 In the Name of Jesus 
Judah, Judah, Judah. Some people believe
that your life passes before your eyes in the
moments before death. … No, Judah,
you’re not about to die. But your Daddy is.
He has gathered you and your brothers
around his death bed in order to tell you
what will happen to you, and especially to
your descendants, in the days to come. You
just heard what your father Jacob said about
you, and I can tell: it’s really hard for you to
concentrate on what he’s telling your
brothers now because your life is flashing
before your eyes.
Of course, Judah, you can’t remember when
you were a baby. But your father or your
mother or your three step-mothers or your
family servants have probably told you the
story several times. Some of this is going
to sound strange to people who learn about
your life many years from now. But to you
this is your life.
Your father blew into town one day. He
was running from his angry brother for a
nasty trick he played on him. Your father
met ‘step-mother number one,’ your Aunt
Rachel, at the well that very first day. He
helped her, which led to her father inviting
your father into his home. Your father was
a good worker. After a month, Rachel’s
father wanted to pay your father some
wages. Your father was a poor man, and he
was in love with Rachel, but he couldn’t
afford to pay the bride price, the dowry. So
he offered to work seven whole years for
permission to marry your Aunt Rachel—an
exorbitant amount! But when it came time
for your father to marry the woman of his
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dreams, Rachel’s father tricked him. He
switched Rachel for her older sister Leah,
your mother. But your father couldn’t tell.
It was dark and she was wearing a veil. In
the future, all brides who wear veils will
have the veil lifted to make sure no one has
switched out the bride.
Of course, your father was steamed about
having a trick played on him. But when he
thought about all the people he had tricked,
I imagine it was hard for him to stay mad.
Anyway, your mother Leah got to spend a
whole week with your father before he was
allowed to take your Aunt Rachel as a
second wife.
For reasons only the Lord knows, your
mother was fertile and your Aunt Rachel
wasn’t. Soon your brothers Reuben,
Simeon, and Levi were born. Not triplets.
Single births. One right after the other. I
suspect each one was less than a year
younger than the previous. Judah, you
came along at about the same interval.
Unfortunately, your mother and your aunt
became rivals. When Aunt Rachel saw
your mother having children, but she herself
kept coming up not pregnant month after
month, she sent in a surrogate, your ‘step
mother number two,’ who quickly added
your two brothers Dan and Naphtali to the
family. Well, your mother was not going to
be outdone. She too sent in a surrogate,
your ‘step mother number three,’ who
quickly added Gad and Asher to the brood.
Then your mom had two more brothers,
Issachar and Zebulun. Finally, your aunt
Rachel had two sons, Joseph and Benjamin.
These are the brothers gathered around your
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father’s death bed with you. You’re all
about the same age, perhaps six to eight
years separate you older eleven from each
other.
Judah, your mind is wandering. What are
you thinking about? The terrible incident
with Joseph? Yes, you did a horrible thing
to your brother. And all because he was
your father’s favorite. … No, you’re right.
Parents should not have favorite children.
But you didn’t have to sell your brother
Joseph into slavery. … I know, I know.
You convinced your brothers to sell Joseph
rather than kill him. But do you really think
you should get any points for choosing an
evil path? … No way, Judah. That
argument doesn’t fly: “It was the lesser of
two evils.” You had another option. You
could have confronted your father and
Joseph about their sin of favoritism. You
could have led them to repent and rejoice in
the coming Messiah. But instead you sold
your brother into slavery. … No, Judah.
You don’t get to use the outcome of the
story as a way to justify your evil behavior.
It doesn’t matter that Joseph interpreted the
dreams of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and
was made prime minister just in time to
save Egypt from that devastating seven-year
drought.
Judah, I thought you worked through all
this guilt already. I supposed you’re
thinking about the terrible trick you played
on your father. I remember. You took
Joseph’s robe, that beautifully ornamented
robe of many colors. You ripped it on
sharp stones to make it look like a lion or a
bear had ripped Joseph apart with its teeth
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and claws. You dipped the robe in goat’s
blood to make it look like Joseph had bled
to death. It was all vengeful fun and games
up to that point, getting even with your
father for playing favorites. But when you
saw your father fall into deep grief and
depression over his son Joseph, and you
knew Joseph wasn’t really dead, and you
knew it was unlikely you could go and get
Joseph back, it was too much for you. Your
brothers, even though they were in on the
deception, even though they had wanted to
kill Joseph, they silently blamed you for
their father’s painful mourning, because
you were the engineer of the final scheme.
So about a month after Joseph’s
disappearance, you couldn’t take it any
longer. You packed up and moved away.
You took a Canaanite woman as your
wife, and you quickly had three sons with
her within a few years. When your oldest
was still a teenager, you got a wife for
him. But he was a wicked young man, so
the Lord had him die. You believed in the
ancient law of the Levirate, so you
required your second son to raise up a
child to be the legal heir of the oldest son.
