Judah is an important figure, a character we should want to understand. But dig into his story and you will see, it gets complicated. He seems like two different people.
Have you ever felt like two different people?
In Genesis 37 he is a villain; in Genesis 44 he is a hero. How do we reconcile two extremes in one person? How do we connect the dots to draw up a man who makes sense and feels real, interesting, and relevant? Well check it out: it all comes together when we notice his story follows a three-act structure, a classic method of story-telling that we Westerners so know and love.
- Act 1: The Setup
- Judah instigates the sale of Joseph into slavery (Genesis 37).
- Act 2: The Confrontation
- Judah sins again, but is confronted by his daughter-in-law Tamar (Genesis 38).
- Act 3: The Crisis & Resolution
- Judah must choose whether to step out and save his little brother Benjamin from slavery. To do so is to put his own life on the line (Genesis 44).
Let’s run through all three acts, but not in chronological order for dramatic reasons. (To add some extra flavor, you might play this music as you read what follows.)
Act I: The Judean wilderness.
Joseph is struggling for breath at the bottom of a pit, having been left for dead. His older brothers are seating themselves for lunch, fingernail scratches still raw on their forearms. A merchant caravan appears on the hillside, heading in the direction of Egypt. Judah spies an opportunity and presents it to his brothers. His pitch is simple: Brothers, let the slavers in Egypt work Joseph to death. This way his blood is on their hands, not ours. As an added bonus, an easy profit will be ours to enjoy.
The brothers like the proposal. They return to the pit to hoist Joseph back to sunlight. For a moment Joseph thinks they’ve had a change of heart. Sadly the opposite is true. The brothers have returned merely to make his disappearance irrevocable.
Who brokers the deal with the merchants? Genesis doesn’t specify. But with the oldest brother being absent and given that Judah proposed the idea, it seems fitting that Judah would lead the negotiation. Whatever the case may be, the merchants ultimately purchase Joseph and go on their way, disappearing beyond the south horizon.
Judah and his co-conspirators now find themselves in a cover-up. To hide this heinous deed from their father, they immerse Joseph’s robe in a pool of goat’s blood. Days later they present the robe to their father and, in an Oscar-worthy performance, they tell him, “This coat we have found, identify please (ha’ker na in Hebrew) if it is your son’s robe.” Their father Jacob is panic-stricken. He cries out, “It is my son’s robe! A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph has been torn to pieces.” Their father then rips his garment and puts on sackcloth. He mourns the loss of his son for many days, weeping (37:34).
As time passes, the brothers (including Judah) try to comfort their father, but he is inconsolable. Their father Jacob insists, “No, I will continue to mourn until I join Joseph in the grave.” Having to witness their father shrivel into a shell of his former self, Judah – the ringleader of Joseph’s disappearance – becomes a target of resentment. For the brothers, it is easier to blame him than blame themselves. They reason: if we had left Joseph to die in the pit as originally planned, Rueben would’ve returned and pulled him to safety, then today everything at home would be better than it is. Instead, nothing is right. Their father’s crestfallen spirit sucks the life out of every room they ever share.
Be that as it may, the brothers keep the big secret a secret. For us readers, this is a telling insight because we catch of a glimpse of Judah through the eyes of his brothers. In the eyes of his brothers, he towers. We know this because all the sons of Jacob try to comfort their father (37:35), yet not one points a finger at Judah. Not one confesses or lays the crime at his feet – not even the oldest brother Rueben! Judah shines here. He is a natural leader, evidenced by his brothers’ cooperation and loyalty. Judah possesses the gift of influence, or perhaps authority. Whether he wields this gift for good or evil is ultimately his choice to make. But we see its effect on those around him: the brothers watch their father agonize over a false narrative while they keep their mouths shut, prioritizing their brother Judah above all.
However he manages to garner their loyalty, Judah will certainly merit our respect in Act III. Act III is Genesis 44, a chapter in which Judah wields his gifting for the good.
