JUDAH Yehûda, i.e., according to the etymology given in Gen. xxix. 35, “praised ”), the name of one of the twelve tribes and of their eponymus the fourth son of Jacob by Leah. Except in the history of Joseph, the Biblical interest attaching to Judah belongs not to the individual but to the tribe; for in Gen. xxxviii. an ethnographicalallegory appears transparently enough under the surface of the record. According to the usual form of such statements in the Old Testament, Judah’s marriage with the daughter of the Canaanite Shuah is to be referred to a union of the tribe with Canaanite elements. Er and Onan are extinct subdivisions of the mixed population, though a minor family of the former name appears as incorporated with Shelah, the third clan of this branch of the tribe (1 Chron. iv. 21). The details of the disappearance of these ancient stocks are obscure. The stocks of Pharez and Zerah are represented as secondary. They are children of Judah and Tamar, but the former is their father in virtue of an extension of the levirate principle. As the author represents Tamar’s conduct as justifiable under the circumstances, the narrative must have taken shape before the levirate law assumed the narrower form given in Deuteronomy. An ingenious explanation of Tamar, Pharez, and Zerah is given by Lagarde, Orientalia, ii. (1880). He identifies Tamar (palm tree) with Phoenicia, and regards Zerah (∏ΙT=ΓD1K, indigena) as the old Canaanite element of the union which had to yield precedence to the younger Hebrew invaders (Pharez). In any case the narrative of Gen. xxxviii., with all its obscurities, indicates two of the most notable features in the early history of Judah, its mixed character and its long separation from the rest of Israel (ver. 1). The latter point ...receives further illustration in the book of Judges. Judah and Simeon seem to have broken off from Israel at Gilgal, and taken a separate course. In the song of Deborah the tribe is not named among the rest, and even in the time of David Judah and Israel are still more conscious of their separation than of their original unity. Indeed the two soon fell apart again at the division of the kingdom, but after the time of David the idea of unity was never lost; and, while the prophets look for a restoration of the realm of the house of Jesse, Deut, xxxiii. 7 (the work of a poet of Ephraim) prays for victory to Judah against his enemies and his ultimate restoration to his people, the greater Israel of the north. The blessing of Jacob, on the other hand, views Judah in the light of the Davidic sovereignty as holding the hegemony over his brethren until the coming of the Messiah. Our most detailed information as to the tribal history of Judah is derived from 1 Chron. ii. l-iv. 23. It appears that the tribe absorbed a large element of non-Israelite origin, the Hezronites, or, as the Arabs would now say, the hadar, original nomads who had settled down in villages and towns. To these belonged not only the Jerahmeelites but the Calibbites in Hebron and the southern steppes. It appears to have been the incorporation of these elements that raised Judah to the eminent place which it maintained from the time of David. The details of this important piece of history have been analysed by Wellhausen, De gentibus et familiis Judaeorum (Göttingen, 1870).
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 13, p. 760 [582 words — estimated reading time: 4 minutes]
the son of Jacob and Leah, who was born in Mesopotamia, Genesis xxix, 35. It was he who advised his brethren to sell Joseph to the Ishmaelite merchants, rather than stain their hands with his blood, Gen. xxxvii, 26. There is little said of his life, and the little that is recorded does not raise him high in our estimation. In the last prophetic blessing pronounced on him by his father Jacob, Gen. xlix, 8, 9, there is a promise of the regal power; and that it should not depart from his family before the coming of the Messiah. The whole southern part of Palestine fell to Judah’s lot; but the tribes of Simeon and Dan possessed many cities which at first were given to Judah. This tribe was so numerous, that at the departure out of Egypt it contained seventy-four thousand six hundred men capable of bearing arms, Num. i, 26, 27. The crown passed from the tribe of Benjamin, of which Saul and his sons were, to that of Judah, which was David’s tribe, and the tribe of the kings, his successors, until the Babylonish captivity.
the religious doctrines and rites of the Jews, the descendants of Abraham. With Abraham Judaism may be said, in some sense, to have begun; but it was not till the promulgation of the law upon Mount Sinai, that the Jewish economy was established, and that to his posterity was committed a dispensation which was to distinguish them ever after from every other people on earth. The Mosaic dispensation consisted of three parts; the religious faith and worship of the Jews, their civil polity, and precepts for the regulation of their moral conduct. Their civil government, as well as their sacred polity, was of divine institution; and, on all important occasions, their public affairs were conducted by the Deity himself, or by persons bearing his commission. The laws of the Jews, religious and moral, civil, political, and ritual, that is, a complete system of pure Judaism, are contained in the books of the Old Testament, and chiefly in the five books of Moses. See GOVERNMENT OF THE HEBREWS.
