38. Judah, thou art he, thy brethren will praise you: Thy hand will be upon the neck of your enemies; Thy father's children will bow down before you. Judah is a young lion: thou art come aloft, my son, through great victory: He has stooped down and couched, as a lion, and as a lioness: Who will set upon him to rouse him up ? The sceptre will not be removed from Judah, nor a master from his feet, till the Saviour come; and to him will the people cleave. He will bind his foal to the vine, and his she-ass 's colt to the precious branch: He will wash his garment in wine, and his mantle in the blood of grapes: His eyes are redder than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk (Gen. xlix. 8-12).n7430 ¶1
39. By the first three sons of Jacob, the spirit intimates concerning the corrupted lost Adam and his children, signifying how they were in the sight of God, and what their kingdom upon earth would be. But here, with Judah, he begins to intimate concerning the kingdom ofn7430 ¶2
Christ, viz. concerning Christ's person and office, and sets Christ in the fourth line, which is a great mystery; for in the fourth property of the generating of nature is understood the fire, viz. the original of the fire, out of which the light takes its original, whereby the abyss becomes majestic: wherein then also the original of life is understood, before the soul is therein understood according to its property.n7430 ¶3
40. Seeing then this soul's ground in Adam was fallen and perished, therefore has God also set his figure of the new life therein, and in this testament of the twelve patriarchs the figure stands, signifying how the beginning of life is, and how the new birth springs forth in the light again, through the perished fire-life in the light. Also in the Testament of Judah all circumstances are declared, showing how the new life in Christ would spring forth through the soul, and rule over the sting of death.n7430 ¶4
41. Jacob says, Thou art he: thy brethren will praise thee. In this he looks outwardly upon the earthly kingdom, which should arise in the future time: and inwardly he looks upon the kingdom of Christ, which both Jews and heathen would embrace, and praise and honour Christ as God and Man.n7430 ¶5
42. And he says further, For thy hand will be upon the neck of thy enemies. By this he understands and means, not only the Jews' outward enemies; but that the hand, viz. the power of Christ's grace, would essentially, actually and effectually be upon the neck of Satan, and the Serpent's poison and will, in flesh and blood, and evermore trample upon that Serpent's head in his children of faith.n7430 ¶6
43. Also, Thy father's children will bow before thee. That is, before this Christ of the stock or tribe of Judah will all the children of God stoop, bow, and pray to, as a God-Man and Man-God.n7430 ¶7
44. Also, Judah is a young lion. That is, one roaring against the devil, and a destroyer of death and hell, as a fresh, young nimble lion, mighty in strength and power.n7430 ¶8
45. Also, Thou art come aloft, my son, exalted, by a great victory. That is, after he had the victory over God's anger, over death, sin, the devil and hell, he was placed at the right hand of God's power, as a Man- God, and rules over all his enemies.n7430 ¶9
46. Also, He stooped and couched down, as a lion, and as a lioness, Who will set upon him to rouse him up! That is, he has so deeply humbled himself with his highest love, and rendered himself in our assumed humanity into the scorn and contempt of the fallen man, and stooped into God's anger, and suffered the natural life to break in pieces, and very patiently given his strong lion's might thereinto.n7430 ¶10
47. But that the text says, as a lion and as a lioness, it signifies the young lion of the divine Word in the soul, and the lioness signifies the name Jesus, in the most inward ground of the heavenly world's substance, viz. the noble lioness of Sophia, that is, the right seed of the woman from the Adamical light's tincture, which faded in Adam, and in this lion was made living again in divine power, and associated itself again to the lion, viz. to the soul.n7430 ¶11
48. Also, Who will set upon him to rouse him up! That is, who can set himself against this lion and heavenly holy lioness to rouse them up, which are God over all and through all? Who will take away his power, Who is the beginning of all power, strength and might? Where is the champion that can strive when there is no higher power to be had?n7430 ¶12
49. Also, The sceptre shall not he removed from Judah, nor a master from under his feet, till the Champion or Saviour come; and to him will the people cleave.n7430 ¶13
