Genesis 29:35
And she conceived again, and bare a son: and she said, Now will I praise the LORD: therefore she called his name Judah; and left bearing. And she conceived again, and bare a son: and she said, Now will I praise the LORD: therefore she called his name Judah; and left bearing.
Leah's fourth son was Judah, so named because his birth moved her to praise the Lord, and after his birth she stopped bearing for a time. His birth marks the beginning of the line from which the name Jew derives, for Judah is the ancestor from whom the Jews descend and take their name. His birth occurred about 2,300 years after creation. Since the Sabbath was set apart at creation about 2,300 years before there was a Jew, the Sabbath is not Jewish. His birth belongs to the record of Jacob's polygamous family, which caused very great unhappiness and proves that polygamy was never anything but evil and wrong.
Context and Meaning
The verse belongs to the checkered and unsatisfactory experiences of Esau and Jacob recorded in Genesis 27-31. It shows Jacob's selfish plottings and his consequent suffering, in which he overreached and supplanted others and then himself met overreaching in return. It stands as an instance where God's providence, though seeming slow, brings retribution sooner or later. The verse also belongs to the continuing story of Abraham and his family, showing the gradual development of faith. That story includes the defects of Isaac and his two sons, and finally Jacob's victory that made him Israel, the prevailer with God.
The verse records that Leah's fourth son was Judah, whom she so named because his birth moved her to praise the Lord. The name Judah is connected with praise. After Judah's birth Leah left bearing, understood as ceasing to bear children for a time.
Judah's birth to Leah occurred about 2,300 years after creation. That birth marks the beginning of the line from which the name Jew derives. Judah is the ancestor from whom the Jews descend and take their name.
Doctrine and Lessons
The birth recorded here stands among the patriarchal violations of the marriage institution, yet such violations do not make marriage itself any less sacred. As part of the record of Jacob's polygamous family, it shows that polygamy in his house caused very great unhappiness. That unhappiness proves that polygamy was never anything but evil and wrong, even though it was allowed among God's people through the whole Old Testament period before marriage was placed back on the original order of Eden.
Leah's son here is Judah, so named because his birth moved her to praise the Lord, and after his birth she left bearing for a time. Judah is the ancestor from whom the Jews descend and take their name, and his birth occurred about 2,300 years after creation. Since the Sabbath was set apart and made at creation, it existed about 2,300 years before there was a Jew, so the Sabbath is not Jewish. The patriarchal age to which this birth belongs already measured time by weeks, and that custom is a trace of the Sabbath from the beginning of the world. The seventh day set apart at creation was without limit of age or country, obligatory on the whole human race for stated prayer and praise.