Judah was the fourth son of Jacob and Leah, and one of the twelve sons of Jacob, his name in Hebrew is Yehudah, meaning praise. Judah is one of the more significant figures in the Bible. The important tribe of Judah is named after the patriarch Judah, since King David, and ultimately Jesus the Messiah, came from this tribe.
In the well-known study relating to the selling of Joseph into slavery because of the anger of the brothers against Joseph and their decision to kill him. Judah intercedes and convinces them to sell Joseph to some traders who were passing through, which enabled him to become a leader in Egypt.
In addition to this event regarding Joseph, Judah is also known because of his involvement regarding Tamar. According to custom, when a man died, the woman was to be married to a brother of the brother who died (later known as the levirate law). After two of Judah's sons died, it was custom for the third son then to marry Tamar and bear a child for the deceased son. Tamar attempted to avoid this custom and dressed as a prostitute and tricked Judah to have sex with her, which resulted in her giving birth to two sons, Perez and Zerah, which then continued the line of Judah, from which the Messiah came.
Biography
| Hershel Wayne House
The fourth son of Jacob and Leah was Judah. Afterward, his name was used for the tribe of Israel, which became the prominent tribe of the Jewish people. Judah, through Shuah, was the father of Er, Onan, and Shelah. The oldest of these sons married Tamar (married to several sons of Judah). Two of his sons (Er and Onan) married Tamar (consistent with Israel's levirate law), and each died. Judah, then, refused to allow Tamar to marry his remaining son. After this Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute and Judah had sexual relations with her, and through Tamar became the father of Perez and Zerah. Later Judah was instrumental in preserving the life of his youngest brother Joseph, when the other brothers, being jealous of Joseph, plotted to kill him. He offered the alternative of selling Joseph to men on the way to Egypt. When Jacob was dying, he gave Judah a special blessing that his tribe would be over the other tribes of Israel (see Gen 29:35; 35:23; 37:26, 27; 38:1-30; 43:3-10; 44:14-34; 46:12, 28; 49:8-12; Exod 1:2; Num 1:7, 26, 27; 26:19-22; 1 Chr 2:1, 3, 4; 4:1; Matt 1:2; Luke 3:33; Heb 7:14).
1Again Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, “Go, count Israel and Judah.” 2The king said to Joab the captain of the army, who was with him, “Now go back and forth through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and count the people, that I may know the sum of the people.”
3Joab said to the king, “Now may Yahweh your God add to the people, however many they may be, one hundred times; and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king delight in this thing?”
4Notwithstanding, the king’s word prevailed against Joab and against the captains of the army. Joab and the captains of the army went out from the presence of the king to count the people of Israel. 5They passed over the Jordan and encamped in Aroer, on the right side of the city that is in the middle of the valley of Gad, and to Jazer; 6then they came to Gilead and to the land of Tahtim Hodshi; and they came to Dan Jaan and around to Sidon, 7and came to the stronghold of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites and of the Canaanites; and they went out to the south of Judah, at Beersheba. 8So when they had gone back and forth through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. 9Joab gave up the sum of the counting of the people to the king; and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.
10David’s heart struck him after he had counted the people. David said to Yahweh, “I have sinned greatly in that which I have done. But now, Yahweh, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.”
11When David rose up in the morning, Yahweh’s word came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, 12“Go and speak to David, ‘Yahweh says, “I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.”’”
13So Gad came to David, and told him, saying, “Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now answer, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.”
14David said to Gad, “I am in distress. Let us fall now into Yahweh’s hand, for his mercies are great. Let me not fall into man’s hand.”
15So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning even to the appointed time; and seventy thousand men died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba. 16When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, Yahweh relented of the disaster, and said to the angel who destroyed the people, “It is enough. Now withdraw your hand.” Yahweh’s angel was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
17David spoke to Yahweh when he saw the angel who struck the people, and said, “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me, and against my father’s house.”
18Gad came that day to David and said to him, “Go up, build an altar to Yahweh on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”
19David went up according to the saying of Gad, as Yahweh commanded. 20Araunah looked out, and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. Then Araunah went out and bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground. 21Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”
David said, “To buy your threshing floor, to build an altar to Yahweh, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.”
22Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Behold, the cattle for the burnt offering, and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. 23All this, O king, does Araunah give to the king.” Araunah said to the king, “May Yahweh your God accept you.”
24The king said to Araunah, “No, but I will most certainly buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to Yahweh my God which cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. 25David built an altar to Yahweh there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So Yahweh was entreated for the land, and the plague was removed from Israel.