Commentaria in Genesim
Whence note: In Hebrew for expectation is tickehat, which, first, some derive from the root naka, which in Piel has nicka, signifies The sense of this place therefore is, as if Jacob said: To you, O Judah, and to your descendants I assign the kingdom and principate among your brethren, and transfer it from Ruben to you; in this way, namely, that, when in David you shall have begun to hold the kingdom, you shall hold it in your stock for 470 years, until Sedecias; thence indeed you shall have leaders partly from your stock, partly from the Maccabees who shall be grafted and incorporated into your stock, until Christ come, who shall restore the collapsed kingdom of David and yours, and make it more august and divine, so that in Christ you may first begin as it were to reign as monarch: and therefore by reason of Christ to be born of you, whom I look to, intend and promise as the end and aim, I chiefly promise and assign this kingdom to you, O Judah. And this is what the Prophets everywhere promise, namely that Christ would restore the kingdom of David and Judah. From this sense it appears that this blessing and makes innocent, clean and pure; whence they render thus: he himself shall purge the Gentiles, namely of their sins; so that Gabriel alludes to this when he says of Christ to be born: “He shall save his people from their sins,” Matthew 1.
Secondly, others derive tickehat from the root tacka, which the Arabs use more than the Hebrews, and which signifies to obey. Hence Kimchi, Pagninus and the Chaldee render, him shall the people obey; and Jonathan, him shall all the kingdoms of the earth serve (1).
Thirdly, others derive tickehat by metathesis from the root kehilla, that is, church, congregation, aggregation: for from kehilla by anastrophe, if you read it in reverse order, there is made lahaka, which signifies aggregation, 1 Kings 19, 20. By a similar metathesis tickehat here seems (the letter lamed being absorbed by the dagesh point set in the letter kuph) to be put for tilkehat, and this for lakahat, or kahalat, that is, church, aggregation. Whence they render, and he himself shall be the congregation, or church, of the Gentiles. So Vatablus, Jarrius, Forsterus. Forsterus adds that tickehat, put for tilkehat and kahalat, can be taken for assembly, or preaching: for from kahalat comes cohelet, that is, ecclesiastes, preacher, as is plain from Ecclesiastes 1: “The words of Ecclesiastes (in Hebrew cohelet): Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity,” so that the sense of this place would be, as if to say: The Messiah shall be the preacher and teacher of the Gentiles; the Messiah shall preach his Gospel to the Gentiles.
Fourthly, and best, render tickehat as expectation: for so our Interpreter, the Septuagint, Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion render it, from the root kava, that is, he hoped, he expected. Whence word for word from the Hebrew you will render thus: of him (Silo, that is, the Messiah) shall be the expectation of the Gentiles, as if to say: The Messiah shall expect the faith, obedience, dominion and kingdom of all the Gentiles, because God promised him this as an inheritance, as is said in Psalm 2: “Ask of me, and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession.” This therefore was the expectation, and the hope, of Silo, that is, of Christ.
And so in our version, for he himself perhaps one should read to him: for so the Hebrew has, although if you read he himself the sense comes to the same: for Christ expected the faith and obedience of the Gentiles, because in turn the Gentiles were to expect Christ as leader, teacher and saviour. For the sense is: “He himself shall be the expectation of the Gentiles,” as if to say: Not only the Jews, but the Gentiles also shall receive the Messiah, as one most awaited, most eagerly; they shall believe him and obey, and shall in him lay down and fix the hope of their salvation, their heart and Christ therefore is “the expectation of the Gentiles” in act, after he was born, known and believed by the Gentiles: but before his birth Christ was “the expectation of the Gentiles” only in potency, or rather by interpretation, as if to say: The Gentiles, after they shall have heard and known Christ, will so eagerly embrace him as if they had always awaited him. By a like personification the land of promise is said to “look for rain from heaven,” Deuteronomy 11, 14, because if it were animate it would from there expect rains. For we are said naturally to desire that which we most need, and which is best and most useful to us. Now as the earth needs rain, so the Gentiles needed Christ, and Christ brought them the highest goods. Rightly therefore here, and in Aggeus chap. 2, 8, Christ is called “the desired of all nations;” and in this chapter, verse 26, he is called “the desire of the everlasting hills.” So Christ was the expectation, that is, the expected, and the desire, that is, the desirable, of all the Gentiles.
