July 2, 2025 • 61 mins
Genesis 38 introduces us to Tamar, a woman whose story has been tragically misrepresented throughout church history. Often labeled as "deceptive" and "sexually dubious," she's rarely given the dignity her narrative deserves. But what if everything we thought we knew about Tamar is wrong?
Diving deep into ancient Near Eastern cultural context reveals a stunning truth: Tamar wasn't morally questionable—she was fighting for justice when every legitimate avenue was blocked. As a widow denied her legal rights, she existed in a precarious limbo, unable to remarry yet denied the security promised to her. When Judah refused to fulfill his obligation to provide her his third son Shelah as a husband after the deaths of his first two sons, Tamar took extraordinary measures to secure her position and future.
The story exposes fascinating details about marriage customs of the time. Unlike our modern individualistic view of marriage, these unions were business agreements between families with legal obligations. As the intended matriarch of Judah's household, Tamar would have held significant authority over food, medicine, and household religion—a position of power that was ripped away when she was sent back to her father's house. Her bold scheme to disguise herself and intercept Judah wasn't merely about having a child—it was about claiming her rightful place and provisions.
What makes this account truly remarkable is God's perspective. Rather than condemning Tamar, the text portrays her actions as righteous, with even Judah admitting "she is more righteous than I." Her inclusion in Jesus's genealogy further confirms divine approval. This challenges toxic teachings that silence women facing abuse and reminds us that our God consistently champions justice for the vulnerable, even through unconventional means.
Have you ever considered how God might view creative resistance to injustice? This episode might just transform how you see not only Tamar but other "difficult" women in scripture who refused to accept their unjust circumstances.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jessica LM Jenkins (00:00):
Welcome back to the we who Thirst podcast.
We are continuing our Women inContext series with an episode
on Tamar from Genesis 38.
This is a woman who often, whenshe's taught about, is kind of
talked about in a negative lightin my experience in evangelical
(00:22):
circles, to the point that afootnote in the ESV study Bible
remarks that Tamar, rahab andBathsheba were women of
questionable character.
Often when this story is taughtshe is described as a woman who
is deceiving and sexuallydubious and just kind of a
(00:46):
negative example.
She is someone that most peopledon't know quite what to do
with her story and so I hope wecan really unpack that today.
This episode is going to kindof have three sections in it.
As we go through, first, I'mgoing to read my own translation
(01:07):
or reading of Genesis 38 fromthe Hebrew.
It'll sound a little different.
It'll get us out of our usualtranslation that we're used to
reading all the time in ourdaily work.
So it'll sound a little bitdifferent, which will help us
hear the story in a new way.
It also I will, in my firstread-through I will be using the
(01:28):
name meaning instead of thename, because in Hebrew often
not always, but often names havemeanings that can have some
significance to the account, tothe story as you go through.
We see this with Abraham andSarah.
His name means father of many,or exalted father, depending
(01:52):
whether it's Abram or Abraham,and that is the crux of his
entire story is that he doesn'thave children, but his name
means father.
So you have these interplaysgoing on with names.
So I'm going to use wherever Ican.
We don't know the meaningbehind every name, so some I'll
just use it as it reads in ourEnglish Bibles, but some I will
offer the name meaning insteadof the name, to help us hear and
(02:17):
get into the story closer tohow the original hearers would
have heard and understood thestory.
So that's going to be the firstpart of the episode.
Then I'll walk through Genesis38, talking about historical
context elements.
Let's see what the originalhearers would have understood
but that we missed in the textbecause of our culture is so
(02:37):
dramatically different fromtheirs.
And then we'll conclude talkingabout the.
So what?
How do we interpret thispassage?
How does it impact our lives?
What do we walk away from thispassage, knowing about God and
ourselves as a result ofstudying Genesis 38 and Tamar?
So let's dive in togetherGenesis 38.
(03:02):
And then things happened at thistime, and then the Lord be
praised, went down from hisbrothers and he turned aside to
a man of Adullam and his namewas Hira.
And then the Lord be praisedsaw that there was a daughter of
a man of Canaan and his namewas Shua.
And then he took her and hecame into her and she conceived
(03:24):
and she bore a son and then hecalled his name was Shua, and
then he took her and he cameinto her and she conceived and
she bore a son and then hecalled his name Protector or Ur,
and she conceived again andthen she bore another son and
she named him Vigorous.
And she continued again andthen she bore a son and she
named him Cece and he was atShezeb when she bore him.
And then the bore a son and shenamed him Cicin and he was at
(03:45):
Shezib when she bore him.
And then the Lord be praisedtook a woman for Ur or Protector
, his firstborn, and her namewas Palmtree.
And that Protector, ur, thefirstborn of the Lord be praised
, was evil, raw in the eyes ofthe Lord.
And then the Lord caused him todie.
(04:07):
And then the Lord be praised,said to Vigorous, come into the
wife of your brother and performthe brother-in-law duty with
her and raise up seed for yourbrother.
And then Vigorous knew that theseed would not be his.
And it happened that when hecame in to the wife of his
brother he would ruin the earthso that he would not give seed
(04:27):
to his brother.
And then that was evil in theeyes of the Lord.
And then the Lord caused him todie like his brother.
And then the Lord be praisedsaid to Palmtree his
daughter-in-law remain a widowin your father's house until
ceasing, my son.
And then the days becamenumerous and when the daughter
(04:56):
of Shua, the wife of the Lord bepraised, died, and then the
Lord be praised observed histime of mourning, and then he
went up to his sheep shearers,he and Hira, his friend the
Adulamite.
They went towards Timnah andthen it was told to palm tree
saying behold, yourfather-in-law is going to Timnah
to shear his flocks.
(05:16):
Then she removed her garmentsof widowhood from upon her and
then she covered herself with aveil and then she wrapped
herself up and then she sat inthe entrance of Ennain, which
kind of means eyes or well,which was on the way towards
Timnah, for she saw that ceasingwas grown up and she herself
was not given to him as a wife.
(05:36):
And then, the Lord be praisedsaw her.
And then he assumed she wasprostituting, for she covered
her face.
And then he turned aside to herat the way and he said Please,
grant, let me come in to you,for he did not know that she was
his daughter-in-law.
And then she said what will yougive me that you come in to me?
And he said I myself will senda kid goat from the flock.
(05:58):
And she said If you give me apledge until you send it.
And then he said what pledgeshould I give you?
And then she said your signetring and your cord and your
staff which is in your hand.
And then he gave to her and hecame to her and she conceived by
him.
And then she arose and thenwent and then she removed her
veil from upon her and she puton her garments of widowhood and
(06:20):
then, the Lord be praised sentthe kid go at the hand of his
friend, the Adulamite, to takethe pledge back from the hand of
the woman.
But he didn't find her and heasked the men of the place
saying where is the cultprostitute who was upon the way
to Anain, and they said thereisn't in this area a cult
prostitute.
(06:40):
And then he returned to theLord be praised and he said I
did not find her.
And also the men of the placesaid there is not in this place
a cult prostitute.
And then the Lord be praisedsaid let her take the things
lest we be shamed.
Behold, I sent the kid goat andyou didn't find her.
(07:01):
And then it happened about threemonths later that the Lord be
praised was informed, sayingyour daughter-in-law Palmtree
has fornicated and also she ispregnant from her fornication.
And then the Lord be praisedsaid Cause her to come out and
let her be burned.
As she was being brought out,she herself sent to her
(07:21):
father-in-law saying Behold,whose are these?
Because from him I myself ampregnant.
And then she said pleaserecognize to whom these things
belong, the signet or the seal,the cord and the staff.
And then the Lord be praisedrecognized.
And then he said she is morerighteous than me, for on
(07:45):
account of this I did not giveher to ceasing my son.
And then he did not continue toknow her again.
And then it happened, in thetime of her giving birth, that
behold, twins were in her womb.
And then it happened, as shewas giving birth, that one put
out a hand and the midwife tookhold and as she tied upon his
hand, a scarlet thread sayingthis one came out.
(08:05):
A hand and the midwife tookhold and as she tied upon his
hand, a scarlet thread sayingthis one came out first.
And then it happened as he drewhis hand back, behold, his
brother came out instead.
And then she said what a breachyou have breached for yourself.
And his name was called breachor Perez.
And after his brother came out,who had the scarlet thread upon
his hand, his name was calledShining or Zerah.
(08:26):
So that is our story that weare working through today.
Genesis 38.
There is a lot going on here.
That makes more sense when youunderstand the historical
context.
But before we dive into thehistorical context of this
passage, let's back up just alittle bit to chapter 37,
(08:47):
because we need to start thereto get some of the whole picture
that's going on fully andcontextually.
So Genesis 37 starts bybasically saying this is the
family of Jacob.
Chapter 36 goes through thefamily of Esau and all of his
descendants and the genealogy ofEsau.
37 says this is the family ofJacob and then starts into a
(09:11):
very long story that's mostlyabout Joseph.
So 37 starts with Joseph and wehave young Joseph, who is 17 at
the beginning of chapter 37.
He's having dreams.
He's having dreams that hisbrothers bow down to him.
He has dreams that his parentsand his brothers bow down to him
, that he is ruling them, andthis, as you might expect,
(09:32):
causes a giant uproar in thefamily.
Joseph is the 11th of 12 of the12 sons.
So when you think about familystructure, you have your
patriarch and matriarch, whichthe matriarchy is shared between
Leah and Rachel, which causes alot of tension.
(09:53):
There isn't a clear matriarchin this home.
Jacob is the clear patriarch.
So you have the patriarch andthe matriarch.
Then you have the oldest son,who was Reuben.
However, we found out earlierthat Reuben has dishonored his
father by sleeping with Bilhah,his father's concubine, his
(10:14):
father's secondary wife.
So Reuben in some ways hasdisqualified himself from the
birthright, from the oldest sonposition, because he went behind
his father's back and had sexwith his father's concubine
Reuben's in a bad place with hisdad.
Next in line are Simeon and Levi.
(10:34):
They are second and third.
