Joseph's Story part 2; Judah's story

Joseph's Story part 2; 

Judah's story

Genesis 38

Who found that Scripture inspiring? Remember, it is God's word, written for our blessing. We need to recall the riddle of Sampson, "out of the strong came something sweet," and pray God feeds us through this strong passage. 

Last time we looked at Joseph’s story. He was sold into slavery, suffered, was found faithful, rescued his entire family plus the Egyptians, and all his brothers bowed down to him just as in the dream God had sent. You would think that he would therefore be the ruler, and that the Messiah would descend from his line. Remember also that it was Judah who had the idea to sell him into slavery. Which is why this is a very strange verse;

 “For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah,” (Hebrews 7:14)

How could the Messiah come through Judah? So far, he has shown no moral excellence, achieved nothing of value. So, why did God choose Judah? What has happened? These questions are why this week we will be looking at Judah’s story.

We are also going to use a story-telling technique popular in TV series. You know how when there is a TV series you like, the episodes usually fit into a predictable pattern, they find a crime, they solve it or whatever, but every so often, an episode starts completely differently – maybe they are in the boot of a car, we have no idea why, they are being shot at by people we have never met, and just as they are about to die, there is an add break, we are told to drink Coca Cola and drive a Subaru, and we get back to the show, it says “sometime earlier”, and we proceed with the back story, which then explains why we were in the car boot etc.

That is how we are going to do this today. There are two main parts where Judah’s story takes centre stage in Genesis, and we are going to jump in at the second part of the story, at Genesis 42, and then go back to look at the back-story later. We are going to do it this way as the second part highlights the importance of the first.

So, Genesis 42 …

Quick re-cap; Judah and his brothers sold Joseph into slavery because they resented him being the favourite. (Genesis 37:4 "When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him".) Joseph is now second in all Egypt, and the brothers have already once gone to him for grain, and left Simeon in captivity there, and told they must return with Benjamin if they wish to see him again. But, having been monstered by joseph on the first trip, they are never going back there, and are seemingly prepared to leave Simeon in the lurch indefinitely. 

But the drought continues to worsen.

First Reuben tries to talk their dad into it; Genesis 42:37-38 Then Reuben said to his father, "You may put both of my sons to death if I do not bring him back to you. Entrust him to my care, and I will bring him back." ³⁸ But Jacob said, "My son will not go down there with you; his brother is dead and he is the only one left. If harm comes to him on the journey you are taking, you will bring my grey head down to the grave in sorrow." 

The famine gets still worse, and finally, Judah steps up; Genesis 43:8-11 Then Judah said to Israel his father, "Send the boy along with me and we will go at once, so that we and you and our children may live and not die. ⁹ I myself will guarantee his safety; you can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life. ¹⁰ As it is, if we had not delayed, we could have gone and returned twice." ¹¹ Then their father Israel said to them, "If it must be,” 

So, the brothers return to Egypt. Here, Joseph, still unrecognised by them,  holds a feast for the brothers, and Benjamin is spoilt, given 5x as much food as everyone else. Now, few things are as finely judged as the amount of food on your sibling’s plate, and Joseph isn’t even subtle. Benjamin gets 5 times as much everyone else! Joseph has just placed a coat of many colours on Benjamin’s shoulders! Singled him out for favouritism in front of his brothers. He has fanned into flames any lingering resentments the brothers may hold towards him, the other of Rachel’s sons. And then, with a false accusation of theft, an accusation the brothers don’t know is false (maybe the little twerp did nick the cup?) Joseph has both reminded them of their motive, the same one they had against him, and then provided them with means, the false accusation, and thereby, the opportunity. Will the brothers now repeat history and abandon the other son of Rachel in Egypt? The brothers are brought before Joseph;

Genesis 44:16-17 "What can we say? How can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered your servants' guilt. We are now my lord's slaves--we ourselves and the one who was found to have the cup." ¹⁷ But Joseph said, "Far be it from me to do such a thing! Only the man who was found to have the cup will become my slave. The rest of you, go back to your father in peace."

