Tribe of Judah

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Not to be confused with Kingdom of Judah.
This article is about the Hebrew tribe. For the musical band, see Tribe of Judah (band).
Tribe of Judah
Map of the twelve tribes of Israel, before the move of Dan to the North. (The text is partially in German.)
Geographical rangeWest Asia
Major sitesHebron, Bethlehem
Preceded byNew Kingdom of Egypt
Followed byKingdom of Israel (united monarchy)
Tribes of Israel
The Tribes of Israel
Other tribes
Related topics

According to the Hebrew Bible, the tribe of Judah (שֵׁבֶט יְהוּדָה‎, Shevet Yehudah) was one of the twelve Tribes of Israel, named after Judah, the son of Jacob. Judah was the first tribe to take its place in the Land of Israel, occupying the southern part of the territory. Jesse and his sons, including King David, belonged to this tribe.

Biblical account

The tribe of Judah, its conquests, and the centrality of its capital in Jerusalem for the worship of

Deuteronomy through II Kings, which most scholars agree was reduced to written form, although subject to exilic and post-exilic alterations and emendations, during the reign of the Judahite reformer Josiah from 641–609 BCE.[1]

According to the account in the

Wilderness of Zin and Jerusalem. However, the consensus of modern scholars is that this conquest never occurred.[4][5][6] Other scholars point to extra-biblical references to Israel and Canaan as evidence for the potential historicity of the conquest.[7][8]

In the opening words of the Book of Judges, following the death of Joshua, the Israelites "asked the Lord" which tribe should be first to go to occupy its allotted territory, and the tribe of Judah was identified as the first tribe.[9] According to the narrative in the Book of Judges, the tribe of Judah invited the tribe of Simeon to fight with them in alliance to secure each of their allotted territories. However, many scholars do not believe that the book of Judges is a reliable historical account.[10][11][12]

The

King Solomon. A majority of scholars believe that the accounts concerning David and Solomon's territory in the "united monarchy" are exaggerated, and a minority believe that the "united monarchy" never existed at all.[13][14][15] Disagreeing with the latter view, Old Testament scholar Walter Dietrich contends that the biblical stories of circa 10th-century BCE monarchs contain a significant historical kernel and are not simply late fictions.[16]

On the accession of

Northern Kingdom in Samaria. The Book of Kings is uncompromising in its low opinion of its larger and richer neighbor to the north, and understands its conquest by Assyria in 722 BCE as divine retribution for the Kingdom's return to idolatry.[17]

The tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to the House of David. These tribes formed the Kingdom of Judah, which existed until Judah was conquered by Babylon in c. 586 BCE and the population deported.

When the

Levites and Kohanim
were preserved, but Jerusalem became the sole place of worship and sacrifice among the returning exiles, northerners and southerners alike.

Territory and main cities

Further information: Twelve Tribes of Israel § Land allotment
The Valley of Elah, near Adullam, in the territorial boundary of Judah

According to the biblical account, at its height, the tribe of Judah 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. Bethlehem and Hebron were initially the main cities within the territory of the tribe.

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 size of the territory of the tribe of Judah meant that in practice it had four distinct regions:[citation needed]

Origin

According to the

etiological myth created in hindsight to explain the tribe's name and connect it to the other tribes in the Israelite confederation.[21] 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.[21]

Like the other tribes of the Kingdom of Judah, the tribe of Judah is entirely absent from the ancient

Song of Deborah. Traditionally, this has been explained as being due to the southern kingdom being too far away to be involved in the battle, but Israel Finkelstein et al. claim the alternative explanation that the southern kingdom was simply an insignificant rural backwater at the time the poem was written.[22]

Judahdaughter of Shuah
ErTamarOnanShelah
Perez and Zerah

Professor Aaron Demsky argues that the genealogical record of Shelah and his sons was an allegory of the history of Shelanite clans in

Lachish) and Mareshah. They also worked as potters and craftsmen for the king, particularly Hezekiah. After the Assyrians destroyed their cities, survivors fled to Jerusalem and fully assimilated with the inhabitants by 538 BC, when the Babylonian exiles returned to Jerusalem.[23]

Character

Many of the Jewish leaders and prophets of the Hebrew Bible claimed membership in the tribe of Judah. For example, the literary prophets Isaiah, Amos, Habakkuk, Joel, Micah, Obadiah, Zechariah, and Zephaniah, all belonged to the tribe.[24]

The genealogies given in Matthew 1:1–6 and Luke 3:23–34 in the New Testament describe Jesus as a descendant of David, Matthew through Solomon and Luke through Nathan.[25]

Fate

The Lion of Judah on the municipal emblem of Jerusalem

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
.