They killed an entire town ofpeople after a man from that
town raped their sister.
So they've kind of been in badblood because their dad was not
thrilled that they went andmurdered this town, the men in
this town.
Their dad was like now we'reall in danger because you went
and killed them and they stilllive in that region.
(10:56):
So Levi and Simeon also not inthe best graces with their dad.
The next in line, number four,is Judah, or the Lord be praised
.
Joseph is number 11, but Josephis having these dreams that he
is going to rule and he is thefather's favorite.
(11:16):
So even though there's a clearbirth order, the first three
have kind of disqualifiedthemselves.
Jude is kind of in the runningto be the firstborn, joseph's
the favorite.
That creates a lot of tensionbecause nobody knows, is daddy
going to go down the line?
Is he going to give thebirthright inheritance to the
oldest, or one of the oldest,depending on who has maybe or
(11:37):
maybe not disqualifiedthemselves, or is he going to
skip everybody and just go tohis favorite kid?
That's kind of the question.
And Joseph's having dreams.
They don't appreciate it andyou're familiar with this story.
Jacob gives Joseph the fancycoat, the brothers are out
shearing.
They can tell Joseph's coming along way off because this audio
was created with podcastleai.
(12:01):
The brothers are out shearing.
They can tell Joseph's coming along way off because blaring
neon sign clothing and Reubenand they want to kill him.
Reuben's like let's not killhim because Reuben wants to save
Joseph by saving his favoriteson.
(12:27):
Judah, I believe, has the ideato throw Joseph in the cistern
or to sell Joseph, and soJudah's right there at the front
getting rid of Joseph, and thenall the brothers work together
to kill a kid goat, put hisblood on the coat, and then they
ask their father do you wrapthis coat with the blood?
And of course Jacob does and heis sorrowful.
He has lost his favorite sonand he refuses to be comforted.
(12:50):
That's how chapter 37 ends.
It seems that right after thatJudah packs up and leaves his
family.
He is not staying with hisfamily at all.
He has left their area.
Verse 1 of 38 says he went downfrom his brothers, has largely
(13:12):
separated himself from hisfamily.
At this point and there's a lotin Genesis 38 where Judah and
Joseph in the remaining chaptersare being shown in contrast to
(13:35):
one another they're bothseparate from their families.
How do they act when they'renot with their tribe, with their
household, under the ultimatepatriarch of their tribe, jacob.
When they are out on their own,having to make their own
decisions, what do they do?
Well, 38 today is what Judahchooses to do.
(13:56):
His name means the Lord bepraised.
His mother gave that to himwhen she was four children into
having sons.
But he does not act like theLord is anywhere on his mind
whatsoever in this chapter untilmaybe the very end.
So Judah leaves his family, sotake.
He's away from Jacob, he's awayfrom his brothers.
(14:18):
He is separated.
He is gone to be with thisfriend, hira the Adulamite.
The only time Hira and Adulamis mentioned in the Old
Testament or in the Bible reallyis in Genesis 38.
We have very little informationon who this is, but he's a
really good friend of Judah's,evidently because they are
hanging out and maybe living invery close proximity together,
(14:40):
or maybe with each other.
And so Judah, while he's livingwith Hira, he sees a daughter,
a Canaanite woman, a daughter ofa man of Canaan, the daughter
of Shua.
So he marries a Canaanite.
This is not something that isreally encouraged.
In the line of Abraham, esaumarried Hittite women and
(15:02):
Rebekah was absolutely upsetwith that, which is part of the
reason Isaac sent Jacob toRebekah's family to find a wife,
where he met Rachel and Leah.
So marrying Canaanite women,marrying Hittite women, they're
not the same, but these sorts offoreign women are not at all
what this family is supposed tobe doing.
(15:23):
So for the original hearers ofthis, this is warning signs.
He's leaving the family, he'saway, he's hanging out with
Canaanites and Adumites and he'smarrying a Canaanite woman.
So he marries this woman and hetakes her and she gets pregnant
and has a son.
And then your English text inthe Masoretic text of the Hebrew
(15:46):
says and then he called hisname Protector or Ur.
Some commentators mentionedit's more likely other textual
sources and translations havethat she named.
Typically we've seen in Genesisthat the women name the sons or
the babies, not the men.
So it's odd that he would nameit.
But a lot of other textualsources have it as she named,
(16:09):
not he named, which she namesthe other two.
So it makes sense that this isjust an error of some kind.
And so the name of thefirstborn is Ur or protector.
And then she conceives again andshe bears a son and she named
him Vigorous or Onan.
And then she continued againand she bore another son.
(16:29):
The text reads as though she'shaving these kids one right
after another.
She is just popping them out.
She continued again and shebore a son and she named him
Sising or Sela.
This is her last son and he wasat Shezib when she bore him.
That phrase he was at Sheazibwhen she bore him.
That phrase he was at Shazibwhen she bore him has a lot of
nobody quite knows what it'stalking about.
(16:49):
That Was it he, being Judah,was at Shazib.
He's off somewhere else and shehas this baby by herself when
Judah's not home.
One article I read said thatShazib could mean in call,
that's when a baby is born inthe embryonic sac.
He comes out fully in the sacin call, which would be very
(17:12):
significant.
But the word shazib this is theonly time it's used in the
Hebrew Bible, so nobody quiteknows what it means, whether
it's a place name, whether it'san anatomical term, whether it's
a very specialized term havingto do with childbirth, like in
call.
Nobody quite knows what itmeans.
Whatever it is, it'ssignificant for Selah ceasing
(17:34):
and his birth.
So Judah has three sons inrapid quick succession.
Between verse 5 and verse 6, wehave a decade or two go by,
because now Judah is taking awife for Ur, his firstborn,
verse 6, and then.
Judah took a woman for Ur, hisfirstborn, and her name was
(17:57):
Tamar, which means palm tree.
It's very common in the Biblefor women's names to be plants
or animals or flowers or somesort like that.
It is not a negativeconnotation at all.
Palm trees, specifically if youlook at the rest of the Old
Testament, have to do with joy.
You can look at Joel 1.12 forjoy.
(18:19):
They have to do with beauty.
We see palm trees referenced inSong of Solomon to describe
someone's beauty.
Also in the Psalms, a palm treehas a significance of blessing
and flourishing.
So you get kind of this joyful,beautiful, flourishing palm
tree.
That is who Judah brings intohis home to marry his son, ur.
(18:43):
Now there's some significantthings about this marriage, in
particularly because Ur is hisfirstborn son.
So we need to think familystructure.
So you have Judah and hisCanaanite wife.
Then you have Ur.
He's the firstborn, judah's thepatriarch.
His Canaanite wife is thematriarch.
(19:03):
Ur will be the next patriarchof this household.
So the woman brought in to beUr's wife should be the next
matriarch of the household.
This is a position ofimportance in the household.
Now our text doesn't tell usthis because it assumes that we
know, but we often don't.
So what does a matriarch do?
(19:24):
Why would this matter?
I come out of a complementariancircle that was very
hierarchical.
The husband has all authorityand he might delegate some
authority to his wife, say to domenu planning and budgeting
around food.
But in the complementarianworld, hierarchical,
complementarian world, thehusband delegates that authority
(19:44):
to the wife, but it is reallyhis.
He has 100% of the authority inthe house.
He just shares some of it withher.
That wasn't necessarily how itwas viewed within the household
in the ancient world.
According to authors like CarolMyers etc.
The matriarch had carte blancheauthority over several areas
(20:06):
alongside her husband.
The husband had the externalfacing authority of legal,
religious face of the family.
But the wife had authority overfood.
She had a lot of authority inthe realm of reproduction.
She had authority in medicine,household religion, light
storage.
She had a lot of things whereshe had control, she had power
(20:31):
and it wasn't delegated to herby her husband.
That it's ultimately all his.
He just gives her enoughauthority to do these tasks.
In the ancient culture thesewere considered the matriarch's
authority and even the patriarchis not allowed to question her
on these things.
It is carte blanche herauthority period, paragraph.
End of discussion.
She has a serious position inthe household.
(20:52):
It is a very strong position inthe household.
So Judah brings Tamar in to bethe next matriarch.
She is marrying the firstbornson but unfortunately Ur was Ra.
There's a play on the Hebrew Urwas Ra.
(21:13):
It takes Ur's name andbasically flips it around
backwards.
Ur was evil.
One commentator very greatlysaid Ur erred, to get that play
on words in English Ur erred andthe Lord killed him.
We don't know what he did.
He may have mistreated Tamar,he may have done any number of
other evil things, but Ur erred.
It's also important to notethat Judah may not be worshiping
(21:36):
Jacob's God at this point.
He has moved away from hisfamily.
We have no idea what thereligious flavor of this family
is at all, although Judah didmarry a Canaanite woman who
likely would have brought all ofher religion and household
religion into Judah's home.
Let that sink in for a second.
She's a matriarch, she has alot of power when it comes to
(21:57):
household religion and he wentout and he married a Canaanite
who would likely bring all ofthat in.
So there could be idolatry,there could be sexual
indiscretion, there could be.
We don't know.
The text does not tell us.
But Ur was a bad guy.
He was not a protector and hewas not protected from God.
God kills him for his evilness,so the Lord causes Ur to die.
(22:22):
Then Judah turns to the nextson and he instructs him on what
he should do.
But let's back up for a second.
Judah's wife was Canaanite, butTamar, who Judah brought in, we
(22:45):
do not know anything about herbackground.
I find this incrediblyfascinating in Genesis 38.
Because Judah's wife we knowher father's name, we know her
nationality.
We don't know her name.
She is nameless.
She has no identity outside ofher nation and her father and
her husband, those are the onlythings that give her identity.
(23:06):
Tamar is almost the opposite.
We don't know who her father is, we don't know her nationality,
but she has a name, she isnamed, and we see her come up
again later on.
We see her come up in the bookof Ruth, which I'll be doing an
entire series on the book ofRuth starting in a couple weeks,
so you can look forward.
We'll bring Tamar back up as wetalk through Ruth.
