At the end of the first part of this article, it appeared that the continuation of the seed of the woman God promised in Genesis 3:15 beyond Judah’s generation was at risk. Two of Judah’s three sons—Tamar’s husband, Er, and her brother-in-law Onan—died at the hand of the Lord for wickedness. Judah promised the last son, Shelah, to Tamar to fulfill the levirate once he matured and thus continue the godly line. The trouble is, Judah’s character, as seen in Genesis 37, was shown to be doubtful given the opportunism and greed he demonstrated in usurping Reuben’s role as family leader when Joseph was sold into slavery. At this point, the actions of Judah and Tamar are crucial for continuation of the godly line. What would happen next?
As the years passed and events unfolded, it became clear to Tamar that despite Judah’s assurance that Shelah would fulfill the levirate, it was not going to happen. What she did next is surprising. When Judah’s wife died and his period of mourning was over, Tamar decided to take action regarding having a son for Er. It was sheepshearing season, and Judah would go to Timnah to visit his sheepshearers and direct their harvest of wool (Gen 38:12). In the Canaanite culture and religion in which Judah lived, sheepshearing was a time of celebration that included men making use of the services of cult prostitutes. Tamar took off her widow’s garments, then dressed like a cult prostitute and covered her face to conceal her identity.[1] She left her father’s house and sat near the entrance of a village named Enaim (38:14). The location was strategic because Tamar knew Judah would be passing by on the way to the sheepshearing.
As she expected, Judah came along the road. He saw her and wanted lie with her (38:15–16). It does not speak well for Judah that Tamar could be so sure her father-in-law would lie with her and pay for services rendered, does it? Had such promiscuity become his practice because of the influence of his Canaanite wife and the Canaanite society? As they negotiated their encounter, Tamar asked for payment, and Judah promised her a goat. But she wanted more than a promise; she wanted something tangible to prove her case (38:17). Judah gave her his signet, cord, and staff; all three of these items were unique to him (38:18). These items might be likened today to a key fob engraved with the owner’s initials, a signed business card, or a monogrammed piece of clothing. Judah and Tamar went into the tent together. After their encounter was over, she went back to her father’s house and put her widow’s garments back on as though nothing had happened. Now, again, she would wait.
Judah attempted to honor his contract with Tamar by sending a friend with the goat he promised, but of course she could not be found in Enaim and no one even remembered seeing her. The friend returned to Judah bearing the bad news about Tamar. The situation was embarrassing for Judah—after all, she held his personal items—but he decided to forget about trying to get his things back out of fear “we shall be laughed at” (38:23). Once again, Tamar would wait.
Three months later Tamar was pregnant. Even at the most opportune times the likelihood of a single act of intercourse yielding pregnancy is not guaranteed, but the Lord honored Tamar’s righteous purpose to fulfill the levirate through Judah by causing the single encounter to yield the desired result. Judah is told “his daughter-in-law has been immoral” and is “pregnant by immorality” (38:24). He is furious and says, “Bring her out, and let her be burned,” which may have been contemporary Canaanite practice for such immorality (38:24).[2] Judah’s men went to get Tamar, and upon their arrival, she gave them his signet, cord, and staff to take back with them. Judah’s jaw must have dropped to the ground when he saw these possessions he thought were given to a cult prostitute! How did Judah respond? Was he enraged that he had been tricked? No, he says in verse 26, “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah. And [Judah] did not have relations with her again.”
Where is there righteousness in the events of Genesis 38? The whole narrative could be called a seedy, selfish, and sinful story recounting the evils of Judah’s sons and his own unwillingness to let the last son do his levirate duty. Tamar’s subterfuge was not stellar either, even though its purpose was to fulfill the levirate. Even though Judah knew he was wrong when he denied Tamar the right to become pregnant by Shelah, he persisted in sin driven by fear and worries about Shelah and his inheritance. Judah “did not know her again” because he had fulfilled the levirate (38:26). Tamar was more righteous because she had followed the lawful means to carry on the name of her deceased husband, Er.
Tamar had twins in her womb. When they were born, Zerah was marked as the firstborn with a scarlet thread around his hand because he had reached forth from the womb first, but then he was forced aside by Perez, whose name means “breakthrough,” so he would become the first baby delivered (38:28–30). Even though Zerah was marked with the scarlet thread, it was not his seed that would bring Christ. The scarlet thread was merely an indicator of birth order. Zerah became the father of the clan of Judah called Zerahites, mentioned in Numbers 26:20. Looking to the future, a member of the Zerahites is Achan, who stole the dedicated items after Jericho was taken. God judged this by causing the first attack of Ai to fail and then executing Achan and his household in Joshua 6 and 7. But what became of the line of Perez? In Ruth 4:12, as Boaz anticipates marriage to Ruth, the elders bless him saying, “May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.” Then, looking further down the generations, the name Perez appears in Matthew 1:1–6:
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king. (emphasis added)
Continuing in Matthew 1, the resolution of the curse for sin is resolved with the birth of Jesus in verse 17. Bruising the head of Satan was accomplished at the cost of bruising the heel of the Son of God incarnate as he atoned for sin. The record of Judah and Tamar is just one of many generations through which the Lord preserved the seed that would bring incarnation of the Son of God to redeem his people from their sins.
