Matthew Poole and continuators on Genesis 49:18

18 I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD .

I do earnestly wait and hope and pray for thy helping hand to save me and my posterity, from the manifold temporal calamities which I foresee will come upon them, and especially from spiritual and eternal mischiefs by that Messiah, which thou hast promised. Iacob, in the midst of his great work, doth take a little breathing, and finding himself weakned by his speech to his children, and drawing nearer death, he opens his arms to receive it, as the thing for which he had long waited, as the onely effectual remedy and mean of Salvation or deliverance from all his pains and miseries, and particularly from his present horrours upon the contemplation of the future state of his children. And this pathetical exclamation may look either, 1. backward to the state of the tribe of Dan, which he foresaw would be deplorable, both for its great straits and pressures, of which see Io[illegible: 1+ letters]. 19. 47. Iudg. 1. 34. and especially for that Idolatry, which that Tribe would introduce, and promote, Iudg. 18. 30. and 1 King. 12. 29. whereby they would ruine themselves and most of the other tribes with them. Or 2. forward, to the doubtful and miserable condition of Gad.