Judah’s sin with Tamar his daughter in law. When she was brought forth, she sent to her father-in-law, saying, By the man, whose these are, am I with child: and she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and bracelets, and staff. Gen 38:25
INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAME10NT
II. GOD AND THE CHOSEN FAMILY, Genesis 12-50
3. The History of Jacob’s Sons, Joseph and His Brothers
(Judah’s Sin), Genesis 38:1-30
JUDAH AND TAMAR
Now at that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to [stay with] a certain Adullamite named Hirah.
There Judah saw a daughter of Shua, a Canaanite, and he took her [as his wife] and lived with her.
So she conceived and gave birth to a son and Judah named him Er.
Then she conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan.
Again she conceived and gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. It was at Chezib that she gave birth to him.
Now Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn; her name was Tamar.
But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD killed him [in judgment].
Then Judah told Onan, “Go in to your brother’s widow, and perform your duty as a brother-in-law [under the levirate marriage custom]; [be her husband and] raise children for [the name of] your brother.” [Deu_25:5-10]
Onan knew that the child (heir) would not be his [but his dead brother’s]; so whenever he lay with his brother’s widow, he spilled his seed on the ground [to prevent conception], so that he would not give a child to his brother.
But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD; therefore He killed him also [in judgment].
Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow at your father’s house until Shelah my [youngest] son is grown”; [but he was deceiving her] for he thought that [if Shelah should marry her] he too might die like his brothers did. So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.
But quite a while later, Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died; and when the time of mourning was ended, he went up to his sheepshearers at Timnah with his friend Hirah the Adullamite.
was told, “Listen, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.”
So she removed her widow’s clothes and covered herself with a veil, and wrapped herself up [in disguise], and sat in the gateway of Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah had grown up, and she had not been given to him as a wife [as Judah had promised].
When Judah saw her, he thought she was a [temple] prostitute, for she had covered her face [as such women did].
He turned to her by the road, and said, “Please come, let me lie with you”; for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. And she said, “What will you give me, that you may lie with me?”
He answered, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.” And she said, “Will you give me a pledge [as a deposit] until you send it?”
He said, “What pledge shall I give you?” She said, “Your seal and your cord, and the staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her and was intimate with her, and she conceived by him.
Then she got up and left, and removed her veil and put on her widow’s clothing.
When Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite, to get his pledge [back] from the woman, he was unable to find her.
He asked the men of that place, “Where is the temple prostitute who was by the roadside at Enaim?” They said, “There was no prostitute here.”
So he returned to Judah, and said, “I cannot find her; also the local men said, ‘There was no prostitute around here.'”
Then Judah said, “Let her keep the things (pledge articles) for herself, otherwise we will be a laughingstock [searching everywhere for her]. After all, I sent this young goat, but you did not find her.”
About three months later Judah was told, “Tamar your daughter-in-law has played the [role of a] prostitute, and she is with child because of her immorality.” So Judah said, “Bring her out and let her be burned [to death as punishment]!”
While she was being brought out, she [took the things Judah had given her and] sent [them along with a message] to her father-in-law, saying, “I am with child by the man to whom these articles belong.” And she added, “Please examine [them carefully] and see [clearly] to whom these things belong, the seal and the cord and staff.”
Judah recognized the articles, and said, “She has been more righteous [in this matter] than I, because I did not give her to my son Shelah [as I had promised].” And Judah did not have [intimate] relations with her again.
Now when the time came for her to give birth, there were twins in her womb.
And when she was in labor, one [baby] put out his hand, and the midwife took his hand and tied a scarlet thread on it, saying, “This one was born first.”
But he pulled back his hand, and his brother was born first. And she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself [to be the firstborn]!” So he was named Perez (breach, break forth). [Mat_1:3]
fterward his brother who had the scarlet [thread] on his hand was born and was named Zerah (brightness).
