Judah was the tribe designated to be the one from whom God’s Messiah would ultimately come.
Here’s what Jacob said on his deathbed about his fourth son:
Gen 49:8 “Judah, your brothers shall praise you;
Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;
Your father’s sons shall bow down to you.
Gen 49:9 “Judah is a lion’s whelp;
From the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He couches, he lies down as a lion,
And as a lion, who dares rouse him up?
Gen 49:10 “The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
Until Shiloh comes,
And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
Gen 49:11 “He ties his foal to the vine,
And his donkey’s colt to the choice vine;
He washes his garments in wine,
And his robes in the blood of grapes.
Gen 49:12 “His eyes are dull from wine,
And his teeth white from milk.
About five centuries later, David would write about his descendant
Ps 110:1 The LORD says to my Lord:
“Sit at My right hand
Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”
Ps 110:2 The LORD will stretch forth Your strong scepter from Zion, saying,
“Rule in the midst of Your enemies.”
Centuries later, the prophet Micah would write this:
Mic 5:2 “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Too little to be among the clans of Judah,
From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.
His goings forth are from long ago,
From the days of eternity.”
Matthew would, centuries later, quote Micah:
Matt 2:6 ‘AND YOU, BETHLEHEM, LAND OF JUDAH,
ARE BY NO MEANS LEAST AMONG THE LEADERS OF JUDAH;
FOR OUT OF YOU SHALL COME FORTH A RULER
WHO WILL SHEPHERD MY PEOPLE ISRAEL.’”
Between Micah and Matthew, Ezra would confirm Judah’s role in producing “the leader” – an allusion to the Messiah – in the nine chapters of genealogies he compiled.
1 Chr 5:1 Now the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel (for he was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph the son of Israel; so that he is not enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright.
1 Chr 5:2 Though Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came the leader, yet the birthright belonged to Joseph),
Ultimately, Jesus would confirm them all:
Matt 23:10 “Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.
Is all this too much to say about the one phrase “Judah is my scepter”?
There is also the dimension of Judah being the name of the land where the descendants of Judah dwelled. This tribal allocation included Jerusalem (Israel’s capital since the time of David) and Bethlehem (David’s ancestral home).
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