Without pulling out your Bible, who do you think is the first person within its pages to mention the word praise? It took me by surprise when I decided to look up to see the first time that praise is mentioned. I literally said out loud, “Wow! Really?”
[31] Adonai saw that Le’ah was unloved, so he made her fertile, while Rachel remained childless. [32] Le’al conceived and gave birth to a son, whom she named Re’uven (Reuben “see, a son”), for she said, “It is because Adonai has seen how humiliated I have been, but now my husband will love me. [33] she conceived again, gave birth to a son and said, “it is because Adonai has heard that I am unloved; therefore, he has given me this son also.” So, she named him Shim’on (Simon “hearing”). [34] Once more she conceived and had a son; and she aid, “Now this time my husband will be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore, she named him Levi (“joining”). [35] She conceived yet again, had a son and said, “This time I will praise Adonai”; therefore, she named him Y’hudah (Judah, “praise”) Then she stopped having children. Genesis 29:31-35
Meet Leah. Leah was the eldest daughter of Laban, and sister to Rachel. When Jacob met Rachel, he fell head over heels for her. Scripture tells us she was beautiful. When Jacob asked Laban to marry her, he agreed to work seven years in exchange for her hand. The Bible tells us that these seven years seemed only as a few days to him because of how much he was in love with her. After seven years, the wedding celebration took place and to his dismay, Jacob was tricked and given Leah to wed instead of Rachel. Laban told him that the eldest daughter had to be married first according to custom, but if he would stay and work another seven years, he could wed Rachel as well.
While Rachel is described as beautiful, the Word says that Leah had “weak eyes”. I have heard many teachings speculating that she had some sort of vision problem, but according to David Friedman’s commentary on Genesis, the word “delicate” is a better translation, meaning that Leah’s best features were her soft, beautiful eyes. I would suspect that her marriage to Jacob was not an easy one. We see that she truly wanted him to love her based off of the names of her first three sons. “Now my husband will love me, Adonai has heard that I am unloved, Now, this time my husband will be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons”. She wanted his heart to be joined to hers, even though she knew that his heart was already given to Rachel. It wasn’t until her fourth son that she took her eyes off of Jacob and put them on the Lord and she declared, “THIS time I will praise Adonai”. This time, she named her son for the Lord rather than hope for love from her husband. She named him Judah, meaning “praise”.
Praise in this context, is the word yadah and Strong’s gives a slew of words describing it. To shoot, to throw, to express praise, give thanks, extol, to make a public confession, make an admission, to praise is to speak of the excellence of someone or something, to give thanks has a focus of gratitude of the speaker.
I think numerous of these describe Leah’s naming of Judah, but when going to the Ancient Hebrew Lexicon I saw something a bit deeper. The second description Strong’s mentions is the phrase “to throw”. The AHL gives this definition of yadah: Throw the hand. To stretch out the hand, to grab, to show praise or confession, thank or confess. Both references give the idea of the lifting of hands and giving thanks. Yadah is spelled with the Hebrew letters yud (י), daleth (ד), and hey (ה) Yud means a hand, Daleth a door, path, or way, and hey to behold, show, or reveal. The meanings of those letters paint a fairly clear picture of someone standing with their hands raised, praising Adonai.
I always found it interesting, that in a culture that places significance on birth order, birthright, and blessing, that Yeshua’s genealogy was not from Reuben, the oldest child of Jacob, as well as being from the line of one of Leah’s children rather than Rachel’s, the wife that Jacob loved. While I was thinking on this, as well as these verses about Leah’s first four children, a couple of things came to me. In verse 31 it begins saying, “Adoani saw that Le’ah was unloved, so he made her fertile”. How many of us go through times in our lives where we feel unloved? Even after we accept Yeshua as our savior, we can still look at ourselves and feel like no one loves us, that no one cares about us, although we know that isn’t the truth. Our Abba Father loves us to the extreme. He loves us with such an over the top love that He gave His only Son to save us so that we could come back into relationship with Him. He looks at us and sees that this world does not love us. (I’m not referring to people within the world) So what does He do? He makes us fertile in our spirits. He sows the seed of the word on our hearts, He sent the Holy Spirit to fill and empower us so that we would be fruitful. (see Galatians 5:22-23). Like Leah, He gives us favor.
Leah’s first three children were named with her eyes fixed upon her husband. What I am about to say is my own speculation, just kind of a food for thought type of a thing. Leah’s third son, Levi’s name means “joining”. The tribe of Levi would become the priesthood that would serve in the tabernacle and later the temple. It was the tribe of Levi that joined the Children of Israel to Adonai as they would be the ones to offer the sacrifices for the sins of the people. Perhaps because with her fourth son, Judah, she chose to fix her eyes upon Adonai in praise, rather than on man, Yeshua came from this bloodline. Another interesting thing to note, is the Hebrew spelling of Judah’s name. It is spelled with the letters, Yud, Hey, Daleth, and Hey. (YHDH) When Moses asked God who he was to say sent him, he was told to say, YHVH, Yud, Hey, Vav, Hey. There is a one letter difference, yet they both tie to Yeshua.
My thoughts then turned to the blessings that Jacob gave to each of his children, specifically Judah’s.
[8] Y’hudah, your brothers will acknowledge (praise) you, your hand will be on the neck of your enemies, your father’s sons will bow down before you. [9] Y’huda is a lion’s cub; my son, you stand over the prey. He crouches down and stretches like a lion; like a lioness, who dares to provoke him? [10] The scepter will not pass from Y’hudah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his legs, until he comes to whom [obedience] belongs; and it is he whom the peoples will obey. [11] Tying his donkey to the vine, his donkey’s colt to the choice grapevine, he washed his clothes in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes. [12] His eyes will be darker than wine, his teeth whiter than milk. Genesis 49:8-12
The Lion of the tribe of Judah, prophesied hundreds of years before He would even walk the earth, with a prophecy that beings “your brothers will praise you”. I can’t help but think of Season 2 Episode 1 of The Chosen, in which after Jesus asks, “Who’s worthy of anything?” and John simply replies, “You.” It is He who is worthy of all praise.
I took my research on Judah a tad further and looked up which stone represented the tribe of Judah on the breastplate of the High Priest and found that it is a green feldspar, or carbuncle which is defined as a bluish green color. The photos that I found of this stone lean more on the green side, rather than blue, and it led me to look up the biblical meaning of the color green. www.colormeanings.com gives interesting commentary for each color but green lists the following meanings:
Praise, growth, prosperity, new beginning, flourishing, and restoration. Green is obtained by mixing yellow (trails) with blue (Word of God). Therefore, the biblical meaning of the color green is immortality. (The leaf shall not wither (Psalm 1:3). Green is also symbolic of resurrection which we see each Spring. From www.colormeanings.com
If praise is represented by the color green, is it a coincidence that the stone for the tribe of Judah, whose name means praise is also green? Perhaps, but it gives one something to think about.
Yadah, I will praise the Lord, I will throw up my hands, I will stretch out my hand to grab His. It is something David did as he penned about it in Psalm 63:3-4 for your grace is better than life. My lips will worship you. Yes, I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. Like David, I will lift my hands. Like Leah, I will say, “This time I will praise the Lord”, no matter the circumstance, and let Him make me fertile ground to bear fruit for His purpose.
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