She comes up in the book ofRuth and then Tamar appears
(23:36):
again in the book of Matthew andshe's included in the genealogy
of Jesus, but we don't have anyidea about her background.
We don't know where she comesfrom or who she is.
Some scholars say her name isHebrew, so therefore she might
have been a Hebrew woman.
But we don't know that for surebecause Adam and Eve are also
Hebrew names and if they werehuman, literal people, they
lived before the Hebrew nationwas.
(23:57):
This audio was created withpodcastleai.
They lived before the Hebrewnation was, or the Hebrew
language was there.
They predate Hebrewness, butthey have Hebrew names.
So having a Hebrew name doesn'tnecessarily mean you're Hebrew,
(24:18):
though it could, but we don'tknow who Tamar is.
But she stands alone as anindividual in this passage,
which is fascinating becausethis is a culture that is
communal.
They are a communal culture, soto not say who a woman is is
unique.
It's very interesting that theydon't mention that.
(24:39):
So she married Ur.
God kills Ur.
Judah, in verse 8, goes toVigorous, to Onan, and says come
to the wife of your brother andperform the brother-in-law duty
with her to raise up seed foryour brother.
Some of you, as you're listening, may be very familiar with
marriage and the brother-in-lawlaws.
To some of you, this may bebrand new, so I'm going to break
(25:00):
it down for a minute.
What is going on in verse eight?
Because this feels like allsorts of icky.
I know, as a woman in 2025,that if my husband had a brother
, he doesn't.
But if he had a brother and myhusband died, there is no way I
would want to marry my husband'sbrother.
There's no way I would want tomarry my sister's brother.
(25:20):
I married my husband.
That's the only man I want tobe married to.
I do not like the idea of beingpassed around just because I
didn't have a baby or a son.
So what is going on here in averse that feels icky?
This is the first introductionto Leveret marriage in the Bible
, and Leveret marriage is acustom, a cultural custom from
(25:43):
the ancient Near East thatpredates the Mosaic law.
The Mosaic law prescribes aform of leverant marriage in
Deuteronomy 25.
Let me read to you verses 5 and6 from Deuteronomy 25, and that
says from the NIV if brothersare living together and one of
them dies without a son, hiswidow must not marry outside the
(26:05):
family.
Her husband's brother shalltake her and marry her and
fulfill the duty of abrother-in-law to her.
The first son she bears shallcarry the name of the dead
brother, so that his name willnot be blotted out from Israel.
So basically, brother A dies,wife A does not have a son, so
brother B has to marry wife Aand the first son that she has
(26:29):
will be considered brother A'sson and get his inheritance.
This is a law that protectsfamily inheritance, but it has
other features as well.
When we think about marriagetoday, like when my husband and
I got married.
It was an individual decisionthat I made and my husband made.
We decided to marry Our parentsboth gave their blessing as a
(26:51):
formality, but they really havenothing to do with our marriage.
We still have relationshipswith them, we love them, but
they have no say so over ourmarriage, that it does not
affect them.
You know, except for a socialin any way, shape or form.
Our parents did not talk toeach other before we got married
.
They, like, met at our wedding.
They didn't really talk to eachother before the marriage and
(27:13):
they didn't have any agreementswith each other about our
marriage.
It was our decision.
Well, in the ancient world, amarriage was as much in many
ways a business agreement as itis a social agreement.
Often the patriarchs and thematriarch would often have some
say-so, and even the woman andthe son who are getting married,
(27:35):
the bride and the groom theywould have some say-so as well.
The degree that they would havesay-so may depend on the
patriarch and the type of man hewas, whether he's willing to
consider their thoughts, whetherhe's not.
Some were, some weren't, but amarriage in the Old Testament in
the ancient Near East is twofamilies making an agreement it
was often in writing making anagreement that we are going to
(28:00):
contribute financially to thismarriage to make sure that they
have the best possible chancefor a life and a business of
their own, because the householdis a business.
In the ancient world we thinkof business as separate from our
domicile where we live.
For them, it's all togetherHouse business, all of it's
together.
It is one package.
So in marriage you'recontributing to a household,
(28:23):
you're creating, in some ways, anew mini business.
And another thing that's goingon is both families are agreeing
that this marriage union willhave children.
To further the family line, thewoman would come into her
husband's household to be partof his household.
She leaves her household ofbirth and moves to her husband's
(28:47):
household, but her parents andhis parents are agreeing that
they will have children.
Sometimes there was clauses inthe marriage contract.
If she doesn't have children,what will that mean as far as
divorce and this, that and theother thing?
And on the flip side, if thehusband dies and doesn't give
her children, his family isstill obligated to make sure she
(29:08):
has children.
Okay, so when there's amarriage happening, it's not
just oh, we're going to pass thewoman down the line.
It's there is family obligationto make sure she has children,
that the patriarch signs on thedotted line and says line and
(29:35):
says I take that responsibilitywhen I marry my son to this
woman.
So when we get to verse eight,what's happening here is Judah
is fulfilling thisresponsibility.
He's saying our household, thehousehold of Judah, took on the
responsibility that Tamar havechildren when she married Ur,
responsibility that Tamar havechildren when she married Ur.
That is part of what we all asa household signed up for when
they got married.
(29:55):
It is likely Judah would havealso paid some sort of surety
payment to Tamar's family.
Some people talk about women inthe Old Testament as though they
are bought and sold because ofsurety payments like this.
Don't think of it like I'mgoing to pay you 100 shekels of
silver for a cow, like you'rebuying and selling.
It's more of a surety Marriages.
(30:18):
Take a while.
You walk up, you hand somebody$100 and you take home your cow.
It's like it happens.
But when it comes to a marriageit's a lot lower.
You have to prepare the wedding, you have to get ready for the
move, you have to do all thethings.
So the surety payment sayswhile all of the things are
getting done, my son is notgoing to go marry the pretty
(30:39):
girl.
Three houses down there's asurety payment.
We will marry your daughter,we're not going to run off
sideways on you.
Often, according to researchI've been doing in these ancient
cultures, the father wouldoften give that surety payment
to the bride in some of thesecultures on her wedding day.
So the surety payment wouldbecome part of her belongings
(31:00):
that she brings into the newmarriage.
That gives her kind of afallback plan Should she become
a widow, should she be divorced.
These are finances that she hasat her disposal to help her
potentially in the future.
Her father would also give herher portion of her inheritance.
We often call it a dowry, butthat's what a dowry is it's her
(31:22):
portion of the inheritance.
Her brother might get land,because land is passed through
the men, but the girls would getsome form of inheritance,
whether it's household goods, itcould be grinding stones, it
could be looms, it could beanimals, it could be servants,
it could be cloth, it could bejewelry, money, other forms of
(31:44):
wealth.
But she would come into themarriage with, possibly, the
surety payment returned to herpersonally as well as a dowry
from her father.
So she comes in with somefinances that she's bringing
into the marriage, but they arein many ways hers.
She may allow her husband orfather-in-law control over them,
(32:06):
or culturally they would takecontrol over them.
But should there be a divorceor widowhood, those items get
returned to her to take care ofher when she's in an uncertain
position in society.
So Judah, in verse 8, stepsforward.
He says okay, we're going tofulfill our commitments to Tamar
, come into the wife of yourbrother, perform the
(32:27):
brother-in-law duty with her andraise up seed for your brother.
But then vigorous Onan knewthat the seed wouldn't be his.
So it happened that when hecame into her he would, the
Hebrew says, ruin the earth.
That's basically a euphemismfor cloitus interruptus.
He has sex with her and thenwithdraws at the point of
(32:49):
ejaculation so that he doesn'tget her pregnant.
And he does this on purpose,and it sounds like he did this
repeatedly.
So he is willing to use her forpleasure, but not give her her
due.
Now, why would Er do this?
Well, if, right now, or whywould Onan do this, excuse me,
onan would do this to her useher for sexual pleasure, but not
(33:12):
give her a pregnancy, becauseright now Onan is the firstborn
because Ur died.
So now all of the rights andprivileges of being the
firstborn come to him.
Tamar pregnant, that babyleapfrogs over him in the family
(33:34):
structure to be the firstbornbecause it would be Ur's child
and the line goes through Ur.
So Onan doesn't want to losehis position in the family and
he says I'm not doing it, I'mnot going to raise up seed for
my brother, I'm going to takeall that position for myself.
Thank you very much.
I will use this woman for myown pleasure, but I'm not going
to give her her due.
I'm going to also keep her fromgetting what she needs.
(33:57):
It's very likely the textdoesn't say this is my own
opinion Onan may have hadanother wife because he would
want to raise up seed forhimself, he would want children
for himself, to carry on his ownline.
So this may be a second marriage.
So Tamar is shuttled in kind ofas a second wife under his wife
.
So she's lost her matriarchalposition to be and she's not
(34:21):
going to have the child that'sdue her, the patriarch to be,
child.
He's denying her this.
Well, what he does is evil inthe eyes of the Lord, and God
killed him like his brother, ur.
So then, verse 11, the Lord bepraised.
Judah said to Tamar, hisdaughter-in-law, remain a widow
(34:43):
in your father's household untilSelah, my son, grows up.
For he said, because he mightdie like his brothers.
So basically, judah doesn'twant to give the third to her.
He's looking at her.
He's like my first two kidsdied after being married to this
woman.
This is a black widow, maybe awitch.
Sometimes women who had lots ofhusbands died on them were
(35:05):
thought to be witches.
Um, one of the commentaries orsources I was reading said and
Judah was like I'm not a goodidea, so I want to get rid of
her.
So he sends her to be a widow inher father's household.
He sends her home, but she'sstill technically under his
authority, under his domain.
(35:26):
She's legally part of hishousehold, even though she has
been shamed by being told to goback to her daddy's house.
It's likely that he would havekept the surety, the dowry, all
of the money and things that shebrought in.
They would still be in Judah'shousehold that they can all use.
(35:47):
But she's been kicked outbecause she's kind of like a
bride-in-waiting.