Act III: An opulent Egyptian palace, 20 years later.
Joseph has become viceroy of the most dominant superpower on earth. He doesn’t answer to Joseph anymore. In this place he is Zaphenath-Paneah (41:45). And seated in the heights of the royal palace at the center of the world, Zaphenath is right at home. Zap looks, acts, and speaks like an Egyptian overlord in full command, a power-player on the world’s biggest stage.
Being reacquainted with his long-lost brothers, the unrecognizable Joseph plays 4D chess. His actions reset the table in a way that gives him the advantage. He wants to see if his brothers will make the same move as before. He creates a scenario in which a familiar opportunity presents itself: the brothers can expend a pawn at the edge of the board to advance their own self-interest, absent their father. The question is, will they do it? Will they rid themselves of Rachel’s second son just as they rid themselves of her first?
Joseph frames Benjamin for a theft Benjamin did not commit. Joseph then summons the boy to receive due punishment: a life of slavery in Egypt, a death sentence. But then Judah (Judah!) steps out from the group. In earnest, he tells this Egyptian Royal, “What can we say, my lord? God has uncovered our guilt. We are now your slaves.”
In response Joseph nudges a chess piece forward. His move is one of curiosity without risking control. “No,” he says, “you go back to your father in peace. Just leave me the boy guilty of theft.”
There it is: the way is paved. The brothers can rid themselves of the boy with a simple nod. They have all the justification they would ever need to ditch him.
But Judah counters, his answer unexpected. Joseph has no way to know that Judah isn’t the same man he remembers. Today a much-older Judah stands before him: a man who has seen his father destroyed by the loss of a son. Judah himself has endured the loss of two sons. He is a changed man. Now holding back tears, Judah tells Zaphenath-Paneah, “Pardon your servant, my lord, but let me speak a word to you.”
With modern eyes, we might picture this a high-stakes courtroom drama. Judah approaches the bench with his brothers behind him, their heads down, their eyes wide and uncertain.
The old shepherd speaks personally to the Egyptian Royal. Making the best of his weathered voice, Judah pleas, “Do not be angry. I recognize that you are equal to Pharaoh. But listen, our father loves this boy. He didn’t want him to come in the first place! But we insisted; I insisted. If we now return without him, my dad will die in grief. My lord, you must understand: I personally guaranteed the boy’s safety. I said, ‘Father, if I don’t bring him back as promised, the blame. I will bear it until the day I die.’”
With eyes sharpened by make-up and trained for steadiness, Joseph watches the wrinkled and sunburnt face of the old shepherd soften. It is the surrender of a natural-born leader. “Please, let me stay behind as your slave in place of the boy. Let the boy go back. I cannot go back if the boy is not with me. I cannot see the misery that would befall my father.”
Judah’s redemption moment has arrived. Joseph is so awestruck by the transformation that he cannot contain his emotions for much longer. He commands the palace servants to leave at once. Only after the last servant has exited the palace hall does the Egyptian lord reveal his true identity to the brothers.
Some 4000 years later, the heaviness in that room at that moment maintains its edge.
A question emerges. How does Judah go from the wicked, self-serving opportunist of Act I to the selfless, family-first heroism of Act III? Having only these two acts, our main character seems totally incongruent. How do we reconcile the contradictions?
The answer lies in Act II, i.e. Chapter 38. In Chapter 38 we witness Judah’s turning point, or, if you prefer, his breaking point. Let’s rewind to Chapter 38 and see what happens.
Act II: Canaan, the decades between Chapter 37 & 44.
Chapter 38 is the middle act in Judah’s story. Here’s a summary of the chapter. I will set the stage with a few key points.
Judah leaves his brothers at the beginning of the chapter (38:1).
No surprise here! Given the level of tension among the brothers following the sell of Joseph and their father’s ensuing depression, Judah leaves his home because he wants to escape the mess he has caused. He is running away from his past in hopes he can quiet a guilty conscience.
