Judah The Engineer, Part 1

Christian detractor Niccolò Machiavelli, whose most famous treatise The Prince details how to acquire and retain political power at any cost, became the father of a philosophy that both fascinated and terrified throughout the ages.

If the term had been defined in his lifetime, Judah, the fourth-eldest son of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob by his first wife Leah, would have been decidedly Machiavellian. While his eldest brother, Reuben, was a flaccid, vacillating man, and his next two eldest, Simeon and Levi, were prone to brute violence, Judah decimated by ruthless schemes, calculated necessity, and sheer opportunism.

Judah married a Canaanite, a rebellious act typically forbidden among his people (Genesis 28:1), and by her had three sons. When his firstborn son, Er, died prematurely, he passed Er’s widow, Tamar, onto his next eldest son, Onan, as was customary at that time (38:7, 8). When Onan died soon after,

Judah returned Tamar to her family under the false pretense that she would be given to his third and last son, Shelah, once he came of age to marry (v. 11). But it was all a lie. His actual plan was to constrain his daughter-in-law to be a childless widow for the rest of her life, not wanting Shelah to meet the same untimely end as his brothers. Judah did not care about Tamar’s fate, particularly harsh in those days.

After the death of his own wife, Judah one day traveled to a nearby town for work and, while there, slept with a prostitute whose face he never saw—leaving as a deposit for his payment the equivalent of today’s identification documents, his signet, cord, and staff (v. 18). When he attempted to send her payment, however, the prostitute was nowhere to be found (vv. 20–22).

He then received news that Tamar had become pregnant “by harlotry” (v. 24). Snatching the opportunity to be rid of his previous obligation to his daughter-in-law, he pronounced a death sentence upon her, only to discover— by receipt of his signet, cord, and staff—that she was the very prostitute with whom he had slept (vv. 25, 26). Tamar had had a scheme of her own, and he had been squarely beaten at his own game.

But Judah was not done yet.

Reflect: Have you devised cleverly laid plans for your own life? What say does God have in those plans? Make it a habit to lay all your plans at the feet of Jesus so He can direct you.

Key Bible Texts

Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin: (Isaiah 30:1 KJV)