It doesn't necessarily go withher.
It's been mingled into theirfamily's finances and so they're
just they.
Potentially the text doesn'tsay this, but this is how some
of it could have happened in theancient Near East, that these
finances would have just thisaudio was created with
podcastleai.
(36:10):
How some of it could havehappened in the ancient Near
East that these finances wouldhave just stayed in Judah's
house.
While Tamar is penniless andshamed and moved back to her
father's house.
She's in this really precariousposition as a widow.
She doesn't have a husband.
She cannot marry outside ofJudah's house, but Judah doesn't
want her in the house to marryhis younger son, so he sent her
(36:33):
away.
So she has no position.
She's just in this awkwardlimbo state and Judah says he'll
marry her to the third son, butuntil that son grows up she's
just in an awkward limbo statuswhile being shamed by being sent
away because Judah doesn't wantanything to do with her.
Her status while she's waitingfor Judah is she has no status.
(36:57):
She's not a wife, she's a widow.
But she also has nothing totake care of herself.
She is merely at the mercy ofher family to take care of her,
which it sounds like they did.
But they're not under anyobligation because they gave her
inheritance and everything elsewhen she got married.
So Tamar went and she remainedin her father's house.
The Hebrew just says and thenthe days became numerous, so an
(37:20):
unspecified period of timehappens and then the daughter of
Shua, the wife of Judah dies,his nameless wife.
She had a name in real life, wejust don't know what it was.
She dies and he goes through aperiod of mourning and likely
the period of grief, a period ofmourning and likely the period
(37:41):
of grief.
And then he decides, okay, Ineed to get back to real life.
And he goes up to see his sheepshearers in Timnah and he takes
Hira, again his friend.
He seems to make questionablesexual decisions when he's
hanging out with Hira.
Maybe Hira's not the bestinfluence.
Anyway, I digress.
He goes to see his sheepshearers, he and Hira, and they
go towards Timnah and then itwas told verse 13, to Tamar
(38:02):
saying behold, yourfather-in-law is going to Timnah
to shear his flocks, and wedon't know if that was back with
Jacob or where Judah's brothersare, but he's going to Timnah
to shear his flocks.
So that Hagar makes a series ofvery purposeful, intentional
decisions she removes hergarments of widowhood from upon
her, she covers herself with aveil, also indicating married
(38:26):
women didn't normally have aveil.
She wraps herself up and shegoes and she sits in the
entrance of Enaym, which couldmean eye, or well, or spring.
They often called springs eyesof water, the water coming out,
which was on the way to Timnah.
So she goes to Enim.
Maybe she was living close toEnim at the time and he had to
(38:50):
pass by to get to Timnah.
So she sat she's at Enim, onthe way to Tim, for she saw that
Selah was grown up and she wasnot given to him as a wife.
Maybe Judah got him a differentwife, maybe he's I mean, being
single isn't really an option.
So she's realizing Judah's notgoing to follow through on his
(39:11):
word.
I'm not being given to him, Idon't have any other options.
So she makes a very calculated,risky, gutsy choice and she
sits on the way to Timnah.
So then, verse 15, judah, as hepassed by, saw her and he
assumed that she was aprostitute, for she covered her
face.
Scholars are they can't agree,and we don't know for sure
(39:34):
whether.
Do prostitutes always covertheir face?
Is that a sign of somethingelse?
Is it that she's sitting atthis particular spot that he
thinks she's a prostitute?
Is it because she covered herface?
We're not sure.
Whatever the situation was, shewas sending prostitution signals
and Judah picks up on them.
So he turns to her and he saysplease, please, let me come into
(39:58):
you.
It's a little rougher than thatin the Hebrew.
It's not like a polite please,it's like hey, you, I want to
have sex, let me do this.
For he did not know that shewas his daughter-in-law.
And so she says what will yougive to me that you come into me
?
She acts like a very shrewdbusinesswoman, knowing exactly
(40:19):
what she's about and exactlywhat she's needing.
She says what will you give meto come into me?
And he says I myself will senda kid from the flock, a baby
goat or sheep, I will send thatto you.
And she said OK, obviously youdon't have it with you.
So what's a pledge, a surety, adown payment until you send it?
(40:40):
And he's like huh, what shouldI give you?
And she says I want your seal,your cord and your staff.
Often men would have a seal theyused.
Sometimes it was a ring.
In my Hebrew text originally Isaid signet ring.
It might have been a ring.
It could also have been acircle seal on a cord around his
(41:04):
neck, um, but they use thosefor payments, as a signature on
any legal documents, anyagreements.
You need your seal, um, it'skind of like your signature.
It's um, like your driver'slicense, social security card,
kind of thing, your seal, yourcord and your staff the staff is
the position of his patriarchalauthority.
It's kind of thing You'reseeing your seal, your cord and
your staff the staff is theposition of his patriarchal
authority.
It's kind of like your ID badgeat work saying this is who I am
and this is how important I am.
(41:25):
And, yes, you have to let me upto C-suite in my building.
Thank you very much.
And so she's like give me yourdriver's license, social
security card and work badge.
And he gave it to her.
And then he came to her and sheconceived by him.
And then she arose and she wentand she removed the veil and
she put on the garments of herwidowhood Verse 20,.
(41:46):
And then Judah sent to her thekid goat in the hand of his
friend, the Adulamite, to takethe pledge back.
He wants his stuff back fromthis woman.
But the friend did not find her, and so he's asking around
where is she?
Where is she?
Where is she?
And the men of the place arelike there's no woman like that
here, like there's not aprostitute hanging out at our
(42:08):
gates.
I don't know what you'retalking about.
And so verse 22,.
The friend returns to Judah andsays I didn't find her.
But the men said there wasn't.
And so Judah, at this pointhe's nervous, this is an awkward
situation.
And he's basically like, okay,I don't want us to be shamed,
it's an honor.
Shame.
Culture Men had freedom to visitprostitutes.
It may not have been the norm,but if one is available, they
(42:33):
were allowed to do it.
Sexual immorality there's verymuch a gender inequality when it
came to sexual freedom.
Men couldn't sleep with anotherman's wife and shouldn't be
sleeping with another man'sdaughter.
But a prostitute is kind of inthis liminal space and she's
(42:53):
okay.
And it doesn't matter thatyou're married, you're not
cheating on your wife to sleepwith a prostitute.
Culturally, in their culture,you're allowed to do what you
want with a prostitute.
So he's, but you still I meanyou don't necessarily want to
advertise it and it is kind ofshameful when, like, you did
this but now you can't find her,you didn't know where she is,
(43:16):
like, and you gave her yourstuff, like, are you an idiot?
So Judah doesn't really wantthis getting out anywhere, so he
just tells his friend okay,hush, hush, let's not do this.
And so it happens about threemonths later that it's
discovered that Hagar ispregnant and Judah was informed,
(43:36):
saying behold, tamar has beenunfaithful, immoral.
She fornicated, she is pregnantfrom her immorality.
Judah seems furious.
In two words, in the Hebrewtext, he utters a death sentence
upon her, which in Englishwould be cause her to come out
and let her be burned.
(43:57):
Burning is only for the most.
In any ancient Near Easternculture, only the most egregious
crime, stoning, was more commonthan burning, and there were
other things that were way morecommon than even stoning.
But the death penalty, and he's, I mean, we already have
established that Jude is not afan of Tamar.
He kind of wants to get rid ofher, which is why she's at her
(44:18):
father's house, so he doesn'thave to deal with her, because
he's hoping maybe everybody willjust forget about her, out of
sight, out of mind.
And so he says bring her outand let her be burned.
Finally I can just get rid ofher.
And she, as she's being broughtout, sends by a messenger.
(44:38):
There's messengers going backand forth a lot, so this is
public, this is not private.
She's not sending him a textthat only he gets.
She's sending by hand of amessenger, I imagine maybe a
sister or another woman in herfamily whose eyes are like
Tamara, you got him Brilliant,you got him girlfriend.
Anyway, whoever has this, shesends it by a messenger somebody
she trusts literally with herlife, someone who is in her
(45:01):
corner, takes the seal and thecord and the staff, but somebody
who also will be listened to byJudah's family and by all the
people.
So they're not just going toswipe it from this person like a
child.
A child.
It might be like they justswipe it and be like you don't
know what you're talking about.
So this is somebody with enoughstatus that they're going to be
heard.
They can't be ignored and theycan't just have the stuff swiped
(45:23):
from.
So she sends back the seal andthe cord and the staff with this
messenger to Judah with themessage that says do you
recognize these?
Because these belong to thefather of my baby.
That says, do you recognizethese?
(45:44):
Because these belong to thefather of my baby.
So she comes in and she showsJudah the objects that he is the
man who got her pregnant, bothrevealing the fact that he saw a
shrine prostitute and we don'tknow what her motivation was.
But the effect of her actionsis revealing all the things he
(46:07):
was doing against her.
It forces him to admit.
I didn't give her my third son,which I was legally obligated
to do.
I potentially kept her suretypayment and down rate to enrich
my household while sending heraway.
(46:28):
I shamed her by sending heraway and subtly blaming her for
the death of my two sons, andnow she, through a creative
application of the rules, hasbrought it to light that I have
not done what I was required todo.
(46:52):
We're not sure if Tamar had thisin mind, but the Hittite
version of leveret marriageindicates the father-in-law
could have sexual obligationstowards the bride as well.
In the Hebrew world, in theMosaic law, leveret marriage is
just the brothers.
The father doesn't haveanything to do with it.
But in the Hittite version ofleveret marriage, which again,
(47:14):
tamar and Judah predate theMosaic law, so they're going off
of local traditions in theancient Near East.
In Hittite version of Leveretmarriage the father might need
to marry the bride to make sureshe has an heir.
So she may be applying Hittitelaw to their situation.
(47:35):
And that's why she roped Judahinto it.
Because if you're not going togive me your son, she had no
access to Selah, she had accessto Judah and under Hittite law
that would be acceptable.
But he's not doing it.
So she does it at great risk toher life.
