The subject, fourth son of Jacob and Leah, proposed selling Joseph to traders rather than killing him. His own account then records failings in the matter of Tamar, whom he wronged and later acknowledged as more righteous than himself.

When famine drove the brothers to Egypt, the subject pledged himself as surety for Benjamin, that Jacob might let the boy go with them.

Before the disguised Joseph, the subject offered to remain a slave in Benjamin's place rather than break his father's heart, a turn of self-sacrifice that moved Joseph to reveal himself.

On his deathbed Jacob blessed the subject as a lion's whelp, declaring that the scepter would not depart from him, nor the ruler's staff, until the one to whom it belongs should come.

From his tribe came David and the kings of Judah, and in time the Messiah, hailed as the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Root of David.