Judah (son of Jacob)
Judah () was, according to the Book of Genesis, the fourth of the six sons of Jacob and Leah and the founder of the Tribe of Judah of the Israelites. By extension, he is indirectly the eponym of the Kingdom of Judah, the land of Judea, and the word Jew. According to the narrative in Genesis, Judah alongside Tamar is a patrilineal ancestor of the Davidic line. The Tribe of Judah features prominently in Deuteronomistic history, which most scholars agree was reduced to written form, although subject to exilic and post-exilic alterations and emendations, during the reign of the Judahist reformer Josiah from 641 to 609 BCE. According to the Christian narrative, he was the ancestor of Jesus. Etymology The Hebrew name for Judah, Yehuda (יהודה), literally "thanksgiving" or "praise," is the noun form of the root Y-D-H (ידה), "to thank" or "to praise." His birth is recorded at Gen. 29:35; upon his birth, Leah exclaims, "This time I will praise the LORD/YHWH," with the Hebrew word for "I will praise," odeh (אודה) sharing the same root as Yehuda. Alternatively, Edward Lipiński connected Hebrew yĕhūdā with Arabic whd / wahda "cleft, ravine". Biblical references Judah is the fourth son of the patriarch Jacob and his first wife, Leah: his full brothers are Reuben, Simeon and Levi (all older), and Issachar and Zebulun (younger), and he has one full sister, Dinah. Through his father, he also has six half-brothers: Dan and Naphtali (whose mother is Bilhah), Gad and Asher (whose mother is Zilpah), and Joseph and Benjamin (whose mother is Rachel). Following his birth, Judah's next appearance is in Gen 37, when he and his brothers cast Joseph into a pit out of jealousy after Joseph approaches them, flaunting a coat of many colors, while they are working in the field. It is Judah who spots a caravan of Ishmaelites coming towards them on its way to Egypt and suggests that Joseph be sold to the Ishmaelites rather than killed. (Gen. 37:26-28, "What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? ... Let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our flesh.") Judah marries Aliyath, the daughter of Shuah, a Canaanite. Judah and his wife have three children, Er, Onan, and Shelah. Er marries Tamar, but God kills him because he was wicked in His sight (Gen. 38:7). Tamar becomes Onan's wife in accordance with custom, but he too is killed after he refuses to father children for his older brother's childless widow, and spills his seed instead. Although Tamar should have married Shelah, the remaining brother, Judah did not consent, and in response Tamar deceives Judah into having intercourse with her by pretending to be a prostitute. When Judah discovers that Tamar is pregnant he prepares to have her killed, but recants and confesses when he finds out that he is the father (Gen. 38:24-26). Tamar is the mother of twins, Perez (Peretz) and Zerah (Gen. 38:27-30). The former is the patrilinear