The Holy Spirit is in the middle of this series. As I progressed through the book of Genesis, this series was to be the next one in the book. I had scheduled this series back early in the winter. However, I just realized that Mother’s Day has just passed, and celebrating the influential women in our lives will continue. How fitting to start this brand-new series, “V.I.W.: The Very Important Women in Jesus’ Family Tree.”
This series will focus on four women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. We’ll discuss their roles in the family tree and what we can learn from their stories.
In the first part of this series, we’re talking about Tamar. Her story can be found in Genesis 38:1-30, which I know is a massive chunk of scripture. I want to share her entire story. However, there are two chunks of highlighted passages. These passages will be where I will focus today because they seem to play a massive role in the creation and foundation of the family tree.
Genesis 38:1-30
1 About this time, Judah left home and moved to Adullam, where he stayed with a man named Hirah.
2 There he saw a Canaanite woman, the daughter of Shua, and he married her. When he slept with her,
3 she became pregnant again and gave birth to another son, and he named the boy Er.
4 Then she became pregnant again and gave birth to another son, and she named him Onan.
5 And when she gave birth to a third son, she named him Shelah. At the time of Shelah’s birth, they were living at Kezib.
6 In the course of time, Judah arranged for his firstborn son, Er, to marry a young woman named Tamar.
7 But Er was a wicked man in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord took his life.
8 Then Judah said to Er’s brother Onan, “Go and marry Tamar, as our law requires of the brother of a man who died. You must produce an heir for your brother.”
9 But Onan was not willing to have a child who would not be his own heir. So whenever he had intercourse with his brother’s wife, he spilled the semen on the ground. This prevented her from having a child who would belong to his brother.
10 But the Lord considered it evil for Onan to deny a child to his dead brother. So the Lord took Onan’s life, too.
11 Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, “Go back to your parents’ home and remain a widow until my son Shelah is old enough to marry you.” (But Judah didn’t really intend to do this because he was afraid Shelah would also die, like his two brothers.) So Tamar went back to live in her father’s home.
12 Some years later Judah’s wife died. After the time of mourning was over, Judah and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went up to Timnah to supervise the shearing of his sheep.
13 Someone told Tamar, “Look your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.”
14 Tamar was aware that Shelah had grown up, but no arrangements had been made for her to come and marry him. So she changed out of her widow’s clothing and covered herself with a veil to disguise herself. Then she sat beside the road at the entrance to the village of Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah.
15 Judah noticed her and thought she was a prostitute, since she had covered her face.
16 So he stopped and propositioned her. “Let me have sex with you,” he said, not realizing that she was his own daughter-in-law. “How much will you pay to have sex with me?” Tamar asked.
17 “I’ll send you a young goat from my flock,” Judah promised. “But what will you give me to guarantee that you will send the goat?” she asked.
18 “What kind of guarantee do you want?” he replied. She answered, “Leave me your identification seal and its cord and the walking stick you are carrying.” So Judah gave them to her. Then he had intercourse with her, and she became pregnant.
19 Afterward she went back home, took off her veil, and put on her widow’s clothing as usual.
20 Later Judah asked his friend Hirah the Adullamite to take the young goat to the woman and to pick up the things he had given her as his guarantee. But Hirah couldn’t find her.
21 So he asked the men who lived there, “Where can I find the shrine prostitute who was sitting beside the road at the entrance to Enaim?” “We never had a shrine prostitute here,” they replied.
22 So Hirah returned to Judah and told him, “I couldn’t find her anywhere, and the men of the village claim they’ve never had a shrine prostitute there.”
23 “Then let her keep the things I gave her,” Judah said. “I sent the young goat as we agreed, but you couldn’t find her. We’d be the laughingstock of the village if we went back again to look for her.”
24 About three months later, Judah was told, “Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has acted like a prostitute. And now, because of this, she’s pregnant.” “Bring her out, and let her be burned!” Judah demanded.
25 But as they were taking her out to kill her, she sent this message to her father-in-law: “The man who owns these things made me pregnant. Look closely. Whose seal and cord and walking stick are these?”
26 Judah recognized them immediately and said, “She is more righteous than I am, because I didn’t arrange for her to marry my son Shelah.” And Judah never slept with Tamar again.
27 When the time came for Tamar to give birth, it was discovered that she was carrying twins.
28 While she was in labor, one of the babies reached out his hand. The midwife grabbed it and tied a scarlet string around the child’s wrist, announcing, “This one came out first.”
