Judah (Biblical figure)
Encyclopedia
Judah was, according to the Book of Genesis, the fourth son of Jacob
and Leah
, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Judah
. Biblical scholars
, such as J. A. Emerton view the narrative of Judah as a postdiction, an eponym
ous metaphor
providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation.
and his first wife, Leah
: his full brothers are Reuben
, Simeon
and Levi
(all older), and Issachar
and Zebulun
(younger), and he has six half brothers.
The brothers become jealous of the youngest, Joseph, who is favoured by their father Jacob and who tells them of dreams in which they bow down to him. One day the brothers wandered off into the fields and Joseph, loving his older brothers and wanting to be included went after them. He wasn't sure where they had gone but a man, who is thought to be an angel by commentaries, showed him the direction his brothers ventured off in. Joseph reaches his brothers and they make fun of him and taunt him. Reuven, being the eldest, took control of the situation and didn't want his brothers to kill Joseph so he suggested that they throw him into a near by pit. The brothers take away Joseph's tunic and throw him into the empty pit without food or water. While the whole scene is unfolding they see a caravan of Ishmaelites coming towards them with camels bearing spices, on the way to Egypt. Judah steps up and says that instead of killing their brother they should sell him to the Ishmaelites and so the brothers did exactly that. Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites for 20 silver pieces and brought down to Egypt. To hide the evidence and create a cover story the brothers dipped Joseph's coat in fresh goat's blood and showed it to Jacob, saying he had been killed by the wolves of Canaan.
Judah married the daughter of Shua, a Canaan
ite. Judah and his wife had three children, Er, Onan
, and Shelah. Er married Tamar, but God killed him because he was wicked. Tamar became Onan's wife in accordance with custom
, but God killed him because he spilled his semen on the ground. Tamar should have married Shelah, the remaining brother, but Judah did not give him to her. She deceived Judah into having sex with her by pretending to be a prostitute, and when Judah discovered that Tamar was pregnant he prepared to have her killed, but when he discovered that he was the father, he recanted and confessed that he had used a prostitute. Tamar's sons by her father-in-law were the twins Pharez
and Zerah
, the fourth and fifth sons of Judah and the ancestors of David
.
Joseph rises to a position of power in Egypt, and meets his brothers again without them recognising him. There is now a new youngest, Benjamin, who has remained in Canaan
with Jacob, initially remains in Canaan, so Joseph takes Simeon
hostage and insists that the brothers return with Benjamin. Judah offers himself to Jacob as surety
for Benjamin's safety, and manages to persuade Jacob to let them take Benjamin to Egypt
. When the brothers return, Joseph tests whether them by demanding the enslavement
of Benjamin
. Judah pleads for Benjamin, and Joseph reveals his identity.
, and suggests that the J writer dovetailed the Joseph and Judah traditions. Derek Kidner points out that the insertion of chapter 38 “creates suspense for the reader ,” but Robert Alter
goes further and suggests it is a result of the “brilliant splicing of sources by a literary artist.” He notes that the same verb “identify” will play “a crucial thematic role in the dénouement of the Joseph story when he confronts his brothers in Egypt, he recognizing them, they failing to recognize him." Similarly, J. P. Fokkelman notes that the "extra attention" for Judah in chapter 38, "sets him up for his major role as the brothers' spokesman in Genesis 44."
J. A. Emerton
notes that it is “widely agreed” that the story of Judah and Tamar “reflects a period after the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan.” He also suggests the possibility that it contains “aetiological
motifs concerned with the eponymous ancestors of the clans of Judah.” Emerton notes that Dillman
and Noth
considered the account of the deaths of Er and Onan to “reflect the dying out of two clans of Judah bearing their names, or at least of their failure to maintain a separate existence.” However, this view was “trenchantly criticized” by Thomas L. Thompson
.
argues that the name of Judah, meaning to praise, refers to Leah's intent to praise Yahweh
, on account of having achieved four children, and derived from odeh, meaning I will give praise. In classical rabbinical literature, the name is interpreted as a combination of Yahweh and a dalet
(the letter d); in Gematria
, the dalet has the numerical value 4, which these rabbinical sources argue refers to Judah being Jacob's fourth son. Since Leah was matriarch, Jewish scholars think the text's authors believed the tribe was part of the original Israelite confederation; however, it is worthy of note that the tribe of Judah was not purely Israelite, but contained a large admixture of non-Israelites, with a number of Kenizzite
groups, the Jerahmeelites, and the Kenites, merging into the tribe at various points.