The religion of the ancestors of the Jews, before the time of Moses, consisted in the worship of the one living and true God, under whose immediate direction they were; in the hope of a Redeemer; in a firm reliance on his promises under all difficulties and dangers; and in a thankful acknowledgment for all his blessings and deliverances. In that early age, we read of altars, pillars, and monuments raised, and sacrifices offered to God. They used circumcision as a seal of the covenant which God had made with Abraham. As to the mode and circumstances of divine worship, they were much at liberty till the time of Moses; but that legislator, by the direction and appointment of God himself, prescribed an instituted form of religion, and regulated ceremonies, feasts, days, priests, and sacrifices, ...with the utmost exactness. The rites and observances of their religion under the law were numerous, and its sanctions severe. Notwithstanding God’s prophets, and oracles, and ordinances, and the symbol of his presence, were among them, the Jews were ever very prone to idolatry, till the Babylonish furnace served to purify them from that corruption. After their seventy years’ captivity, many among them gave too much place to the Greek idolatries, but as a nation they were never again guilty of the crime. Their religious worship and character in our Saviour’s time had become formal and superstitious; and such it still continues to be, in a greater or less degree, at the present day. Ancient Judaism, compared with all religions except the Christian, was distinguished for its superior purity and spirituality; and the whole Mosaic ritual was of a typical nature. See JEWS.
One who conforms to or inculcates Judaism; specifically, pl. (Ch. Hist.), those Jews who accepted Christianity but still adhered to the law of Moses and worshiped in the temple at Jerusalem.
CHRISTIANS. Concerning the divine origin of the religion of Moses, there was among the Jews no diversity of sentiment, and they not unnaturally drew the conclusion, that, as it had proceeded from God, it must be of perpetual obligation. They were indeed fully aware, that another communication from heaven was to be made to mankind, and that this was to be announced by a messenger more distinguished than even the lawgiver whom they revered; but they had satisfied themselves, that the great design of the Messiah’s mission would be to rescue them from the oppression of a foreign yoke, and to lay in Jerusalem the foundation of universal empire. For accomplishing these purposes, it was requisite that their Messiah should be invested with temporal power; and in this idea, which so many circumstances in their history tended to endear to them, they were confirmed by those passages in the books of their prophets which described him as destined to sit on the throne of David, to sway a righteous sceptre, and to establish an everlasting kingdom. When, accordingly, Christ appeared in the humblest condition of life, and when, after the commencement of his ministry, he declared, that the hopes of empire which his countrymen had long cherished were fallacious, the predictions on which they had been rested suggesting, when combined with other predictions, a very different view of the designs of the Almighty, they were filled with indignation, and the greater part of them, although they saw the miracles which Jesus wrought, and heard those appeals to their own Scriptures which, however eager to do so, they found themselves unable to confute, rejected his pretensions on account of the meanness of his situation, and reprobated him as a deceiver of the people.
There was, however, a ...considerable number who could not adopt this conclusion, and who, satisfied that the mighty works which he performed fully established the reality of the divine commission to which he laid claim, relinquished their prejudices respecting a temporal sovereignty, and embraced his doctrine as the revealed will of God. But, notwithstanding this, they do not seem to have formed the most distant conception that there was any thing in that doctrine to set aside the system which had been transmitted to them by their fathers. They regarded the two dispensations as forming one whole; and believed that the rites which had distinguished from the rest of mankind those who belonged to the commonwealth of Israel, would in the same manner mark the disciples of the Messiah’s kingdom. Agreeably to this, as they conceived, they saw that Jesus conformed to their ceremonial institutions, he frequented the temple, he purified it from abuses by which it had been profaned, and they interpreted, in the sense most in harmony with their favourite notions, the declaration which he had publicly made, that he came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it. Even the apostles who had constantly attended him, who had listened not merely to his public discourses, but to the interpretation of them, which, in tender condescension to their weakness, he often in private gave, were so thoroughly established in this opinion that it required a peculiar revelation to be made to him before Peter would open the kingdom of God to a Gentile. It cannot, therefore, be matter of surprise that the sentiment prevailed among the whole of the Jews who had been converted to Christianity; or that even after it was opposed by the declaration of the Apostles as individuals, and by their solemn determination, when assembled to decide with respect to it, that the law was not binding upon Gentile converts, they should still have adhered to it, when from not having a written record of faith they might have imagined, either that the representation of the apostolic decision was erroneous, or that the sanction which it gave to their own adherence to their ceremonies virtually confirmed the doctrine which they felt such aversion to relinquish. They accordingly displayed much zeal in support of the Mosaical economy, represented the strict observance of what it required as essential for justification, and looked with a kind of abhorrence upon that large proportion of believers who paid to this no respect, and who even did not hesitate to condemn it as subversive of the fundamental principle of the Gospel dispensation. A great part of the epistles of St. Paul is directed against the Judaizing teachers who inculcated the original tenet of their brethren. The Apostle earnestly presses upon the churches, that by the works of the law we cannot be justified, that circumcision is of no avail, that by grace we are saved, and that Christ hath redeemed us by his blood. He, indeed, uniformly represents the idea which he opposed as inconsistent with Christianity, as an idea which could not be held without detracting from what our Saviour has done to accomplish our redemption. What effect his writings produced upon the Jewish believers, cannot be accurately ascertained; but it is quite certain that a very large proportion of them adhered to their ritual observances either as national, or as instrumental in obtaining the divine favour; and this survived the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem,--events which might have been expected to convince every one of the temporary nature of the Mosaical economy.
