up on his bed and he starts praying to God. It's a worship that he's having here about this situation. And then later, an unnamed servant goes to Joseph and says, You know, your dad now, 147 years old, it looks like he's ready to expire. So he says, Joseph is realizing that his dad probably has some unfinished business here. And what we're going to see in this chapter 48 that we looked at last time, the chapter 48 now and next week, is what is that unfinished business? What is the unfinished business? Jacob was the only one of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to die in foreign soil. The other ones died over in Canaan, and Jacob did not want to die there, and he wouldn't. He would go back. So upon receiving the notice here from this unnamed servant, Joseph goes to see his dad with his two sons, Ephraim and Asa, and they're somewhere between 18 and 20 years old. And he takes them over to see him, and his dad pulls himself up on his bed. Now, he's 147. He can hardly see because his eyes are covered with cataracts, but he's very receptive to Joseph. He's very, very receptive to Joseph. So he starts going into all his experiences. He's given him an outline of his life's history. And he starts by talking to him about the first time that God appeared to him at Bethel. And he says that basically Joseph is going to be the birthright heir. Jacob restates the essential components of the Abrahamic covenant. He says, God bless me and said unto me, behold, I'll make thee fruitful and multiply thee and I will make of thee a company of peoples and will give this land to thy seed for or after thee for everlasting possession. Now, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all had huge households with lots of money, so they were personally blessed. They multiplied them, they became a national blessing, and Israel came from them. The nation Israel came from them. And finally, the third promise to make them a company of peoples, that was the twelve tribes, and giving the land. The land was going to come to them for an everlasting covenant. So Jacob was promised, as Isaac before him, and his grandfather Abraham A land, a seed, and blessing. So, following this reconfirmation of that Abrahamic covenant, Jacob adopts his two sons. Now, Joseph was a bit surprised about this, but okay, you're going to adopt my sons. Not sure what was going on here. But they would not be heirs unless there was a formal declaration made. It had to be a formal declaration to make them legally heirs because they were born outside of Canaan and would not be part of Israel unless they were officially adopted by Jacob, whose name had been changed to Israel. So what he says is, thy two sons who were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee in Egypt are mine. Ephraim and Manasseh, even as Reuben and Simeon shall be mine." Now Ephraim and Manasseh are going to replace Simeon and Reuben in the birth order, in the birth order, which is very, very important. This birth order and the sequence that each one of these sons falls in the order in which they're listed is important. We'll see that as we go through today's message and next week's. So Judah states in 1 Chronicles 5 verses 1 to 2, gets the preeminence. In other words, he gets preeminence of the firstborn, whereas Joseph gets the double portion of the firstborn. So Jacob is essentially dividing out the fruits of being the firstborn Joseph's going to get this double portion, which is going to be Ephraim and Manasseh. Judah is going to become the line through which the Messiah would come, the pre-eminence. So Joseph also has other sons and Jacob essentially says, you know, they're going to be yours. They're not going to be part of this inheritance and they're going to stay here. And I put a few things into your notes last week and I've recreated them here about the fact that Ephraim and Manasseh were blessed. They did receive blessings, and we're going to look at the property that they received and some of their blessings in a few minutes. It's interesting is that Rachel died, Joseph's mother, without ever seeing him, one, stolen, which was good, and two, the fact that he became the viceroy of the greatest nation on the earth at that time. Jacob was honoring her at this time on his deathbed as well, because he makes that statement. Jacob now goes to bless Abraham and Manasseh. And as we looked at in our last session, he has Joseph bring them close to him, because the two kids are standing right in front of Joseph, in between his legs, and Joseph moves them over to see Jacob. And Jacob can hardly see. And Jacob, one is on the right hand of Joseph and the other is on the left hand. And he moves them over in front of Joseph or Jacob. And it says, Joseph took them both Ephraim in his right hand towards Israel's left hand and Manasseh in his left hand towards Israel's right hand. and he brought them near unto him. So Manasseh, who was the older, would have received the blessing of the firstborn and he would have gotten Jacob's right hand, which was used to provide the blessing. The left hand was not. Then, unexpectedly, Jacob crisscrosses his hands on Ephraim's head, who was the younger, on his left hand upon Manasseh's head guiding his hands wittingly, but he knew what he was doing for Manasseh was the firstborn. Jacob knew what he was doing because the text says he wittingly did this. And Joseph, of course, doesn't understand what's going on and figures, well, Dad can't see. He gets a little disturbed about the process. He says, hey, you don't