The understanding or meaning of this is twofold, viz. outwardly concerning the kingdom of Judah, that the Jewish sceptre of its kingdom should continue, and they be a kingdom, till this Champion or Saviour, viz. the lion with the lioness, viz. Christ, that is, this Covenant, should become man; which is so come to pass that they held their kingdom, though it seemed of ten as it were quite overthrown, till Christ. And then it quite ceased, and there was another Master or Governor that ruled it, for since that time they must be servile people; for the Champion or Saviour has taken to himself their kingdom, and is therewith entered in among the heathen, and has called them also to himself.n7430 ¶14
50. But the inward ground is this: that the kingdom of Christ, and his dominion over sin, death, the devil and hell, will not cease, nor any other ruler or master come from between his feet, that is, from the Covenant of God, till this Saviour, Christ, should come again to judgment, and sever his enemies: then shall he deliver up the kingdom again to his Father, and then God shall be All in All. Therefore do the Jews in vain hope for another master or ruler: although indeed he will come to them also in the time of his revelation, manifestation or appearing, which time is near, wherein the kingdom of Christ will be manifested to all people.n7430 ¶15
51. Also, To him will the people cleave. This is done already according to his humanity, and will much more be done in his last manifestation, that all people will cleave to him and acknowledge him. When Babel takes its end then will this be first perfectly fulfilled, which dependence and cleaving to him at present the images, imaginations or fictions of opinions and sects in Babel, do keep back, in that the strange and foreign people and nations stumble, and are scandalised at the contentions and disputations of confounded speeches, and withhold from it.n7430 ¶16
52. But when the tower of Babel falls on every side, then shall all people cleave to him, honour and serve him, which dependence and cleaving to him supposed Christendom has hindered by the Antichrist, which has a Ion g time sat in the seat of Christ as an earthly god. When this ceases, then will the kingdom of Christ be wholly manifest, which men at present behold only in images [opinions, without certain knowledge] : This is understood by those of our society.n7430 ¶17
53. Also, He will bind his foal to the vine, and his she-ass's colt to the noble branch.n7430 ¶18
O you poor, sick, old, miserable Adam, if you did understand this rightly, then you would be delivered from all strife. What is the foal and the she-ass's colt? The foal is the human soul: for the young lion signifies the power of the divine Word in the soul; but the foal is the natural soul, which Christ should bind to the vine of the sweet-tasted divine love, viz. the eternal- speaking Word would bind this foal, the creaturely soul's word of the soul's essence and substance, to itself and be married to it; and the she-ass is the inward Paradisical man, viz. the divine man, from the ens of the inward ground, from the heavenly world's light's substance, viz. the Virginn7430 ¶19
54. This she-ass, which must bear the outward burden of the bestial man upon it, should Christ, that is, the Word, bind to the name Jesus, viz. to God's own self-subsisting substance, viz. to the most noble branch, which bears the sweet wine of the love ofn7430 ¶20
55. And this she-ass is the temple of God, wherein the kingdom of God is again manifested in us; it is Christ in us (Col. i. 27 and iii. 11), which, as a she-ass in man, himself takes upon him the burden and sin of man, and slays it through the young lion.n7430 ¶21
56. This inward new spiritual holy man is rightly the she-ass's colt, for it must be manifested through the soul, as light is manifested through fire. Thus a man is to understand that the light is the fire's colt, and is manifested through the fire from the dying of the candle: thus also it is to be understood in the ground of the soul, which is also a fire-spirit.n7430 ¶22
57. O you poor Christendom! if you did understand this rightly, and did press into it, so that you also, with this she-ass which faded in Adam, stood bound to the foal's noble branch, what need of striving then? Is it not now a simple she-ass which bears Christ and Adam upon it, viz. Christ in it, which is its noble branch, viz. its sap and power, and Adam upon it as a burden?n7430 ¶23
58. O you Babylonish whore! you keep off this she-ass with your dragon-beast, so that poor Christendom must bear your evil beast;n7430 ¶24
whereon you, whore, ridest: but your time is near, that you are to go into the abyss of hell-fire, says the spirit of wonders.n7430 ¶25
59. Also, He will wash his garment in wine, and his mantle in the blood of the grape.n7430 ¶26