AND HIS ASS, O MY SON, TO THE VINE. HE SHALL WASH HIS ROBE IN WINE, AND HIS GARMENT IN THE BLOOD OF THE GRAPE. HIS EYES ARE MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN WINE, AND HIS TEETH WHITER THAN MILK (1); as if to say: The land of Judah, or the lot ligavit, and where speech is of beasts of burden, he bound on, he yoked—is rightly construed by the Vulgate with Scilo, and such altogether seems to be the construction of the Hebrew exemplar. For there is no other word with which that participle can be joined, besides veniet; but he who is said to be about to come is Scilo: wherefore it is rightly affirmed that this word is in apposition to Scilo. The letter, with which this word ends, that shall fall to it in Chanaan, shall be so fertile of wine, that a man may bind his ass to one vine-branch, and load the ass with its fruit.
(for binding is the same as loading: for beasts, while they are bound, are loaded; it is a metalepsis); so great, I say, will be the abundance of wine that they can wash their garments in it. The eyes of the men of Judah too will redden from the wine itself, so abundantly will that land bring forth wine; nay, there will be such abundance of milk in that tribe that its teeth will be whitened by the frequent use of it. So Vatablus, Lipomanus and Oleaster.
But this exposition is cold, earthly, Jewish; and against it stands the fact that all these things are said, not of Judah, but of Silo, or the Messiah. Whence Jacob, addressing Judah in the second person, passes from him to the third, namely of the Messiah, saying: “Binding his colt to the vineyard, and his ass, O my son (O Judah), to the vine.” For if he were saying this of Judah, he would have said: “Binding your colt, and your ass.” Moreover, the fertility of the tribe of Judah above the other tribes was not so great an excess as is here said.
Secondly, both Chaldees, namely Onkelos and Jonathan, refer these things partly to Judah, partly to the Messiah. Hence they take them partly spiritually, partly carnally; for they too were Jews, whence they sometimes Judaize, and on this account the Chaldaic version displeased some Catholics, so that they judged it should be kept away from and removed from the Royal Bibles. For Onkelos understands by the vineyard Jerusalem, by the vine the temple, by the colt the doers of the law, by the ass the just, by white and red wine white and red silken garments, by the eyes mountains red with grapes and wine, by the teeth fields whitening with grain and sheep. Jonathan, however, more sublimely takes by these vines and wines the blood of enemies, which Christ was to shed so abundantly that he could wash and purple his garment in it. Again, in the time of the Messiah, he says, the mountains shall redden with vineyards and wine-presses: the hills shall grow white with abundance of wheat and sheep. But these things also are imperfect, not sufficiently connected, and in part Jewish.
I say therefore: Almost all the Fathers, except Diodorus alone, explain this place literally of Christ, namely Tertullian, St. Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom, Clement, Cyprian, Theodoret and others whom Pererius cites: to whom surely more credit is due than to Calvin jeering at them. Not Judah therefore, but Christ is he who binds with the cord of faith, hope and charity, to the vineyard, that is, to the primitive Church gathered from the Jews, his colt, that is, the people of the Gentiles, who had not yet borne the yoke of the law, when he joined it with the Jews and united it in one Church; and to the vine, that is, to himself (for Christ is the true and fruitful vine, John chap. 15, 1, from which the whole vineyard hangs and springs), O my son, O Judah, the same Christ shall bind his ass, that is, the people of the Jews accustomed and worn to the yoke of the law.