Commentaria in Genesim
Prophecy and Blessing of Juda
Seven—Jacob commends the tribe of Juda: first, from the name: Judas is the same as confession and praise; second, from warlike strength; third, from dignity and reverence, namely that his brethren will adore Juda; fourth, from victories; fifth, from kingdom and sceptre; sixth, from wealth and abundance of crops; seventh, from Christ to be born of it. And all these he predicts and prophesies from this verse to verse 12.
8. JUDA, THEE SHALL THY BRETHREN PRAISE.—In the Hebrew there is an elegant paronomasia on the name Juda: yehudah, yodukha, as if to say: Rightly art thou called Juda, that is, praise, because thy brethren will praise (2) thee. He had called him
THY HANDS SHALL BE ON THE NECKS OF THY ENEMIES—to put them to flight, pursue, capture, slay; whence the Chaldee renders, thy hands shall prevail against thy enemies.
THE SONS OF THY FATHER SHALL BOW DOWN TO THEE.—Behold, the right of the primogeniture is here transferred from Ruben and assigned to Juda. For the firstborn, as prince of the brethren, was honoured and adored by them, that is, his brethren bowed themselves before him and showed him civil reverence, such as is shown to a father or a prince.
Again, the royal power to be given to Juda is signified here; for kings are adored by their subjects when these humble and prostrate themselves before them, for the sake of honour and reverence.
Allegorically, Juda is Christ, who assiduously praised God, and so was as it were a continual praise of God, Christ whom all the martyrs confessed even unto death, whom all his brethren, that is, angels and holy men, praise and adore, who most strongly rescued us from the jaws of the demon. Hence “his hand on the necks” of the demon, the world, the flesh and sin, which he himself overcame.
THE SONS OF THY FATHER.—He does not say of thy mother, but of thy father, because Juda’s brothers had different mothers but the same father; but Jacob here predicts that all his brothers, born of whatever mother, will adore Juda.
9. JUDA IS A LION’S WHELP.—As Judas is among his brethren, so was the tribe of Juda among the other tribes like a lion: first, most strong; second, undaunted; third, most warlike; fourth, most victorious; fifth, of a most generous spirit. To this St. Hilary wittily alluded, who, when someone slanderously called him a Gaul, said: “I was not born a Gaul, but of Gaul; but thou art a Lion (for that was his name), yet not of the tribe of Juda.” John Selethus relates it, chapter 21.
Let leaders have these leonine spirits of Juda, let the faithful have them. Examples. A brave leader is like adamant, which can neither be broken by strong iron nor consumed by fire. Frederick II, Emperor, hearing the threats of princes, said: “The din of threats is the braying of asses.”
here something religious, which was fulfilled only in Christ, prefigured by Juda.
So Leonidas answered a certain Persian who threatened that the Spartans on the next day would not see the sun for the shower of missiles: “In the shade, then,” he said, “we shall fight comfortably.” First, gur, under which kephir is also included, signifies the infancy and adolescence of the tribe of Juda in the wars at the time of Josue. Second, arie signifies Alfonso, king of Aragon, saw shipwrecked men imploring help; while others feared, he launched the ship, saying: “It is better to perish together with comrades, most brave men, than to see them suffer extremities in the storm.” Panormitanus is witness.
Charles V, standing in the line within the rampart and the outposts, when the enemy was discharging showers of bullets, being advised to withdraw, answered: “Dogs that bark are not to be feared: and there is nothing for you to fear, since by God’s protection we are sufficiently fortified.”
Again Charles V, near Ingolstadt, assailed by the enemy with frequent missiles, said: “Be of good cheer, no emperor ever perished by a cannon-shot.” The same, being about to set out for Spain, when he heard on the road that plague was raging, said: “We must go, nor is so good a season to be passed over: plague never touched an Augustus, plague never touched a Caesar, plague never touched any Charles.”
Louis XII, going to Milan, and learning that the little town where he intended to lodge had been intercepted by the enemy, went on, and said: “I shall take my lodging over their bodies, or they theirs over mine.”
Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg, had taken Louis of Bavaria prisoner, demanding much of him and threatening him; to whom Louis said: “What you could obtain from me free, ask in the same way from me captive. If you wish anything more, my body is in your power; but my mind you will find subject to me, not to you.”
The Emperor Otho IV ordered a knight, who had been falsely accused of attempting the chastity of the Empress, to be put to death; his wife, carrying her husband’s head in her lap, went to the Emperor and asked with what punishment an unjust judge should be punished: With death, said the Emperor; then she said: “Then do thou, Emperor, die, who hast killed my innocent husband. That he was innocent I prove by the red-hot iron, which I handled with my hands unhurt.” So Bernard Corius in the Life of Otho.
the manly vigour of the same tribe, which it had under David. Third, labi signifies the confirmed strength and dominion of the same under Solomon, who was labi, that is, stout-hearted in wisdom, fortitude, liberality and magnificence. Whence the Chaldee renders: Dominion shall be his in the beginning, but in the end the kingdom of Juda shall be magnified; for, my son, thou hast withheld thy soul from the judgment of killing, namely that thou shouldst not kill Thamar thy daughter-in-law, an adulteress, and shouldst not consent to the death which thy brethren were plotting against Joseph; nay, that thou shouldst hinder it.
TO THE PREY, MY SON, THOU ART GONE UP.—For “to the prey,” the Hebrew, Symmachus and Aquila have mitterep, that is, from the prey, by which they signify the continual succession of prey and victories: thou goest up continually from prey and with prey thou returnest, which our version expressed more significantly by rendering, “to the prey, my son, thou art gone up” (1). This was most true in David, who, engaged all his life in wars, took constant prey from enemies, and ascended by degrees from lesser prey to greater: namely from the tearing of the bear and the lion he proceeded to the duel with Goliath and his spoils; thence to the command of the army, and the prey of a hundred foreskins, 1 Kings 18; soon he drove off continual prey from the Philistines, 1 Kings 27; afterwards he as it were tore the tribe of Juda away from Saul’s kingdom, 2 Kings 2:7. Finally, made king of all the tribes, he carried off the greatest prey from the Ammonites, Moabites, Syrians and other nations. So Delrio.
From this prophecy it came about that the tribe of Juda, David, Solomon, etc., had the figure of a lion for an emblem: whence also Prester (or, as others call him, Presbyter) John, king of the Abyssinians, who boasts of descent from the queen of Saba and Solomon, and consequently from Juda (as is plain from his title, which Ortelius describes in the Theatre, Table 68), bears for emblem, or coat of arms, a lion, which holds in its hand an upright cross. For the lion is the emblem of the lineage from Juda, the cross the emblem of Christianity.
Lioness—Note: The Hebrews give the lion several names, by which they separate and distinguish his ages; for first, gur is the name of the lion when he is a whelp and as it were an infant. Second, he is called kephir, when It is a wonder why the Septuagint translated, “from the shoot, my son, thou art gone up”; perhaps prophetically by “shoot” they understood the Blessed Virgin, from whom Christ went up and was born.
he now grows large, and becomes adult, so as to begin to grow fierce and to prey. Third, he is called arieh when he is of settled strength, and a perfect lion. Fourth, when he is in confirmed and full strength and age, he is called labi, as stout-hearted, from leb, that is, heart. The lion is therefore called labi from spiritedness, generosity and fortitude of mind. Fifth, he is called layish, when he is now growing old, and like a veteran soldier practised in preying, yet is still green and vigorous. He is called layish, therefore, because he subdues prey, from the root lush, that is, he subdued.
Of these names, three are here given to Juda, namely Note: All these past tenses are to be expounded by the future: for it is a prophecy.
AS A LIONESS—who suckling her cubs is fiercer and stronger than the lion. The Hebrew labi signifies both a lioness and a lion: whence Vatablus renders it lioness; for names of animals among the Hebrews are of common gender.