Classical rabbinical sources refer to the passage "... a ruler came from Judah", from , to imply that Judah was the leader of his brothers, terming him the king. This passage also describes Judah as the strongest of his brothers in which rabbinical literature portray him as having had extraordinary physical strength, able to shout for over 400 parasang
s, able to crush iron into dust by his mouth, and with hair that stiffened so much, when he became angry, that it pierced his clothes.
Classical rabbinical sources also allude to a war between the Canaanites and Judah's family (not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible
), as a result of their destruction of Shechem
in revenge for the rape of Dinah; Judah features heavily as a protagonist in accounts of this war. In these accounts Judah kills Jashub, king of Tappuah, in hand-to-hand combat, after first having deposed Jashub from his horse by throwing an extremely heavy stone (60 shekel
s in weight) at him from a large distance away (the Midrash Wayissau states 177⅓ cubits, while other sources have only 30 cubits); the accounts say that Judah was able to achieve this even though he was himself under attack, from arrows which Jashub was shooting at him with both hands. The accounts go on to state that while Judah was trying to remove Jashub's armour from his corpse, nine assistants of Jashub fell upon him in combat, but after Judah killed one, he scared away the others; nevertheless, Judah killed several members of Jashub's army (42 men according to the midrashic Book of Jasher
, but 1000 men according to the Testament of Judah).
according to some classical rabbinical sources, Jacob suspected that Judah had killed Joseph, especially, according to the Midrash Tanhuma, when Judah was the one who had brought the blood stained coat to Jacob.
Since rabbinical sources held Judah to have been the leader of his brothers, these sources also hold him responsible for this deception, even if it was not Judah himself who brought the coat to Jacob. Even if Judah had been trying to save Joseph, the classical rabbinical sources still regard him negatively for it; these sources argue that, as the leader of the brothers, Judah should have made more effort, and carried Joseph home to Jacob on his (Judah's) own shoulders. These sources argue that Judah's brothers, after witnessing Jacob's grief at the loss of Joseph, deposed and excommunicated
Judah, as the brothers held Judah entirely responsible, since they would have brought Joseph home if Judah had asked them to do so. Divine punishment, according to such classical sources, was also inflicted on Judah in punishment; the death of Er and Onan, and of his wife, are portrayed in by such classical rabbis as being acts of divine retribution.
According to classical rabbinical literature, because Judah had proposed that he should bear any blame forever, this ultimately led to his bones being rolled around his coffin without cease, while it was being carried during the Exodus
, until Moses
interceded with God, by arguing that Judah's confession (in regard to cohabiting with Tamar) had led to Reuben
confessing his own incest.
the Genesis Rabbah, and particularly the midrashic book of Jasher, expand on this by describing Judah's plea as much more extensive than given in the Torah, and more vehement.
The classical rabbinical literature argues that Judah reacted violently to the threat against Benjamin, shouting so loudly that Hushim, who was then in Canaan, was able to hear Judah ask him to travel to Egypt
, to help Judah destroy it; some sources have Judah angrily picking up an extremely heavy stone (400 shekels in weight), throwing it into the air, then grinding it to dust with his feet once it had landed. These rabbinical sources argue that Judah had Naphtali
enumerate the districts of Egypt
, and after finding out that there were 12 (historically, there were actually 20 in Lower Egypt
and 22 in Upper Egypt
), he decided to destroy three himself, and have his brothers destroy one of the remaining districts each; the threat of destroying Egypt was, according to these sources, what really motivated Joseph to reveal himself to his brothers.
; classical sources differ on the date of death, with the Book of Jubilees advocating a death at age 119, 18 years before Levi
, but the midrashic Book of Jasher
advocating a death at the age of 129. The marriage of Judah and births of his children are described in a passage widely regarded as an abrupt change to the surrounding narrative. The passage is often regarded as presenting a significant chronological issue, as the surrounding context appears to constrain the events of the passage to happening within 22 years, and the context together with the passage itself requires the birth of the grandson of Judah and of his son's wife, and the birth of that son, to have happened within this time (to be consistent, this requires an average of less than 8 years gap per generation). According to textual scholars, the reason for the abrupt interruption this passage causes to the surrounding narrative, and the chronological anomaly it seems to present, is that it derives from the Jahwist
source, while the immediately surrounding narrative is from the Elohist
.