But after Adrian, by again directing the Roman arms against the Jews, blasted the hopes which had been fondly cherished, that their city would be rebuilt, and their temple opened with greater splendour than before, a vast number of them, either from being convinced by what they had seen, or from their eagerness to gain admission into the city which the emperor had erected, but from which he had ordered that all who persisted in Judaism should be excluded, for the first time embraced the religion of Christ; and many, who had previously done so, abandoning the Jewish ritual, acquiesced fully in the representation of the faith given by St. Paul, choosing as their bishop a Gentile convert. There were, however, not a few who remained steadfast in their principles, who were now consequently separated from the great body of their believing countrymen, and who retained the appellation of Nazarenes, which had probably been given to the whole of the Jewish Christians. This remnant soon split into two parties. The one party, although they held that the law of Moses was obligatory upon the descendants of the house of Israel, did not extend it to those who had never been of the family of Abraham; they revered Jesus as being more than man, and in fact approached so near to the prevailing sentiments of the church, that, notwithstanding their peculiar sentiments in relation to the Mosaical law, they were not ranked by the earliest writers among heretics. The other party, who were called Ebionites, either from Ebion, the name, it is alleged, of their leader, from their poverty, or from the low notions which they entertained of Christ, for all these reasons have been specified, showing sufficiently that the matter is really uncertain,--maintained the original tenet that their law was binding upon all men, and that without observing what it required it was impossible to be justified. As this was in direct opposition to the declarations of St. Paul, instead of submitting to apostolic authority they set it at defiance, rejecting his epistles, and branding him as an enemy to the truth. They disregarded even the Gospels which were received by the generality of Christians, and used a gospel of their own which they had so modelled as to support the tenets to which they were attached. One of these tenets, one which, indeed, naturally followed from their conceptions of the Gospel dispensation, was, that its author was merely a man raised solely by the commission with which he had been honoured above the rest of his fellow creatures.
ISCARIOT, or, as he is usually called, the traitor, and betrayer of our Lord. “The _treachery_ of Judas Iscariot,” says Dr. Hales, “his _remorse_, and _suicide_, are occurrences altogether so strange and extraordinary, that the motives by which he was actuated require to be developed, as far as may be done, where the evangelists are, in a great measure, silent concerning them, from the circumstances of the history itself, and from the feelings of human nature. Judas, the leading trait in whose character was covetousness, was probably induced to follow Jesus at first with a view to the riches, honours, and other temporal advantages, which he, in common with the rest, expected the Messiah’s friends would enjoy. The astonishing miracles he saw him perform left no room to doubt of the reality of his Master’s pretensions, who had, indeed, himself in private actually accepted the title from his Apostles; and Judas must have been much disappointed when Jesus repeatedly refused the profferedroyalty from the people in Galilee, after the miracle of feeding the five thousand, and again after his public procession to Jerusalem. He might naturally have grown impatient under the delay, and dissatisfied also with Jesus for openly discouraging all ambitious views among his disciples; and, therefore, he might have devised the scheme of delivering him up to the sanhedrim, or great council of the nation, (composed of the chief priests, scribes, and elders,) in order to compel him to avow himself openly as the Messiah before them; and to work such miracles, or to give them the sign which they so often required, as would convince and induce them to elect him in due form, and by that means enable him to reward his followers. Even the rebukes of Jesus for his covetousness, and the ...detection of his treacherous scheme, although they unquestionablyoffended Judas, might only serve to stimulate him to the speedier execution of his plot, during the feast of the passover, while the great concourse of the Jews, from all parts assembled, might powerfully support the sanhedrim and their Messiah against the Romans. The success of this measure, though against his Master’s will, would be likely to procure him pardon, and even to recommend him to favour afterward. Such might have been the plausible suggestions by which Satantempted him to the commission of this crime. But when Judas, who attended the whole trial, saw that it turned out quite contrary to his expectations, that Jesus was capitally convicted by the council, as a false Christ and false prophet, notwithstanding he had openly avowed himself; and that he wrought no miracle, either for their conviction or for his own deliverance, as Judas well knew he could, even from the circumstance of healing Malchus, after he was