On the 27th day of Christmas my true love gave to me a Savior from the tribe of Judah (1 Chronicles 4:1).
We like cheering for the underdog, but none of us wants to be the underdog. I know I don’t, and when I find myself in that position my mind goes to Mark 9:35 that says, “the first shall be last and the last shall be first.” Jesus said this to his disciples who were debating about who was the best among them. He gave them this lesson in humility, and they didn’t get it, and neither did Leah, Jacob’s first wife who he treated as the last.
I have always felt sorry for Leah. Many of us know her story. Her father tricked Jacob into marrying her instead of her beautiful younger sister, Rachel, who Jacob wanted to marry. She wasn’t very attractive; her husband didn’t want her and nothing she did made him want her; and she spent the first seven years of marriage watching her husband work so he could marry her sister. She definitely was the underdog and knew it (though I wonder how complicit she was in the trickery and may have contributed to her being undesired. I don’t know, but that’s beside the point right now.).
The only time Leah was on top was when she got pregnant and gave birth to sons, something every man wanted to carry on the family legacy. After she had Judah, her fourth son, “[t]hen she stopped bearing” (Genesis 29:35). And then she took matters into her own hands. After seeing Rachel’s maid giving birth on behalf of her barren sister, Leah, too, gave her maid to Jacob so she could try to have more sons. Leah was dissatisfied with Judah being her last, thinking he represented the end of her being able to conceive. What Leah didn’t know was that Judah may have been last at that moment, but he was destined to be first:
“The sons of Judah were Perez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur and Shobal.”—1 Chronicles 4:1.
This is the beginning of the genealogies of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Even though Judah was the last son when Leah took matters into her own hands, he has the first genealogical listing, representing his prominence, but chiefly representing the preeminence of Jesus Christ, “the lion from the tribe of Judah.” While Leah jockeyed to be first, she had no idea that the Savior of the world would come through her womb, the first and the last, all we ever need, whether we’re the underdog or the top dog. When we get to the point where we stop conceiving, let us not take matters into our own hands trying to conceive a plan, project or even a baby that may be out of God’s order. Our last conception may very well be our best and the one God will have rise to the top.
Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith