Judah is a lion’s whelp. — We have seen that the sons of Jacob had each his signet, and that Judah’s was so large as to be worn by him attached to a cord fastened round his neck (Genesis 38:18). Probably his emblem was a lion; that of Zebulun a ship; that of Issachar an ass; that of Dan an adder, and so on. Using then his self-chosen emblem, Jacob compares him, first, to a “lion’s whelp,” full of activity and enterprise, and which, after feasting upon its prey, goes up to its mountain lair, calm and fearless in the consciousness of its strength. But as Judah is a young lion in his activity and fearlessness, so is he “a lion” full-grown and majestic in his repose, which Jacob’s words literally describe. For the “stooping down” is the bending of the limbs together before the lion couches, that is, lies down in his den.
As an old lion. — Heb., as a lioness, the female being said to be more fierce than the male, and to resent more angrily any disturbance of its rest.