The Sceptre Passes from the Sanhedrin

The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.    Genesis 49:10

The term “scepter” refers to their tribal identity and the right to apply and enforce Mosaic Laws and adjudicate capital offenses: jus gladii. It is significant that even during their 70-year Babylonian captivity (606-537 b.c.) the tribes retained their tribal identity. [Josh MacDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, pp. 108-168.] They retained their own logistics, judges, etc. (Ezekiel 1:5,8) The term “Shiloh” was understood by the early rabbis and Talmudic authorities as referring to the Messiah. [Targum Onkelos, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, and Targum Yerusahlmi, The Messiah: An Aramaic Interpretation; The Messianic Exegesis of the Targum, Samson H. Levy, Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, 1974.] The Hebrew word shiloh should be rendered “whose it is,” that is, the scepter will not depart from Judah until He comes to whom it belongs.

Sceptre Departs

In A.D. 6-7 A.D., King Herod’s son and successor, Herod Archelaus, was dethroned and banished to Vienna, a city in Gaul. Archelaus was the second son of Herod the Great. The older son, Herod Antipater, had been murdered by Herod the Great, along with other family members. (It was quipped at the time that it was safer to be a dog in that household than a member of the family!)

After the death of Herod (4 B.C.?), Archelaus had been placed over Judea as “Entharch” by Caesar Augustus. Broadly rejected, he was removed in A.D. 6-7. He was replaced by a Roman procurator named Caponius. The legal power of the Sanhedrin was immediately restricted and the adjudication of capital cases was lost. This was normal Roman policy (Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 2:8. Also, The Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, folio 24.)

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. He would present Himself as the Meshiach Nagid, Messiah the King, on the very day which had been predicted by the Angel Gabriel to Daniel five centuries earlier (Dan 9:24-27).