GENESIS  38: Judah and Tamar

Genesis 37 closes with an account of Jacob’s sons selling their brother Joseph to the Midianites, and they in turn selling him into Egypt. This speaks a type of Christ being rejected by Israel and delivered unto the Gentiles. Genesis 38 pulls back from the story of Joseph and directs our attention to one of his brothers that we haven’t heard much about as of yet. “Judah.”    It was Judah who saved Joseph’s life by saying to his brothers, let’s sell him,                  why should we have his blood on our hands. But Judah is struggling, he makes a decision to leave the family and go his own way.

• Here are some of the applications I will try to make while teaching Genesis 38 to our church. 
• God is faithful to His people and His plan to save. No matter how crazy the world is even now, his plan isn’t being threatened. God didn’t forget about or abandon Tamar in the abuse and mistreatment she received. He provided for her and used her descendants to carry out his plan of salvation for all people. 
• That faithfulness comes only because of God’s love, not because of people’s obedience. Judah doesn’t deserve his role in David’s or Jesus’ line. But even Judah’s sin can’t stop God from being who He is – and neither can ours.

Some important Incidental applications:

1. While God doesn’t ‘approve’ of Tamar’s method of getting back at Judah, but He uses it for His glory. God brings life from complex family situations. 
2. Matthew’s tells us of Tamar along with Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary into Jesus’ genealogy subverts many stereotypes about what faithfulness to God looks like. 
3. The foreign heritage and the negative sexual reputations of several of them are meant to communicate this idea clearly.

• Our Redeemer is, (that although we may fail), and He will remain committed to his people forever. Hopefully, we can see this glorious truth in a difficult passage like this.

Genesis 38                                                      New King James Version

1   It came to pass at that time that Judah departed from his brothers, and visited a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah. 

• Judah, the fourth-born son of Jacob through Leah (Reuben, Simeon, and Levi were before him), he had not yet distinguished himself as someone great among his brothers. He was the one who suggested they sell Joseph into slavery. Yes, Judah’s departure from his brothers in Genesis 38:1 occurred immediately after they sold Joseph into slavery in Genesis 37. The phrase “at that time” indicates a direct chronological follow-up to the betrayal, where Judah separated himself from his family to live among the Canaanites

2   And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua, and he married her (and went in to her). 

3   So she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er. 

• Consistently, marriage with Canaanite women had been completely discouraged among the patriarchs and those connected to them (Genesis 24:3, 28:1, 28:8). The Canaanite neighbors were rapidly corrupting the family of Israel. Their future looked like a combination of corruption and assimilation. God had a plan to bring them out of Canaan.

4   She conceived again and bore a son, and she called his name Onan. 

5   And she conceived yet again and bore a son, and called his name Shelah. He was at Chezib when she bore him.

6   Then Judah took a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 

7   But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord killed him. 

• Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD killed him: We are never told what Er’s wickedness was, but obviously it was evil enough that God brought immediate judgment upon him. Growing up with a father from such a troubled family and with a mother who was a Canaanite did not help Er to live a godly life.
• The Bible does not explicitly state the age of Judah’s firstborn son, Er, when he married Tamar in Genesis 38:6. However, Jewish tradition (Midrash) records that Er was young, often suggesting he was seven years old when he married.

8   And Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife and marry her, and raise up an heir to your brother.” 

9   But Onan knew that the heir would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in to his brother’s wife, that he emitted on the ground, lest he should give an heir to his brother.  

• This was done according to the custom of levirate marriage (later codified into law in Deuteronomy 25:5-10). If a man died before providing sons to his wife, it was the duty of his brothers to marry her and to give her sons. The child was considered the son of the brother who died, because the living brother only acted in his place (Onan knew that the heir would not be his). In other words, Onan was greedy. This was a sort of a welfare system. This was done so the dead brother’s name would be carried on, but also it was so the widow would have children to support her. Apart from this, she would likely live the rest of her life as a destitute widow.

GENESIS 38:10

10   And the thing which he did displeased the Lord; therefore He killed him also.

• Tamar wanted to produce an heir for her deceased husband, but Onan refused to fulfill his moral obligation. We are going to see even her father-in-law Judah not keep his word either . Tamar is going to take matters into her own hands. 

