Read Genesis 38
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Stop weeping! Look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the heir to David’s throne, has won the victory. He is worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals.’” (Revelation 5:5 NLT)
When we think of God’s people, we tend to think one of two things. We might think of the Israelites who were God’s “chosen people”, or we might think of specific characters in the Bible. Either way, we tend to idealize the people we are thinking about. For instance, we may think that God’s people are super faithful, holy, perform miracles and live wholly devout and righteous lives. Unfortunately, this idealism enables us to distance ourselves from being God’s people, because we feel that we fall short of those ideals. As such, I have decided to write a devotion series on specific characters in the Bible in order to show you how much these Biblical people are truly like us, and how much we are truly called to be God’s people.
Part 18: Judah. In the last devotion, I spent a bit of time talking about Tamar and how she was truly mistreated by Judah, the fourth son of Jacob and Leah. Prior to that, it was discussed that Judah was among the eleven brothers who ganged up on their younger brother Joseph out of jealousy and annoyance. We will be discussing more about Joseph in the next devotion; however, suffice it to say that we have not seen Judah in a very positive light up to this point.
As mentioned above, Judah was the fourth son between Jacob and Leah (who we also talked earlier in this series). While he did not live a perfect life and did not always treat people justly, it would be wrong to only speak of him as if he were some sort of epitome of evil. Judah was, for the most part, a product of his time; however, he was also someone who would go on to become very important in the founding of the Jewish people and he was someone whom God ultimately loved despite his shortcomings.
So let us look at this man named Judah and see exactly who he was and how he became the father of God’s anointed. It was Judah, along with the his ten other brothers, that ganged up on their little brother Joseph after he flaunted how favored he was one too many times; however, while his other brothers were going to kill him, it was Judah who convinced them that it would be better to sell him off to a caravan and make a profit off of him. While this act was not completely selfless, it also was not completely heartless either.
I would like to believe, and there is no reason not to, that Judah did not wish to see his brother killed no matter how annoying he was. Still, regardless, Judah led his other brothers in doing something that was both egregious and wrong. They sold Joseph to some caravan of nomadic strangers in order to make a profit off of him and rid themselves of him once and for all. Certainly, this is not the course of action that people of God ought to take, yet they took it.
Again, in the case of Tamar, Judah acted in a way that is truly unworthy of being one of God’s people. He arranged for his oldest son, Er, to marry Tamar; however, Er was a wicked person who met an untimely death due to his wickedness. So, as was customary in that culture, Tamar was married off to Er’s next of kin (his younger brother, Onan). When Onan died as a result of his wickedness, Tamar was left childless and at the mercy of Judah who sent her back home to her family to await being married to Judah’s youngest son, Shelah.
But Judah did not intend to marry his son off to Tamar, who he saw as being under God’s curse. Instead of honoring his promise, and his cultural duty as a father-in-law, he brought shame upon Tamar and, ultimately, upon God; yet, Tamar took matters into her own hands and ended up impregnated by Judah, who was tricked into thinking Tamar was a prostitute. When Judah found out she was pregnant with another person’s child, he was going to have her killed. Nice, right? Judah expected Tamar to remain celebrate for his youngest son whom he refused to allow to marry her. Real smooth.
However, when discovers that he was the father of the children she had conceived, he did something that made him truly one of God’s people. He realized that he was the one who was shameful, not Tamar, and he recanted and begged for forgiveness. What’s more, God blessed Tamar and her children, and it is through Tamar that the Jews can trace their ancestry to Judah and, ultimately, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Even more than that, Judah became the tribe from which the kings would rise up out of.
So, while human sin is certainly messy and ugly, this story shows us how God’s plan of redemption carries on in spite of it. After all, it is from Judah that one day would come the Anointed One, the Messiah, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, and the Lion of the tribe of Judah. It is from this imperfect man, and his wife Tamar, that God would ultimately bring salvation from sin and death into the world in the form of a perfect, innocent baby boy. It is through the vindication of an oppressed woman and the children she bore a man named Judah, that would come Jesus the Christ, the Word made flesh, the light come into this dark world.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
God is love and, as such, LOVE WINS. Nothing can stop the redemption plan of God.
PRAYER
Lord, I repent of my sins and seek your redemption. Humble me and transform me. Amen.