If you love the book of Genesis, then you know: Judah seems like two different people. His first and final appearance are worlds apart. But it all starts to make sense when we step back and perceive his story in a broader sense. As a whole, it follows a classic three-act structure that we Westerners so know and love.
- Act 1, the Setup, Gen. 37: Judah instigates the sale of Joseph into slavery.
- Act 2, the Confrontation, Gen. 38: Judah sins again, but is confronted by his daughter-in-law Tamar.
- Act 3, the Crisis & Resolution, Gen. 44: 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.
Let’s run through all three acts, but not in chronological order for dramatic reasons which will make sense later.
Act I: Genesis 37: 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 red on their forearms. A merchant caravan appears on the hillside; they are heading toward Egypt. Judah spies an opportunity. His pitch is simple: Brothers, let the slavers in Egypt work Joseph to death. This way the blood is their hands, not ours. And as an added bonus, we’ll score an easy profit.
The brothers like the idea. They return to the pit to hoist Joseph back to the surface. For a moment Joseph, still at the bottom of the pit, believes they’ve had a change of heart. But sadly the opposite is true. The brothers have returned merely to make his disappearance irrevocable.
Who brokers the deal? Genesis doesn’t specify. But with the oldest brother absent, and given that Judah proposed the idea originally, it seems natural that Judah would now lead the negotiation. Ultimately the merchants purchase Joseph for 20 shekels and go on their way.
Judah and his co-conspirators now find themselves involved 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 though, 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 big secret. For us readers, this is a telling insight because we glimpse Judah’s stature in the eyes of his brothers. We know that all the sons of Jacob try to comfort their father (37:35), yet not one points a finger at Judah. Not one rats him out – not even their oldest brother, Rueben! Judah seems a natural leader as evidenced by his brothers’ cooperation and loyalty. Judah possesses the gift of influence, or perhaps, authority. Whether he wields his presence 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 respect, Judah will certainly merit ours in Act III. Act III is Genesis 44, a chapter in which Judah wields his gifting for the good.
Act III: Genesis 44: A sprawling Egyptian palace with towering ceilings. 20 years later.
Joseph has become viceroy of the most dominant superpower on earth. He doesn’t answer to Joseph anymore. Here he is Zaphenath-Paneah (41:45). And seated in the heights of the most royal palace, Zap is right at home. Zap looks, acts, and speaks as an Egyptian overlord, an intimidating 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 and show the same behavior that he remembers. He creates a scenario in which a familiar opportunity presents itself to the brothers, absent their father. The scenario will set Benjamin in the ejection seat and invite them to press fire. The question is, 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 sentence to slavery in Egypt. But then, the unexpected: Judah (Judah!) steps forward to put his life in the balance. In earnest he tells this Egyptian overlord, “What can we say, my lord? God has uncovered our guilt. We are now your slaves.”
Joseph nudges a chess piece forward with curiosity without risking control. “No,” he says, “you go back to your father in peace. Just leave me the boy guilty of theft.”
Judah counters, his maneuver is unexpected. Joseph has no way to know that Judah isn’t the same man as before. Today a much-older Judah stands before him: a man who has witnessed his father after the loss of a son. Judah himself has endured the torment, the loss of two sons in fact. He tells Zaphenath-Paneah, “Pardon your servant, my lord, but let me speak a word to you.”
To see this moment with modern eyes, picture a high-stakes courtroom drama. Judah approaches the bench with his brothers behind him, their eyes wide and uncertain, Judah’s voice so turned away they can’t discern the particulars of his plea.
The old shepherd speaks personally to the Egyptian Royal who measures him with eyes that weigh the life and death of an ordinary man with ease. Making the best of a voice weathered by hardship, 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.’”
The sun-wrinkled eyes of the old shepherd press against Joseph’s. An expression trained and held for control barricade their impact, eyes that show no emotion behind dark and carefully-etched Egyptian make-up. The old shepherd surrenders. “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 touched by the transformation that he cannot contain his emotions. He commands the palace servants to leave at once. Only after the last servant has exited the palace hall does the Egyptian overlord reveal his true identity to the brothers.
For us readers 4000 years later, we can still feel the heaviness in that room at that moment. But a question emerges. How does this guy Judah go from the wicked, self-serving opportunist of Act I to the selfless, family-first heroism of Act III? At this point our main character, Judah, 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: Genesis 38: Canaan. The decades between Chapter 37 & 44.
Chapter 38 is the middle act in Judah’s story. Here’s a summary of the chapter, itemized by a few strategic call outs.
Judah leaves his brothers at the beginning of the chapter (38:1).
No surprise here! Given the level of tension that exists among the brothers following the sale 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.
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 looong chapter. It spans close to two decades.
Reading the chapter, we learn that Judah’s oldest son is put to death by God due to his evil deeds. This makes the man’s wife, Tamar, a widow. Tamar is then married to Son #2 (as was custom in those days). But then Son #2 is put to death by God due to his evil deeds. 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 that he’s been robbed by the prostitute. He’ll never see his personal belongings again (or so he thinks). He doesn’t want to be a laughingstock among the townspeople, so he writes it off 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 problematic. She widows his first two sons and has yet to marry his third son, so how can she be pregnant if not but for an act of adultery? Furious, he calls for her public execution. “Bring her out and burn her to death!” he declares. The townspeople agree to Judah’s verdict. They bring her out to be killed, both her and the unborn life inside her.
But Tamar does the most unexpected thing. She sends private word to Judah, saying, “I am pregnant by the man who owns these.” Lo and behold, the items she offers are Judah’s personal belongings: his staff, his seal and its cord. She says (and this is key), “Identify please (ha’ker na) whose seal and cord and staff these are.”
Without realizing it, Tamar uses the same language as Judah and his brothers 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. They land with all the force of the Holy Spirit. He melts. Judah reverses course and stops the execution. “She is more righteous than I,” he says, “since I did not give her my son.”
This marks a turning point in the life of Judah, and for our purposes it is the end of Act II so to say. For us readers, his remark warrants some thought. In various ways Judah and Tamar are alike. How so?
- 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. How can this be?
Well, notice:
- Judah’s ha’ker na was a manipulation: it was contrived to cover up Judah’s evil deed of selling Joseph.
- Tamar’s ha’ker na was a plea to live: it was a plea 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 the thing he feared most: a laughingstock. She also put her future in his hands. Judah, having by now repossessed his belongings, could have denied her legitimacy and followed through with her 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.
The next time we as readers see Judah, he is once again living alongside his brothers and Jacob, their father. Judah is a changed man, a man who will go on to display the selfless heroism in Act III, standing up for Benjamin and putting his own life on the line.