Jacob
Jacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...
and Leah
Leah
Leah , as described in the Hebrew Bible, is the first of the two concurrent wives of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob and mother of six of sons whose descendants became the Twelve Tribes of Israel, along with at least one daughter, Dinah. She is the daughter of Laban and the older sister of Rachel, whom...
, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Judah
Tribe of Judah
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Judah was one of the Tribes of Israel.Following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes after about 1200 BCE, Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes....
. Biblical scholars
Biblical criticism
Biblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of Biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work...
, such as J. A. Emerton view the narrative of Judah as a postdiction, an eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
ous metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation.
Judah in Genesis
Judah is the fourth son of the patriarch JacobJacob
Jacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...
and his first wife, Leah
Leah
Leah , as described in the Hebrew Bible, is the first of the two concurrent wives of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob and mother of six of sons whose descendants became the Twelve Tribes of Israel, along with at least one daughter, Dinah. She is the daughter of Laban and the older sister of Rachel, whom...
: his full brothers are Reuben
Reuben (Bible)
According to the Book of Genesis, Reuben or Re'uven was the first and eldest son of Jacob with Leah. He was the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Reuben.-Etymology:...
, Simeon
Simeon (Hebrew Bible)
According to the Book of Genesis, Simeon was, the second son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Simeon. However, some Biblical scholars view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an etiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite...
and Levi
Levi
Levi/Levy was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi ; however Peake's commentary suggests this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite...
(all older), and Issachar
Issachar
Issachar/Yissachar was, according to the Book of Genesis, a son of Jacob and Leah , and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Issachar; however some Biblical scholars view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite...
and Zebulun
Zebulun
Zebulun was, according to the Books of Genesis and Numbers, the sixth son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Zebulun...
(younger), and he has six half brothers.
The brothers become jealous of the youngest, Joseph, who is favoured by their father Jacob and who tells them of dreams in which they bow down to him. One day the brothers wandered off into the fields and Joseph, loving his older brothers and wanting to be included went after them. He wasn't sure where they had gone but a man, who is thought to be an angel by commentaries, showed him the direction his brothers ventured off in. Joseph reaches his brothers and they make fun of him and taunt him. Reuven, being the eldest, took control of the situation and didn't want his brothers to kill Joseph so he suggested that they throw him into a near by pit. The brothers take away Joseph's tunic and throw him into the empty pit without food or water. While the whole scene is unfolding they see a caravan of Ishmaelites coming towards them with camels bearing spices, on the way to Egypt. Judah steps up and says that instead of killing their brother they should sell him to the Ishmaelites and so the brothers did exactly that. Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites for 20 silver pieces and brought down to Egypt. To hide the evidence and create a cover story the brothers dipped Joseph's coat in fresh goat's blood and showed it to Jacob, saying he had been killed by the wolves of Canaan.
Judah married the daughter of Shua, a Canaan
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
ite. Judah and his wife had three children, Er, Onan
Onan
Onan is a minor biblical person in the Book of Genesis , who was the second son of Judah. Just like his older brother, Er, Onan died prematurely by YHWH's will for being wicked....
, and Shelah. Er married Tamar, but God killed him because he was wicked. Tamar became Onan's wife in accordance with custom
Levirate marriage
Levirate marriage is a type of marriage in which the brother of a deceased man is obligated to marry his brother's widow, and the widow is obligated to marry her deceased husband's brother....
, but God killed him because he spilled his semen on the ground. Tamar should have married Shelah, the remaining brother, but Judah did not give him to her. She deceived Judah into having sex with her by pretending to be a prostitute, and when Judah discovered that Tamar was pregnant he prepared to have her killed, but when he discovered that he was the father, he recanted and confessed that he had used a prostitute. Tamar's sons by her father-in-law were the twins Pharez
Pharez
According to the Book of Genesis, Pharez/Pיrez was the son of Tamar and of Judah, and was the twin of Zerah. The text argues that he was called Perez because he was the first twin to be born, and thus had breached the womb...
and Zerah
Zerah
Zerah or Zérach refers to five different people in the Hebrew Bible.-The Cushite:...
