Or, How Tamar Got Judah’s Goat After All
Scripture: Genesis 38:1-30
Date: January 29, 2017
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Genesis 38 is filled with interruptions and seems itself to be one big interruption. The “generations of Jacob” (Genesis 37:2) immediately focused on Joseph, a spoiled dreamer, hated by his older brothers. Joseph’s brothers had conspired to kill him, though his oldest brother, Reuben, tried to keep him alive in order to restore Joseph to their dad. Before Reuben could do that, though, Judah proposed to sell him as a slave to traveling traders on their way to Egypt.
Chapter 38 is all about Judah; there is no mention of Joseph. Chapter 39:1 will start, “Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt.” What is this unsavory story about Judah and his sons and Tamar doing in between chapter 37 and 39? Why did we need to know about this at all? It’s an important question, perhaps even more relevant in light of the unseemly details, but I’m going to save an answer for the end.
There are two main divisions in the chapter, visible in verse 1, “It happened at that time,” and in verse 12, “In the course of time.” The first eleven verses take place over a period of twenty years, and the final nineteen verses occur in less than a year. We’ll see Judah’s Canaanite offspring and his covenant offspring. The Interruption of Judah’s Heritage (verses 1-11) and the Interruption of Judah’s Hubris (verses 12-30).
To have a heritage Judah would need to start a family in the first place. Here we see two stages of development.
It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. What happens here overlaps with Joseph’s time in Egypt, which is part of the reason for its placement after chapter 37. Judah went down from Hebron to a place near Adullam, about a mile away, later famous for the cave where David’s disorderly band of discontents gathered. The area was thick with Canaanites, including a man named Hirah who became a friend, or at least a local contact for Judah.
There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite woman whose name was Shuah. Maybe Hirah introduced them. The daughter of Shua is never named, but Judah took her and went into her and she conceived. Saw, took, went in, conceived…these are more physical than romantic. It probably means that he married her, but there isn’t much of a relationship to report. This was not an exciting time for Israel, and he probably wasn’t invited to the wedding. The union went against the desires of Abraham for his son, Isaac for his son, and we assume Jacob for his sons.
She conceived and bore a song and he called his name Er. She conceived again and bore a son and called his name Onan. Yet again she bore a son and she called his name Shelah. Judah was in Chezib when she bore him Three sons are spawned in rapid succession. Judah named the firstborn (at least in most manuscripts), but perhaps wasn’t even there for the birth of the third.
The sons were growing up when Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn and her name was Tamar. She was presumably a Canaanite as well, though we aren’t given any details about her background.
We are told that something dramatic happened. But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD put him to death. Moses knew the cause of death, Judah didn’t, or he didn’t want to know it. It’s the first time in Genesis that God is said to put an individual to death, though all deaths are according to His sovereign plan and power. What did Er do? What was so wicked? We don’t know.
Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” This was not yet Jewish law, but it was common practice “found in many traditional societies among Israel’s neighbors, the Assyrians and the Hittites” (Wenham). The heritage of a father went through his firstborn, and if the firstborn married but had no children, the next brother was responsible to keep the heritage from being interrupted. It is called the levirate law since levir is the Latin word for “brother-in-law.” The problem, of course, which Onan knew, was that the offspring would not be his . He wanted offspring and heritage for himself.
That selfishness came out. So whenever he went in to his brother’s wife he would waste the semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother. The word “whenever” along with the tense of the verb means that he did this more than once if not frequently. “Instead of impregnating her,… “he spoiled [it] groundward” (Hamilton). The waste did not come by masturbation but by coitus interruptus. This was selfish and not secret from God. What he did was wicked in the sight of the LORD and he (the LORD) put him to death also. This is quite a heritage, of evil, again in the line of Israel.
Judah figured (wrongly) that the deaths were due to Tamar’s bad luck, like later in the apocryphal Tobit story when Sarah was reproached by one of her father’s maids since her first seven husbands all died on the wedding night due to a wicked demon named Asmodeus. It’s not a demon in Genesis 38, nor is it Tamar who is the cause of death, but Judah doesn’t see it. Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house, till Shelah my son grows up”—for he feared that he would die, like his brothers. So Tamar went and remained in her father’s house.
Judah deceives Tamar; he’s not planning to give Shelah to her, ever. Judah obligates Tamar; she’s effectively betrothed to Shelah, so she’s not free. And Judah neglects Tamar; he sends her to her father for him to take care of her for the indefinite future.
Judah has not done right and Tamar sees it and takes action.
In the course of time the wife of Judah, Shua’s daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Timnah to his sheep shearers, he and his fried Hirah the Adullamite. Sheepshearing time was usually connected to festivity, with more feasting and drinking and partying than usual. Judah was done mourning, so he and his friend go to the party.
And when Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep,” she took off her widow’s garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she had not been given to him in marriage. It’s been a while, and there’s been no word about a marriage to Shelah. We’re not told who told Tamar about Judah’s movement, but she acts quickly. The veil wold be important for covering her identity, but also a sign of her availability. Wrapping herself may mean that she put on perfume. She cut Judah off at a fork in the road and struck a pose.
When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. Only certain women were veiled, and because of her attire and location Judah assumed she was for hire.
