Vayechi | Ad Ki Yavo Shilo: Solving A Biblical Riddle, by Rav Yitzchak Etshalom

Yaakov's deathbed blessing to Yehuda, at which point he appoints/designates or foretells his fourth son's ascendancy to leadership of the nascent nation, is replete with philological and exegetical difficulties. The central verse of his blessing, verse 10, is not only opaque and subject to a wide range of interpretations, it also became a cause celebre in medieval Jewish-Christian polemics due to the possible Messianic allusions contained therein. We survey some of the history of interpretation and then propose a novel approach which takes into account the classic challenges raised to the text.

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