Out of Judah?
Genesis 38
Gen 38:13-15 When Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is
on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep,” 14 she took off her widow's clothes,
covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the
entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah
had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife. 15 When Judah saw
her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. 16 Not
realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside
and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.”
THIS entire chapter reeks of sin. God even
disposes of two of Judah’s sons because they were evil. And then Judah acts
into a degrading sin with his dead sons’ widow.
One
point of the story is to understand God’s redemptive power. Out of this man of
sin comes the Son of Man. The prophecy of Jesus in Judah’s line of descent
begins in Genesis: 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 — who dares to rouse him? 10 The 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. (Genesis 49:9-10) And the
prophecy ends in Revelation: “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of
Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its
seven seals.” (Rev 5:5)
David,
the great king, would come from Judah. Jerusalem would be the capital of Judah.
Jesus would die, rise and ascend in Judah. The ruling redeeming scepter over all
the nations is Jesus.
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