Following Genesis 38, chapter 39 provides the record of Joseph’s rise to position and power in Egypt. He became the righthand man of Potiphar, overseeing everything that was entrusted to him (39:6). It is a remarkable situation; Egyptians considered the Hebrew people repulsive because of their long hair, beards, and odious work shepherding sheep (46:33–34). How did Joseph make such an advance among the Egyptians, rising from a Hebrew slave to become Potiphar’s administrator? The answer is simple: The Lord was with Joseph (39:2, 3, 5, 21, 23). But his prominence in Egypt combined with his handsome appearance drew the attention of Potiphar’s wife, who enticed him to sleep with her, but with great courage wrought by faith he said, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” (39:9).
The woman continued her attempts to draw Joseph into bed with her, but every time she failed, including her final attempt when no one else was around and she grabbed hold of Joseph’s garment (39:10). But once again, Joseph would not yield; he fled from her presence, escaping at the cost of losing his garment to her as she pulled it from him (39:12). She accused him of assaulting her, and Potiphar responded by ordering Joseph to be imprisoned (39:20). What was Joseph to do? But then in the next verse are those familiar words once again, “But the Lord was with Joseph” (39:21). When we think of the personalities in the Old Testament with the greatest spiritual character, we include Joshua and Caleb, Ruth and Boaz, Daniel, the three young men in the fiery furnace, Esther, and, of course, as seen in Genesis 39, Joseph.
Conclusion
Interpreting the narrative of Judah and Tamar should take into due consideration the context of chapter 38. Chapter 37 provides a picture of Judah taking the opportunity to convince his brothers to sell Joseph into slavery to the Ishmaelites while Reuben was away. By doing this, he appropriated leadership of the brothers from Reuben, the eldest son, and unknown to him anticipates the blessing he will receive from Jacob when his death approaches. But then comes chapter 38, which has absolutely no mention of Joseph, and the entire narrative takes place within the family of Judah as Tamar seeks a son in Er’s name.
Further insight into the character of Judah is provided when we learn he married a Canaanite woman, contrary to his obligation to marry within the covenant people. Three sons are born to Judah, with the first two, Er and Onan, executed by the Lord for their wickedness, and the third, Shelah, supposedly in waiting to fulfill his levirate duty in the name of Er with Er’s widow, Tamar. But Judah withholds Shelah because he is the last son and he fears the Lord might take his life too if he fails in the levirate duty. Though Tamar’s fulfilled goal was the righteous purpose of having a child in Er’s name, her posing as a cult prostitute to entice Judah was of the Canaanites and not the covenant. Then, in chapter 39 there is no mention of Judah because the narrative returns to Joseph, who acts in faith to do the righteous thing as he fled Potiphar’s wife and paid for it by being cast into prison. As we finish reading chapter 39, we might think that the seed of the woman bringing Christ would come from the line of pious Joseph instead of fearful and self-serving Judah, but this is not the case. The considerable content about Joseph in Genesis 37–50, which shows his piety, seems a misdirection because the crucial son of Jacob for continuing the seed of the woman to Christ would be Judah. It is Judah, as Jacob expresses it in his blessing of him in Genesis 49:8–12, who would be the lion that rules with the people obeying and bowing before him. Genesis 38 provides the record of a decisive challenge to continuing the seed of the woman and explains how God worked through Tamar’s righteous act to fulfill the levirate and eventually bring the crusher of Satan’s head to be born through implementation of the levirate.
Notes
- Kidner, Genesis, 188–89. John Calvin commented that surely Judah would have recognized Tamar’s voice, but possibly the combination of a heavy veil with pursed lips when speaking would have altered her voice enough that he could be deceived. Besides, he had something else concerning her on his mind. John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, trans. John King (Calvin Translation Society, 1850), 2:285.
- Sarna, Genesis, 269.
©Barry Waugh. All Rights Reserved.
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Barry Waugh
Barry Waugh (PhD, WTS) is a member of a PCA congregation in South Carolina and has edited Presbyterians of the Past since 2015. He has also written for the Westminster Theological Journal and The Confessional Presbyterian; contributed to Gary L. W. Johnson’s, B. B. Warfield: Essays on His Life and Thought, 2007; and edited Letters from the Front: J. Gresham Machen’s Correspondence from World War I, 2012.
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