While continuing to read through Genesis, I ran across this:
9 You are a lion’s cub, Judah; you return from the prey, my son. Like a lion he crouches and lies down, like a lioness—who dares to rouse him? 10 The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his.
Genesis 49:9-10
Judah is the fourth son of Jacob, also known as Israel. In that culture, usually it would be the firstborn son that would receive the largest blessing, so I did a little research to see if there was an answer somewhere in the Bible explaining God’s choice.
There isn’t an explanation. But here is a blog post that I found on the website, One for Israel that I thought had some great thoughts on the subject:
The Mysterious Choice of Judah
May we all have the attitude of Leah, as described in the article above!
(One for Israel describes themselves as such: We are an Israeli ministry composed of Jewish & Arab followers of Yeshua (Jesus) who are all about blessing Israel through sharing the gospel online, educating the new generation of born-again believers through our one and only Hebrew-speaking Bible College in Israel, and helping holocaust survivors by supplying humanitarian aid.)
"Most Likely to Succeed" 