God's Christmas Plan: A Deathbed Prophecy about a Living Messiah

We pick up the story about God’s Christmas plan in Genesis 49. Jacob, the son of Isaac, faced death. Before he took his last breath, he blessed his 12 sons. From these sons, who exhibited various gifts and personalities, would come the great tribes of Israel. The timing of his event at Jacob’s deathbed was about 1,700 years before the birth of Jesus. 

What a moment for a family to witness! This father and his sons were at the precipice of events that God would use to shape the world. But in Jacob’s words to his son Judah, there were prophetic clues to identify the Seed God promised in the Garden of Eden:

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).

The children of Jacob sell their brother Joseph by Konstantin Flavitsky,/Photo: Wikipedia

Were Jacob’s mysterious words to Judah met with confused stares and whispers?  First, Judah wasn’t the first born. Reuben was. Second, while Judah kept his brothers from harming their brother Joseph by suggesting they sell him into slavery, he didn’t free Joseph from the pit, either. Joseph, of course, was Jacob’s favored son who suffered years of Egyptian bondage before God elevated him as second only to Pharaoh. 

Thirdly, tucked between Joseph’s story in Genesis, there’s the saga about Judah’s family. Judah loses his wife and his sons. His daughter-in-law Tamar seduces him because he didn’t keep his word to her. She bears Judah twins. This family drama sounds a bit like today’s reality TV, doesn’t it? 

Let’s examine Jacob’s words further. Many ancient Jews understood that the scepter symbolized identity and autonomy to practice Mosaic Law.  They also understood that “Shiloh” referred to the Messiah.  

Under Roman rule, according to Bible teacher Dr. Chuck Missler, the tribes lost their autonomy via the Great Sandhedrin. This was something that hadn’t even happened when the last king of Judah was deposed and the Jews were taken into Babylonian captivity. 

But other scholars say that Judah’ s scepter was lost when Jerusalem fell in 70 A.D. after Jesus’ birth, resurrection and ascension into heaven. But as Missler writes in his article, “A Christmas Promise: the Scepter of Judah,” the time of Shiloh came when Jesus walked the earth:

When the members of the Sanhedrin found themselves deprived of their right over life and death, they covered their heads with ashes and their bodies with sackcloth, and bemoaned, “Woe unto us for the scepter has departed from Judah and the Messiah has not come!” They actually thought that the Torah, the Word of God, had failed!  They should have known better.

The scepter had, indeed, been removed from Judah, but Shiloh had come.  While the Jews wept in the streets of Jerusalem, a young son of a carpenter was growing up in Nazareth.

If we believe that Jesus fulfilled the Shiloh portion of the prophecy, then God kept the promise He gave through Jacob. Jesus is God’s regal Messiah, but the complete fulfillment of Jacob’s deathbed prophecy will not occur until Jesus’ Second Coming as the King of Kings.

Next: God’s promise that Jesus would descend from Jesse