, the fourth and fifth sons of Judah and the ancestors of David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
.
Joseph rises to a position of power in Egypt, and meets his brothers again without them recognising him. There is now a new youngest, Benjamin, who has remained in Canaan
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
with Jacob, initially remains in Canaan, so Joseph takes Simeon
Simeon (Hebrew Bible)
According to the Book of Genesis, Simeon was, the second son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Simeon. However, some Biblical scholars view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an etiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite...
hostage and insists that the brothers return with Benjamin. Judah offers himself to Jacob as surety
Surety
A surety or guarantee, in finance, is a promise by one party to assume responsibility for the debt obligation of a borrower if that borrower defaults...
for Benjamin's safety, and manages to persuade Jacob to let them take Benjamin to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. When the brothers return, Joseph tests whether them by demanding the enslavement
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
of Benjamin
Benjamin
Benjamin was the last-born of Jacob's twelve sons, and the second and last son of Rachel in Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition. He was the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Benjamin. In the Biblical account, unlike Rachel's first son, Joseph, Benjamin was born in Canaan. He died in Egypt on...
. Judah pleads for Benjamin, and Joseph reveals his identity.
Criticism
Literary critics have focused on the relationship between the Judah story in chapter 38, and the Joseph story in chapters 37 and 39. Victor Hamilton notes some “intentional literary parallels” between the chapters, such as the exhortation to “identify” (38:25-26 and 37:32-33). Emerton regards the connections as evidence for including chapter 38 in the J corpusJahwist
The Jahwist, also referred to as the Jehovist, Yahwist, or simply as J, is one of the sources of the Torah. It gets its name from the fact that it characteristically uses the term Yahweh for God in the book of Genesis...
, and suggests that the J writer dovetailed the Joseph and Judah traditions. Derek Kidner points out that the insertion of chapter 38 “creates suspense for the reader ,” but Robert Alter
Robert Alter
Robert Bernard Alter is an American professor of Hebrew language and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967.-Biography:...
goes further and suggests it is a result of the “brilliant splicing of sources by a literary artist.” He notes that the same verb “identify” will play “a crucial thematic role in the dénouement of the Joseph story when he confronts his brothers in Egypt, he recognizing them, they failing to recognize him." Similarly, J. P. Fokkelman notes that the "extra attention" for Judah in chapter 38, "sets him up for his major role as the brothers' spokesman in Genesis 44."
J. A. Emerton
Regius Professor of Hebrew
The Regius Professorship of Hebrew, founded by Henry VIII, is a professorship at both Cambridge and Oxford Universities.- List of Regius Professors of Hebrew at Cambridge :...
notes that it is “widely agreed” that the story of Judah and Tamar “reflects a period after the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan.” He also suggests the possibility that it contains “aetiological
Etiology
Etiology is the study of causation, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" ....
motifs concerned with the eponymous ancestors of the clans of Judah.” Emerton notes that Dillman
August Dillmann
Christian Friedrich August Dillmann was a German orientalist and biblical scholar.-Life:The son of a Württemberg schoolmaster, he was born at Illingen. He was educated at the University of Tübingen, where he became a pupil and friend of Heinrich Ewald, and studied under Ferdinand Christian Baur,...
and Noth
Martin Noth
Martin Noth was a German scholar of the Hebrew Bible who specialized in the pre-Exilic history of the Hebrews. With Gerhard von Rad he pioneered the traditional-historical approach to biblical studies, emphasising the role of oral traditions in the formation of the biblical texts.-Life:Noth was...
considered the account of the deaths of Er and Onan to “reflect the dying out of two clans of Judah bearing their names, or at least of their failure to maintain a separate existence.” However, this view was “trenchantly criticized” by Thomas L. Thompson
Thomas L. Thompson
Thomas L. Thompson is a biblical theologian associated with the movement known as the Copenhagen School. He was professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen from 1993–2009, lives in Denmark and is now a Danish citizen.-Background:Thompson obtained a B.A...
