What does true repentance look like? What does it look like for a person to turn from the kingdom of darkness and step into the kingdom of light?
The Scriptures give us many concrete examples such as Namaan, the prodigal son, Zacchaeus, and of course the apostle Paul. One of the most striking and detailed accounts is perhaps the story of Judah, son of Jacob and brother of Joseph.
When we first meet Judah at the beginning of the Joseph narrative he is a nasty, hateful character. The first thing we learn about him is that he and his brothers hate their younger brother Joseph and cannot even speak a kind word to him. Judah observes that Joseph is his father’s favourite son because he is the son of his favourite wife, Rachel. But Judah also can see that Joseph is favoured because he behaves more righteously than he and his brothers. All of this stirs up hatred in Judah.
Judah´s hate for Joseph becomes even more apparent when the opportunity arises to do violence against his younger brother. After his brothers throw Joseph in a pit and leav him for dead, Judah is the brother who comes up with the evil plan of selling Joseph for profit to a passing Ishmaelite caravan. This is of course how Joseph ends up in Egypt as a slave.
Judah continues in his unrepentant ways in the next chapter of the narrative. He leaves his brothers (i.e. the covenant family through which God will bless people), and goes down to live among the pagans of the land – the Canaanites. In doing so, Judah follows in the footsteps of his pagan uncle Esau and effectively gives a middle finger to the covenant.
But it gets worse. While living among the pagans Judah acts worse than the pagans. Without going into all the details, Judah seeks comfort in a prostitute after his own wife dies, and then attempts to cover up his wrongdoing by letting the prostitute take the fall. Turns out the prostitute was Tamar, his daughter-in-law, who was essentially forced into prostitution because of Judah´s negligence and selfishness. Sounds complicated? It was! However, it is not complicated to see that Judah was a bad man. He was a pagan.
At the end of his interaction with Tamar, Judah rightly sees that she – a poor Canaanite woman forced to sleep with her father-in-law in order to preserve her family – is more righteous than he. This, it seems, is the turning point for Judah. The next time he appears in the story, his actions are much more righteous.
In order to secure food in the midst of a severe famine, Judah and his brothers must return to Egypt and face the governor who had previously accused them of being spies. What’s more, the governor has demanded they take Benjamin, the youngest brother, with them. The problem? Benjamin is Jacob’s other favourite son and his old, frail heart can´t take the thought of losing another son.
Instead of brushing off his elderly father´s concerns or getting angry at his repeated favoritism, Judah personally commits to ensuring Benjamin’s safety – he offers his life as guarantee. Judah’s offer is put to the ultimate test when, later on in Egypt, Benjamin is found to have “stolen” the governor’s silver cup and faces the death penalty. It is at this precise point that we see most clearly the repentance that has taken place in Judah´s heart.
Rather than abandon his brothers and selfishly take off on his own, Judah steps forward as the leader and acknowledges that he and his brothers have sinned against God. Then, instead of offering to sell his brother as he did previously, Judah pleads for his younger brother’s life in a moving, compassionate speech that terminates with his offer to become a slave in Egypt instead of Benjamin.
This is a radical, one-hundred-eighty u-turn in Judah’s life. In the entirety of the Joseph narrative the author never makes any comment about the spiritual state of Judah, but through vivid details and pointed speech, it is made abundantly clear that Judah has truly repented. Judah, who was born into a covenant family, later rebelled and lived a pagan life. But now he has come back to the God of his fathers and has embraced the promises taught to him as a young child.
Instead of hatred, violence, and selfishness, Judah´s heart has been transformed and producing the fruit of repentence; the fruit of the Spirit – compassion, honesty, kindness, and sacrifical love. This is true repentence.
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