The words, "He stoopeth down, he croucheth as a lion, and as a full-grown lion; who shall rouse him up?" contain a transition and allusion to what we are subsequently told concerning Shiloh. Even here we are presented with a picture of peace,--a peace, however, which is not to the prejudice of victorious power, as in the case of Issachar (vers. 14, 15), but which, on the contrary, preserves it undiminished. If the promise, "From the prey, my son, thou art gone up," found its first glorious, although only preliminary, fulfilment in the reign of David (compare the enumeration of his victories in 2 Sam. viii.), the words, "He stoopeth down, he coucheth," etc., are the most appropriate inscription for the portal of Solomon's reign. But, in Christ, the pre-eminence in the reign both of war and peace is united.--That לביא is not "the lioness," but only the poetical designation of the lion, appears from just the very passage which is so commonly adduced in support of the former signification, viz., Job iv. 11; for the sons of the lion spoken of in that passage are the sons of the wicked (compare Job xxvii. 14). A parallel to the words in ver. 10, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah," is formed by the departing of the sceptre from Egypt, in Zech. x. 11: "And the pride of Assyria shall [Pg 64] be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away." All dominion of the world over the people of God is only temporary; and so also, the dominion of the people of God over the world, as it centres in Judah, can sustain only a temporary _interruption_: its departure is everywhere in appearance only; and when it departs, it is only that it may return with enhanced weight.--The _sceptre_ is the emblem of dominion. The words, "A sceptre rises out of Israel" (Num. xxiv. 17), are explained in chap. xxiv. 19 by the words, "_Dominion_ shall come out of Jacob." The question as to the subjects of this dominion must be determined from the preceding words; for there shall not depart from Judah what Judah, according to these words, possesses. Hence they are (1) the brethren of Judah, and (2) the enemies of Israel. The latter can the less properly be excluded, because of these alone the whole of the preceding verse treated. In the words of Balaam, in Num. xxiv. 17 (which refer to the passage under consideration), "There cometh a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre riseth out of Israel, and smiteth the territories of Moab, and destroyeth all the sons of the tumult," there is viewed, in the sceptre, only the victorious and destructive power which he shall display in his relation to the _world_; but the subjects of dominion are, in that passage, according to ver. 19, the heathens also. The sceptre is pre-eminently an ensign of kings. Hence, to the sceptre and star out of Israel (Num. xxiv. 17) corresponds, in ver. 7, his _king_: "And his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted,"--_i.e._, not merely a single royal person, but the