A whelp is a lion’s cub, remaining with its mother for two years until it learns to hunt. Then watch out!
After a brief overview of the twelve sons of Israel (not the 12 tribes, where Levi would be separated to the Lord and Joseph would be replaced by his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh), we focus on the line of Judah (1 Chron 2:1-17). Judah was not the eldest son (nor were Seth, Isaac, Jacob, or David) but had been placed as the firstborn son after the abysmal failure of Reuben. Jacob had long ago prophesied, “Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise…Your father’s children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s whelp… The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people” (Gen 49:8-10), and now it was coming to pass. But the genealogy pauses to paint in the significant warts on Judah’s portrait. We read, “Er, the firstborn of Judah, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; so He killed him. And Tamar, his daughter-in-law, bore him Perez and Zerah” (1 Chron 2:3-4). Gulp! Do we talk about such things in polite society? In fact, these are light brushstrokes, and most of the details have been left out. But without being indiscreet, we should note that this story is another devilish attempt to abort the Seed of the woman yet to come (Gen 3:15). The shameful story reveals that the men of Judah, in the line of the promised Messiah, were thoroughly cavalier about their privilege. It took a greatly disadvantaged widow, albeit with highly questionable subterfuge, to thus rescue the royal line from dissolution, and God will not let us forget it, even including this event on Page 1 of His Son’s biography! But the bottom line here reads as follows: “and David the seventh” (1 Chron 2:15), the pivotal character of the whole book.