Why judah not joseph

But besides land and possessions there was a hidden aspect within the birthright blessing that was to lay dormant until the time of Judah. It was the divine right of kings which will be discussed further down. The important part was that inspired revelation from God always played a part in birthright blessings. God's will was always predominant. Because God had pre-determined pre-elected certain individuals to fill special callings.

Scriptures bear this out. For example, God told Jeremiah he was chosen to be a prophet before he was born:.

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Also, in the case of Jacob and Esau Esau being the firstborn, but lost his birthright blessing to Jacob :. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I rejected. We could also include the special calling of Moses Ex. It is logical, then, to rightly assume that since Judah was not a firstborn he was pre-elected to be the chosen line of Israel.

This would mean his earthly line would consist of kings and eventually Jesus, King of the Jews. This was the part of the birthright blessing that lay dormant until the time of Judah. Therefore, this suggests there were 2 aspects, or parts, to the birthright blessing:.

Part 1: Inheriting the land and all the father has; usually a blessing to be fruitful. Note : The Bible does not call these two features Part 1 and 2; these are my designations for use in this article. A dysfunctional family that allows these virtues to embrace it will become a light to the world. God is more than able to bring his blessings to the world through deeply flawed people. But we must be willing to continually repent of the evil we do and turn to God for transformation, even if we are never perfectly purged of our errors, weaknesses, and sins in this life.

Contrary to the values of the societies around Israel, the willingness of leaders to offer themselves in sacrifice for the sins of others was intended to be a signature trait of leadership among the people of God. Moses would show it when Israel sinned regarding the golden calf.

David would show it when he saw the angel of the Lord striking down the people. Not ideal. It is true that we see a change in character for the better as the story progresses. Could it be that due to this act, Judah was chosen? There is the line of thinking that King David was to descend from the tribe of Judah, therefore the Messiah must come from the tribe that David belonged to.

Whichever way we see it though, David did end up coming from the line of Judah, which was the royal tribe and the bloodline of the Messiah. At the end of the story of Joseph is where we first see this association between Judah and royalty.

He proclaimed,. Gen The tribe of Levi would later become the priestly tribe, and Judah was the royal tribe. The royal scepter later appears in the book of Esther , as the symbol of acceptance when Esther dared to come before the king; indeed, the king extending the scepter was the only way of approaching him without incurring penalty of death. A bit like the Messiah himself, the only way to God.

I wonder though whether Jacob realised the significance of his own prophetic words to Judah. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great.

Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations. In many ways, Joseph would seem a more obvious choice. He suffered immensely and righteously under grievous injustice, then rose to prominence and authority.

God certainly did reward Joseph, and saw to it that he would receive a double portion. Shortly before Jacob died, he called his sons to come before him, for he wanted to tell them what would befall them in the last days see Genesis The significance of the name—which denotes praise,—is unfolded in the prophetic history of this tribe.

While the honor of the birthright given to the firstborn son in those ancient times was an important custom for them, God takes into account more than the order of birth in His dealings with us. This article was originally published on the website of Adventist Record.

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