Tribe of Judah

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This article is about the Hebrew tribe. For the musical band see: Tribe of Judah (band)

Tribes of Israel
The Tribes Reuben Simeon Levi Judah Dan Naphtali Gad Asher Issachar Zebulun Joseph Manasseh Ephraim Benjamin
Topics Children of Israel Ten Lost Tribes
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The Tribe of Judah (Hebrew: יְהוּדָה, "Praise"; Standard Hebrew Yəhuda, Tiberian Hebrew Yəhûḏāh) was one of the Tribes of Israel. At its height, it was the leading tribe of the Kingdom of Judah, and occupied most of the territory of the kingdom, except for a small region in the north east occupied by Benjamin, and an enclave towards the south west which was occupied by Simeon.

The size of the territory of the tribe of Judah meant that in practice it had four distinct regions:

• The Negev (Hebrew: south) - the southern portion of the land, which was highly suitable for pasture
• The Shephelah (Hebrew: lowland) - the coastal region, between the highlands and the Mediterranean sea, which was used for agriculture, in particular for grains.
• The wilderness - the barren region immediately next to the Dead Sea, and below sea level; it was wild, and barely inhabitable, to the extent that animals and people which were made unwelcome elsewhere, such as bears, leopards, and outlaws, made it their home. In biblical times, this region was further subdivided into three sections - the wilderness of En Gedi^[1], the wilderness of Judah^[2], and the wilderness of Maon^[3].
• The hill country - the elevated plateau situated between the Shephelah and the wilderness, with rocky slopes but very fertile soil. This region was used for the production of corn, olives, grapes, and other fruit, and hence produced oil and wine.

[edit] Origin

According to the Torah, the tribe was founded by Judah, the fourth son of Jacob and of Leah, from whom it took its name; however Biblical scholars view this also as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation^[4][5]. With Leah as a matriarch, Biblical scholars regard the tribe as having been believed by the text's authors to have been part of the original Israelite confederation. According both to scholars, and the Bible itself, however, Judah was not purely Israelite, but contained a large admixture of non-Israelites; at various points, a number of Kenizzite groups, the Jerahmeelites, and the Kenites merged into the tribe^[6]. In the biblical account, this is represented by the adoption into the tribe of Caleb and Othniel^[7], the eponymous founders of certain Kenizzite groups, the treatment in the Books of Samuel of the Jerahmeelites as part of Judah^[8], and a brief statement in the Book of Judges about the fate of the Kenites^[9].

In the biblical genealogy, Caleb and Othniel are both descended from the eponymous Kenaz, who is said to be a descendant of Esau^[10]; while scholars generally believe this to be an eponymous aetiological metaphor, it nevertheless suggests that the Kenizzites may have come from Edom^[11]. The Jerahmeelites, on the other hand are described as having lived in the Negev^[12], but as their eponymous founder, Jerahmeel, is said in the text to be the brother of Caleb, scholars suspect that the Jerahmeelites may have been believed to have also originated from Edom^[13]. The Kenites are described as having come from the Sinai^[14]. It is possible that xenophobic concerns, by the northern tribes over this large admixture of foreign blood in the tribe of Judah, contributed to the political division between the southern and northern kingdom^[15].

Like the other tribes of the kingdom of Judah, the tribe of Judah is entirely absent from the ancient Song of Deborah, rather than present but described as unwilling to assist in the battle between Israelites and their enemy. Traditionally, this has explained as being due to the southern kingdom being too far away to be involved in the battle, but according to an increasing majority of archaeologists, the southern kingdom was simply an insignificant rural backwater at the time the poem was written^[16].

[edit] Character

The lion is the symbol of the Tribe of Judah. It is often represented in Jewish art, such as this sculpture outside a synagogue.

The tribe of Judah stood apart from the others as the leading tribe of the Kingdom of Judah, and from the tribe came the kingdom's rulers (though not the later Hasmonean kings of Judea, who were Levites). The regal status of Judah is seemingly prophecied in the Blessing of Jacob, which argues that the staff shall not depart from Judah, nor the sceptre from between his feet...^[17], though textual scholars view this as postdiction, since they date the poem to a few centuries after the Song of Deborah, to roughly 800-700 BC. With the Davidic line thus being from the tribe, the tribe counted David among its members, as well as his ancestors Boaz, Obed, and Jesse. According to Jewish belief, since the Blessing appears to promise that Judah would always rule the kingdom, the (Jewish) Messiah had to be a member of the tribe; in the genealogy of Jesus, according to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was from the Davidic line, and hence was ethnically a member of the tribe of Judah.

Many other important leaders were also from the tribe. Some of the most important literary prophets, including Isaiah and Jeremiah, as well as Amos, Habakkuk, Joel, Micah, Obadiah, Zechariah, and Zephaniah, hailed from Judah. Later, during the Babylonian Exile, the Exilarchs (officially recognised community leaders) were from the tribe, and when the Exile ended, the tribe included Zerubbabel (the leader of the first Jews to return to what became Judea), Shealtiel (a somewhat mysterious figure), and Nehemiah (one of the earliest and most prominent Achamenid-appointed governors of Judea). In the time of Roman rule, all the holders of the office of Nasi (prince) after Shemaiah, were rumoured to be from the tribe of Judah, since they were all descended from Hillel, who was rumoured to have maternal lineage from the Davidic line (in Judaism, maternal lineage is more important to ethnicity).

[edit] Fate

As part of the kingdom of Judah, the tribe of Judah survived the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians, and instead was subjected to the Babylonian captivity; when the captivity ended, the distinction between the tribes were lost in favour of a common identity. Since Simeon and Benjamin had been very much the junior partners in the Kingdom of Judah, it was Judah that gave its name to the identity - that of the Jews. Most modern-day Jews regard themselves as being descended from the tribe of Judah^{[18][19][20][21]}

[edit] See also

• History of ancient Israel and Judah

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Tribe of Judah (Jewish Encyclopedia)