29 But then he pulled back his hand, and out came his brother! “What!” the midwife exclaimed. “How did you break out first?” So he was named Perez.
30 Then the baby with the scarlet string on his wrist was born, and he was named Zerah.
I will split this study between verses 8-10 and 15-26.
Genesis 38:8-10
8 Then Judah said to Er’s brother Onan, “Go and marry Tamar, as our law requires of the brother of a man who died. You must produce an heir for your brother.”
9 But Onan was not willing to have a child who would not be his own heir. So whenever he had intercourse with his brother’s wife, he spilled the semen on the ground. This prevented her from having a child who would belong to his brother.
10 But the Lord considered it evil for Onan to deny a child to his dead brother. So the Lord took Onan’s life, too.
The law that Judah refers to in verse 8 is found in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, which we’ll mention later. The law aimed to ensure that a childless widow would have a son who would receive her late husband’s inheritance and who, in turn, would care for her. Since Er, Judah’s first child had no children, there wouldn’t be a family line through which the inheritance and the blessing of the covenant could continue. God killed Onan, Judah’s second child because he refused to fulfill his obligation to his brother and to Tamar.
Learning more about the story being told with this passage was very interesting. I typically only hear this passage talked about when the discussion of “Is masturbation a sin’ pops up, explicitly referring to verse 9. Yet, the story is about something wildly different. Er couldn’t have a child with Tamar because the Lord killed him before his seed was able to spread. Er was wicked in the Lord’s eyes, but we don’t know what he did to be labeled that. However, that wasn’t the point. God did not want that evil of Er to continue through his children, so he put a stop to that plan. According to the law, next up was Onan. The prioritization of family lineage was the justification to make this act ok, even though it would be viewed as highly detestable today. They value the inheritances between generations and want to continue the family line for as long as possible. It was up to Onan to continue the lineage of Judah, yet Onan didn’t. We don’t know why he didn’t either. Maybe Onan was doubting the process. Maybe he didn’t like Tamar. Again, I don’t believe it’s necessary to know why. God considered Onan’s stubbornness to do what the law commanded as evil to deny a child in honor of his dead brother, so God killed him. God saw wickedness and evil in Judah’s two sons and didn’t want that to be the lineage that continues through the tribe of Judah. Judah didn’t want to offer his third son to marry Tamar because of the pattern that, unfortunately, was forming.
What do you do in this situation? God killed two people because they were evil and couldn’t healthily continue the family line. How shocking, traumatizing, and horrifying that must have felt to Tamar. Most women during this time and in this culture were often only married for the sole purpose of having children, and Tamar couldn’t fulfill that for Judah. We often hear, “Third time’s a charm,” but Judah wouldn’t send his third son to her for fear of his death.
Let’s talk about that law Judah referenced before continuing into the rest of her story.
Deuteronomy 25:5-10
5 “If two brothers are living together on the same property and one of them dies without a son, his widow may not be married to anyone from outside the family. Instead, her husband’s brother should marry her and have intercourse with her to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law.
6 The first son she bears to him will be considered the son of the dead brother, so that his name will not be forgotten in Israel.
7 “But if the man refuses to marry his brother’s widow, she must go to the town gate and say to the elders assembled there, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel – he refuses to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law by marrying me.’
8 The elders of the town will then summon him and talk with him. If he still refuses and says, “I don’t want to marry her,’
9 the widow must walk over to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. Then she must declare, ‘This is what happens to a man who refuses to provide his brother with children.’
10 Ever afterward in Israel his family will be referred to as “the family of the man whose sandal was pulled off’!
This law describes a levirate marriage, the marriage of a widow to her dead husband’s brother. The purpose of requiring this type of marriage was to provide needs to the widow and to carry on the dead man’s name through an inheritance. As mentioned, family ties were significant to the Israelites. The best way to be remembered was through your family line. If a widow remarried outside of her family, then that family line wouldn’t continue. This law remained in effect until at least Jesus’ time. It was brought up to him in Mark 12:19 in a discussion about the resurrection. One of the Sadducees (a religious leader who didn’t believe in the resurrection) asked him whose wife she would be if she married a guy with seven brothers, all of whom died, and remarried her without having kids. Jesus didn’t answer them.
Mark 12:24-25
24 Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God.
