a cub (as still abiding in the lair) · noun, common masculine singular construct
prey
מִטֶּ֖רֶףmi.Te.ref
H2964
something torn · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
son
בְּנִ֣יbe.Ni
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
up
עָלִ֑יתָ'a.Li.ta
H5927
to ascend · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
down
כָּרַ֨עka.Ra'
H3766
to bend the knee · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
couched
רָבַ֧ץra.Vatz
H7257
to crouch (on all four legs folded · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
lion
כְּאַרְיֵ֛הke.'ar.Yeh
H738
a lion · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
lion
וּכְלָבִ֖יאu.khe.la.Vi'
H3833
to roar · conjunction + preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
up
יְקִימֶֽנּוּye.ki.Me.nu
H6965
to rise (in various applications · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Numbers 24:9 He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a great lion: who shall stir him up? Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curse…
Numbers 23:24 Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and d…
Revelation 5:5 And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, an…
Micah 5:8 And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion a…
Hosea 5:14 For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and non…
Ezekiel 19:5 Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.
Hosea 5:4 They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God: for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the LO…
1 Corinthians 15:24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all autho…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 49:8-12
Glorious things are here said of Judah. The mention of the crimes of the three elder of his sons had not so put the dying patriarch out of humour but that he had a blessing ready for Judah, to whom blessings belonged. Judah's name signifies praise, in allusion to which he says, Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise, Gen 49:8. God was praised for him (Gen 29:35), praised by him, and praised in him; and therefore his brethren shall praise him. Note, Those that are to God for a praise shall be the praise of their brethren. It is prophesied that, 1. The tribe of Judah should be victorious and successful in war: Thy hand shall be in the neck of thy enemies. This was fulfilled in David, Psa 1…
Thy brethren shall praise thee - As the name Judah signifies praise, Jacob takes occasion from its meaning to show that this tribe should be so eminent and glorious, that the rest of the tribes should praise it; that is, they should acknowledge its superior dignity, as in its privileges it should be distinguished beyond all the others. On the prophecy relative to Judah, Dr. Hales has several judicious remarks, and has left very little to be farther desired on the subject. Every reader will be glad to meet with them here.
"The prophecy begins with his name Judah, signifying the praise of the Lord, which was given to him at his birth by his mother Leah, Gen 29:35. It then describes the warlike…
Judah is a lion's whelp,.... Or as one; the note of similitude being wanting, as Aben Ezra and Ben Melech observe; he was comparable to a young lion for his strength, courage, and generosity; and it may refer to the infant state of this tribe in the times of the judges, who first went up against the Canaanites and overcame them, Judges 1:1.
from the prey, my son, thou art gone up; alluding to the lion going up to the mountains, where it chiefly resides, after it has found its prey and satiated itself with it:
he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; one that is grown up, and has arrived to its full strength, such an one is a proper emblem of David king of Israel, of his r…
The Church Fathers
Again, he is called a Lion; not a man eater, but, as it were, showing by this title his kingly, strong and resolute nature, Then too, he is called a Lion in opposition to the lion, our adversary who roars and devours those who have been deceived. For the Savior came, not having changed his own gentle nature, and yet as the mighty lion of the tribe of Judah, saving them that believe but trampling upon the adversary.
The mystical interpretation, according to which the lion's whelp not only symbolically but also literally signifies Christ, is much more suitable to this passage. In fact, the Physiologus writes with regard to the lion's whelp that after its birth it sleeps for three days and three nights; then the lair itself awakens the sleeping whelp, as if it was shaken by the noise and the roar of the father. Therefore this whelp rises from the shoot: he was born from the Virgin, not from a seed but from a shoot. So Christ was born without sexual intercourse with a man and without the natural seed, like a bough or a branch. In this manner the reality of the assumption of the flesh from the Virgin is clearly demonstrated, and the contact with human or natural seed is excluded in the holy shoot.