Because what if Judah hadlifted the veil while he was
doing his deed?
That would have it would gameover.
(47:56):
At great risk.
She does this.
So let's we've worked throughthis story and I comment.
Send me a DM, send me an email.
This audio was created withpodcastleai.
And I comment.
(48:17):
Send me a DM, send me an email.
Comment on the social mediaposts.
I want to hear your thoughts aswe walk through the story.
But let's talk about the sowhat?
What does any of this mean?
What?
Why does this matter?
If we look at Judah, we seethis is a huge turning point for
him that kind of catapults himto being the man he needs to be.
(48:40):
We see this later on in hisinteractions with Jacob and
Joseph.
But Judah, for our purposes, isnot the focus of this chapter.
Most commentaries andeverywhere else will talk to you
ad nauseum about Judah.
I'm not going to do that.
Let's talk about Tamar.
We can look at this story from acouple different lenses.
(49:01):
We can look at it from theposition of the original
participants, those who areacting out the events.
What did they know?
What did they not know?
They don't know anything aboutMosaic law, because this is all
they have.
Or we could look at it from theoriginal hearer's perspective,
those who were given the book ofGenesis by the redactor,
whether that redactor's Moses orpost-exilic editors, we don't
(49:22):
know who the redactor is.
There's several theories.
I'm not going to get into them.
So are we dealing from theoriginal hearer's perspective,
who has the whole book ofGenesis and is hearing the whole
book of Genesis in flow, andpossibly has knowledge of Exodus
, Leviticus, numbers,deuteronomy as well.
Which perspective are welooking at?
Let's look at a coupledifferent ones and think through
(49:43):
some observations, someimplications, maybe even some
applications.
One thing I think is reallyimportant from this passage we
don't know her motivation.
I've gotten some questions.
Was she a woman of faith?
Was she acting out of faith?
Did she have trust in the Lordto take care of her?
One person wanted to know wouldshe have been forced into
(50:06):
worshiping her father's godswhen she went back to her house,
if she was worshiping the Lordwith Judah?
We have no idea what's going on.
Judah doesn't seem to befollowing God very well at all.
In this passage he's removedhimself from the family of
promise, tamar.
We don't know her background,whether she knew the Lord or
whether she's a Canaanite, pagan.
We have no idea if she hasfaith.
(50:26):
But what we do know is that ourGod is a God of justice and our
God delights that justiceprevailed for Tamar.
That's why Judah, as patriarch,is able to say she is more
righteous than me.
We don't know if it was herpurpose, if she purposed to do
(50:50):
this.
But the effect of what she didchallenged an abusive man in
authority and the effect ofTamar's actions required the
abusive man to own up to what hedid publicly and to give her
justice and what she deservedlegally, according to the
(51:11):
customs of their day.
And as we think through Tamar'sstory from that vantage point,
it presses on a lot of genderpolitics and power politics in
our churches and in ourcommunities, because there's a
lot of churches and there's alot of places that tell women no
, you don't stand up to men inauthority who have abused you.
(51:32):
First, peter 3, you just pray,be quiet and pray.
You don't need to seek outsidehelp, you don't need to go to
the police.
You don't need to go to the law.
You don't need to have anyoneback up your legal right.
You don't even really deservelegal rights.
You just need to pray and trustthat God will come through for
you.
But in stories like JL in Judgesor Tamar here in Genesis 36, we
(51:57):
have women who stand up, usingcreative means to deal with
abusive men in power.
And they may not be thinkingthrough I'm going to challenge
an abusive man in power that maynot be their thought frame.
We don't know what theirthought frame is, but the
results of their actions arethat an abusive man in power is
challenged.
Their actions are that anabusive man in power is
(52:19):
challenged and, in this case,admits it.
Judah admits I messed up.
She's more righteous than me.
The Hebrew, literally, isrighteous from me.
She is righteous, not me.
She wins.
Yeah, I accept the public shamethat this brings and he has to.
(52:43):
As a man in power who has usedand abused her by sending her
away, possibly keeping all ofher stuff, denying her her
rights, he has to admit whathe's done.
He doesn't continue to use her.
He doesn't sleep with her again.
Our God is a God who likes itwhen justice is served, and it
(53:05):
would do those in our circleswho have power to take that
seriously.
Curiously, exodus 22 says,starting verse 21,.
Do not mistreat or oppress aforeigner, for you are
foreigners in Egypt.
Do not take advantage of thewidow or the fatherless.
(53:27):
Tamar is kind of presented asboth, so she has a father, but
she's definitely a widow.
Do not take advantage of thewidow.
If you do, and they cry out tome, I will certainly hear their
cry, my anger will be arousedand I will kill you with your
swords.
Your wives will become widowsand your children fatherless.
The God of Genesis.
Even though we do not know ifTamar or Judah were paying
(53:48):
attention to him at all, wedon't know their relationship
with God at all but we do knowthat the God of Genesis cares
about widows and heprovidentially made sure Tamar's
scheme worked so that she wouldget justice and so that Judah
would be challenged.
So on one level, as we look atthe story of Tamar, we can see
(54:11):
our God is a God of justice andhe delights when it is carried
out and when widows get whatthey deserve, what they are owed
.
God delights in women who docreative things.
They may be outside the norm.
Obviously it's not herdeception and seduction of Judah
(54:36):
that he is saying is morerighteous than him.
Her sexual act there, thedeceiving of him, is not what
Judah is uplifting, but it isthe fact that she acted within
the law of the land to bring tolight the injustice done against
her and have a child.
(54:59):
Some commentators I've seen sayoh, tamar wanted the baby, she
wanted the baby to take care ofher in her old age, and all of
that is true.
We cannot view Tamar simply asa woman with baby fever or a
woman who's hoping this babythat she's going to have to take
care of will grow up to takecare of her.
Tamar, I believe that she'sgoing to have to take care of,
will grow up to take care of her.
(55:19):
Tamar, I believe and this is myI might be reading a little bit
, but this is my belief Tamar isa woman who recognizes the
position she is owed asmatriarch, the financial
implications that she's beensent away while still
technically being part ofJudah's household, so her
capital is still invested in hisbusiness, but she has no part
of it.
She's recognizing this, in myopinion, and wants to do
(55:43):
something about it, because herkey to position and power in
that family and I don't usethose words like she's power
hungry, but it is what she isowed from the marriage contract
Judah signed.
It is the equivalent of ustaking the contract to the
lawyer and saying, look, read it, make them, give me what they
(56:05):
said.
Only she doesn't have the voicebecause her father's not
standing up and doing anythingabout it.
He's not advocating, he's notgoing to Judah and saying, hello
, give her the third son, why isshe with me?
Why is she still in my house?
Do your job.
Her dad's not doing that,judah's not doing that, so she
has to find a creative way whenshe doesn't have a legal
(56:27):
standing voice to do it.
We also see later on Tamar'sincluded in Jesus' line, in
Jesus' lineage.
This is a woman God delights in.
As we read the Psalms, our Godis a God who loves justice.
Our God is a God who likeswomen.
(56:48):
Our God is a God who cares forhis people.
Throughout this story, he isworking behind the scenes to
bring Judah around to where heneeds to be and to care for
Tamar, making sure that in theend she gets what she is owed
and she is cared for as a widow.
The weak, the wounded, thevulnerable have a special place
(57:11):
in God's heart.
He sees them, he cares for them, he works on their behalf.
He sees them, he cares for them.
He works on their behalf.
Even 1 Peter 3, that is sooften used against women to keep
them silent, to keep them notusing their voices Even 1 Peter
3 says husbands, be gentle withyour wives or God won't listen
(57:32):
to your prayers.
It is an echo of Exodus 22,where God says treat widows
kindly, or they will cry out andI will attack you, the weak,
the wounded, the vulnerable.
God cares about them.
There are all sorts of parallelsin this chapter between Judah
and Jacob and Joseph.
(57:54):
Judah fell into sexualindiscretion where Joseph stayed
pure.
Jacob lost a son and refused tobe comforted.
Judah loses two sons and a wifeand is comforted and outdoing
his sexual indiscretions.
There's lots of parallels, butwhat stays the same is the God
who is working through veryimperfect people to bring
(58:16):
forward a perfect Jesus, becauseultimately that's what we need.
And in the meantime, he is usingwomen like Tamar to showcase
his justice and his loyalty andhis grace and his delight in
women who do things in creativeways to get the job done that
sometimes go outside of theconventional boundaries, though
(58:39):
not necessarily outside moralboundaries.
She used some deception onJudah, but she was within the
cultural, elaborate marriagebounds to get pregnant by Judah.
She is not a loose woman.
She is not a woman ofquestionable character, as the
(59:00):
ESV Bible said.
She is a woman that I hope hadfaith in Yahweh, faith in the
Lord.
The text does not tell us, butshe is a woman who's included in
Jesus' line because God thinksshe's something special, because
she not only has sons that moveto David, but she is a woman
(59:28):
who cares about what God caresabout and is willing to risk her
life for the types of thingsthat God cares about, to risk
her life for the types of thingsthat God cares about.
So, as we close up thisdiscussion of Tamar, I can't
wait to talk to you further.
I want to hear what from thisepisode is new to you, what
shocked you, what wasinteresting to you, and any
(59:49):
further questions you have.
I have posts on Instagram andon threads.
Go to one of those posts,comment.
Let me know what you thought ofthe episode.
Let me know your questions,your favorite parts, all of that
.
I can't wait to talk to youmore, and we will be starting
Ruth before too long, so be sureto tune back to learn about
Ruth in her historical context.
(01:00:10):
Have a great day.
This audio was created withpodcastleai.
Welcome back to the we who Thirst podcast.
We are continuing our Women inContext series with an episode
on Tamar from Genesis 38.
This is a woman who often, whenshe's taught about, is kind of
talked about in a negative lightin my experience in evangelical
(00:22):
circles, to the point that afootnote in the ESV study Bible
remarks that Tamar, rahab andBathsheba were women of
questionable character.
