- Imagine if you can, that your dad calls for an emergency family meeting. Then he calls each one of your siblings in on a one on one chat. Your turn is next and he starts giving you a prediction about something that you could not imagine yet.
- Then imagine your dad is dying and in his deathbed, God gives him a vision predicting what your descendants would be like, and a special descendant who will change all of humanity’s course in History.
- Now imagine that you are married and you are the 4th son in your family. In other words a middle child.
- Imagine that you are hearing the words of your father and he tells you in his last couple of days, that a great King and Savior of the world will come through your family line.
- And this descendant will take away the power of your future nation’s leaders, because they were getting out of hand ruling your future nation.
- Now imagine that this future descendant who will be born through your family line will also come to save all of humanity.
What would you think if your dad said all these things to you? How could you put everything that your dad said into cohesive and credible thoughts? Would it be pretty awesome and pretty awful at the same time for you?
All this actually happened. It is what the prophecy or prediction which Jacob gave to his son Judah. Jacob on his deathbed gave all his sons predictions. They were not his prophecies, but things God had shown Jacob regarding future events for each of his sons and their descendants.
Jacob starts giving his son Judah a prophecy explaining that a certain scepter would not depart from the tribe or nation of Judah, until Shiloh appeared…
Fast forward to right about the time Jesus is born. Sometime arounf 6-3 BC (roughly 2,000 years ago). Jesus came and power was taken away from the Leaders of Judea. This power was the power of the scepter or Shepherd’s staff or the scepter of kings and whoever held it, had the power to forgive or to judge a person.
Each kingdom had a king at that time. Each king would be given this scepter or a shepherd staff as a symbol of power to lead and rule over the people. Judah was kingless, but they had a council who would meet and pass out laws and judgements.
Go back to what Jacob tells Judah. The father tells his son that his tribe would one day be big enough to have rulers judging his people. And that a certain descendant of Judah would be born, but not before the ruling scepter or Shepherd staff would be taken away from his future nation’s leadership.
Judah and the rest of the brothers, with the exception of Joseph, weren’t long-term thinkers. How do I know this, because had they been, they would not have sold Joseph and told their dad the lies they did to get away with it.
Gojg back to Genesis 49:10, Judah is listening to his dad telling him what his future progeny would be going through and he may or may not have thought that far ahead to really care.
But let’s look at the implications.
- Jacob is foreseeing a time when his son’s nation, would be in great peril.
- Imagine if you will, the USA is being taken over by a more powerful country and not being able to have a President, Congress and Supreme Court.
- It is hard for me to fathom that one day, the USA will not have the right to decide on any death cases or be able to convict someone to death without the permission of another powerful ruling nation.
This is exactly what Judah’s descendants found themselves in the year 6-3 BC.
Fulfilling the prophecy of Shiloh. What is the meaning of Shiloh?
I’ll touch on this next post….
References
Picrure 1- Genesis 49:10
Picture 2- Wars of the Jews”, Book 2, chapter 8– Josephus – Complete Works. Includes Life Of Flavius Josephus, Antiquities Of The Jews, Wars Of The Jews and others by William; Foreword by Lasor, William Sanford Josephus; Translated by Whiston (Author)
Get to know God:
PleaseBeStillMoments by Oscar Roca 