10 The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until he to whom it belongs shall come
and the obedience of the nations shall be his.
Genesis 49
The Lion of Judah!
Have you ever heard Jesus being called that?
It comes from Revelation 5:5. Throughout Revelation, Jesus is called "the Lamb" -- a term ripe with prophetic symbolism. The love of God is shown to us as the mighty creator of the universe humbled himself to be our sacrificial lamb. (See the Passover story as just one prophetic link to the role of the Lamb being the God-ordained link to freedom for his people.)
The lion image for Jesus is obvious for another reason. The lion is king of the beasts, and Jesus is our mighty, reigning, ruling champion who fights for us!
But why the term Judah?
Judah was one of the twelve sons of Jacob. The first ten sons were in the line of Leah -- the wife Jacob was tricked into marrying. Judah was fourth in this line. The finally two sons -- Joseph and Benjamin -- were born to Rebecca, Jacob's beloved.
God, of course, would use Joseph, who rose to power in Egypt, to rescue Israel from famine. But the way that Joseph got to Egypt was because his ten brothers (Leah's sons) sold him into slavery.
You know the story right. Jacob let everyone know that Joseph was his favorite. He gave him, for example, "the technicolor dream coat." This sparked the initial sparks of jealousy. Joseph then fanned these sparks into flames by telling his brother's that God said that they would all be bowing down to him.
The brothers didn't like it.
They plotted to kill Joseph.
They grabbed him. Threw him in a pit. And they were moments from murder when Judah interceded. It probably wasn't love for his brother that caused Judah to stop the execution. There was apparently no love-loss among any of them. It was rather for the sake of his father. (Judah couldn't commit the ultimate betrayal.) So Judah talked the brothers into a less violent solution for getting rid of Joseph. They "disappeared him" by selling him into slavery to a nearby caravan, heading to Egypt.
I don't know if it ever specifically says in scripture that the line of Judah was "rewarded" for Judah's action. (After all, he was still a bitter accomplice in selling his little brother into slavery.) Nevertheless, anything we consciously do to guard our father's heart (or our Father's heart) is never in vain. Indeed, just a few verses after today's verse (50:20), Joseph adds the spiritual postscript to what was once betrayal, saying, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."
Anyway, at the end of Genesis, God adds another post-script ... and a prophetic foretelling. In our verse for today, the Lord points toward the eternal kingdom, saying, "The scepter will not depart from Judah ... until he to whom it belongs shall come." The "he to whom it belongs" was the coming Messiah -- Jesus the Christ -- "and the obedience of the nations shall be his."
In Christ's Love,
a former big brother
who surely thought about
selling his little brothers
Into slavery on more
than one occasion
(Most days, I was more
of a lion than a lamb.
I'm surprised my brothers
still like me)
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