In seeking to consider these words 'he shall dwell in the tents of Shem', we must recognise that there is considerable discussion over who the 'he' actually refers to.
Two options present themselves:
[1] The 'he' is Japheth. It is a prophecy that in some way this son of Noah will dwell in the tents of another son of Noah.
[2] The 'he' is a reference to none other than the Lord of Glory Himself. God is the subject of the opening phrase and He is to be understood as the subject all through the three statements that appear in this text: God shall enlarge Japheth, God shall dwell in the tents of Shem and Canaan shall be God's servant.
What is therefore in view here is an ancient promise regarding the incarnation of the Son of God.
Far better and more able Hebrew students than me say that there is no way of being definite in the construction of the verse in the original language. The 'he' can be taken as a reference to either Japheth or the Lord without doing any injury to the wording of the original.
This we shall do.
It may well be that the Holy Spirit by inspiration intended there to be a double meaning to these words. It would not be the first time in the Word of God where this has happened, cp. Hoses 11:1 '… and called my son out of Egypt' & Matt 2:15. The context in Hosea applies these words to Israel as a nation. However, in Matthew they are applied to Christ.
It is in this second sense that we want to consider this phrase this evening. We will very briefly consider the first possible meaning - it refers to Japheth and then we will major on the second possible meaning - it refers to the incarnation. |
