But if this be the case, the authority of the ancient translations can here be of no greater weight than that of any modern interpreter; and, in the case under review, we are at liberty to urge all those considerations which are, in general, advanced against any change in the vocalization, unless there be most urgent reasons for it. The ancient translators, moreover, can have less weight with us, because we can distinctly perceive that a misapprehension of Ezek. xxi. 32 (27)--on which passage we shall afterwards comment--gave rise to their error. Against this explanation it may be further urged, not only that the ש _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" (ἕως ἂν ἔλθῃ τὰ ἀποκείμενα αὐτῷ) they understood nothing else than the sending of the Messiah, is shown by the words following--καὶ αὐτὸς προσδοκία ἐθνῶν,--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.]; _Schöttgen_, _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,