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The Political Background of the Shiloh Oracle

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The Political Background of the Shiloh Oracle THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND OF THE SHILOH ORACLE BY JOH. LINDBLOM Lund The famous passage in "the Blessing of Jacob" (Gen. xlix) about the sceptre that shall not depart from Judah "until he comes to Shiloh" (or "until Shiloh comes") belongs to the most discussed passages in the Old Testament. Dozens of explanations have been brought forward, but none of them has been able satisfactorily to dispel the obscureness that covers the extraordinarily ambiguous words. The space I have at my disposai in this volume does not aUow me to give a report of the various explanations. I presume that aU the scholars who are going to read trus artide are weU acquainted with them. 1) Without spenrung many introductory words, I shall go directly in medias res, presenting an attempt of my own to solve the problem connected with the curious Judah orade v. 10, wruch has vexed so many generations of biblical scholars. I venture to do that although I have slight hopes that the debate will thereby be settled. In the ancient Hebrew poetry the tribe poem is a dearly distinguish­ able species though there are very scanty remnants of it in the Bibie. The tribe poem aimed at celebrating or blaming, from various points of view, the different tribes belonging to the group of tribes wruch reckoned Jacob as their ancestor and, after the occupation of the promised land, were comprised under the name of "Israel". Of this Hterature we have only two rustinct examples in the Old Testament: "the Blessing of Jacob" and "the Blessing of Moses" (Deut. xxxiii). The Song of Deborah in Judges v is partly composed after the pattern of a tribe poem. The same is true of the benedictions of 1) For earlier explanations of the J udah oracle see particularly thc commentaries by SKINNER, DILLMANN, and PROCKSCH. Further A. POSNANSKI, Schi/oh. Bin Beitrag zur Geschichte der Messias/ehre, I (Leipzig 1904). E. BURROWS, The Oracles of Jacob and Ba/aam (London 1939), attempts to explain the Blessing of Jacob in the light of Babylonian uranography. BACKGROUND OF THE SHILOH ORACLE 79 Shem and Japheth and the curse of Canaan in Gen. ix 25-27, the lays of Balaam in Num. xxii-xxiv and, perhaps, in a wider sense, with the series of orades against foreign nations in Amos and other prophetic books. It seems that there were two types of the tribe poem: the epi­ grammatic tribe poem and the prophetic tribe poem. In the former type the different tribes were briefly and pregnantly characterized with regard to their distinguishlng features, customs, and dwelling places, often with a humorous or satiric sting. W ord-plays of various sorts, alluding to the proper names, were highly appreciated. The prophetic tribe poems again were composed of orades containing curses and blessings in a more or less explicit form. In the tribe poems of the Oid Testament the two types are not preserved in their pure and original form. Both "the Blessing of Jacob" and "the Blessing of Moses" present mixed forms. Epigrams and orades are jumbled together, but the epigrams and the orades alike are quite distinguishable. In "the Blessing of Jacob" the sayings on Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali and Benjamin have the farm of epigrams (examples: "Dan shall judge hls people as one of the tribes of Israel."-"Dan shall be a serpent in the way, an adder in the path, that bites the horse's heels, so that hls rider falls backward."­ "Benjamin is a ravening wolf; in the morning he devours prey, and in the evening he divides spoiI" 1). On the other hand, the verses whlch deal with Reuben, Simeon and Levi, Judah and Joseph are typical orades. In "the Blessing of Moses" we have one typical epigram, that on the tribe of Dan ("Dan is a lion's whelp, that leaps forth from Bashan"). All the other sayings are orades in a more or less characteristic form. The epigrammatic tribe poems were originally popular songs composed by poets aiming onIy at entertaining and amusing a listen­ ing crowd. 2) Skilfulness in characterisation and in the invention of sallies of wit were demanded and appreciated. Thls species of poetry had no religious object in view, but was of a purely secular interest. Quite different was the case with the prophetic tribe poems. They were composed of oracles and, as orades, they were regarded as 1) The future form of the verbs is due to the predictive character of the Blessing. Originally the epigrams contained descriptions of facts.-The Dan epigram seems to have heen composed of two originally independent epigrams. 2) Of course, tbe single epigrams may have circulated isolated before being combined into continuous poems. .
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