Tehillah Generation Chapel
Daily Manna | Saturday, July 28, 2018 | Topic: Conscience 83
Scripture: And when they saw Joseph afar off, even before he came near to them, they conspired against him to slay him. Genesis 37:18
Note: Leah had been an unhappy woman, an unfulfilled mother and an unloved wife for all her years of marriage to Jacob. Not even the birth of three successive sons for Jacob had succeeded in eliciting the attention of Jacob to endear her to her husband. Their marriage was flaccid and tasteless in union. The babies that kept coming rapidly in succession through Leah, were not born out of love. Both of them were merely fulfilling their conjugal rights out of marital obligation to each other in their need to have children. Leah had therefore been unable to rejoice and celebrate any of her three sons born to Jacob. This was inspite of the fact that her rival, Rachel, was yet to give Jacob any joy through childbirth.
The birth of Leah’s fourth son, whom she named Judah, was the first child and first son that succeeded in breaking the ice enveloping a frigid Leah. Judah’s birth came with great anticipation and great hope to Leah. Because for the first time in her tortuous marriage, her husband was going to warm up to her for having been able to give him unprecedented four healthy sons in succession. The name Judah means praise. Leah celebrated the birth of Judah with aplomb. She was grateful to God. For the first time in her marriage, Leah believed that Judah’s birth was about to bring restoration of love into their marriage.
What Leah didn’t know about Judah was that although his birth had succeeded in causing her to lift praise to Yahweh for the first time in her marriage, the baby boy that had been birthed out of her bosom was going to be of a higher and more enduring eternal significance than an ordinary love relationship between a husband and his wife. The praise that was lifted up by Leah to God was accepted by Yahweh. It became the sweet incense, fragrance and sacrifice in heaven that was accepted by God and used to alter the destiny of humanity on earth. When praise ascended to heaven, God descended to earth with His choicest gift for the salvation of mankind.
Judah became the chosen of God among the twelve sons of Jacob through whom the sceptre of rule and kingship came to dwell. It was through Judah that king David emerged, and out of David emerged the son of David, who was Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. Never mind the fact that Judah messed up in influencing his brothers in the surreptitious sale of Joseph into slavery. Never mind the fact that Judah messed himself up when he went into the lowliest moment of his life, unknowingly impregnating Tamar, his late son’s wife. Yet, out of that mess came Perez, through whom David and Jesus came.
Food for thought: The enduring grace and mercies of God have no limit to their power and capacity to forgive sin and overrule the shortcomings of man.
Declaration:
Let us, with a gladsome mind,
Praise the LORD, for He is kind:
For His mercies shall endure,
Ever faithful, ever sure. (Psalm 136)
©Author: Rev Fred Aboe