Comments by
WILLIAM MACDONALD
Believers Bible Commentary
On
Genesis 38:1-30
II. THE PATRIARCHS OF ISRAEL (Chaps. 12-50)
D. Joseph (37:1–50:26)
2. Judah and Tamar (Chap. 38)
38:1-11 The sordid story of Judah’s sin with Tamar serves to magnify the grace of God when we remember that the Lord Jesus was descended from Judah (Luk_3:33). Tamar is one of five women mentioned in the genealogy in Matthew 1; three of them were guilty of immorality—Tamar, Rahab (v. 5), and Bathsheba (v. 6). The others are Ruth, a Gentile (v. 5) and Mary, a godly virgin (v. 16). Pink notes deeper meanings to this story of moral failure:
Genesis 37 closes with an account of Jacob’s sons selling their brother Joseph unto the Midianites, and they in turn selling him into Egypt. This speaks, in type, of Christ being rejected by Israel and delivered unto the Gentiles. From the time that the Jewish leaders delivered their Messiah into the hands of Pilate, they have as a nation had no further dealings with Him; and God, too, has turned from them to the Gentiles. Hence it is that there is an important turn in our type at this stage. Joseph is now seen in the hands of the Gentiles. But before we are told what happened to Joseph in Egypt, the Holy Spirit traces for us, in typical outline, the history of the Jews, while the antitypical Joseph is absent from the land.
It is no accident that the story of Joseph is interrupted by chapter 38. The disreputable behavior of other members of Joseph’s family makes his conduct, by contrast, shine like a bright light in a sordid world.
Judah’s first mistake was in marrying a Canaanite woman, the daughter of . . . Shua. She bore him three sons—Er, Onan, and Shelah. Er married a Canaanite woman named Tamar, but was slain by the LORD for some unspecified wickedness. It was the custom at that time for a brother or other near relative to marry the widow and raise children for the one who had died. Onan refused to do this because the first child born as a result would be the legal heir of Er, not his own legal child. His sin was not so much sexual as it was selfish. It was not a single act but, as the Hebrew reveals, a persistent refusal. And the refusal affected the genealogy by which Christ would inherit legal right to the throne of David. It so displeased the LORD that He slew Onan. Seeing this, Judah told Tamar to return to her father’s house till his third son, Shelah, was of marriageable age. Actually this was just a diversionary tactic. He didn’t want Shelah to marry Tamar at all; he had already lost two sons and considered her an “unlucky woman.”
38:12-23 When Shelah grew up and Judah still did not arrange his marriage to Tamar, she decided to “hook” Judah by laying a trap. She dressed as a harlot and sat in an open place on the road to Timnah, where Judah was going to join his sheepshearers. Sure enough, he went in and had illicit relations with her, not knowing it was his own daughter-in-law. The agreed fee was a young goat from the flock, but until he could send it to her, the “harlot” demanded Judah’s signet, cord, and staff. The cord may have been the string by which the seal-ring was suspended. When Judah tried to deliver the kid and have the pledges returned, he couldn’t find the “harlot.”
38:24-26 Three months later, Tamar was accused of playing the harlot because she, a widow, was with child. Judah ordered her to be burned. At this point she returned the pledges with the announcement that their owner was the father of her expected child. They furnished positive proof that Judah had had sex with her. Walter C. Wright describes the scene vividly:
The companions of Judah bring him word that his daughter-in-law, Tamar, has played the harlot. His judgment is quick and decisive: let her be burned. There is neither hesitation nor compromise. As he utters this fearful sentence, we cannot detect even a tremor in his voice. The Israelitish society must be preserved from such folly and wickedness. The word goes out; the day is fixed; the preparations go forward; the stake is planted; the pile is arranged; the procession forms; the crowd gathers; the woman walks to her apparent doom. But she bears in her hands the tokens; the pledges are with her; she carries the staff and the ring. And the staff is the staff of Judah, and the ring is his ring! The pledges become the accusation of her judge. What weight will his sentence have now?
38:27-30 When Tamar was giving birth and a baby’s hand emerged, the midwife tied a scarlet thread on it, thinking that it would be born first. But the hand withdrew and another baby was the first to come forth. She named the firstborn Perez (breakthrough) and the other Zerah. Both twins are mentioned in Mat_1:3, though the Messianic line goes through Perez. Zerah was an ancestor of Achan (Jos_7:1). “It is simply astonishing” comments Griffith Thomas, “that God could take up the threads of this very tangled skein, and weave them into His own pattern.”
Judah’s marriage to the Canaanite woman (v. 2) was a first step in the intermingling of God’s people with a race that was proverbial for its gross immorality. Israel would become contaminated by the unspeakable enormities of lewd nature worship. God is a God of separation; when we fraternize with the world, we pay an awful price.
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