05/13/2020 GETTING THROUGH IT
(Lessons from Judah)
Genesis 38:24-26 About three months later word reached Judah that Tamar, his daughter-in-law, was pregnant, obviously as a result of prostitution. “Bring her out and burn her,” Judah shouted. But as they were taking her out to kill her she sent this message to her father-in-law: “The man who owns this identification seal and walking stick is the father of my child. Do you recognize them?” Judah admitted that they were his and said, “She is more in the right than I am….”
[Living Bible translation]
JUDAH
Life Before the Trial –
My name is Judah. I am the fourth son of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. My mother is Leah. My grandfather is Laban. Leah is the oldest of my grandfather’s two daughters. My aunt, Rachel is my grandfather’s youngest daughter. Rachel is the one my father Jacob loved the most. It caused my mother a lot of pain.
Yes, I come from a complicated family. Who doesn’t? When I was born, my mother already had three sons, Reuben (meaning “GOD has noticed my trouble”); Simeon (meaning “Jehovah heard” (referring to the fact that GOD had heard she was unloved and given her another son); and Levi (meaning “Attachment”- hoping that Jacob would become more attached to her because she had now given him three sons!) My name “Judah” means “Praise,” because now my mother said she will praise JEHOVAH” (Genesis 29:31-35). Between, my mother, my Aunt Rachel’s handmaidens/servant women, who my Aunt Rachel used as surrogates for children, and my mother Leah’s handmaiden/servant, who was also used as a surrogate for bearing children for my mother, and finally Aunt Rachel, who later gave birth to two sons (Joseph and Benjamin) my father had a number of children, mainly boys. Yes, my father’s tent was full and chaotic! A lot of the strife came from family jealousy because just as my father Jacob favored one wife (Rachel) over the other (Leah), my father favored some of his children (especially Joseph) over his other children. As I said my family is complicated.
I know that GOD was grooming me and my brothers for leadership, just as he was grooming Joseph, but none of us could clearly “see” ourselves or put aside our tendencies to overreact at times (which is another way of saying “not consulting GOD first). All of my brothers and myself included had a lot of “growing up” to do!
My Trials
Probably my first trial was when my brothers plotted to kill Joseph. We were in Dothan pasturing our father’s flocks when my brothers and I saw Joseph at distance, all dressed up in the fancy multicolored coat that our father had given him, which only increased the tension in the family. Unlike Joseph, my other brothers and I were all dressed in work clothes, that were dirty and grimy smelling of sheep. Being a shepherd is hard work. There is the late-night guard duty with the sheep; protecting the sheep from wolves and other predators; the constant gathering of the sheep; the gathering of the strays; training the sheep so they responded to our voice; untangling sheep from briars; and all sort of other duties. If a sheep is injured, sometimes you have to lift the sheep up off the ground and carry it to a safe place so you can tend its wounds. It’s a 24-hour job! And, knowing that Joseph was probably there to spy on us, so he could report back to our father or worse to gloat about his latest dreams about how all of us would one day bow down to him, didn’t make seeing Joseph easy. Some of the other brothers called him “that dreamer.” They thought he was arrogant and useless. And they were tired of his special treatment. Suddenly they voted to just kill Joseph and be done with him. That’s how much they hated him! However, my oldest brother, Reuben, made it clear that no blood be shed (Genesis 37:21-22). Instead, seeing how riled up my other brothers were, Reuben suggested throwing him in a well. [Maybe Reuben just wanted to placate the others and planned to let him out later. We’ll never know…]
You know how a crowd can get once they get riled up-- well my brothers were no different. They quickly stripped Joseph’s coat off him and threw him in an empty well. I actually thought they planned to leave and let Joseph die in the well. Reuben had gone off and my brothers were still talking and laughing about letting Joseph die in the well. I didn’t want any part of Joseph’s death, so when I saw a caravan of Ishmaelites traveling on the road on the way to Egypt, I convinced my brothers to sell Joseph to them. After all, Joseph was our brother and we didn’t want to be responsible for his death. We just wanted him to suffer and see what it was like to really work. My other brothers agreed and so we sold Joseph. Yes, we sold our own flesh and blood into slavery. We then created a lie amongst ourselves and told our father Joseph had been killed by a wild animal and smeared Joseph’s special coat with animal blood as proof to our father of Joseph’s death (Genesis 37:30-33). We thought we had seen the end of Joseph. But we were to learn GOD had other plans for brother Joseph.
The next trial in my life came when I left home, married a Canaanite woman, and started raising a family of my own. I was living in Chezib and had three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. When Er grew up I arranged for Er to marry a woman named Tamar. But, my son Er was wicked and GOD slew him (Genesis 38:7). Since Tamar was now a widow, I told my next son, Onan, to do his duty as “kinsman,” as our law required, and marry Tamar and have children so my dead son Er would have heirs. I probably should have monitored that situation closely, but I didn’t. What happened was that Onan married Tamar, but he refused to have any children that were not his own. So, every time Onam slept with Tamar he spilled his sperm so that Tamar could not conceive. What Onan did displeased GOD, so THE LORD slew him too. So, I was left with one son, Shelah. I must admit that I was a bit afraid that Shelah would suffer the same fate as his brothers. So, I sort of “stalled” about letting Shelah marry Tamar. I told Tamar to remain a widow in her father’s house until Shelah became of marriageable age and tried to forget all about Tamar and the family kinsman obligation. Instead, I focused on my sheep and myself.