25 For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect they will be like the angels in heaven.
I interpret this to say that the power of the Israelite family lineage means nothing regarding the family of Christ. It won’t matter who is married to whom. It won’t matter if the family line continues or not. It won’t matter if an inheritance isn’t passed on to the future generation. What matters is that we will all be in heaven, gathered as a loving family, healed and happy. There will be a resurrection for all people. Jesus said that our God is the one of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the belief is that they are residing in heaven alongside our loved ones today. They may be physically dead but spiritually alive, and therefore, God keeps his eyes focused on the living.
With all that being said, what did Tamar do? How did she become essential to the lineage of Jesus?
Genesis 38:15-26
15 Judah noticed her and thought she was a prostitute, since she had covered her face.
16 So he stopped and propositioned her. “Let me have sex with you,” he said, not realizing that she was his own daughter-in-law. “How much will you pay to have sex with me?” Tamar asked.
17 “I’ll send you a young goat from my flock,” Judah promised. “But what will you give me to guarantee that you will send the goat?” she asked.
18 “What kind of guarantee do you want?” he replied. She answered, “Leave me your identification seal and its cord and the walking stick you are carrying.” So Judah gave them to her. Then he had intercourse with her, and she became pregnant.
19 Afterward she went back home, took off her veil, and put on her widow’s clothing as usual.
20 Later Judah asked his friend Hirah the Adullamite to take the young goat to the woman and to pick up the things he had given her as his guarantee. But Hirah couldn’t find her.
21 So he asked the men who lived there, “Where can I find the shrine prostitute who was sitting beside the road at the entrance to Enaim?” “We never had a shrine prostitute here,” they replied.
22 So Hirah returned to Judah and told him, “I couldn’t find her anywhere, and the men of the village claim they’ve never had a shrine prostitute there.”
23 “Then let her keep the things I gave her,” Judah said. “I sent the young goat as we agreed, but you couldn’t find her. We’d be the laughingstock of the village if we went back again to look for her.”
24 About three months later, Judah was told, “Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has acted like a prostitute. And now, because of this, she’s pregnant.” “Bring her out, and let her be burned!” Judah demanded.
25 But as they were taking her out to kill her, she sent this message to her father-in-law: “The man who owns these things made me pregnant. Look closely. Whose seal and cord and walking stick are these?”
26 Judah recognized them immediately and said, “She is more righteous than I am, because I didn’t arrange for her to marry my son Shelah.” And Judah never slept with Tamar again.
She became a prostitute, had sex with Judah, and became pregnant. The family line would be able to continue in this weird way. Yet, there’s a lot to think about here.
Why would Judah be so willing to sleep with a prostitute and yet ready to execute his daughter-in-law for being one? The answer involves understanding the role of a woman during Judah’s time. In Canaan, a woman’s most crucial function is seen as childbearing. To ensure that children belong to the husband, a bride must have been a virgin and only have sex with her husband. If it was found that she cheated on him, she could be killed. Some women didn’t have a family. They might have been shrine prostitutes supported by the offerings of common prostitutes supported by the men who met with them. The children the prostitutes had were no one’s heirs, and the men who hired them did not affect anyone’s lineage.
Judah didn’t see any harm in hiring a prostitute, especially with how willing he was to pay for it. He wanted to kill Tamar, though, because if she got pregnant through being a prostitute, the child wouldn’t be part of his family line. Apparent, the thought of sexual morality never entered Judah’s mind; his focus stayed on the family line. Yet, Tamar acted to provide him with the heirs that appeased the laws we discussed. Through seducing her father-in-law (intentional word choice), she acted more abiding by the law through her actions than Judah did. Judah, by law, should have sent his third son to Tamar. Yet, because of his fear, he didn’t follow the law.
Now, this isn’t to say that God is comfortable with prostitution. Many passages condemned prostitution as a severe sin. If the story has a lesson, faithfulness to family obligations is essential. Despite their failures, Judah and Tamar are direct ancestors of Jesus.
They both failed. Judah didn’t follow the law by sending this son to try and have a son with Tamar out of fear. Tamar slept with her father-in-law by deceiving him and pretending she was a prostitute. She got pregnant by him to keep the family line going. It’s weird and uncomfortable, but without these events, we wouldn’t have had the birth of Jesus happen. God will use people who messed up to share his plans with the world. We’ll see that in the next part with Rahab. Until then, stay blessed.
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