Joel M Bradshaw

1These are the sons of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, 2Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. 3The sons of Judah: Er, Onan and Shelah; these three Bath-shua the Canaanite bore to him. Now Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of the LORD, and he put him to death. 4His daughter-in-law Tamar also bore him Perez and Zerah. Judah had five sons in all.–1 Chronicles 2

1. The chronicler obviously believed in the events of the book of Genesis.
2. In this chapter, he took great pains to chronicle the genealogy of David starting with those greats names of old. This meant tracing out the tribe of Judah.
3. Judah was the most famous and powerful tribe, but his story in Genesis was quite problematic.
4. Not only was Judah seen as the villain in the Joseph story, but he also had a terrible and awkward sexual moment with a pagan, cult prostitute who ended up being his widowed daughter-in-law Tamar in disguise.
5. Judah had promised that he would give her another husband to replace his son who died. Tamar seized the moment for herself (Genesis 38).
6. This moment not only humbled Judah, but it also produced twins. One of those twins would be Perez, the distant grandfather of King David.
7. Scripture portrays even the great names with warts and all. Judah had both a villain arc and also a hero arc. He started horribly, and ended nobly. His noble moment is in Genesis 44. All seemed to change in Judah with the chapter with Tamar. And she remains in the official chronicle of names and lineages.–JMB