When Jacob announces that the sceptre shall not depart until Shiloh, the prince of peace, cometh, he can thereby mean only that it would not depart _definitively_; for, otherwise, he would have belied his own experience. From the way by which the Lord had led him, he had sufficiently learnt that God's promises to sinful men must be taken _cum grano salis_; that they never exclude the visitation of the elect on account of their sins, and that it is only in the end that God will bring all to a glorious fulfilment. When he went to Mesopotamia, God had said to him, "I am with thee, and I will keep thee in all places whither thou goest," Gen. xxviii. 15; and yet the deceit which he had practised upon his father and brother was recompensed to him there by the deceit of Laban, and he was obliged to say, "In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night, and my sleep departed from mine eyes," Gen. xxxi. 40. When he came from the land of the two rivers, God blessed him and gave him the honourable name of Israel, Gen. xxxii.; and yet [Pg 97] he had soon thereafter to experience grievous distress on account of Dinah and Joseph; and in chap. xxxvii. 34, 35, we are told concerning him: "And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, I shall go down into the grave unto my son in sorrow." In the kingdom of God there are no other promises than such as resemble those rivers which flow alternately above and below ground, since it is certain that all the subjects of the promises are affected by sin. Ezekiel xliii. 15 likewise refers to the blessing of Jacob upon Judah. The altar for the burnt-offerings in the new temple is first called _Harel_ = the mountain of God, and afterwards _Ariel_ = the Lion of God,--indicating that what had been promised to Judah in Gen. xlix., viz., the Lion's nature and invincible power, victorious over all enemies, has its root in the altar,--in the circumstance that the people of God are a people whose sins are forgiven, who dedicate themselves to God, and give Him thanks and praise. A very remarkable reference to Gen. xlix. meets us at the very threshold of the New Testament. In Luke ii. 13, 14, the heavenly host praise God, saying: "Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace." The words, "glory" or "praise be to God," are an allusion to Judah, and to the glorious things foretold in Gen. xlix. of him who centres in Christ. Christ is the true Judah,--He by whom God is glorified, John xiv. 13. The words, "on earth peace," contain the explanation of the name Shiloh, the first name under which the Saviour is celebrated in the Old Testament.