Judah marries a Canaanite woman (38:2).
Indicative of a man who is breaking ties with his Hebrew family. He is waging total war against his past.
Judah and his Canaanite wife have three boys, all of whom reach the age of marriage before the end of the chapter (38:3-14).
In terms of its timespan, Genesis 38 is a long chapter. It spans close to two decades.
Reading the chapter, we learn that Judah’s oldest son dies. This makes the son’s wife, Tamar, a widow. Tamar is then married to Son #2 (as was custom in those days). But then Son #2 is dies. Tamar, again a widow, is now supposed to be given to Judah’s third son. However, the third son is, for the time being, too young to be married. So Tamar goes off to live with her parents while she waits on further word from her father-in-law, Judah.
After a long time Judah’s wife passes away. Judah becomes a widower. As a widower, Judah travels to a town where he encounters a prostitute along the roadside. A veil cloaks her face. For temporary payment, he gives this prostitute his staff, his seal and its cord. They sleep together and he leaves. A few weeks pass. Through a series of revelations, he discovers he’s been robbed by the prostitute and he’ll never see his belongings again (or so he thinks). So as not to become a laughingstock among the townspeople, he writes off the loss and buries the matter.
Three months later he learns that his daughter-in-law, Tamar, has become pregnant. In his eyes, the surprise pregnancy is audacious. She bore no kids to his first two sons; she has yet to marry his third son; how can she be pregnant if not but for adultery? Furious beyond measure, he calls for a public execution. “Bring her out and burn her to death!” he declares. The townspeople like the proposal. They bring Tamar out to be killed, both her and the unborn life inside her.
But Tamar does the most unexpected thing. She sends word to Judah privately, saying, “I am pregnant by the man who owns these.” Lo and behold, the items she presents are Judah’s personal belongings: his staff, his seal and its cord. Tamar says then, “Identify please (ha’ker na) whose seal and cord and staff these are.”
Without realizing it, Tamar uses the same language that Judah and his brothers employed when they presented the torn and bloodied robe of Joseph to their father, Jacob.
A flashback jolts Judah to his senses. Judah hears her words in a way that only Judah can hear. Her words land with all the force of the Holy Spirit. He melts. Judah reverses course and halts the execution. “She is more righteous than I,” Judah says, “since I did not give her my son.”
This moment marks a turning point in the life of Judah, and for our purposes it closes the curtains on Act II. Here a stir should ripple among us audience members, a stir of whispers and intrigue. Judah sees himself in Tamar, no doubt! In various ways Judah and Tamar are alike.
- Judah deceived his father; Tamar deceived her father-in-law.
- Both Tamar and Judah, a widow and widower, slept with someone out of wedlock.
Yet according to Judah, Tamar is the more righteous of them. How can this be?
Well, notice:
- Judah’s ha’ker na was a selfish manipulation. It was meant to cover up Judah’s evil deed of selling Joseph.
- Tamar’s ha’ker na was a selfless plea to live. It was made with such discretion that it covered up Judah’s evil deed of sleeping with a prostitute.
By sending word to him privately rather than blurting it out in public, Tamar kept Judah from becoming a laughingstock. She also put her life into his hands. Because, after having repossessed his belongings, Judah could have denied the legitimacy of her plea and followed through with the execution – a brand new cover-up of epic proportions. But this time around, Judah chooses a more righteous path forward. He recognizes that Tamar did the same thing that he did, but she did it in the opposite direction: toward the good rather than the bad, toward life rather than death. And this made an indelible impact on him. “She is more righteous than I,” he says.
The next time we see Judah, he is a changed man. He is once again living alongside his brothers and Jacob, their father. He is the man who will go on to display the selfless heroism of the third act, standing up for Benjamin and putting his own life on the line. It just goes to show how God can transform a person through a careful orchestration of life experiences. The person doesn’t even have to be centerstage to receive main-character treatment. Judah is proof of that.