Often when this story is taughtshe is described as a woman who
is deceiving and sexuallydubious and just kind of a
(00:46):
negative example.
She is someone that most peopledon't know quite what to do
with her story and so I hope wecan really unpack that today.
This episode is going to kindof have three sections in it.
As we go through, first, I'mgoing to read my own translation
(01:07):
or reading of Genesis 38 fromthe Hebrew.
It'll sound a little different.
It'll get us out of our usualtranslation that we're used to
reading all the time in ourdaily work.
So it'll sound a little bitdifferent, which will help us
hear the story in a new way.
It also I will, in my firstread-through I will be using the
(01:28):
name meaning instead of thename, because in Hebrew often
not always, but often names havemeanings that can have some
significance to the account, tothe story as you go through.
We see this with Abraham andSarah.
His name means father of many,or exalted father, depending
(01:52):
whether it's Abram or Abraham,and that is the crux of his
entire story is that he doesn'thave children, but his name
means father.
So you have these interplaysgoing on with names.
So I'm going to use wherever Ican.
We don't know the meaningbehind every name, so some I'll
just use it as it reads in ourEnglish Bibles, but some I will
offer the name meaning insteadof the name, to help us hear and
(02:17):
get into the story closer tohow the original hearers would
have heard and understood thestory.
So that's going to be the firstpart of the episode.
Then I'll walk through Genesis38, talking about historical
context elements.
Let's see what the originalhearers would have understood
but that we missed in the textbecause of our culture is so
(02:37):
dramatically different fromtheirs.
And then we'll conclude talkingabout the.
So what?
How do we interpret thispassage?
How does it impact our lives?
What do we walk away from thispassage, knowing about God and
ourselves as a result ofstudying Genesis 38 and Tamar?
So let's dive in togetherGenesis 38.
(03:02):
And then things happened at thistime, and then the Lord be
praised, went down from hisbrothers and he turned aside to
a man of Adullam and his namewas Hira.
And then the Lord be praisedsaw that there was a daughter of
a man of Canaan and his namewas Shua.
And then he took her and hecame into her and she conceived
(03:24):
and she bore a son and then hecalled his name was Shua, and
then he took her and he cameinto her and she conceived and
she bore a son and then hecalled his name Protector or Ur,
and she conceived again andthen she bore another son and
she named him Vigorous.
And she continued again andthen she bore a son and she
named him Cece and he was atShezeb when she bore him.
And then the bore a son and shenamed him Cicin and he was at
(03:45):
Shezib when she bore him.
And then the Lord be praisedtook a woman for Ur or Protector
, his firstborn, and her namewas Palmtree.
And that Protector, ur, thefirstborn of the Lord be praised
, was evil, raw in the eyes ofthe Lord.
And then the Lord caused him todie.
(04:07):
And then the Lord be praised,said to Vigorous, come into the
wife of your brother and performthe brother-in-law duty with
her and raise up seed for yourbrother.
And then Vigorous knew that theseed would not be his.
And it happened that when hecame in to the wife of his
brother he would ruin the earthso that he would not give seed
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to his brother.
And then that was evil in theeyes of the Lord.
And then the Lord caused him todie like his brother.
And then the Lord be praisedsaid to Palmtree his
daughter-in-law remain a widowin your father's house until
ceasing, my son.
And then the days becamenumerous and when the daughter
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of Shua, the wife of the Lord bepraised, died, and then the
Lord be praised observed histime of mourning, and then he
went up to his sheep shearers,he and Hira, his friend the
Adulamite.
They went towards Timnah andthen it was told to palm tree
saying behold, yourfather-in-law is going to Timnah
to shear his flocks.
(05:16):
Then she removed her garmentsof widowhood from upon her and
then she covered herself with aveil and then she wrapped
herself up and then she sat inthe entrance of Ennain, which
kind of means eyes or well,which was on the way towards
Timnah, for she saw that ceasingwas grown up and she herself
was not given to him as a wife.
(05:36):
And then, the Lord be praisedsaw her.
And then he assumed she wasprostituting, for she covered
her face.
And then he turned aside to herat the way and he said Please,
grant, let me come in to you,for he did not know that she was
his daughter-in-law.
And then she said what will yougive me that you come in to me?
And he said I myself will senda kid goat from the flock.
(05:58):
And she said If you give me apledge until you send it.
And then he said what pledgeshould I give you?
And then she said your signetring and your cord and your
staff which is in your hand.
And then he gave to her and hecame to her and she conceived by
him.
And then she arose and thenwent and then she removed her
veil from upon her and she puton her garments of widowhood and
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then, the Lord be praised sentthe kid go at the hand of his
friend, the Adulamite, to takethe pledge back from the hand of
the woman.
But he didn't find her and heasked the men of the place
saying where is the cultprostitute who was upon the way
to Anain, and they said thereisn't in this area a cult
prostitute.
(06:40):
And then he returned to theLord be praised and he said I
did not find her.
And also the men of the placesaid there is not in this place
a cult prostitute.
And then the Lord be praisedsaid let her take the things
lest we be shamed.
Behold, I sent the kid goat andyou didn't find her.
(07:01):
And then it happened about threemonths later that the Lord be
praised was informed, sayingyour daughter-in-law Palmtree
has fornicated and also she ispregnant from her fornication.
And then the Lord be praisedsaid Cause her to come out and
let her be burned.
As she was being brought out,she herself sent to her
(07:21):
father-in-law saying Behold,whose are these?
Because from him I myself ampregnant.
And then she said pleaserecognize to whom these things
belong, the signet or the seal,the cord and the staff.
And then the Lord be praisedrecognized.
And then he said she is morerighteous than me, for on
(07:45):
account of this I did not giveher to ceasing my son.
And then he did not continue toknow her again.
And then it happened, in thetime of her giving birth, that
behold, twins were in her womb.
And then it happened, as shewas giving birth, that one put
out a hand and the midwife tookhold and as she tied upon his
hand, a scarlet thread sayingthis one came out.
(08:05):
A hand and the midwife tookhold and as she tied upon his
hand, a scarlet thread sayingthis one came out first.
And then it happened as he drewhis hand back, behold, his
brother came out instead.
And then she said what a breachyou have breached for yourself.
And his name was called breachor Perez.
And after his brother came out,who had the scarlet thread upon
his hand, his name was calledShining or Zerah.
(08:26):
So that is our story that weare working through today.
Genesis 38.
There is a lot going on here.
That makes more sense when youunderstand the historical
context.
But before we dive into thehistorical context of this
passage, let's back up just alittle bit to chapter 37,
(08:47):
because we need to start thereto get some of the whole picture
that's going on fully andcontextually.
So Genesis 37 starts bybasically saying this is the
family of Jacob.
Chapter 36 goes through thefamily of Esau and all of his
descendants and the genealogy ofEsau.
37 says this is the family ofJacob and then starts into a
(09:11):
very long story that's mostlyabout Joseph.
So 37 starts with Joseph and wehave young Joseph, who is 17 at
the beginning of chapter 37.
He's having dreams.
He's having dreams that hisbrothers bow down to him.
He has dreams that his parentsand his brothers bow down to him
, that he is ruling them, andthis, as you might expect,
(09:32):
causes a giant uproar in thefamily.
Joseph is the 11th of 12 of the12 sons.
So when you think about familystructure, you have your
patriarch and matriarch, whichthe matriarchy is shared between
Leah and Rachel, which causes alot of tension.
(09:53):
There isn't a clear matriarchin this home.
Jacob is the clear patriarch.
So you have the patriarch andthe matriarch.
Then you have the oldest son,who was Reuben.
However, we found out earlierthat Reuben has dishonored his
father by sleeping with Bilhah,his father's concubine, his
(10:14):
father's secondary wife.
So Reuben in some ways hasdisqualified himself from the
birthright, from the oldest sonposition, because he went behind
his father's back and had sexwith his father's concubine
Reuben's in a bad place with hisdad.
Next in line are Simeon and Levi.
(10:34):
They are second and third.
They killed an entire town ofpeople after a man from that
town raped their sister.
So they've kind of been in badblood because their dad was not
thrilled that they went andmurdered this town, the men in
this town.
Their dad was like now we'reall in danger because you went
and killed them and they stilllive in that region.
(10:56):
So Levi and Simeon also not inthe best graces with their dad.
The next in line, number four,is Judah, or the Lord be praised
.
Joseph is number 11, but Josephis having these dreams that he
is going to rule and he is thefather's favorite.
(11:16):
So even though there's a clearbirth order, the first three
have kind of disqualifiedthemselves.
Jude is kind of in the runningto be the firstborn, joseph's
the favorite.
That creates a lot of tensionbecause nobody knows, is daddy
going to go down the line?
Is he going to give thebirthright inheritance to the
oldest, or one of the oldest,depending on who has maybe or
(11:37):
maybe not disqualifiedthemselves, or is he going to
skip everybody and just go tohis favorite kid?
That's kind of the question.
And Joseph's having dreams.
They don't appreciate it andyou're familiar with this story.
Jacob gives Joseph the fancycoat, the brothers are out
shearing.
They can tell Joseph's coming along way off because this audio
was created with podcastleai.
(12:01):
The brothers are out shearing.
They can tell Joseph's coming along way off because blaring
neon sign clothing and Reubenand they want to kill him.
Reuben's like let's not killhim because Reuben wants to save
Joseph by saving his favoriteson.
(12:27):
Judah, I believe, has the ideato throw Joseph in the cistern
or to sell Joseph, and soJudah's right there at the front
getting rid of Joseph, and thenall the brothers work together
to kill a kid goat, put hisblood on the coat, and then they
ask their father do you wrapthis coat with the blood?
And of course Jacob does and heis sorrowful.
He has lost his favorite sonand he refuses to be comforted.
(12:50):
That's how chapter 37 ends.
It seems that right after thatJudah packs up and leaves his
family.
He is not staying with hisfamily at all.
He has left their area.
Verse 1 of 38 says he went downfrom his brothers, has largely
(13:12):
separated himself from hisfamily.
