The Tribes and Us: Judah and the War

[Genesis 49 is the record of Jacob’s prophecies about his sons and Deuteronomy 33 is Moses’ blessings to each of the tribes those sons engendered.  This is an exploration of these passages and others about the tribes of Israel and what we can learn from them for us today.]

And this he said of Judah:

“Hear, O LORD, the voice of Judah, and bring him in to his people.  With your hands contend for him, and be a help against his adversaries.” (Deuteronomy 33:7,ESV)

Moses’ remark or blessing for Judah is quite short but poignant.  He asks God for three things on Judah’s behalf:

• To hear Judah’s prayers
• To bring him back home safe from war, and
• To strengthen him against his enemies

Though it is possible that Moses is thinking generally about Judah’s prayers it is more likely that Moses is thinking specifically about Judah’s prayers in time of war.  He is remembering what Jacob prophesied about Judah of Judah’s hand being on the neck of his enemies and ruling until all peoples are subject to him (Genesis 49), and he is asking Yahweh to fulfill that.  This applies as well to the meaning of bringing Judah in to his people, that is, returning him safe from combat.

The phrase “with your hands contend for him” could also be translated “let his hands contend for him,” in which case the  Christian Standard Bible translation gives a good sense:

He said this about Judah:  LORD, hear Judah’s cry and bring him to his people.  He fights for his cause with his own hands, but may you be a help against his foes.

Without a doubt there are very few conflicts or battles we are asked by God to be purely passive in.  We may recall the king from the tribe of Judah, Jehoshaphat, who is told by Yahweh that the battle against the Moabites and Ammonites will not be his battle but Yahweh’s (2 Chronicles 20).  Even so they had to march out to the battlefield to find their enemies had slain themselves.

More often, however, we are called to enter the battle and our hands are definitely involved and contending against our foes.  But we are praying to God and expecting His answer, expecting Him to be a help against our adversaries.  The fight of Judah’s tribe and our fight as well must always be a fight of faith.  Judah did not always enter the war with this attitude and probably neither have we.  But more often than not Judah depended on Yahweh for victory and received it.

In the first chapter of Judges, after Joshua’s death, the continued conquest of Canaan is taken up first by Judah with a directive from Yahweh to be first to fight.  Judah takes Simeon and defeats a mighty army of Canaanites, takes the city of Jerusalem (which apparently they later lose), the Negev or wilderness of Judah, Hebron, Debir, Zephath, Gaza, Ashkelon and Ekron, as well as the hill country.  Judah is leading the way in faith.

What battle has God called you to?  Are you fighting it merely with your own hands or would you, with Judah, make your prayers prayers of faith for God’s deliverance and would you expect God to be your help against your foes?  He wants to use us to defeat His enemies, injustices of all kinds and the divisions that so easily defeat us.