1. It’s human nature to repay evil for evil, but God promises to remedy the injustices we’ve experienced.
2. Vengeance is God’s. He will repay—whether ultimately on the day of judgment or intermediately in this life. 
3. The point of the story? God handles all of us Judah’s. He can discipline your abusive boss, soften your angry parent. He can bring your ex to his knees or his/her senses. Forgiveness doesn’t diminish justice; it just entrusts it to God. 
4. He guarantees the right retribution. We give too much or too little. But the God of justice has the precise prescription.
5. Unlike us, God never gives up on a person that will chose Him Never. Long after we have moved on, God is still there, probing the conscience, stirring conviction, always orchestrating redemption. Fixing your enemies? That’s God’s job.
6. Forgive your enemies? Ah, that’s where you and I come in. We forgive. Anger gives ground to the devil. Bitterness invites him to occupy a space in your heart, to rent a room. Believe me, he will move in and stink up the place. Gossip, slander, temper—anytime you see these, Satan has claimed a bunk.
7. Evict him. Don’t even give him the time of day. In the name of Jesus tell him to pack his bags and hit the road. 
8. Begin the process of forgiveness. Keep no list of wrongs. Pray for your antagonists rather than plot against them. Hate the wrong without hating wrongdoers. Turn your attention away from what they did to you, to what Jesus has done for you. Outrageous as it may seem, Jesus died for them too. If He thinks they are worth forgiving, they are.
9. Do you feel like you’ve been mistreated or wronged? Has someone ever given you their word but not followed through? Grab your journal and write a letter to those who have hurt you; release and forgive them, then ask God to bless them.

GENESIS 38:11-15

11   Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house till my son Shelah is grown.” For he said, “Lest he also die like his brothers.” And Tamar went and dwelt in her father’s house.

• This was no place for a young, childless widow to be. There were still additional brothers in her husband’s family who could fulfill the obligation they owed to their late brother. None of this was the fault of Tamar. All the blame belonged to Judah and his sons.

• Judah told Tamar to wait until his son Shelah was “grown” or “of age” to marry (Genesis 38:11), which in that context meant when he was old enough for duty in a levirate marriage, typically past puberty or considered a young adult. However, Scripture does not specify an exact age for Shelah, and Judah used this as a pretense, never intending to give Shelah to marry her.

12   Now in the process of time, the daughter of Shua, Judah’s wife, died; and Judah was comforted, and went up to his sheepshearers at Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 

13   And it was told Tamar, saying, “Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” 

14   So she took off her widow’s garments, covered herself with a veil and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place which was on the way to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given to him as a wife.

• Tamar did not want to face what would be a difficult existence in that culture — life with no husband or children.

15   When Judah saw her, he thought she was a harlot, because she had covered her face. 

GENESIS 38:16-20

16   Then he turned to her by the way, and said, “Please let me come in to you”; for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.                                                   So, she said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?”

17   And he said, “I will send a young goat from the flock.                                           So, she said, “Will you give me a pledge till you send it?”

18   Then he said, “What pledge shall I give you?”                                                  So, she said, “Your signet and cord, and your staff that is in your hand.” Then he gave them to her, and went in to her, and she conceived by him. 

• Judah’s “signet and cord” (along with his staff) are personal, high-status identification items—akin to a modern signet ring, ID card, or signature—used as a binding pledge.
•  They represent his authority, ownership, and identity, which Tamar secures to prove his personal involvement and she holds them.
• Tamar didn’t have the option of just finding another man to marry. She was under the headship of her father-in-law Judah, and he had to give her a husband. He determined whom and when she could marry.

19   So she arose and went away, and laid aside her veil and put on the garments of her widowhood.

• When Tamar conceived, it certainly was not intended by Judah, but it was in Tamar’s plan; more importantly, it was in God’s plan.

20   And Judah sent the young goat by the hand of his friend the Adullamite, to receive his pledge from the woman’s hand, but he did not find her. 

