Of the two royal lines in Israel, Judah and Joseph, both exhibit an humble character.
Parsha Chukat is almost entirely about death. There is the red heifer whose ashes are used to purify those who come into contact with death, Miriam dies, Aaron dies, Moses is told he will die in the wilderness, and deadly snakes invade the camp. Oddly enough, all of this points to the fact that death is not permanent, and although it defiles, it is not to be feared.
There is an old country song about misplaced trust. A driver takes foolish risks believing that the plastic Jesus on his dashboard will keep him safe. Everything needed to form an accurate understanding of the character and promises of God is in the Bible - the whole Bible, not just our favorite parts. Neglecting the difficult parts of Scripture can cause one to set up a 'plastic Jesus' and behave foolishly, trusting promises that He never made.
Going back to the blessing of the Sons of Jacob and then the tribes by Moses, it becomes clear that both Joseph and Judah have leadership roles within the nation. Joseph gets the blessing of Abraham and most of the attention in Gen 39 and Dt 33. After this introduction, Psalm 2 describes a three way conversation between the Father, His Son and a narrator.
At the end of his sojourn in Haran, Jacob returns to the land and meets Esau. The Torah says that Esau kissed him when they met. Was that kiss sincere?
Israel spent some 400 years in Egypt where they became slaves. How did this happen?
Comparing the lives of Judah and Esau, it becomes obvious that they are the same character. This casts a different light on Jacob's theft of Esau's blessing in the face of Isaac's desire to split the blessing of Abraham.
In the Parable of the Weeds the common assumption is that weeds represent persecution of the faithful within the church. While that is surely part of it, perhaps more insidious are weeds that bring with them ideas that interfere with character development of the faithful. The resulting lack of virtue undermines the liberty that God wants us to have.
Hebrews 4 says that the generation that perished in the wilderness heard the same Gospel as was given to believers by the Apostles. Since the sin of the spies in the wilderness was over a thousand years prior to the Crucifixion, just what is that Gospel? What should that understanding mean to the church today?
After the people of Gibeah murdered the Levite's concubine, he sent evidence to all of the tribes asking that that evil be removed. The rest of the tribes asked Benjamin to deliver up the men of Gibeah. When they refused, the resulting civil war nearly eradicated Benjamin from Israel.