After the fall of Jerusalem,

Jehoiachin in 597 BCE as well as after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE.[26] Many more Jews migrated to Babylon in CE 135 after the Bar Kokhba revolt and in the centuries after.[26]

The triumph or victory of "the Lion of the Tribe of Judah", who is able to open the scroll and its seven seals, forms part of the vision of the writer of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament.[27]

Ge'ez
motto Mo`a 'Anbessa Ze'imnegede Yihuda ("The Lion of the Tribe of Judah has conquered"), one of many names for Jesus of Nazareth.

See also

References

  1. ISBN 9780743223386
    .
  2. ISBN 0-8028-4960-1
    )
  3. ^ Joshua 15
  4. ^ "Besides the rejection of the Albrightian 'conquest' model, the general consensus among OT scholars is that the Book of Joshua has no value in the historical reconstruction. They see the book as an ideological retrojection from a later period—either as early as the reign of Josiah or as late as the Hasmonean period." K. Lawson Younger Jr. (1 October 2004). "Early Israel in Recent Biblical Scholarship". In David W. Baker; Bill T. Arnold (eds.). The Face of Old Testament Studies: A Survey of Contemporary Approaches. Baker Academic. p. 200.
    ISBN 978-0-8010-2871-7
    .
  5. ISBN 90-04-11554-4
    .
  6. ISBN 978-0-19-939387-9
    .
  7. ^ Görg, Görg. "Israel in Hieroglyphen". Biblischen Notizen. 106: 21–27."
  8. S2CID 161065442
    .
  9. ^ Judges 1:1–2
  10. ISBN 978-0-664-22265-9
    .
  11. ISBN 978-1-58983-912-0
    .
  12. ISBN 978-0-8042-3107-7
    .
  13. ISBN 978-1-134-94215-2
    .
  14. ISBN 978-1-58983-066-0
    .
  15. ISBN 978-1-317-49031-9
    .
  16. ^ "Tracing the development of the Bible’s stories about kings from the earliest sources (now embedded in 1–2 Samuel) to the biblical books themselves, Dietrich argues that some of the stories are dated close to the time of the events they describe. His approach identifies a series of ideologies within the text, providing evidence for the development of Israelite ideas rather than grounds for dismissing the stories as fiction." Dietrich, Walter (2007). The Early Monarchy in Israel: The Tenth Century B.C.E. Translated by Joachim Vette. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
  17. ISBN 9780743223386
    .
  18. ^ 1 Samuel 24:1
  19. ^ Judges 1:16
  20. ^ 1 Samuel 23:24
  21. ^ a b Jewish Encyclopedia
  22. ISBN 9780743223386
    .
  23. ^ Demsky, Aaron (December 26, 2016). "Who Was "Shelah Son of Judah" and What Happened to Him?". TheTorah.com. Archived from the original on February 8, 2024.
  24. ^ TOW Project (9 December 2010). "Situating the Prophets in Israel's History". Theology of Work. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
  25. ^ Matthew 1:1–6, Luke 3:23–31
  26. ^ a b [מרדכי וורמברנד ובצלאל ס רותת "עם ישראל – תולדות 4000 שנה – מימי האבות ועד חוזה השלום", ע"מ 95. (Translation: Mordechai Vermebrand and Betzalel S. Ruth. "The People of Israel – the history of 4000 years – from the days of the Forefathers to the Peace Treaty", 1981, p. 95)
  27. ^ Revelation 5:5
  28. ^ Amos 9:7: לוא כבני כשיים אתם לי בני ישראל נאם־יהוה הלוא את־ישראל העליתי מארץ מצרים ופלשתיים מכפתור וארם מקר׃ "Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the LORD. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?"

External links

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