GENESIS 38:21-30

21   Then he asked the men of that place, saying, “Where is the harlot who was openly by the roadside?”                                                                                     And they said, “There was no harlot in this place.”

22   So he returned to Judah and said, “I cannot find her. Also, the men of the place said there was no harlot in this place.”

23   Then Judah said, “Let her take them for herself, lest we be shamed; for I sent this young goat and you have not found her.”

• Judah sent a friend to pay Tamar, and to retrieve the pledge he left with her. Because Tamar disappeared, he gave up the pledge, leaving it with her.

24   And it came to pass, about three months after, that Judah was told, saying, “Tamar your daughter-in-law has played the harlot; furthermore she is with child by harlotry.”

So, Judah said, “Bring her out and let her be burned!”

• When the widowed, unmarried Tamar was found to be pregnant, it was evident that it was from some kind of sexual immorality. Perhaps Tamar even told others that she had played the harlot.
• Judah did not care for Tamar, the widowed wife of two of his sons. He found it easy to pass judgment on someone who sinned just as he sinned, without passing the same judgment on himself.

25   When she was brought out, she sent to her father-in-law, saying, “By the man to whom these belong, I am with child.” And she said, “Please determine whose these are—the signet and cord, and staff.”

• Please determine whose these are: Tamar acted shrewdly and vindicated herself against the charge of harlotry. 
• She made the logical appeal of noting that the man who hired her was just as guilty as she was. 

26   So Judah acknowledged them and said, “She has been more righteous than I, because I did not give her to Shelah my son.” And he never knew her again.

• However, even Judah could see through to the real issue. He was at fault for not providing Tamar a son through his last son Shelah.

27   Now it came to pass, at the time for giving birth, that behold, twins were in her womb. 

28   And so it was, when she was giving birth, that the one put out his hand; and the midwife took a scarlet thread and bound it on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.” 

29   Then it happened, as he drew back his hand, that his brother came out unexpectedly; and she said, “How did you break through? This breach be upon you!” Therefore, his name was called Perez. 

30   Afterward his brother came out who had the scarlet thread on his hand. And his name was called Zerah.

• Matthew 1:3 and Luke 3:33 each list Perez as an ancestor of Jesus the Messiah. God took the son of this ungodly situation and put him in the family line of the Messiah, despite the fact that neither Judah nor Tamar were examples of godliness.
• This is a wonderful example of grace. God chose them, despite their works, to both be in the line of the Messiah and to have their role in God’s plan of redemption.
• The second-born son Zerah had the red thread on his wrist, but the first-born son Perez would be found in the Messianic line.

Tamar (daughter-in-law of Judah in Genesis 38) is primarily related to the other four women mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus: Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. 

• These five women are highlighted for their unique, often outsider roles in bringing forth our Savior. Tamar is also connected to Shua, her Canaanite mother-in-law.

Now in the process of time:

Joseph was 17 when sold into slavery and 30 when he becames Prime Minister. The 13-17 year interval (Genesis 37–41) includes his time in Potiphar’s house and imprisonment (Genesis 39). Therefore, the events of Genesis 39 occur within that 13-17 year period of slavery and imprisonment, starting shortly after he was sold at age 17, as explained. At the start of chapter 39, Joseph is approximately 27 to 30 years old. 

A total of 13 years passed from when Joseph was sold into slavery at age 17 (Genesis 37:2) to when he was released at age 30 to serve Pharaoh (Genesis 41:46). While the exact length of time in prison is not explicitly stated, he spent 11 years in Potiphar’s service, and the remaining 2-5 years in prison.

• Chapter 38 was all about Judah showing us all his mistakes and failures. But what I want you to see and pay close attention to, is the transformation that is going to take place in his life. It starts right here when we see him admit he was wrong when he says “Tamar was more righteous than I”. 

• The reality is that Judah was the victim of a wrong family relationship. Jacob had favorites within his family, loving one brother more than the others. But Judah’s love for his father is going to grow so much that this unfair situation is eventually accepted by him. Judah was loved as a secondary son, but his love for his father was such that this did not matter to him anymore. This is remarkable. Showing the power of God to subdue and then change the sinful heart of a sinful man and to mold it into the faithful man that God would have him become.