He turned to her at the roadside and said, “Come, let me come into you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. It wasn’t incest by his intent, it was just fornication by intent, which is some distinction. She said, “What will you give me, that you may come into me?” This, apparently, is why she came the way she did, not to confront him anonymously. She does not name the price, she lets Judah do so.
He said, in so many words, “I don’t have any cash on me.” It was an impulse buy. ”I will send you a young goat from the flock.” Perhaps that was a generous offer to a prostitute (compared to a “loaf of bread” in Proverbs 6:26), but money isn’t what Tamar wanted most. The opportunity is better than she could have planned. ”If you give me a pledge, until you send it—Your signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand.” The signet was a piece of metal or stone of identification, sometimes rolled in a wax seal. This signet was not a ring, but a neckless, on the cord. The staff was a walking stick, usually carved or marked at the top to identify the owner.
Judah thought it a fair deal, completed the transaction, and didn’t have any clue that she conceived by him. Then she arose and went away, and taking off her veil she put on the garments of her widowhood. She hadn’t changed occupations, she targeted Judah to get a son.
Judah showed more integrity in paying the prostitute than in handling his daughter-in-law. He sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite to take back the pledge to the woman’s hand. Judah didn’t go himself; that would be dishonorable. People might get the wrong idea. But Hirah did not find her. He even started asking around, but the people said, ”No cult prostitute has been here.” When Hirah told Judah, Judah replied, ”Let her keep the things as her own, or we shall be laughed at.” It’s not really “we.” But the cost to fulfill the promise would be worse because everyone would know about it. Loss of his staff was better than loss of his status. But Judah tries to make himself feel better. ”You see, I sent this young goat, and you did not find her.” As if he said, “What else could we do? Obviously nothing. We’re in the clear.”
Of course we know he’s anything but in the clear. Here is where his hubris is interrupted.
About three months later Judah was told, “Tamar your daughter-in-law has been immoral. Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality.” Tamar was engaged to Shelah though they had not been married. Fooling around is bad but hard to prove unless caught in the act. This provided all the necessary evidence: a growing baby bump.
Judah has no need for further investigation; this is exactly what he’s been looking for: a reason to get rid of her. ”Bring her out, and let her be burned.” No more evidence is necessary, no need for further trial. Everything is obvious, clear cut, and she should receive no mercy. Burning was an extreme form of capital punishment compared to stoning.
Tamar had one more play. She doesn’t seem to be disturbed at all and puts her cards on the table. She sent word to her father-in-law, “By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant,” And she said, “Please identify whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.” Anyone who saw them would have known immediately, just as Israel knew Joseph’s mangled coat immediately (Genesis 37:32-33). Now Judah wasn’t just a laughingstock, he was a hypocrite. He was immoral in more ways than Tamar. If she deserved to die, he deserved death no less. She had all the evidence on her side.
Then Judah identified them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her my son Shelah. He admitted the first wrong; he deceived her. Her deceit of Judah was at least to perpetuate the name of the family, Judah’s family and heritage, offspring of Abraham, and she was more committed to it than Judah himself.
That he did not know her again means that he did not knowingly commit incest.
Tamar brought the baby to full term and there were twins in her womb. The midwife knew there were two kids because she had a scarlet thread to identify the one coming out first. One put out a hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand saying, “This one came out first.” But as he drew back his hand, behold, his brother came out. She said, “What a breach you have made for yourself!” Therefore his name was called Perez. Afterward his brother came out with the scarlet thread on his hand and his name was called Zerah. Two sons replace Er and Onan.
So we come back to the question, Why is the story here? It’s here because Judah’s marriage and the marriages of his sons occur while Joseph is in Egypt, and yet the marriages of the other brothers aren’t recorded. Judah did have the idea to sell Joseph, so this corroborates that his self-serving interest wasn’t a one time thing. It also provides a clear contrast between Judah’s fornicating and Joseph’s fleeing from Potiphar’s wife in the next chapter. It demonstrates that Israel’s sons were assimilating into Canaanite ways. It also serves to intensify suspense; what is happening to Joseph? But all these are not enough.
The reason for including this part of Jacob’s generations is because Judah is the covenant son and through Judah comes Perez comes King David and eventually comes King Jesus. Tamar is the first of four women named in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:3). This does not mean that everything she did was righteous, but that God came into the world through a heritage of unrighteous men, and women, in order to save them by His grace. For that matter, Tamar seemed to care more about offspring of Abraham than Judah did, at least at first.
From Genesis 38 on Judah begins to mature. He seems to be humbled to repentance and is eventually chosen by Israel for the blessing (Genesis 48:8-12). The Lion of the Tribe of Judah lives today. We live by the Lion, and God turned an ugly start into our salvation.
Even as we pray for our Father to hallow His name, this is the promise of grace for Jacob’s sinful offspring.
Therefore thus says the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:
“Jacob shall no more be ashamed,
no more shall his face grow pale.
For when he sees his children,
the work of my hands, in his midst,
they will sanctify my name;
they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob
and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
And those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding,
and those who murmur will accept instruction.”
(Isaiah 29:22–24, ESV)