Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30
Tribes of Just One
“Today, you are all standing before the Lord your God,” this week’s reading opens, “your chiefs, your tribes, your elders, your officials, every man of Israel.” But there’s something wrong with this list (which continues on into the next verse, Deut 29:10): all the words listed refer to individuals—except for the word “tribes.” This obviously refers to groups of people.
Translators and commentators have long noticed this inconsistency. Usually, they have “fixed” it by combining the first two terms into one: “the chiefs of your tribes” is how many modern translations read. (This goes back even to the translators of the old Greek version of the Torah, the Septuagint). But they all may be wrong.
In biblical Hebrew, the word shevet (“tribe” in our verse) was apparently confused with (or simply identified with) another, similar-sounding word, shofet. The “f” in shofet was, like the “v” in shevet, a bilabial consonant in biblical times, and the two sounded rather similar. Now, a shofet was sometimes a judge, but often this word had the more general sense of “leader.”
Such was apparently the case with the word shevet as well: its other meaning of “staff” or “scepter” –a symbol of the ruler’s power—sometimes came to designate the ruler himself. So a shevet and a shofet were, in this sense, nearly equivalent. This meaning of shevet as “leader” is found in, among other verses, 2 Sam 7:7: “the words that I spoke with one of the leaders (shivtei) of Israel.” When this verse was restated in 1 Chron 17:6, instead of shivtei the text reads shofetei of Israel—a pretty clear indication that the two words were confused or for some other reason identified with each other. This only served to reinforce the meaning of shevet as a “leader.”
So what? As far as this week’s reading is concerned, a minor change in the translation is in order. The people listed as standing before God were, first and foremost, “your chiefs, your leaders, your elders, your officials, every man of Israel.” But the confusion of shofet and shevet has implications beyond this week’s reading.
When Jacob blesses his son Judah in the book of Genesis, he says: “The staff will not depart from Judah, nor the scepter from between his feet” (Gen 49:10). Clearly, staff (shevet) here, like scepter (meḥokkek) in the next clause, refers to the symbol of kingship. Interestingly, however, the targum of Onkelos reads: “A ruler will not depart from the tribe of Judah…” (The same is true of the Septuagint translation of this verse.) So it’s not just that the symbol of kingship will not depart from Judah; there will always be a ruler from that tribe.
Later, of course, this proved not to be true: ever since the Jews’ return from exile in Babylon in the sixth century BCE, there has not been a king ruling Israel at all. As a result, this verse came to be reinterpreted as: “A ruler will not depart from the tribe of Judah forever.” (This modification appears already in Onkelos, as well as in later sources.) In other words, there may not be a king for a while, but eventually the promised ruler (also known as the mashiaḥ or messiah) will be established. We’re still waiting.
When will he come? The prophet Balaam proclaimed, “I see it, but it is not now; I behold it, but it is not near: a star coming forth from Jacob, and a shevet arising from Israel” (Num 24:17). What he meant, clearly, was that a future leader will arise in Israel. Not just any leader, but one who will come to set everything aright—no small undertaking!