Language Studies

Difficult Sayings

Until Shiloh Comes
Genesis 49:10

"The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people." (Genesis 49:10 column online). Just to tax your brains a little as we tick over into a new year we will concentrate on the mysteries of numbers and counting today and finalise the article next week when we look at alternate, critical and sceptical interpretations.

The word מחקק mechôqêq "lawgiver" (Strong's #2710) used in Genesis 49:10 of writing on a scroll. Whether this was for decrees and laws or later in the sense of writing and teaching Torah, is a matter of evolution of usage and later rabbinic interpretation seeing "Torah" in everything. That said, the Hebrew word תורת tôrah (Strong's #8451) means both "teaching, instruction" and "law".

It seems that "lawgiver" could sometimes mean the staff of office of say a commander or captain. In Judges 5:14, we have "From Machir rulers came down, And from Zebulun those who bear the recruiter's staff", where the NKJ has 'rulers', other versions have 'captains/commanders/governors'. Significantly, the parallel term in "from Zebulun…" is shêbhet 'sceptre', as in Genesis 49:10. This is translated by the NKJ and most others as 'staff', but by the KJV as 'pen' because the phrase is בּשבטספר beshêbhet çôphêr (Strong's #7626, #5608) which is most commonly translated as a scribe, or perhaps a financial secretary or recruiter, speaking as it does of 'counting'.

Now, speaking of counting…

Gematria is the Jewish mystical and mathematical art of counting letters as numbers. For, in ancient Hebrew and indeed many other ancient scripts, letters stood for numbers. In Hebrew the first nine letters are the numerals 1-9, the next nine are 10-90, the remaining 4 were 100-400. Variations on this include the five final letters counting as 500-900 and ע Aleph, the first letter, counting as a 1000 when it has a dot in it. The vowels, which were never written down until many centuries after Jesus, don’t count (excuse the pun!).

We have already noted the obscure phrase “until Shiloh comes” at which point rulership in Judah will cease and transfer to Shiloh. If Shiloh is a place, which it was, how could it “come”? Only a person could come.

We have already quoted the Babylonian Talmud, when Rabbi Johanan said:

"...what is this Messiah's name? The school of Rabbi Shila said 'his name is Shiloh, for it is written; until Shiloh come.'" (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b)

Shiloh, in early Jewish thought is, therefore, a person. “Shiloh come” in Hebrew is יבעשילה YB’ ShYLH which is 358 in numbers (10+2+1, 300+10+30+5), the same as משיח, MShYCh, ‘messiah’, which also adds up to 358 (40+300+10+8).

Curiously, the serpent in Genesis 3:1f. נחש NâChaSh also adds to 358 (50+300+8). We already know that it is the Seed, the Messiah, who will be the one who will crush the serpent (Genesis 3:15). מחודש, MeChûWDhâSh 'renewed' (40+8+4+6+300), also adds up to 358, although does not occur in this form in Scripture but is used elsewhere in Hebrew.

At this point in Genesis there is a variant tradition known as qere rather than kethib, what is read rather than what is written. For Shiloh what is written is שילה, and what is read שילו, adding the sixth letter of the alphabet in place of the fifth and augmenting the count by one to 359 and losing the numeric symbolism.

The word Shiloh on its own, numerically, adds up to 345 (40+300+5), the same as Moses משה and we have already noted how Moses was a lawgiver and Jesus was seen as a second messianic Moses by some, including the writer of Matthew’s gospel.

This pattern of interpretation or inquiry may seem bizarre to some but it was used in early and medieval Judaism, and in early Christianity, e.g., in the Epistle of Barnabas, 9.7-8. It may even have been in the mind of the writer of Matthew’s gospel in his genealogy when he keeps mentioning David and groups the forebears in 14s, the numerical equivalent of David. The use of letters to signify numbers was also in use by the Babylonians and the Greeks. The earliest written use in Jewish rabbinic literature is by the second century tannaim, sages (see http://www.jhom.com/topics/letters/gematria.html). However, Hebrew word plays, and perhaps later number plays, played a consistent part in Jewish written and interpretative tradition both during and after biblical times.

(To be continued)…

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KJ Went has taught biblical Hebrew, hermeneutics and Jewish background to early Christianity. The "Biblical Hebrew made easy" course can be found at www.biblicalhebrew.com.

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