That is, Christ will wash our humanity, viz. the garment of the soul, in the wine of his love, and with the love wash away from the defiled Adamical flesh the earthly dross and spawn of the Serpent, that Adam had received with his desire and lust, from which the earthly man became a beast; and leave the spawn of the Serpent to the earth, and in the end burn it up with the fire of God.n7430 ¶27
60. And his mantle in the blood of the grape. The mantle is the cover which covers the washed garment, and is even the precious purple mantle of Christ, viz. the scorn, affliction, torment and suffering; when he thereby washed our sins in his blood, that is, the right blood of the grape, wherein he washed his mantle, which now he casts over our garment and covers it, viz. over our humanity, that God's anger and the devil may not touch it.n7430 ¶28
61. O man! consider this. This mantle will not be cast over the beast and the whore, to cover them, as Babel teaches, but over the washed garment that is washed in right true repentance with God's love: this garment of the soul will be covered with the mantle of Christ, which is once washed in his blood of the grape; and not whores, panders, unclean persons, covetous extortioners, unrighteous, cruel, raging, stern and proud; so long as they are such they have only the mantle of the Babylonish whore about them, and get not this holy washed mantle of Christ upon them; flatter and play the hypocrite as much as you will, yet you will not get it, except you are washed beforehand; your comforting yourself will not avail you, you must set upon it in earnest, that your she-ass may live, and your foal be essentially bound to the vine, Christ, else you are a member of the whore sitting upon the seven-headed dragon; and if you could pass through the thrones of heaven, yet you would be but a child of the dragon.n7430 ¶29
62. O Babel, Babel, what have you done, in covering the beast with this mantle, and yourself remaining under it, a wolf?n7430 ¶30
63. Also, His eyes are redder than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk. His eyes are now the fire-flaming love, which pierce and press through the Father's anger, and look through the fiery soul, wherein the Father's anger in the fiery soul becomes a light-flaming love-fire; and so the soul's essence is thereby become a sweet, pleasant tasted, divine, red love-wine; one property in the soulish essence tasting the other in great desire of love, and the Father's property of anger flowing forth in a clear, good, pleasant relish.n7430 ¶31
64. And his teeth are whiter than milk. These white teeth are the desire of the inward spiritual man, where the holy word is together in the desire of these teeth, which white teeth of heavenly desire apprehend, eat and drink, the grape of Christ's blood; for it is the spiritual mouth, for which Christ has ordained his testament, that it should with these white teeth, eat his flesh and drink his blood (John vi. 53). This the spirit of the Covenant declares clearly and plainly byn7430 ¶32
65. For the testament of Judah points throughout at Christ, at his person, office and kingdom. For of Judah Christ should come according to the humanity; outwardly the figure of the type stands, and inwardly, in the spiritual figure, Christ stands clearly.n7430 ¶33
The Seventy-Seventh Chaptern7430 ¶34
A Further Exposition of Jacob's Testament, Concerning the other Eight Sons, how both the Jewish Government or Kingdom on Earth, and also Christendom, is typified under it. Showing how it would go with them *n7430 ¶35
1. BY the first three sons of Jacob is typified in the figure the kingdom of perished or corrupt nature, viz. the Adamical man, what it is; and by Judah, Christ is typified, who should come and bring the Adamical man into his kingdom; but by the other eight sons of Jacob is typified only the figure of worldly offices, states and governments; signifying how the Adamical man would manage the superior dominion, and how also the inward figure of the kingdom of Christ would stand close by it.n7430 ¶36
2. For here in the outward figure is first typified where each tribe or stock would have their dwelling and habitation, and what their office in Israel would be. But near to it stands always the figure representing how the outward and the inward man would stand close by one another; and how the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of grace would dwell one by another; also how the seven properties of nature in God's anger, according to the first Principle, would also put forth or explicate themselves, and introduce themselves into figure, to the divine manifestation: Which the Reader should well observe and consider, for we will explain both the inward and the outward figure.n7430 ¶37