apprehended; when he farther reflected, like Peter, on his Master’s merciful forewarnings of his treachery, and mild and gentle rebuke at the commission of it; he was seized with remorse, and offered to return the paltrybribe of thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders instantly on the spot, saying, ‘I sinned in delivering up innocent blood;’ and expected that on this they would have desisted from the prosecution. But they were obstinate, and not only would not relent, but threw the whole load of guilt upon him, refusing to take their own share; for they said, ‘What is that to us? see thou to that;’ thus, according to the aphorism, loving the treason, but hating the traitor, after he had served their wicked turn. Stung to the quick at their refusal to take back the money, while they condemned himself, he went to the temple, cast down the whole sum in the treasury, or place for receiving the offerings of the people; and, after he had thus returned the wages of iniquity, he retired to some lonely place, not far, perhaps, from the scene of Peter’s repentance; and, in the frenzy of despair, and at the instigation of the devil, hanged himself; crowning with suicide the murder of his Master and his friend; rejecting his compassionate Saviour, and plunging his own soul into perdition! In another place it is said that, ‘falling headlong, he burstasunder, and all his bowelsgushed out,’ Acts i, 18. Both these accounts might be true: he might first have hanged himself from some tree on the edge of a precipice; and, the rope or branch breaking, he might be dashed to pieces by the fall.”
The above view of the case of Judas endeavours ingeniously to account for his conduct by supposing him influenced by the motive of compelling our Lord to declare himself, and assume the Messiahship in its earthly glory. It will, however, be recollected, that the only key which the evangelic narrative affords, is, Judas’s covetousness; which passion was, in him, a growing one. It was this which destroyed whatever of honest intention he might at first have in following Jesus; and when fully under its influence he would be blinded by it to all but the glittering object of the reward of iniquity. In such a mind there could be no true faith, and no love; what wonder, then, when avarice was in him a ruling and unrestrained passion, that he should betray his Lord? Still it may be admitted that the knowledge which Judas had of our Lord’s miraculous power, might lead him the more readily to put him into the hands of the chief priests. He might suppose that he would deliver himself out of their hands; and thus Judas attempted to play a double villany, against Christ and against his employers.
JUDASISCARIOT (Ιoι‰s Ίσκαριώττ/ς or Ισκαpιω0), the son of Simon Iscariot (John. vi. 71, xiii. 26), and one of the twelve apostles; he is always enumerated last, with special mention of the fact that he was the betrayer of Jesus. If the now generally accepted explanation of his surname (Γ∏Γ ’ ιi ’ E j % i.e∙, “man of Kerioth”; see Josh. XV. 25) be correct, he was the only original member of the apostolic band who was not a Galilaean. (For other suggested etymologies of the name see Winer’s Bibl. Realw'orterb., s. vj) The circumstances which led to his admission into the apostolic circle are not stated; according to the Fourth Gospel (vi. 64), his treachery had been foreseen by Jesus from the very first, but this is not suggested by the synoptists. The motives by which he was actuated in rendering to the J ewish authorities the petty and base service of enabling them to arrest his Master without tumult have been analysed by scholars with very various degrees of subtlety and insight. According to some his sole object was to place Jesus in a position in which He should be compelled to make what had seemed to His followers the too tardy display of His Messianic power; according to others (and their view seems the best supported by the narrative of the Gospels) he was simply an avaricious and dishonest man, who felt that his opportunities for petty peculation—as keeper of the common purse, John xii. 6, xiii. 29—were rapidly disappearing. As regards the effects of his subsequent remorse and the use to which his ill-gotten gains were put, the strikingly apparent discrepancies between the narratives of Matt, xxvii. 3-10 and Acts i. 18, 19 have continually attracted the attention of Biblical scholars ever since Papias, in his fourth book, ...of which a fragment has been preserved, discussed the subject; the probability is that they simply represent divergent traditions, one of which has possibly been coloured by the history of Ahithophel. In ecclesiastical legend and in sacred art JudasIscariot has taken a prominent place, being generally treated as the very incarnation of treachery, ingratitude, and impiety. The Middle Ages, after their fashion, have supplied the lacunae in what they deemed his too meagre biography. According to the common form of their story, he belonged to the tribe.of Reuben ∕ before he was born his mother Cyborea had a dream that he was destined to murder his father, commit incest with his mother, and sell his God. The attempts made by her and her husband to avert this curse simply led to its accomplishment. At his birth he was enclosed in a chest and flung into the sea; picked up on