want to give the secondborn the firstborn's rights. Joseph says, no, no, I'm doing this intentionally. I'm doing this intentionally. And he goes on to talk more about all the adversarial experiences that he had in his life and the fact that the angel of Jehovah wrestled with him and changed his name. And he completes the blessing. He completes the blessing. And Jacob just assures him this is not a mistake. He says the younger brother shall be greater then he and his seed shall become a multitude of nations." Now, Ephraim did become the most dominant tribe of all of them in terms of their numbers, in terms of their dominance. They were listed higher on the order of the tribal chiefs. Sometimes even the name Ephraim is used in place of Israel throughout the text. And I put those verses down, a few of them anyway, And Manasseh's numbers and wealth didn't compare with Ephraim. So Western Manasseh never even completely expelled the natives. God set Ephraim before Manasseh. Manasseh got a lot more property, but he wasn't preeminent, if you will, in that respect. Now as Jacob is near to death, He gives this land prophecy, which is really just passing on the Abrahamic covenant and the land covenant, which is a component of that. So he references the extra portion that Jacob, or excuse me, Joseph's going to receive through his two sons. And the land that he's specifically talking about here is Shechem, which was taken by the sword with the incident of Dina's rape. Wow. Sorry. And also, Jacob bought property at Shechem. He lived there for a while and he built a house. This is also going to be a place in the future from this time here where Manasseh's territory, it's a place within Manasseh's territory where Joseph was going to be buried. According to Joshua 24, 32, that's where Joseph would be buried. Now Joseph is going to go back in the Exodus 400 years later his bones are going to go back. Moses is going to take him back and that's where they're going to bury him. For today's material we're going to talk about Joseph receiving and the other brothers receiving more prophecies from Jacob on his deathbed. Jacob is going to prophesy over his sons. Now the first part of this Lesson today shows you a map, and that map is what the twelve tribes were allotted in terms of geography. I want to look at that map with you for a few moments before we move on. The property was given to them in the Book of Numbers, but it wasn't realized until they got into the Promised Land some 40 years later under General Joshua, when they conquered the Promised Land. And then he set up the geographic regions that had already been given to them by Moses, through Moses from God. And we can see that the largest section here is Judah. Benjamin has some property which does have a boundary outside, and Dan does as well. But just look at the size of Judah's property. It's bigger than all of them. Simeon, which has some area within Judah, does not have his own property. He just lived within Judah. He didn't have his own specific property. you'll see no property for Levi. The Levites were the priestly line, but they got no specific property. There was, I believe, 48 individual cities that they could live in, but they were not given over to them. These geographic regions that we see here, with the exception of Simeon, were defined areas of property that were given to these specific individuals that were the sons of Joseph. Today, Jerusalem, you can see Jerusalem, it's right underneath Benjamin there, is in Judah. It's in Judah. They call it Judea. And the Samaritans, which were a mixture, half-breeds if you will, of Jews and Assyrians, starting about 722 BC, populated the region where Ephraim is, right above Benjamin. And Judea and Samaria are the biblical names for what is now being called the West Bank. The West Bank is not a Bible term, it's not a Jewish term. It is not God's designation. Judea and Samaria are what those regions are called. So when the press talks about the West Bank, they do so in a hurtful manner, if you will. You know, they're kind of poking at the Jews because they seem to think that this is not God-given property for some reason. People that don't know God will think those things. So anyway, I want you to be aware of this. You'll be referring to this periodically. This is cast in concrete, by the way. It's never changed. It has never changed. Starting in Genesis 49, verses 1 to 2, the text reads, And Jacob called unto his sons and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the latter days. Assemble yourselves, and hear ye sons of Jacob, and hearken unto Israel your father. So he brings all of his kids together, and he's going to confer upon each one of these guys what their prophetic future is going to be from that time all the way through to the end times, including the Millennial Kingdom. He was being driven by God's Spirit to do this, to lay out these prophecies, and we see these things coming to pass throughout the Scriptures. This is not an ordinary conversation of him talking about, you know, I'm going to give Joe this chalice and Fred, you get my goats and this stuff. This is a whole lot more serious than that. One of the things that I just love about the Bible is the accuracy of the prophecies. It nails down specific things that have happened far future from the events that are being prophesied, which gives us the comfort of knowing that these things are true. Only God can remember tomorrow. Think through that. Only God can remember tomorrow. And when He gives a prophecy and it comes to pass, it gives us assurance that these scriptures are accurate and they're true. Now, our naysayers and the detractors of the scriptures will try and prove in some way, as they did, a lot of them tried in the 19th century, to prove that these passages were written after the events occurred, but they couldn't do it. It was impossible. They all tried, but a lot of them just gave up and became Christians. The latter days is a reference to an end time period for each of the twelve tribes. The latter days here references, one, the end time period for each of the tribes and also the far end time period in general. Some of these tribes, while they lasted, their effectiveness, or what this blessing was, didn't go very far. And we'll see that as we go through this over the next couple of weeks. The final fulfillment of all of these prophecies of the Messianic Kingdom, which comes on this earth, as Jesus prophesied, he said that in Matthew 6, when he's teaching the apostles to pray, he said, Thy kingdom come, and this is the way you pray, he says, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come." In this world. In this world. Same way it is in heaven. And that's what he wanted to get across to them. Well, the Messianic kingdom comes after the Great Tribulation. This is a prophecy that was given also by Moses at the end of his days, because he didn't go into the Promised Land. At the end of that 40 years of wandering, The term latter days is found 13 times in the Old Testament. I put down those verse references there for you. It's used here as a full measure of time, near and far distance. Now what's interesting is the rabbinic writings, which are not scriptural, but they give us some insight into some of these concepts there, they talk about that Jacob was giving the time frame when the Messiah was going to come, but that the Shekinah Gori departed from him and would not let him give the prediction of the time when he would come. But what this lets us see here is that this is a Messianic prophecy. The fact that there's not a prediction as to when the Messiah will come is irrelevant. The Jews all recognized there was a Messiah, a Messiah is coming, and they knew this for thousands of years. They knew this for thousands of years. God's Spirit did come upon Jacob, but did not reveal the time when the Messiah was going to come. These blessings that he gives them. They're not cryptic, but they're in a short, poetic form. And I've seen them written out as poetry before in Hebrew. They lay it out as a parallel poetry. But they're expressions of word pictures to provide an understanding of what's going to happen to these guys. And these guys become tribes, and those tribes become part of this nation. and they go around the world. So what happens to the nation Israel? So there are general outlines and it expresses a real genuine expression of the individual characters, character if you will, that these guys had. You know what's interesting is there is a statement several times in the Old Testament that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons. And there's no place that's more true than right here in example form. He's telling them, because you did this, this is what's going to happen to you. And he's not saying, I'm causing it to happen. He said, you started it, you were this way, your progeny is going to be thus. And this is what the end is going to be. And that's what happens. That's what happens now. It happened back then. It was just codified here into a prophecy. But the way you live, the way you act is the way your children are going to pick things up. And if you look at them and go, why are you doing that? You did it. Whoops. Whoops. I did it. Yeah, sure. Or if you didn't do it, you endorsed it. They pick up everything. They pick up everything. And this is what's taking place here. He's showing them that their individual character is going to become the prophetic development of their tribal lines and then that nation Israel. So the Holy Spirit here is revealing to this dying man Israel the future development of these tribes and what ends, if you will, are going to be assigned to them in terms of position and importance in the nation. all the way up to and including the Messianic Kingdom. So he starts with Reuben. The birth order here is not exactly followed, but he starts with Reuben and he says, Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might and the beginning of my strength, the preeminence of dignity and the preeminence of power. Boiling over as water, thou shalt not have the preeminence, because thou wentest up to thy father's bed, then defiledst thou it." He went up to my couch. So Reuben was the firstborn son from his first wife Leah. It wasn't his loved wife, he was given Leah, as you remember. What was he supposed to get, Rachel? He was, Reuben, the preeminent because of his birth position of the twelve sons. He should have had a double portion. He should have carried on the Abrahamic covenant. He didn't. He didn't. He should have had high position, but he didn't. The Messiah should have come through his line, but he didn't. He lost it. So Jacob starts off by saying that he had this high position. And then he turns the prophecy around and he says, starts calling him unstable. And then the word picture he uses is water boiling over. You just think of what that looks like. We're not talking about a pan of water that's just simmering. We're talking about it boiling over, out of control. He's saying that he's passionate, but he lacks self-control. You don't have any self-control. He was unstable in his emotions. So instead of blessing him, he gets a curse, an absolute curse. So what he should have received was actually divided between Joseph and Judah. The preeminence went to Judah. And the double portion went to Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. And Israel gives the reason. He doesn't just leave him hanging. He gives him the reason. He restates, because thou wentest up to thy father's bed, then defiledest thou it, he went up to my couch. You remember from Genesis 35 that Reuben had sexual intercourse with one of the handmaids, Rachel's handmaid, Bilhah. You know, what's with that? We don't get that meaning, or we don't get the understanding fully explained in the text, but most people view this as him, Reuben, trying to usurp his father, or wanted his father's power, or was real angry that his mother Leah wasn't getting the attention that Rachel was, so he goes and has intercourse with Bilha, Rachel's handmaid, to get back at his dad. Whatever the reason was, it was not good. Not good. You know, for him to get involved in adultery and incest was just really bad because it cost him the inheritance that he would have had as a leader in Israel. And he had it all, but he blew it. He absolutely blew it. The tribe of Reuben never, ever provided a leader in any sense. No prophet, judge, nothing. And in the wandering, the exodus, where they wandered in the desert for 40 years, they didn't want to cross the Jordan. They were the first to ask for a place to settle. They were complaining. It was just in keeping with the prophecy of Reuben's personality. They assisted in the building of an unauthorized place of worship. we see in Joshua 22 verses 10 to 34 after they moved into the promised land. And during the wars with the Canaanites during Deborah's time of the era of the judges, they failed to assist in the military efforts. Imagine that. It's like, I'm not getting involved in that stuff. You know, I'm not getting involved in any military activities. Well, if you're not going to help us out with the war, what good are you? I mean, we've got this stuff to do. I mean, you know, Joshua was this general, but he can't do it himself. And the Reubenites just said, nah, we're not going to do it. They would have disappeared altogether from the story of Israel if Moses hadn't intervened at the end of his life with God so that they didn't disappear altogether. He then, Israel that is, moves on to give his blessing. which turns out to be another curse, to Simeon and Levi. In the text, Genesis 49 verses 5-7 read, Simeon and Levi are brethren, weapons of violence are thy sword. O my soul, come not thou into their council. Unto their assembly, my glory, be not thou united. For in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they hocked an ox. Curse be their anger, for it was fierce, for their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel." These two were birth brothers from Leah. They were inseparable. They did everything together. Full brothers. But he, Jacob that is, doesn't spare any time comparing them to ugliness. He says that they are weapons of violence. The weapons of violence are their swords. Reuben was lustful. He was weak and he had unstable emotions. These guys are just outright cruel and angry people. They are just terrible, despicable characters. They had hot tempers, and remember back to the rape incident of Dina, where they went into Shechem, the town of Shechem, and they killed all the males after they negotiated a circumcision with them to try and merge the two cultures. They killed them all. Jacob didn't want that to happen, but they did it. They did it. There's no legitimate reason for that. It was just pure vengeance. And Jacob disassociated himself from this. He said, I didn't do this. I didn't authorize this. But man, you put a blot on Israel by doing this. You just ruined us by doing this. Now he goes on here to talk about slaying a man. And in their self-will, they hawked an ox. Hawking an ox, this is an older term here, but it's actually hamstringing an animal, which is cutting the hamstrings of the animal, which doesn't kill it, but it renders the animal absolutely useless because it can't walk, it can't move, it can't even get around to eat. And it just lays there because it can't even stand up. People used to do this. People would do this if they're fighting each other. They'd go to the enemy's camp and they would hamstring their animals, or their horses, or their camels, so that they wouldn't have the mobility that they needed. But these guys just did this for fun. They were just malicious. Just did it for fun to cripple these animals. And as a result of these destructive behaviors, Israel says, I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. Now considering back to our map, there's no spot for Levi and Simeon doesn't have his own property. He's inside that of Judah and he doesn't have protected specific boundaries inside Judah. He's just living within Judah. Now Levi got scattered into 48 different Levitical cities. The interesting thing about these two guys is this prophecy was only extended to the land. It didn't go beyond that. So Levi did definitely redeem himself because he became the priestly line and the prophecy just said that they were going to be scattered. So Levi became redeemed and Simeon somewhat. Well, where we're going to spend most of our time this morning is on Judah. And I'm going to do some more with Judah next week as we move on to the other brothers. But Judah is the line through which our Lord Jesus came. This is the Messianic line. The text in Genesis 49 verses 8 to 12 says, Thee shall thy brethren praise. Thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies. Thy father's son shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion's wealth. From the prey, my son, thou art gone up. He stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as a lioness who shall rouse him up. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes. And unto him shall the obedience of the peoples be, binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine. He hath washed his garments in wine, and his vesture in the blood of grapes. His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. So Israel starts out this prophecy by saying that Judah will be praised from his brethren. Well, Judah's name in Hebrew means praise. It's sort of a play on words that's given here, a double meaning, if you will. It's just absolute pure praise and blessing. There is no condemnation here. There is no curse. Judah, as you remember, was one of the brothers, Reuben II, that decided we better not kill Joseph. Let's sell him. Let's not kill Joseph. Judah had other problems. He had the problem with the incident of Tamar and the adultery and incest there. And Judah lost his two sons in that. Judah became very remorseful and very repentant. And when the time came for him to negotiate with Joseph, before he knew who Joseph was, he was pleading with Joseph saying, look, I don't want to hurt my dad. I'll give myself as a surety. Don't take his youngest, Benjamin, and so on. Judah had redeemed himself, redeemed himself. So Judah is taking the preeminence. It's just pure blessing that he gets. Israel said, Judah, thou thee will receive thy brethren praise thy hand in the neck of thy foes to thee will thy father's sons bow down." So, he'd already demonstrated his character. The two kids dying just had to crush him. I can only imagine how terrible it is to have a child die and it has happened to some of you. It is no fun. It is no fun at all. See, I saw my parents that they mourned for the brother that I had that died for the rest of their lives. They just never got over it. And you remember here that he even offered himself as charity for Benjamin. As charity for Benjamin. So he gains the preeminence over the other tribes and in Numbers 2.9, in the wilderness wanderings, Judah was set forth first. In Numbers 10.14, he headed the march through the wilderness. First Chronicles 5.2 just says he was prevailed above his brethren. And in Judges 1 verses 1-2, he's chosen by God to go up against the Canaanites. And Judah's tribe was loyal to the house of David at the time of the revolt of the ten tribes. And he led the division of Israel in their journeys throughout the wanderings of the wilderness. They were commissioned by God to lead the conquest into the promised land. And they made David king. They were the tribe that pushed David up to be the king. And the text here in this expressive word picture gives us the insight into the power that he was going to have and he does have. A lion's whelp emphasizes power, vigor, and nobility. And from the term, the prey has gone up, it emphasizes his success in killing prey. Stooping down as a crouched lion means he's ready to pounce and he's prepared to fight for the Lord. And as a lioness who will rouse him, it means he's pictured here as a strong lion and people are going to recognize that. and they're not going to intentionally antagonize him because they know his power. I put down two pictures in your notes where Judah is pictured as the lion of the tribe of Judah. The two charts show how the Jews would organize around the tabernacle when they camped in the wilderness. And the text in Numbers tells us exactly how they would organize. They organized around the tabernacle, which was governed by the Levites, which are in the middle of the upper chart. and they would camp in specific organized geometric patterns, one row after another, only on the north, only on the south, and the east and the west. They weren't just scattered around abstractly. They were given specific locations with which to organize, and other tribes came in with them, but under Judah the most people were in the encampment, 186,100 tents. Can you imagine the number of tents? It was one for each person basically, one tent for each person. And that's what they had organized around the tabernacle. If an individual was able to get up high enough and see this, it's what you would see is in that second picture. That's what you would see. You could see Judah is the base of the cross and Christ is at the center of the cross. And the Holy of Holies is in the tabernacle. That just shows you the power that Judah has and how Christ was in the tabernacle And Christ was with them in the wilderness wanderings. The entire Bible fits together just like a puzzle. Just like a puzzle. There's nothing in this scripture that is there by chance. And our detractors will tell us that it's not and they don't understand. They'll never tell you they don't understand it. They'll just say, these things can't be true. Well, that's because they don't understand them. The Spirit has not entered them to provide the illumination. When the Spirit enters you at the point of belief, He gives you an interest. He leads you into this so you want to know more. And you can understand because He provides the illumination. For those that He has not entered, there is no illumination, and they push