Judah was Leah's fourth son, the one named for praise, but his early life did not match his name. When his brothers wanted to kill Joseph, it was Judah who said, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites.” He saved Joseph's life only to sell him into slavery.
Genesis 38 interrupts the Joseph story to follow Judah. He “departed from his brothers,” married a Canaanite woman and had three sons. His firstborn, Er, married Tamar, but Er was wicked and the LORD took his life. By the custom of that time the next brother was to raise up children for his brother. Onan refused, and he too died. Judah then sent Tamar back to her father's house, promising his youngest son Shelah when he grew up — but he never intended to keep that promise.
Years passed. Tamar saw that she had been forgotten. When Judah went up to shear his sheep, she covered herself with a veil and sat by the road. Judah, thinking she was a harlot, went in to her and left his signet, cord and staff as a pledge. Three months later Judah heard Tamar was pregnant and said, “Bring her out and let her be burned!” As she was brought out, she sent him the pledge: “By the man to whom these belong, I am with child.”
This was Judah's moment of truth. “Judah acknowledged them and said, ‘She has been more righteous than I.’” For the first time he stopped hiding. Tamar bore twins, Perez and Zerah. God's grace is astonishing here: Perez became an ancestor of Boaz, of King David and of the Lord Jesus. Tamar is one of the women named in Jesus' genealogy in Matthew 1:3.
Judah was a changed man. When the family needed to bring Benjamin to Egypt, Judah said to Jacob, “I myself will be surety for him.” And when Benjamin was about to become a slave, Judah stepped forward with one of the greatest speeches in Genesis: “Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the lad as a slave to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers.” The man who sold one brother now offered himself for another. From this tribe came Jesus, who gave His own life in our place.