At this point, Joseph’s job is done. The focus now shifts squarely onto the brothers. And all salvation history will depend on their reply. We have reached the crisis point on which everything else depends. Judah again steps forward to have a word with Joseph. Will he behave like he did last time, and let a son of Rachel stay in Egypt as a slave to save his own freedom? Listen to what he says;

 

Genesis 44:18-34 my lord, let your servant speak a word to my lord. Do not be angry with your servant, though you are equal to Pharaoh himself.

 ¹⁹ My lord asked his servants, 'Do you have a father or a brother?'

 ²⁰ And we answered, 'We have an aged father, and there is a young son born to him in his old age. His brother is dead, and he is the only one of his mother's sons left, and his father loves him.'

 ²¹ "Then you said to your servants, 'Bring him down to me so I can see him for myself.'

 ²² And we said to my lord, 'The boy cannot leave his father; if he leaves him, his father will die.'

 ²³ But you told your servants, 'Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.'

 ²⁴ When we went back to your servant my father, we told him what my lord had said.

 ²⁵ "Then our father said, 'Go back and buy a little more food.'

 ²⁶ But we said, 'We cannot go down. Only if our youngest brother is with us will we go. We cannot see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us.'

 ²⁷ "Your servant my father said to us, 'You know that my wife bore me two sons.

 ²⁸ One of them went away from me, and I said, "He has surely been torn to pieces." And I have not seen him since.

 ²⁹ If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my grey head down to the grave in misery.'

 ³⁰ "So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy's life,

 ³¹ sees that the boy isn't there, he will die. Your servants will bring the gray head of our father down to the grave in sorrow.

 ³² Your servant guaranteed the boy's safety to my father. I said, 'If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life!'

 ³³ "Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord's slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers.

 ³⁴ How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come upon my father."

 

Here Judah volunteers to be Joseph’s slave, (not knowing that it is Joseph, only that he is, as Judah puts it, “equal to Pharaoh himself”) in order that his father Jacob would not die of grief over Benjamin; “let your servant remain here as my lord's slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers. … So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy's life, sees that the boy isn't there, he will die.”

So finally, after years of bitterness and anger and self-reproach, a life defined in many ways by his striving against his father’s favouritism of Joseph, Judah comes to terms with, acknowledges and accepts the fact that his father loves the sons of Rachel more than him; ("Your servant my father said to us, 'You know that my wife bore me two sons. One of them went away from me, and I said, "He has surely been torn to pieces." And I have not seen him since.’”) He mentions his father's favouritism for Benjamin simply as background context, he utters no words of self pity, he finally lets go of the bitterness which had earlier consumed his life. This is not about him. It is about his father. And Judah, out of his own love for this same father, freely volunteers and offers his life to be a slave. Given the opportunity to repeat past history, he says rather he would prefer to die as a slave than do that again. Joseph could have hoped for no finer apology for what they had done to him. It is this act of humility and love which at last breaks down the dividing wall between the brothers and Joseph. They are united at last by their shared love of their father.

"Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord's slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers. How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come upon my father." Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, "Have everyone leave my presence!" So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh's household heard about it. Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph! Is my father still living?"

Judah himself became their peace, and made the two one and destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. While Reuben was the older, it was Judah who stepped up and volunteered to give his life here.

Judah did in fact get one thing wrong – he thought that his father did not regard him, or care about him. We find out just how wrong he was in the next scene where the brothers play an important role, when they receive the blessings of their dying father. These blessings are themselves a wonderful example of the Bible being fully human and fully divine at the same time; Jacob’s feelings for his sons come through loud and clear, yet the Messiah himself is also prophesied through these blessings. They are Jacob’s words to his sons as inspired by their heavenly Father.  

In these blessings, Jacob looks Judah in the eyes and says; Genesis 49:8-10 "Judah, your brothers will praise you; … your father's sons will bow down to you. … ¹⁰ The sceptre will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.”

For Judah was loved and regarded. Jacob had indeed seen what he had done, knew how hard it had been to finally confess and own up, and decreed that even Joseph should bow down to him.

All of which has a profoundly Philippians 2 feel to it –

“make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.

 ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

 ⁴ Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

 ⁵ Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

 ⁶ Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,”

 

Judah indeed had started out in selfish ambition and vain conceit, hating the idea that Joseph might be better than him, looked to his own interests and grasped for equality with his brother. But then, in this second part of his story, we find an utterly changed man. To misquote the next part of Philippians 2, “but Judah made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a slave [remember, Judah offered himself to be a slave for life] … Therefore his father exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Judah every knee should bow,”

Before you think that that is blasphemous, or a misuse of Scripture, look again at the passage; “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,”

Paul gives us this aspect of Jesus as an example of how we should behave, as a role model for us. He wants us to learn from and do the same as Jesus did here. As Jesus himself said; “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” And here is an example of someone doing just that. Of someone living in their own lives this Christ like pattern. This is what that looks like. Jesus himself also makes this connection between his behaviour and ours; Mark 10:43-45 whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴ and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. ⁴⁵ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Peter likewise encourages us in exactly the same way; 1Peter 5:5-6 “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ ⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”

Having forsaken his earlier ways, having tasted the bitterness of his sin, Judah then humbled himself, and, in his father’s blessing, was raised in due time.

I asked earlier what had Judah done that he should be given the messiahship. What great deed or teaching had he given? It turns out all he had done was to repent. That might not seem like much, but it is everything. It can be darn hard to admit when we are wrong, to turn from out sin, and repentance is central to the gospel of the Messiah.

So, why is the Messiah from Judah, not Joseph? Why is Judah elevated above Joseph in this regard? Joseph is loved and honoured, and given a double blessing, and was made second only to Pharaoh, but why is the throne given to Judah?? Because of the principle Jesus enunciated; Luke 15:7 “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” "Brothers, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” This is why the Messiah is descended from Judah, why Jesus is Judah’s greater son. The Gospel is pre-figured in Judah’s act!

Judah represents the sinner who repented, Joseph the righteous man who never needed to. In crowning a repentant sinner, God declares that his Gospel is for sinners.

Psalm 78:67-68 Then he rejected the tents of Joseph, he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim; ⁶⁸ but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loved.

Just as what Abraham was prepared to sacrifice, God did sacrifice, so what Judah was prepared to suffer (slavery till death), Jesus did suffer. While Judah volunteering for this made peace between the brothers and broke down the wall of hostility that had existed between them till then (and that was a lot of hostility!!), and restored Joseph to his father, Jesus actually laying down his life broke down the dividing wall between all peoples, and made our peace with God, the father of us all.

“Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

 

Sometime earlier…

So, at the beginning, in Genesis 37, Judah leads the brothers in selling Joseph into slavery. Then, as just seen, in chapter 44 he offers his own life to save the other son of Rachel. Clearly, Judah has changed beyond recognition. What happened between 37 and 44 that made all the difference? Given that the Bible is all about redemption, what does it tell us about Judah’s redemption? What is the backstory to this amazing transformation? This brings us to the strange and disturbing chapter 38.

 

The first verse here is a tragic one. “At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah.”

Quick family status update; Jacob’s family is falling apart. The brothers have sold their own brother Joseph into slavery. They have then lied to their father about it and seen his grief. Judah had been the one who had led the brothers into selling Joseph, and he is their natural leader. Now he leaves them. Whether because they cant stand the sight of him or if it is the other way round, we don’t know. Just as we will read that Joseph has been brought down into Egypt, so Judah goes down to the Negev. While Joseph is going down into physical captivity, Judah is going down morally and spiritually. Here he does what the patriarchs insisted on not doing: marrying into the local population. It is a tale of sad decline, and lasts for many years. Here he has three sons and watches them grow into adults.

God has promised that salvation will come from this family. That plan is now seemingly in utter meltdown. So, if you were God, what would you do? How would you reach Judah, remembering that all salvation history depends on this?? How can God turn it around, who would he use for such a vital task?

Genesis 38:6-11 Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.

 ⁷ But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the LORD's sight; so the LORD put him to death.

 ⁸ Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother."

 ⁹ But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother.

 ¹⁰ What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also.

