to the tribe, but to the kingdom of Judah, And Judah did not cease to be a kingdom—the sceptre did not depart from Judah, until Shiloh came in the person of Jesus, who was born King of the Jews, and who came to wield the sceptre of righteousness over those who are Jews indeed. "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly; whose praise is not of men, but of God."
A prophecy which thus extends beyond the Jewish to the Christian Church, which looks forward to the coming of the Messiah, and the establishment of His kingdom, must treat of higher and more enduring things than those which relate to the sons of Israel. Their history was but the natural form of the history of the Christian Church, their kingdom was but the shadow of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. This being the case, Jacob's prophetic description of the future state and condition of his sons, describes the state and condition of those whom his sons represented. Those who belong to the Lord's Church are the spiritual Israel; and in the prophetic words of Jacob to his
