Another cool prophecy that Jesus was and is the Messiah.

Anyone who as taken the time to go through their Old Testament will and probably has seen the dozens and dozens of Messianic prophecies, and in the NT how Jesus fulfilled them. As one pastor has proclaimed "the NT is the OT concealed and the OT is the NT revealed.Anyhow, recently I discovered a prophecy i had never understood until now, which is just utterly fascinating as a believer and Historian.

In Genesis 49:10, Jacob prophesizing over his 12 sons before he dies, says to his son, Judah "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".

(Let us remember that Judah is the line of the kings David. Also, in a few verses before that Jacob even says that Judah will rule his brothers.)

So, the King and "scepter" from the verse represents his right to rule, administer justice, carry out the Law, and punishments, etc...all the power of King. The king had given the daily administration of the country and part of his authority in such manners to the Sanhedrin and experts of Moses' laws, hence the "lawgivers" serving at the king's feet idea.

Also, most of the ancient Rabbis viewed the part about "until Shiloh comes" to mean the Messiah. There are many reasons they believed this, but the point is they did believe it to messianic. In modern language, I think we could understand this prophecy as "when the kingdom of Judah finally loses it's sovereignty as a nation to make and enforce its own laws, the Messiah will appear and draw the people toward himself". Now of course Judah the nation has been destroyed and rebuilt a few times, but when it did exist it was always allowed to carry out the law's Moses had given, even when they were ruled by Alexander and the Greeks.

However by 6-7 A.D. the tension between Rome and the Jewish leadership had come to a head. Rome crushed the Jewish revolts. Archelaus, the king of the Jews was dethroned and banished. Coponius was appointed Roman Procurator. Moreover, Sanhedrin lost their ability to administer its authority, especially crushing was the ability to carry our capitol punishment on lawbreaker. When the Jewish leaders realized that indeed the "scepter" had departed from them, many put on sackcloth and ashes weeping, and thinking that word of God had been broken, as Judah's sovereignty was gone, but the Messiah had not yet come; or so they thought.

One Rabbi Rachmon observed at that time: "When the members of the Sanhedrin found themselves deprived of their right over life and death, a general consternation took hold of them; they covered their heads and their bodies with sackcloth, exclaiming, 'Woe unto us, for the sceptre has departed from Judah and the Messiah has not come.'"

Little did they know the Word of God had not been broken, but rather a few miles north of Jerusalem in hills Galilee, a small ~10 year old boy was in his father's shop learning to make new thing and fix the broken, who in a few more decades would come calling, his name: Yeshua Ha-Mashiach.

The Word of God was not broken, for the Word himself had come down and was dwelling amidst us, furthermore, "The Word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty,but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." ~ Isaiah 55:11