 ¹¹ Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Live as a widow in your father's house until my son Shelah grows up." For he thought, "He may die too, just like his brothers." So Tamar went to live in her father's house.

 

Note that Onan has no love for his dead brother, just as Judah etc. had no love for Joseph! Jealousy and bitterness are again seen, the rot is metastasizing and spreading to the next generation. Things are not getting better. So again I ask, how will God turn this around?

The focus now switches to Tamar. Her first husband did something wicked enough for God to kill him, and then she was passed to Judah’s second eldest son, who, out of selfish spite to his dead elder brother also sins and is likewise killed. As is the custom, Tamar was then promised to Judah’s youngest son. Technically, she was a “living widow,” bound to marry her brother-in-law whom Judah was withholding, but unable to marry anyone else. A normal widow would be free to re-marry, but under the laws of leverite marriage, Tamar is not; Deuteronomy 25:5-6 If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her.

 ⁶ The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.

 

Now, the laws of levirate marriage, as seen, are found in Deuteronomy 25:6, and post-date this incident. It is possible that these obligations at this time included not just the brothers, but any male relative, but we simply don’t know. In any event, Judah thinks she is bad luck, or blames her for the deaths of his first two sons. And everyone in the small, tight knit community of which Judah is the head knows this. One imagines men avoiding her on the street, women making the sign against evil as she passes. She is sent back to her father’s house. Here, as the years go by, she realizes that Judah is not going to honour his promise to her, and that she is indeed scorned and powerless.

Tamar now does two amazing things.

 

 

Firstly, as her father-in-law is not fulfilling his promise to get her a husband, and, hopefully children, she disguises herself as a prostitute and waylays him on the way home from the shearing party. She is acting to reclaim the chance to have children and perpetuate her husband’s name, precisely what Judah had robbed her of. Gutsy, but not really a role model, or something we are all that comfortable with. We can see her desperation, admire her determination not to be just a victim, we can even affirm that Judah has wronged her and owes her, but it is still a dubious and morally opaque situation. In any event, she also asks Judah for his cord, seal and staff, as a guarantee he will pay her.

So, feeling a bit conflicted and not really sure how we feel about all of this, we move on to the second part of the story. 

 

Genesis 38:24-26 About three months later Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant." Judah said, "Bring her out and have her burned to death!"

 ²⁵ As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. "I am pregnant by the man who owns these," she said. And she added, "See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are."

 ²⁶ Judah recognized them and said, "She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn't give her to my son Shelah." And he did not sleep with her again.

 

What is going on here? Actually, a great deal. For starters, Tamar’s deception of Judah is similar to Judah’s deception of Jacob. Both involve clothes: Joseph’s blood-stained coat, Tamar’s veil. Both reach their climax with the exact same words Haker na, “Please examine.” Judah forced Jacob to believe a lie. Tamar now forces Judah to recognise the truth. Equally, Tamar has fulfilled her obligations to her dead husband, and risked death to preserve the family line, the opposite of Judah who had sold Joseph and destroyed the family.

 

Most importantly, “As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. ‘I am pregnant by the man who owns these,' she said. And she added, 'See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.’" Tamar does not wait till she is being taken through the village to shout out her proofs, but sends a messenger in private with the cord and staff. In doing so, she acts to spare Judah public shame and ridicule. Rather than being attacked in a public accusation, Tamar grants Judah the time and privacy to make his own response. She places her own life into the hands of the one who had wronged her. It is a truly amazing and life changing act of grace.

 

Genesis 38:26 “Judah recognized them and said, ‘She is more righteous than I.’”

This is the first time in the Bible that anyone confesses, and up until this instant, you would have thought that Judah would be the very last person in the Bible to make such a confession.

We need to examine this whole event more closely.

It takes courage to confess, to admit fault. This is what is going to be crucial for Judah and the brothers re Joseph, but where does Judah learn to do this? So far, he has done nothing of worth, and shown no moral strength. How does God reach and recue Judah? Through one despised and rejected. Through the grace and honour of Tamar. She is wronged, powerless, trapped. In the final reckoning, however, she is anything but a victim. She shows amazing courage and takes incredible risks, firstly to claim back what is hers by right. This is but the preliminary stage, however.

