The Sunday Mail
“MOA Anbessa,” the Conquering Lion of Judah, is the official symbol of the Jewish tribe of Judah.
Ibo Foroma
According to the Torah, Judah was the fourth son of Jacob.
Genesis 49 begins by saying, “And Jacob called unto his sons and said, gather yourselves together that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days. Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your Father.”
Verses 8-10 read, “Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise, thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy Father’s children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion’s whelp … The sceptre shall not depart from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.”
Revelation 5:5 adds: “And one of the elders saith unto me, ‘Weep not for behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, hath prevailed to open the scroll, and to loose the seven seals thereof’.”
The Lion of Judah was on Ethiopian emperors’ imperial flags from 1897 to 1974. Indeed, those were the last days of glory in the motherland.
Ethiopia’s history as recorded and elaborated in a 13th-century treatise, the “Kebra Negast”, asserts descent from a retinue of Israelites who returned with Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, from her visit to King Solomon in Jerusalem, by whom she had conceived the Solomonic dynasty’s founder Menelik I.
As Solomon was of the tribe of Judah, his son Menelik I would continue the line, which according to Ethiopian imperial history was passed directly down from king to king until Emperor Haile Selassie I, ostensibly the 225th direct descendant from King David.
Both Christian and Jewish Ethopian history have it that there are also immigrants of the tribe of Dan and Judah that accompanied Makeda back from her visit to Solomon.
Hence we have the Ge’ez motto “Mo’a Anbessa Ze’imnegede Yihuda” (The Lion of Judah has Conquered), included among the titles of the Emperor throughout the Solomonic Dynasty.
It is unknown whether John of Patmos was directly aware of this hereditary title when he penned it into the text of the prophecy.
The Lion of Judah motif figured prominently on the old Imperial flag, currency, stamps, among others and may be seen gracing the terrace of the capital as a national symbol.
Lions graced the Imperial courts of the Lion of Judah. These lions were of a rare and unique breed and part of the Emperor’s personal collection.
They were the living lions to have their distinctive mane, which covers the head, neck, chest and belly. Their smaller skinnier bodies also marked them out from other lions, and their DNA suggests they were a genetically distinct population.