At this point and there's a lotin Genesis 38 where Judah and
Joseph in the remaining chaptersare being shown in contrast to
(13:35):
one another they're bothseparate from their families.
How do they act when they'renot with their tribe, with their
household, under the ultimatepatriarch of their tribe, jacob.
When they are out on their own,having to make their own
decisions, what do they do?
Well, 38 today is what Judahchooses to do.
(13:56):
His name means the Lord bepraised.
His mother gave that to himwhen she was four children into
having sons.
But he does not act like theLord is anywhere on his mind
whatsoever in this chapter untilmaybe the very end.
So Judah leaves his family, sotake.
He's away from Jacob, he's awayfrom his brothers.
(14:18):
He is separated.
He is gone to be with thisfriend, hira the Adulamite.
The only time Hira and Adulamis mentioned in the Old
Testament or in the Bible reallyis in Genesis 38.
We have very little informationon who this is, but he's a
really good friend of Judah's,evidently because they are
hanging out and maybe living invery close proximity together,
(14:40):
or maybe with each other.
And so Judah, while he's livingwith Hira, he sees a daughter,
a Canaanite woman, a daughter ofa man of Canaan, the daughter
of Shua.
So he marries a Canaanite.
This is not something that isreally encouraged.
In the line of Abraham, esaumarried Hittite women and
(15:02):
Rebekah was absolutely upsetwith that, which is part of the
reason Isaac sent Jacob toRebekah's family to find a wife,
where he met Rachel and Leah.
So marrying Canaanite women,marrying Hittite women, they're
not the same, but these sorts offoreign women are not at all
what this family is supposed tobe doing.
(15:23):
So for the original hearers ofthis, this is warning signs.
He's leaving the family, he'saway, he's hanging out with
Canaanites and Adumites and he'smarrying a Canaanite woman.
So he marries this woman and hetakes her and she gets pregnant
and has a son.
And then your English text inthe Masoretic text of the Hebrew
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says and then he called hisname Protector or Ur.
Some commentators mentionedit's more likely other textual
sources and translations havethat she named.
Typically we've seen in Genesisthat the women name the sons or
the babies, not the men.
So it's odd that he would nameit.
But a lot of other textualsources have it as she named,
(16:09):
not he named, which she namesthe other two.
So it makes sense that this isjust an error of some kind.
And so the name of thefirstborn is Ur or protector.
And then she conceives again andshe bears a son and she named
him Vigorous or Onan.
And then she continued againand she bore another son.
(16:29):
The text reads as though she'shaving these kids one right
after another.
She is just popping them out.
She continued again and shebore a son and she named him
Sising or Sela.
This is her last son and he wasat Shezib when she bore him.
That phrase he was at Sheazibwhen she bore him.
That phrase he was at Shazibwhen she bore him has a lot of
nobody quite knows what it'stalking about.
(16:49):
That Was it he, being Judah,was at Shazib.
He's off somewhere else and shehas this baby by herself when
Judah's not home.
One article I read said thatShazib could mean in call,
that's when a baby is born inthe embryonic sac.
He comes out fully in the sacin call, which would be very
(17:12):
significant.
But the word shazib this is theonly time it's used in the
Hebrew Bible, so nobody quiteknows what it means, whether
it's a place name, whether it'san anatomical term, whether it's
a very specialized term havingto do with childbirth, like in
call.
Nobody quite knows what itmeans.
Whatever it is, it'ssignificant for Selah ceasing
(17:34):
and his birth.
So Judah has three sons inrapid quick succession.
Between verse 5 and verse 6, wehave a decade or two go by,
because now Judah is taking awife for Ur, his firstborn,
verse 6, and then.
Judah took a woman for Ur, hisfirstborn, and her name was
(17:57):
Tamar, which means palm tree.
It's very common in the Biblefor women's names to be plants
or animals or flowers or somesort like that.
It is not a negativeconnotation at all.
Palm trees, specifically if youlook at the rest of the Old
Testament, have to do with joy.
You can look at Joel 1.12 forjoy.
(18:19):
They have to do with beauty.
We see palm trees referenced inSong of Solomon to describe
someone's beauty.
Also in the Psalms, a palm treehas a significance of blessing
and flourishing.
So you get kind of this joyful,beautiful, flourishing palm
tree.
That is who Judah brings intohis home to marry his son, ur.
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Now there's some significantthings about this marriage, in
particularly because Ur is hisfirstborn son.
So we need to think familystructure.
So you have Judah and hisCanaanite wife.
Then you have Ur.
He's the firstborn, judah's thepatriarch.
His Canaanite wife is thematriarch.
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Ur will be the next patriarchof this household.
So the woman brought in to beUr's wife should be the next
matriarch of the household.
This is a position ofimportance in the household.
Now our text doesn't tell usthis because it assumes that we
know, but we often don't.
So what does a matriarch do?
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Why would this matter?
I come out of a complementariancircle that was very
hierarchical.
The husband has all authorityand he might delegate some
authority to his wife, say to domenu planning and budgeting
around food.
But in the complementarianworld, hierarchical,
complementarian world, thehusband delegates that authority
(19:44):
to the wife, but it is reallyhis.
He has 100% of the authority inthe house.
He just shares some of it withher.
That wasn't necessarily how itwas viewed within the household
in the ancient world.
According to authors like CarolMyers etc.
The matriarch had carte blancheauthority over several areas
(20:06):
alongside her husband.
The husband had the externalfacing authority of legal,
religious face of the family.
But the wife had authority overfood.
She had a lot of authority inthe realm of reproduction.
She had authority in medicine,household religion, light
storage.
She had a lot of things whereshe had control, she had power
(20:31):
and it wasn't delegated to herby her husband.
That it's ultimately all his.
He just gives her enoughauthority to do these tasks.
In the ancient culture thesewere considered the matriarch's
authority and even the patriarchis not allowed to question her
on these things.
It is carte blanche herauthority period, paragraph.
End of discussion.
She has a serious position inthe household.
(20:52):
It is a very strong position inthe household.
So Judah brings Tamar in to bethe next matriarch.
She is marrying the firstbornson but unfortunately Ur was Ra.
There's a play on the Hebrew Urwas Ra.
(21:13):
It takes Ur's name andbasically flips it around
backwards.
Ur was evil.
One commentator very greatlysaid Ur erred, to get that play
on words in English Ur erred andthe Lord killed him.
We don't know what he did.
He may have mistreated Tamar,he may have done any number of
other evil things, but Ur erred.
It's also important to notethat Judah may not be worshiping
(21:36):
Jacob's God at this point.
He has moved away from hisfamily.
We have no idea what thereligious flavor of this family
is at all, although Judah didmarry a Canaanite woman who
likely would have brought all ofher religion and household
religion into Judah's home.
Let that sink in for a second.
She's a matriarch, she has alot of power when it comes to
(21:57):
household religion and he wentout and he married a Canaanite
who would likely bring all ofthat in.
So there could be idolatry,there could be sexual
indiscretion, there could be.
We don't know.
The text does not tell us.
But Ur was a bad guy.
He was not a protector and hewas not protected from God.
God kills him for his evilness,so the Lord causes Ur to die.
(22:22):
Then Judah turns to the nextson and he instructs him on what
he should do.
But let's back up for a second.
Judah's wife was Canaanite, butTamar, who Judah brought in, we
(22:45):
do not know anything about herbackground.
I find this incrediblyfascinating in Genesis 38.
Because Judah's wife we knowher father's name, we know her
nationality.
We don't know her name.
She is nameless.
She has no identity outside ofher nation and her father and
her husband, those are the onlythings that give her identity.
(23:06):
Tamar is almost the opposite.
We don't know who her father is, we don't know her nationality,
but she has a name, she isnamed, and we see her come up
again later on.
We see her come up in the bookof Ruth, which I'll be doing an
entire series on the book ofRuth starting in a couple weeks,
so you can look forward.
We'll bring Tamar back up as wetalk through Ruth.
She comes up in the book ofRuth and then Tamar appears
(23:36):
again in the book of Matthew andshe's included in the genealogy
of Jesus, but we don't have anyidea about her background.
We don't know where she comesfrom or who she is.
Some scholars say her name isHebrew, so therefore she might
have been a Hebrew woman.
But we don't know that for surebecause Adam and Eve are also
Hebrew names and if they werehuman, literal people, they
lived before the Hebrew nationwas.
(23:57):
This audio was created withpodcastleai.
They lived before the Hebrewnation was, or the Hebrew
language was there.
They predate Hebrewness, butthey have Hebrew names.
So having a Hebrew name doesn'tnecessarily mean you're Hebrew,
(24:18):
though it could, but we don'tknow who Tamar is.
But she stands alone as anindividual in this passage,
which is fascinating becausethis is a culture that is
communal.
They are a communal culture, soto not say who a woman is is
unique.
It's very interesting that theydon't mention that.
(24:39):
So she married Ur.
God kills Ur.
Judah, in verse 8, goes toVigorous, to Onan, and says come
to the wife of your brother andperform the brother-in-law duty
with her to raise up seed foryour brother.
Some of you, as you're listening, may be very familiar with
marriage and the brother-in-lawlaws.
To some of you, this may bebrand new, so I'm going to break
(25:00):
it down for a minute.
What is going on in verse eight?
Because this feels like allsorts of icky.
I know, as a woman in 2025,that if my husband had a brother
, he doesn't.
But if he had a brother and myhusband died, there is no way I
would want to marry my husband'sbrother.
There's no way I would want tomarry my sister's brother.
(25:20):
I married my husband.
That's the only man I want tobe married to.
I do not like the idea of beingpassed around just because I
didn't have a baby or a son.
So what is going on here in averse that feels icky?
This is the first introductionto Leveret marriage in the Bible
, and Leveret marriage is acustom, a cultural custom from
(25:43):
the ancient Near East thatpredates the Mosaic law.
The Mosaic law prescribes aform of leverant marriage in
Deuteronomy 25.
Let me read to you verses 5 and6 from Deuteronomy 25, and that
says from the NIV if brothersare living together and one of
them dies without a son, hiswidow must not marry outside the
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family.
