Judah, the lion and leader

6th December

“The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the mace from between his feet, until it comes to whom it belongs, and the obedience of the peoples is his.” (Genesis 49:10)

Judah was one of the twelve sons of Jacob and we find his story in the book of Genesis. He was the son of Jacob’s wife Leah and a direct ancestor of Christ (Luke 3:33). However, he was no saint. He sold his brother Joseph into slavery and slept with his daughter-in-law, Tamar. On the plus side, he did later intervene to try to save another of his brothers, Benjamin.

When his father Jacob was on his deathbed, he had some last words for each of his sons. When Judah’s turn came, Jacob said to him: “A young lion is Judah. From the prey, my son, you have turned. He crouches like a lion, and like a lioness; who dares to rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the mace from between his feet, until it comes to whom it belongs, and the obedience of the peoples is his.” (Genesis 49:8-10)

From the very beginning of the Church, this was also understood as a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah, who would be a descendant of Judah and rule the nations. In the New Testament, Christ was identified as the “lion of the tribe of Judah” who would rule the nations with an iron sceptre (Revelation 5:5;12:5).

In this stained glass scene, we see Judah in a red and gold pointed hat selling his poor brother Joseph into slavery. The Latin caption reads: Vendiderunt eum Ismaelitis viginti argenteis, which means ‘They sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver.’ This is a quotation from Genesis 37:28.

The window is found within the Chapel of St Joseph within Sacred Heart, Wimbledon. Dating to the late 1890s, it’s part of a wider scheme picturing scenes from both the life of Joseph (the son of Jacob) and St Joseph (the foster-father of Christ). The scene connects Judah with his descendant, St Joseph, and through him, Christ himself.

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