(Verse 9.) The sons of your father shall adore you. The lion's cub of Judah, my son, you have risen, bowing down like a lion and like a lion cub. Who will awaken him? Although there is a great mystery about Christ, it is prophesied according to the literal interpretation that kings from the lineage of David through Judah will be born and that all tribes will adore him. For it does not say, the sons of your mother, but the sons of your father. And what follows, you have risen from the lineage, my son, in Hebrew is, you have risen from captivity, my son, to show that he will lead captive peoples; and according to a more sacred interpretation, he has ascended on high and led captivity captive (Psalm 68). Or what I think is better, captivity signifies passion, ascent signifies resurrection.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Judah — Praise, the fourth son of Jacob by Leah. The name originated in Leah’s words of praise to the Lord on account of his birth: “Now will I praise [Heb. odeh] Jehovah, and she called his name Yehudah”…
Lions — The most powerful of all carnivorous animals. Although not now found in Palestine, they must have been in ancient times very numerous there. They had their lairs in the forests (Jer. 5:6; 12:8; Amos…
Children · Male: Received the blessing of their father before his death — Male: Received the blessing of their father before his death
Judah · .Prophetic benediction of his father upon — .Prophetic benediction of his father upon
Judah, The Tribe Of · Predictions respecting — Predictions respecting
Lion · SYMBOLI — SYMBOLI
Lion, The · Illustrative: Of the tribe of Judah — Illustrative: Of the tribe of Judah
Patriarchal Government · Exercised in: Blessing and cursing their children — Exercised in: Blessing and cursing their children
Tribes Of Israel, The · Predictions respecting each of — Predictions respecting each of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Judah is a lion's whelp. This similitude confirms the preceding sentence, that Judah would be formidable to his enemies. Yet Jacob seems to allude to that diminution which took place, when the greater part of the people revolted to Jeroboam. For then the king of Judah began to be like a sleeping lion, for he did not shake his mane to diffuse his terror far and wide, but, as it were, laid him down in his den. Yet a certain secret power of God lay hidden under that torpor, and they who most desired his destruction, and who were most able to do him injury, did not dare to disturb him. Therefore, after Jacob has transferred the supreme authority over his brethren to Judah alone; he now adds, by…
Judah, the fourth son, was the first to receive a rich and unmixed blessing, the blessing of inalienable supremacy and power. "Judah thou, thee will thy brethren praise! thy hand in the neck of thy foes! to thee will thy father's sons bow down!" אתּה, thou, is placed first as an absolute noun, like אני in Gen 17:4; Gen 24:27; יודוּך is a play upon יהוּדה like אודה in Gen 29:35. Judah, according to Gen 29:35, signifies: he for whom Jehovah is praised, not merely the praised one. "This nomen, the patriarch seized as an omen, and expounded it as a presage of the future history of Judah." Judah should be in truth all that his name implied (cf. Gen 27:36). Judah had already shown to a certain ext…
The blessing on Judah commands the most attention. In this oracle, Jacob predicted the fierce, lion-like dominance of Judah over his enemies and over his brothers, who would praise him (cp. 29:35; see, e.g., Ruth 4:11-12; 1 Sam 18:6-7; Pss 2, 45, 72; Isa 11:1-13).
Rashi on Genesis 49:3
וראשית אוני THE BEGINNING OF MY VIGOR — That is the first drop [of semen], as he had not experienced a seminal emission from all of his days [until that time] (Genesis Rabbah 98:4).
אוני means MY VIGOR, as (Hosea 12:9) “I have gained me (און) strength”; (Isaiah 40:26) “by the greatness of His (אונים) might”; (Isaiah 5:29) “and to him that hath no (אונים) might Ho increaseth strength”.
יתר שאת SUPERIORITY IN DIGNITY — Since you were the first-born it was proper that you should be superior to your brothers by being endowed with the priesthood. This term שאת “lifting up” alludes to the נשיאות כפים the raising of the hands when the priests pronounce the benediction (cf. Onkelos).
ויתר עז SUPE…