.
Jewish tradition
The text of the TorahTorah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
argues that the name of Judah, meaning to praise, refers to Leah's intent to praise Yahweh
Yahweh
Yahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...
, on account of having achieved four children, and derived from odeh, meaning I will give praise. In classical rabbinical literature, the name is interpreted as a combination of Yahweh and a dalet
Dalet
Dalet is the fourth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew , Syriac and Arabic...
(the letter d); in Gematria
Gematria
Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase, in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other, or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to a person's age, the calendar year, or the like...
, the dalet has the numerical value 4, which these rabbinical sources argue refers to Judah being Jacob's fourth son. Since Leah was matriarch, Jewish scholars think the text's authors believed the tribe was part of the original Israelite confederation; however, it is worthy of note that the tribe of Judah was not purely Israelite, but contained a large admixture of non-Israelites, with a number of Kenizzite
Kenizzite
Kenizzite - The name of a tribe referred to in the covenant God made with Abraham . They are not mentioned among the original inhabitants of Canaan , and probably they inhabited some part of Arabia, in the confines of Syria....
groups, the Jerahmeelites, and the Kenites, merging into the tribe at various points.
Classical rabbinical sources refer to the passage "... a ruler came from Judah", from , to imply that Judah was the leader of his brothers, terming him the king. This passage also describes Judah as the strongest of his brothers in which rabbinical literature portray him as having had extraordinary physical strength, able to shout for over 400 parasang
Parasang
The parasang is a historical Iranian unit of itinerant distance comparable to the European league.In antiquity, the term was used throughout much of the Middle East, and the Old Iranian language from which it derives can no longer be determined...
s, able to crush iron into dust by his mouth, and with hair that stiffened so much, when he became angry, that it pierced his clothes.
Classical rabbinical sources also allude to a war between the Canaanites and Judah's family (not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
), as a result of their destruction of Shechem
Shechem
Shechem was a Canaanite city mentioned in the Amarna letters, and is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as an Israelite city of the tribe of Manasseh and the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel...
in revenge for the rape of Dinah; Judah features heavily as a protagonist in accounts of this war. In these accounts Judah kills Jashub, king of Tappuah, in hand-to-hand combat, after first having deposed Jashub from his horse by throwing an extremely heavy stone (60 shekel
Shekel
Shekel , is any of several ancient units of weight or of currency. The first usage is from Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. Initially, it may have referred to a weight of barley...
s in weight) at him from a large distance away (the Midrash Wayissau states 177⅓ cubits, while other sources have only 30 cubits); the accounts say that Judah was able to achieve this even though he was himself under attack, from arrows which Jashub was shooting at him with both hands. The accounts go on to state that while Judah was trying to remove Jashub's armour from his corpse, nine assistants of Jashub fell upon him in combat, but after Judah killed one, he scared away the others; nevertheless, Judah killed several members of Jashub's army (42 men according to the midrashic Book of Jasher
Sefer haYashar (midrash)
The Sefer haYashar is a Hebrew midrash also known as the Toledot Adam and Dibre ha-Yamim be-'Aruk. It is known in English translation mostly as The Book of Jasher...
, but 1000 men according to the Testament of Judah).
according to some classical rabbinical sources, Jacob suspected that Judah had killed Joseph, especially, according to the Midrash Tanhuma, when Judah was the one who had brought the blood stained coat to Jacob.
Excommunication
Excommunication is a religious censure used to deprive, suspend or limit membership in a religious community. The word means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...
Judah, as the brothers held Judah entirely responsible, since they would have brought Joseph home if Judah had asked them to do so. Divine punishment, according to such classical sources, was also inflicted on Judah in punishment; the death of Er and Onan, and of his wife, are portrayed in by such classical rabbis as being acts of divine retribution.
According to classical rabbinical literature, because Judah had proposed that he should bear any blame forever, this ultimately led to his bones being rolled around his coffin without cease, while it was being carried during the Exodus
The Exodus
The Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...
, until Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
interceded with God, by arguing that Judah's confession (in regard to cohabiting with Tamar) had led to Reuben
Reuben (Bible)
According to the Book of Genesis, Reuben or Re'uven was the first and eldest son of Jacob with Leah. He was the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Reuben.-Etymology:...
confessing his own incest.
the Genesis Rabbah, and particularly the midrashic book of Jasher, expand on this by describing Judah's plea as much more extensive than given in the Torah, and more vehement.
The classical rabbinical literature argues that Judah reacted violently to the threat against Benjamin, shouting so loudly that Hushim, who was then in Canaan, was able to hear Judah ask him to travel to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, to help Judah destroy it; some sources have Judah angrily picking up an extremely heavy stone (400 shekels in weight), throwing it into the air, then grinding it to dust with his feet once it had landed. These rabbinical sources argue that Judah had Naphtali
Naphtali
According to the Book of Genesis, Naphtali was the second son of Jacob with Bilhah. He was the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Naphtali. However, some Biblical scholars view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the...
enumerate the districts of Egypt
Nome (Egypt)
A nome was a subnational administrative division of ancient Egypt. Today's use of the Greek nome rather than the Egyptian term sepat came about during the Ptolemaic period. Fascinated with Egypt, Greeks created many historical records about the country...
, and after finding out that there were 12 (historically, there were actually 20 in Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt is the northern-most section of Egypt. It refers to the fertile Nile Delta region, which stretches from the area between El-Aiyat and Zawyet Dahshur, south of modern-day Cairo, and the Mediterranean Sea....
and 22 in Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt is the strip of land, on both sides of the Nile valley, that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan north to the area between El-Ayait and Zawyet Dahshur . The northern section of Upper Egypt, between El-Ayait and Sohag is sometimes known as Middle Egypt...
), he decided to destroy three himself, and have his brothers destroy one of the remaining districts each; the threat of destroying Egypt was, according to these sources, what really motivated Joseph to reveal himself to his brothers.
Dating Judah
According to Classical rabbinical literature, Judah was born on the 15th of SivanSivan
Sivan is the ninth month of the civil year and the third month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar. It is a spring month of 30 days...
; classical sources differ on the date of death, with the Book of Jubilees advocating a death at age 119, 18 years before Levi
Levi
Levi/Levy was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi ; however Peake's commentary suggests this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite...
, but the midrashic Book of Jasher
Sefer haYashar (midrash)
The Sefer haYashar is a Hebrew midrash also known as the Toledot Adam and Dibre ha-Yamim be-'Aruk. It is known in English translation mostly as The Book of Jasher...
advocating a death at the age of 129. The marriage of Judah and births of his children are described in a passage widely regarded as an abrupt change to the surrounding narrative. The passage is often regarded as presenting a significant chronological issue, as the surrounding context appears to constrain the events of the passage to happening within 22 years, and the context together with the passage itself requires the birth of the grandson of Judah and of his son's wife, and the birth of that son, to have happened within this time (to be consistent, this requires an average of less than 8 years gap per generation). According to textual scholars, the reason for the abrupt interruption this passage causes to the surrounding narrative, and the chronological anomaly it seems to present, is that it derives from the Jahwist
Jahwist
The Jahwist, also referred to as the Jehovist, Yahwist, or simply as J, is one of the sources of the Torah. It gets its name from the fact that it characteristically uses the term Yahweh for God in the book of Genesis...
source, while the immediately surrounding narrative is from the Elohist
Elohist
The Elohist is one of four sources of the Torah described by the Documentary Hypothesis. Its name comes from the term it uses for God: Elohim; it is characterised by, among other things, an abstract view of God, using "Horeb" instead of "Sinai" for the mountain where Moses received the laws of...
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Publications
- WincklerHugo WincklerHugo Winckler was a German archaeologist and historian who uncovered the capital of the Hittite Empire at Boğazkale, Turkey....
, Geschichte Israels (Berlin, 1895) - Ed. MeyerEduard MeyerEduard Meyer was a German historian.-Biography:Meyer was born at Hamburg and educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums and later at the universities of Bonn and Leipzig. After completing his studies, he spent one year in Istanbul. In 1879, he went to the University of Leipzig as privatdocent...
, Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme (Halle, 1906) - HauptPaul HauptHermann Hugo Paul Haupt was a Semitic scholar, one of the pioneers of Assyriology in the United States....
, in Studien ... Welthausen gewidmet (Giessen, 1914)