But he also was a wicked young man. So
the Lord had him die too. Instead of
blaming your two sons for their own
wickedness, you blamed your daughter-inlaw. You wouldn’t let your third son raise
up a legal heir for his older brothers. Your
daughter-in-law didn’t appreciate being
disenfranchised like this. ‘No child’
meant fewer rights for her. So she tricked
you into conceiving a child in her. And
when the whole thing blew up in your face
so that your reputation was ruined in your
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new town, you took your youngest son
and your daughter-in-law and the twin
boys she bore you, and you went back to
live near your father and brothers.
switch places with Benjamin so that your
little brother could go back to your father.
You would be the prime minister’s slave
in place of Benjamin.
All this happened just in time for that
devastating seven-year drought to hit the
whole region around Egypt, including
where your father and brothers lived. So
you trudged down to Egypt because you
had heard that the Egyptians had somehow
managed to save up enough food to
survive the drought. Little did you know
that the man who engineered the storing
up of the food was none other than the
brother you sold into slavery two decades
earlier.
That’s when the prime minister revealed
himself as your long, lost brother Joseph.
Uh-oh! You all thought you were dead for
sure. But Joseph had forgiven you. You
all went back to the promised land to tell
your father that Joseph was alive. You all
moved to Egypt so Joseph could take care
of you for the rest of the devastating
drought. And you’ve been in Egypt ever
since.
This time Joseph pulled a little trick on
you and your brothers. He accused you all
of being spies and threw you into prison.
He put the squeeze on you when he kept
your brother Simeon in prison, sent the
rest of you back to your father, and
demanded that you bring your youngest
brother Benjamin with you when you
came back to Egypt to buy more grain.
Then on the next trip he amped up the
pressure when he made it look like
Benjamin had stolen a solid silver cup
from him. He announced that Benjamin
would become his slave for life, and the
rest of you could go home to your father
in peace. “Ok, bye-bye now.”
By this time, Judah, you had changed
from the schnook you used to be. You
had repented of the terrible hoax you
perpetrated on your father. You asked to
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Now your Daddy is dying. And he just
told you what will happen to you and your
descendants in the future. He started with:
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Judah, your brothers will praise you;
That’s a tricky little word play. Your
name sounds like the Hebrew word for
‘praise.’ The Lord would accomplish
great things through your descendants, and
some of the praise due to God would
splash back onto your family.
Your father told you: your hand will be on
the neck of your enemies; your father’s
sons will bow down to you. You may not
realize it fully yet, Judah, but during the
next 900 to 1000 years, the tribe that
descends from you will become a leading
tribe in the nation Israel. Through your
tribe the Lord will rescue Israel.
You are a lion’s cub, O Judah; you return
from the prey, my son. Like a lion he
crouches and lies down, like a lioness—
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who dares to rouse him? Like a lion, your
descendants will be victorious over their
enemies.
Next your father was permitted to see
deep into the future, all the way to the
time when the Messiah would be born.
With these words, your father announced
that the covenant blessing promised to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, would now
pass to you: 10The scepter 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. Judah, did you get it when your
father mentioned the scepter? A scepter is
a fancy stick held by a king. A scepter
represents a king’s authority to rule. So
from your family line will come a king—
in fact, a whole long line of kings.
Eventually, one of your descendants will
be the Messiah. He will take up the
scepter of your line. When your father
reported that “the obedience of the nations
is his,” he was letting you in on the fact
that the Messiah, your descendent, would
be the King of kings, and Lord of lords.
What kind of king will your descendent
be, you ask? Oh, Judah, he will be a
wonderful king! He will be a rest-bringer.
He will bring rest for the souls of all who
hope in him, because he will reconcile all
people to God, even those who played
nasty tricks on others. When sinners are
brought to him and are shown what your
descendant, the Messiah, has done,
bearing the penalty for all sins, they will
gladly bow the knee before him, and
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promise their faithfulness to him, and give
him their Sunday mornings, and suffer all
things, even death and ridicule, rather than
turn away from him.
Your father gave a few more clues about
what kind of king your descendant will be.
But it’s mixed in with blessings he will
give to your other many descendants.
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He will tether his donkey to a vine, his
colt to the choicest branch; he will wash
his garments in wine, his robes in the
blood of grapes. 12His eyes will be darker
than wine, his teeth whiter than milk.
Normally one would not tether a donkey
to a grapevine for fear that the donkey
would tear up the plant. But your family
line will have so many grapevines, he
won’t mind losing one if the donkey gets
spooked. Your tribe will have so much
surplus grape juice that the people will be
able to wash their clothes in it. Judah,
there is a hint here at your most important
descendent, the Messiah. His garments
will be stained red too, but with actual
blood. He will shed his own blood by
dying on a cross as the substitute for all
sinners.
Judah, it will be another eighteen centuries
or so until your most important descendant
will live and die for all sinners. But
already now THE LORD KNOWS
WHAT KIND OF KING THE CHRIST
WILL BE. So you can already rejoice
with all those who will trust in him and
have eternal life because of him. And we
can all rejoice in the Lord with you.
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