things away. They say, well, that can't be true, or I don't like this part, or I'm not going to listen to that book. They don't have the Spirit. They had the spirit they'd want to know because the spirit leads them and illuminates them. When Jacob said to Judah, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, it's a clear indication of the power that he was being given. Only a monarch has a scepter. These are ancient, ancient tools that the monarch would use to display his power. The scepter is this long pole with a big fancy thing at the top and the monarch would sit on his throne with this scepter and anybody that wanted to approach the monarch would have to be given permission and he would move that scepter forward and then pull it back and that was the indication the person could approach the monarch. Anybody that tried to do it outside of that would be killed by his staff because the monarch had to be protected. The scepter, as you can see in the picture of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, is in her right hand. That's the invocation of power. So that stuff even comes down to the 20th century. These are tools that monarchs use to display power. The prophecy then goes on to say, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet. In other words, the progeny that would come from Judah were going to continue to rule. Messiah's theocratic rule will not end until the end of the millennium. He's going to have theocratic administration on this earth now and until and through the millennium. The judicial, the civil rule is going to happen until Shiloh comes. Shiloh is a prophetic word for the Messiah. And the actual Jewish term is whose it is. In other words, who owns the power? Messiah owns the power. Whose it is? Shiloh. The civil or the judicial rule, not the theocratic rule, are going to continue until the theocratic rule, excuse me, until Shiloh comes, but the theocratic rule goes on forever. It's really interesting is that the person of Judah received this ability to enforce the Mosaic laws. And the Jews were able, even with the Romans holding them hostage, so to speak, in occupied territory, gave them the ability to execute the Mosaic laws and carry out capital punishment. The Sanhedrin, the 70 members of the Jewish ruling council, had the ability to carry out capital crime punishment. They could kill people if they needed to. But there came a time when they lost that ability. Because, you know, even during their 70 year Babylonian captivity, they got to rule themselves. Their tribal identity remained the same. And the early Talmudic and Rabbinic folks always referred to Shiloh as the Messiah. They knew who this was. In roughly 6-7 AD, after Herod died, his successor and his son, Herod Archelaus, was dethroned and banished to Vienna. He was just a terrible guy. All the Herods were terrible. At that time it was a city in Gaul. And Archelaus was the second son of Herod the Great. Caesar Augustus placed him on the throne as ethnarch. It was the term that they gave some person to rule over a particular geographic region. Everybody rejected this guy. He was worse than Herod the Great. So the Romans put a guy named Coponius in instead of him. And when he got in, the legal power of the Sanhedrin to conduct mosaic law execution and capital crime executions was restricted and they couldn't prosecute capital crimes anymore. That was normal Roman policy according to Josephus, but the essence for us here is according to this prophecy that the scepter had departed from Judah because Shiloh had come. There was a young boy growing up in Nazareth. That was the Messiah. He was here. So the scepter departed from Judah. He was growing up in Nazareth. Now, the Jews have it back. They've got the ability in their own country. Shiloh's not here. When Shiloh comes back, he's going to take control, set up his messianic kingdom and he will have the civil rule and he will have the theocratic rule in the messianic kingdom. The prophecy then moves on to say, binding his foal unto the vine and his ass's colt unto the choice vine. It's an illustration of the strength of a vine to bind, and it's saying that the vine is so strong that if the shoal moves its head, he would normally pull the vines out, but he's not going to be able to do that. This is just another word picture to show the strength of him being so strong that he's going to not be able to break anything that comes against him or tries to restrain him. The messianic aspect of this is that the Messiah was presented on what we call Palm Sunday, riding into Jerusalem on the back of a colt, the back of a donkey, an ass. So the prophecies get realized over and over and over again. The next prophecy and the final one that we'll look at here, well actually there's two, The first one is, he hath washed his garments in wine, and his vesture in the blood of grapes. It's directly from Isaiah 63, 1 to 6, and from Revelation 14, 17 to 20, where when the Lord Jesus is coming back and fighting, his garments are stained like grapes, treading out the winepress. killing the people in the Great Tribulation, his enemies, making an end to sin. And it closes with, his eyes shall be red with wine and his teeth white with milk. Because these are word pictures that talk about abundance and overabundance that He will have and He will be able to provide. It's not intoxication. It's not that the Messiah is going to be drunk. It's just that He's got a huge abundance and Christ is our Savior, but He's all in all. He's got everything. Shall we pray?