It is her next act which will redeem Judah and enable him to go on and redeem the entire generations of Israel. As I said, it is hard to admit guilt, to own up and confess. We fear being publicly shamed, disgraced, losing everything. Judah has sold his own brother into slavery. He cannot confess to that. He cannot walk up to his grieving father and say, “hi dad, funny story, remember how we told you Joseph was dead? Actually we sold him into slavery in Egypt.” He cannot have that conversation. He cannot make right what they have done. He has left the remaining brothers, and the secret is tearing them apart, has torn them apart. He is trapped, and he can’t make it right. How can God reach such a man, who would he send?

He does not send the powerful, (a wise man, a scholar or a philosopher of the age). He uses probably the most powerless and despised person in the entire community. The widow of two of his sons, who is not allowed to marry anyone else, but to whom he will not give his last son. He sends someone whom Judah has deeply wronged. Someone who has lived the rejection Judah fears, who knows the shame he is afraid of, who is blamed for not one but two brothers deaths. So Judah calls her forth, to publicly humiliate and shame her again, with charges which will prove to be false. She is going to be killed.

It is at this place that Tamar responds with something of breath-taking beauty and moral excellence. As seen, she discreetly sends a messenger to Judah, giving him the proofs of her innocence which is also proof of his guilt. She goes out of her way to avoid shaming him publicly. Having known and tasted shame all too well, she will not inflict it. She does not open her mouth to denounce him. She spares him the humiliation he has subjected her to, the very thing keeping him from confessing his own sin and healing the shattered brothers that he is the natural leader of. Beyond even that, she places her own life in his hands to spare him from ridicule. Only he and she know what had happened. In this way, she grants Judah the grace to be able to acknowledge his own error without loss of face, the space to be able to own up on his own, rather than having it thrown at him in public.

This blistering courage, this unexpected and undeserved grace from someone who is powerless and whom he himself has wronged, this breaks and reaches Judah in a way nothing else could. He had sold his own brother, but she was innocent of any violence towards his sons. For the first time in Scripture, a man freely confesses his own sin, and says of Tamar, "She is more righteous than I”. God chose Tamar to rescue Judah, lost in guilt and shame.

1Corinthians 1:27-29 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

 ²⁸ He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are,

 ²⁹ so that no one may boast before him.

 

We can see in her a foretaste of the words that will be written about her greatest grandchild – think of Tamar as we read them now, transposed into the feminine to make the point;

 

Isaiah 53:3-4. 7, 9. She was despised and rejected by men, a woman of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces she was despised, and we esteemed her not.

 ⁴ She was oppressed and afflicted, yet she did not open her mouth; though she had done no violence, nor was any deceit in her mouth.

 

This is how God rescues us from our own sin.

 

It is this act which frees Judah and prepares him for his greater confession in Genesis 45, where it is now Judah’s humility and his grace which will restore him and his brothers to Joseph, and him and Joseph to their father. 

 

As always, the parallel is not complete. Tamar risked death, but was spared by Judah’s repentance. Jesus however was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. Though innocent, he was humiliated, condemned and put to death.

 

Interestingly, as with Ruth and Rahab, the Bible again goes out of its way to attribute this moral greatness and saving grace, not to one of the Patriarchs, but to a gentile woman who had joined herself to them. And along with them, in Matthew she is listed by name in the genealogy of Jesus.

So, how does God reach the lost and the broken in our world today? Does he send the wise and the powerful, or does he still send the broken, the despised and the dying? Never think that you are not wise or significant enough to help someone else. You haven’t been to Bible college, you don’t know enough theology, and why would anyone listen to you anyway, you aren’t important enough. If you ever feel this way, remember Tamar! 

The real question is, are we prepared to complete in our own bodies the sufferings of Jesus? Are we prepared to risk shame and humiliation to help others find forgiveness? Are we prepared to let God use our lives and pain to sensitize us to the sufferings of others, so that we will avoid shaming them and rather redeem them?

 

One final question, who now finds this passage of Scripture inspiring?