a foreign shore, he was educated at the court until an act of murder committed in a moment of passion compelled his flight. Coming to Judaea, he entered the service of Pontius Pilate as page, and during this period committed the first two of the crimes which had been expressly foretold. Learning the secret of his birth, he, full of remorse, seeks the prophet who, he has heard, has power on earth to forgive sins. He is accepted as a disciple and promoted to a position of trust, where avarice, the only vice in which he has hitherto been unpractised, gradually takes possession of his soul, and leads to the complete fulfilment of his evil destiny. This Judas legend, as given by Jacobus a Voragine, obtained no small popularity; and it is to be found in various shapes in every important literature of Europe. For the history of its genesis and its diffusion the reader may consult D’Ancona, La leggenda di Vergogna e la leggenda di Giuda, Bologna, 1869, and papers by W. Creizenach in Paul and Braune’s Beitτ. zur Gesch. der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, vol. ii., Halle, 1875, and Victor Diederich in Russiche Revue, St Petersburg, 1880. Cholevius, in his Geschichte der deutschen Poesie nach ihren antiken Elementen (Leipsic, 1854), pointed out the connexion of the legend with the Oedipus story. The popular hatred of Judas has found strange symbolical expression in various parts of Christendom. In Corfu, for instance, the people at a given signal on Easter eve throw vast quantities of crockery from their windows and roofs into the streets, and thus execute an imaginary stoning of Judas (see Kirkwall, Ionian Islands, vol. ii. p. 47). At one time (according to Mustoxidi, Delle cose corciresi) the tradition prevailed that the traitor’s house and country villa existed in the island, and that his descendants were to be found among the local Jews. Details in regard to some Judas legends and superstitions are given in Notes and Queries, 2d series, v., vi., and vii.; 3d ser., vii.; 5th ser., vi.
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JUDAS TREE, the Cereis Siliquastrum of botanists, belongs to the section Caesalpineae of the natural family Leguminosae. It is a native of the south of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, and forms a handsome low tree with a flat spreading head. In spring it is covered with a profusion of purplishpink flowers, which appear before the leaves. The flowers have an agreeable acid taste, and are eaten mixed with salad or made into fritters. The tree was one frequently figured by thé older herbalists. One woodcut by CastorDurante is a copy of Lobel’s cut, with the addition of the figure of Judas suspended from one of the branches, illustrating the popular tradition regarding this tree. A second species, C. canadensis, is common in North America from Canada to Virginia, and differs from the European species in its smaller size and pointed leaves. The flowers are also used in salads and for making pickles, while the branches are used to dye wool a nankeen colour.
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And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the LORD judge between me and thee.
Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be upon you! I delivered my servant into your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me.”
For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.
For I have chosen him, so that he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, in order that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has promised.”
That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
Far be it from You to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?”
And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.
“Get out of the way!” they replied. And they declared, “This one came here as a foreigner, and he is already acting like a judge! Now we will treat you worse than them.” And they pressed in on Lot and moved in to break down the door.
And she conceived again, and bare a son: and she said, Now will I praise the LORD: therefore she called his name Judah; and left bearing.
And once more she conceived and gave birth to a son and said, “This time I will praise the LORD.” So she named him Judah. Then Leah stopped having children.
Whereas thou hast searched all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household stuff? set it here before my brethren and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us both.
You have searched all my goods! Have you found anything that belongs to you? Put it here before my brothers and yours, that they may judge between the two of us.
Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight.
If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, surely by now you would have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands, and last night He rendered judgment.”
Then said Judah to Tamar his daughter in law, Remain a widow at thy father’s house, till Shelah my son be grown: for he said, Lest peradventure he die also, as his brethren did. And Tamar went and dwelt in her father’s house.
Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up.” For he thought, “He may die too, like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.
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