Judah personified what Jews should be

Judah steps forward in the biblical portion of Vayyiggash, Genesis 44:18-47:31, which means “steps forward, “Judah stepped forward near him (Joseph)” to defend his younger brother Benjamin, whom Joseph was threatening. Whereas Isaac mistakenly preferred Esau and Jacob preferred Joseph, the Torah likes Judah, as do most Jews and some Christians today.

While many people criticize God for not helping them, Judah acts. By acting, he symbolizes Judaism’s emphasis on action. He was not like the widow who sat at home or the synagogue passively, prayed three times a day, recited the book of Psalms weekly, and constantly complained that God was not helping her. “When are you going to take out my trash, God? My house smells!”

Her prayers, recitals, and synagogue attendance so stuffed her ears that she could not hear God’s response, “I gave you a nose to smell, created a foul odor to trash to alert you that trash is harmful, I sent bugs for the same reason, I gave you two hands and two feet. I implanted a mind in your body so you can think, learn, and act, and arranged for you to have a door and the city’s trash can outside your house. Get up, step forward, act. Do it yourself.”

Praise has been associated with Judah since his birth. In Genesis 29:35, when Jacob’s wife Leah has her fourth son, she exclaims, “This time I will praise the Lord.” She calls him Judah, based on the Hebrew word for “praise.” Later, when Jacob’s twelve sons were grown, he was dissatisfied with his three firstborns and praised him and his descendants.

We see Judah next in 37:26 when Joseph’s other brothers wanted to kill him. To save his life, Judah stepped forward and suggested that they sell him instead as a slave, an idea they accepted. There is no indication in the Torah that Joseph ever thanked Judah for saving his life.

We encounter him next in chapter 38. He married and had three sons. When his wife died, he gave his oldest son to Tamar as a wife. The son died, and according to the custom of the time, he gave his second son to Tamar, but he also died. Judah was then concerned that if he gave Tamar his third son, he would also die, so he told her she needed to wait despite the practice that Tamar needed to marry someone in Judah’s family.

Tamar waited until she felt she could wait no longer. She knew where Judah would be passing. She disguised herself as a prostitute, met Judah, and had sex with him. (Scholars and many rabbis contend that there is no prohibition in the Bible against having sex with a prostitute.) Judah had nothing to pay her then, so he gave her his seal, cloak, and staff as a pledge to send payment later. He sent the payment, but his messenger could not find the disguised woman.

Tamar became pregnant. People insisted that she violated the custom that she was tied to Judah’s family and that having sex outside the family must be punished with death. She sent the pledged items, saying that the father of my children had given me these items. Judah could have remained silent. But he ignored embarrassment, stepped forward, and said he was the man.

According to Jewish and Christian tradition, one of the two sons of Judah’s union with Tamar became the ancestor of King David and the future messiah.

Then, in 44:18, unafraid of the man who was second in command over Egypt, Judah stepped forward again. This time, he saved Benjamin, whom Joseph said he would punish for theft. So impassioned was his speech that it struck Joseph like a spear thrust to his heart. Joseph chased everyone but his brothers from the room and cried so loudly the entire palace could hear. And after some twenty years of silence and ignoring his family, he finally screamed,” I am Joseph. Is Dad still alive?”

In 49:9-10, Jacob blesses his son Judah and his descendants, his tribe, as being like lion cubs. The lion is the symbol of power and majesty. Jacob states that the ruler’s staff will never depart from Judah. Many Jews and Christians understand this to refer to the messiah.

Although there is no mention of a messiah in the Hebrew Bible, only a future time of peace, the New Testament book Revelations 19:11-16 accepts this idea. In Revelation 5, Jesus is the long-awaited lion of the tribe of Judah. In the genealogies of Matthew and Luke, despite each naming some different people in their long lists, Jesus is a descendant of Judah.

In Deuteronomy 33:7, Moses blesses the tribe of Judah to continue defeating its enemies.

Judah’s descendants followed his example of stepping forward. When twelve men of the twelve tribes returned from spying out the land of Canaan and virtually all gave an evil report, Caleb, son of Jephunneh from the tribe of Judah, stepped forward. His loyalty to God and his ancestor Judah set him apart from the other spies sent to scout Canaan. The Book of Numbers recounts Caleb’s role as one of the twelve spies and his unwavering commitment to enter Canaan. He gave a favorable report, earning him a place in the Promised Land.

Later, during the exodus from Egyptian slavery, the Israelites stood at the Red Sea. The Egyptian army pursued them, but they were afraid to cross and possibly drown in the Sea. According to several Midrashim, Nachshon ben Amenadov, a member of the tribe of Judah, was the first to obey Moses’ command to enter the Red Sea. His act prompted God to part the sea, allowing the Israelites to cross safely. Like his ancestor Judah, he is often depicted as a symbol of courage and initiative.

There were many other times that Judah’s descendants stepped forward. The tribe of Judah led the Israelites in their marches in the desert (Numbers 2:3). Later, after Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan and died before conquering the entire land, God told the Israelites in Judges 1:1 that the tribe of Judah would lead the fight against the Canaanites. According to the King James Bible Dictionary, “Judah” is mentioned approximately 812 times in the Hebrew Bible.

David and his son, Solomon of the tribe of Judah, were kings of the united tribes until ten tribes rebelled after Solomon’s death and formed a separate nation in northern Israel called “Israel.” Scholars date the separation as 931 BCE. Around 720 BCE, Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Assyrian king Sargon II’s records indicate that he deported 27,290 Israelites to Mesopotamia, one-fifth of the kingdom’s population. This gave rise to the notion of the “Lost Ten Tribes.” However, some of the Israelites migrated to safety in neighboring Judah. Interestingly, the nation of Israel lasted only about 210 years, virtually the same number that tradition gives for the number of years the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt.

Solomon’s descendants were kings in the south. They ruled over people who were mainly from the tribe of Judah. Their country was called Judea. The last Judean king, Zedekiah, was born in c. 617 or 618 BCE, being twenty-one on becoming king. Zedekiah’s reign ended with the siege and fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar II, dated to 587 or 586 BCE.

Although scholars differ in dating Kings Saul and David, some Jewish kingdoms existed in Israel from about 1050 to 586 BCE.

Judeans, or Yehudim in Hebrew, were the people of Judea. The name was given to all descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah, but it was later shortened to “Jew.”

Thus, Jews are named after the man who taught us to step forward and act.