Her husband's brother shalltake her and marry her and
fulfill the duty of abrother-in-law to her.
The first son she bears shallcarry the name of the dead
brother, so that his name willnot be blotted out from Israel.
So basically, brother A dies,wife A does not have a son, so
brother B has to marry wife Aand the first son that she has
(26:29):
will be considered brother A'sson and get his inheritance.
This is a law that protectsfamily inheritance, but it has
other features as well.
When we think about marriagetoday, like when my husband and
I got married.
It was an individual decisionthat I made and my husband made.
We decided to marry Our parentsboth gave their blessing as a
(26:51):
formality, but they really havenothing to do with our marriage.
We still have relationshipswith them, we love them, but
they have no say so over ourmarriage, that it does not
affect them.
You know, except for a socialin any way, shape or form.
Our parents did not talk toeach other before we got married
.
They, like, met at our wedding.
They didn't really talk to eachother before the marriage and
(27:13):
they didn't have any agreementswith each other about our
marriage.
It was our decision.
Well, in the ancient world, amarriage was as much in many
ways a business agreement as itis a social agreement.
Often the patriarchs and thematriarch would often have some
say-so, and even the woman andthe son who are getting married,
(27:35):
the bride and the groom theywould have some say-so as well.
The degree that they would havesay-so may depend on the
patriarch and the type of man hewas, whether he's willing to
consider their thoughts, whetherhe's not.
Some were, some weren't, but amarriage in the Old Testament in
the ancient Near East is twofamilies making an agreement it
was often in writing making anagreement that we are going to
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contribute financially to thismarriage to make sure that they
have the best possible chancefor a life and a business of
their own, because the householdis a business.
In the ancient world we thinkof business as separate from our
domicile where we live.
For them, it's all togetherHouse business, all of it's
together.
It is one package.
So in marriage you'recontributing to a household,
(28:23):
you're creating, in some ways, anew mini business.
And another thing that's goingon is both families are agreeing
that this marriage union willhave children.
To further the family line, thewoman would come into her
husband's household to be partof his household.
She leaves her household ofbirth and moves to her husband's
(28:47):
household, but her parents andhis parents are agreeing that
they will have children.
Sometimes there was clauses inthe marriage contract.
If she doesn't have children,what will that mean as far as
divorce and this, that and theother thing?
And on the flip side, if thehusband dies and doesn't give
her children, his family isstill obligated to make sure she
(29:08):
has children.
Okay, so when there's amarriage happening, it's not
just oh, we're going to pass thewoman down the line.
It's there is family obligationto make sure she has children,
that the patriarch signs on thedotted line and says line and
(29:35):
says I take that responsibilitywhen I marry my son to this
woman.
So when we get to verse eight,what's happening here is Judah
is fulfilling thisresponsibility.
He's saying our household, thehousehold of Judah, took on the
responsibility that Tamar havechildren when she married Ur,
responsibility that Tamar havechildren when she married Ur.
That is part of what we all asa household signed up for when
they got married.
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It is likely Judah would havealso paid some sort of surety
payment to Tamar's family.
Some people talk about women inthe Old Testament as though they
are bought and sold because ofsurety payments like this.
Don't think of it like I'mgoing to pay you 100 shekels of
silver for a cow, like you'rebuying and selling.
It's more of a surety Marriages.
(30:18):
Take a while.
You walk up, you hand somebody$100 and you take home your cow.
It's like it happens.
But when it comes to a marriageit's a lot lower.
You have to prepare the wedding, you have to get ready for the
move, you have to do all thethings.
So the surety payment sayswhile all of the things are
getting done, my son is notgoing to go marry the pretty
(30:39):
girl.
Three houses down there's asurety payment.
We will marry your daughter,we're not going to run off
sideways on you.
Often, according to researchI've been doing in these ancient
cultures, the father wouldoften give that surety payment
to the bride in some of thesecultures on her wedding day.
So the surety payment wouldbecome part of her belongings
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that she brings into the newmarriage.
That gives her kind of afallback plan Should she become
a widow, should she be divorced.
These are finances that she hasat her disposal to help her
potentially in the future.
Her father would also give herher portion of her inheritance.
We often call it a dowry, butthat's what a dowry is it's her
(31:22):
portion of the inheritance.
Her brother might get land,because land is passed through
the men, but the girls would getsome form of inheritance,
whether it's household goods, itcould be grinding stones, it
could be looms, it could beanimals, it could be servants,
it could be cloth, it could bejewelry, money, other forms of
(31:44):
wealth.
But she would come into themarriage with, possibly, the
surety payment returned to herpersonally as well as a dowry
from her father.
So she comes in with somefinances that she's bringing
into the marriage, but they arein many ways hers.
She may allow her husband orfather-in-law control over them,
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or culturally they would takecontrol over them.
But should there be a divorceor widowhood, those items get
returned to her to take care ofher when she's in an uncertain
position in society.
So Judah, in verse 8, stepsforward.
He says okay, we're going tofulfill our commitments to Tamar
, come into the wife of yourbrother, perform the
(32:27):
brother-in-law duty with her andraise up seed for your brother.
But then vigorous Onan knewthat the seed wouldn't be his.
So it happened that when hecame into her he would, the
Hebrew says, ruin the earth.
That's basically a euphemismfor cloitus interruptus.
He has sex with her and thenwithdraws at the point of
(32:49):
ejaculation so that he doesn'tget her pregnant.
And he does this on purpose,and it sounds like he did this
repeatedly.
So he is willing to use her forpleasure, but not give her her
due.
Now, why would Er do this?
Well, if, right now, or whywould Onan do this, excuse me,
onan would do this to her useher for sexual pleasure, but not
(33:12):
give her a pregnancy, becauseright now Onan is the firstborn
because Ur died.
So now all of the rights andprivileges of being the
firstborn come to him.
Tamar pregnant, that babyleapfrogs over him in the family
(33:34):
structure to be the firstbornbecause it would be Ur's child
and the line goes through Ur.
So Onan doesn't want to losehis position in the family and
he says I'm not doing it, I'mnot going to raise up seed for
my brother, I'm going to takeall that position for myself.
Thank you very much.
I will use this woman for myown pleasure, but I'm not going
to give her her due.
I'm going to also keep her fromgetting what she needs.
(33:57):
It's very likely the textdoesn't say this is my own
opinion Onan may have hadanother wife because he would
want to raise up seed forhimself, he would want children
for himself, to carry on his ownline.
So this may be a second marriage.
So Tamar is shuttled in kind ofas a second wife under his wife
.
So she's lost her matriarchalposition to be and she's not
(34:21):
going to have the child that'sdue her, the patriarch to be,
child.
He's denying her this.
Well, what he does is evil inthe eyes of the Lord, and God
killed him like his brother, ur.
So then, verse 11, the Lord bepraised.
Judah said to Tamar, hisdaughter-in-law, remain a widow
(34:43):
in your father's household untilSelah, my son, grows up.
For he said, because he mightdie like his brothers.
So basically, judah doesn'twant to give the third to her.
He's looking at her.
He's like my first two kidsdied after being married to this
woman.
This is a black widow, maybe awitch.
Sometimes women who had lots ofhusbands died on them were
(35:05):
thought to be witches.
Um, one of the commentaries orsources I was reading said and
Judah was like I'm not a goodidea, so I want to get rid of
her.
So he sends her to be a widow inher father's household.
He sends her home, but she'sstill technically under his
authority, under his domain.
(35:26):
She's legally part of hishousehold, even though she has
been shamed by being told to goback to her daddy's house.
It's likely that he would havekept the surety, the dowry, all
of the money and things that shebrought in.
They would still be in Judah'shousehold that they can all use.
(35:47):
But she's been kicked outbecause she's kind of like a
bride-in-waiting.
It doesn't necessarily go withher.
It's been mingled into theirfamily's finances and so they're
just they.
Potentially the text doesn'tsay this, but this is how some
of it could have happened in theancient Near East, that these
finances would have just thisaudio was created with
podcastleai.
(36:10):
How some of it could havehappened in the ancient Near
East that these finances wouldhave just stayed in Judah's
house.
While Tamar is penniless andshamed and moved back to her
father's house.
She's in this really precariousposition as a widow.
She doesn't have a husband.
She cannot marry outside ofJudah's house, but Judah doesn't
want her in the house to marryhis younger son, so he sent her
(36:33):
away.
So she has no position.
She's just in this awkwardlimbo state and Judah says he'll
marry her to the third son, butuntil that son grows up she's
just in an awkward limbo statuswhile being shamed by being sent
away because Judah doesn't wantanything to do with her.
Her status while she's waitingfor Judah is she has no status.
(36:57):
She's not a wife, she's a widow.
But she also has nothing totake care of herself.
She is merely at the mercy ofher family to take care of her,
which it sounds like they did.
But they're not under anyobligation because they gave her
inheritance and everything elsewhen she got married.
So Tamar went and she remainedin her father's house.
The Hebrew just says and thenthe days became numerous, so an
(37:20):
unspecified period of timehappens and then the daughter of
Shua, the wife of Judah dies,his nameless wife.
She had a name in real life, wejust don't know what it was.
She dies and he goes through aperiod of mourning and likely
the period of grief, a period ofmourning and likely the period
(37:41):
of grief.
And then he decides, okay, Ineed to get back to real life.
And he goes up to see his sheepshearers in Timnah and he takes
Hira, again his friend.
He seems to make questionablesexual decisions when he's
hanging out with Hira.
Maybe Hira's not the bestinfluence.
Anyway, I digress.
He goes to see his sheepshearers, he and Hira, and they
go towards Timnah and then itwas told verse 13, to Tamar
(38:02):
saying behold, yourfather-in-law is going to Timnah
to shear his flocks, and wedon't know if that was back with
Jacob or where Judah's brothersare, but he's going to Timnah
to shear his flocks.
So that Hagar makes a series ofvery purposeful, intentional
decisions she removes hergarments of widowhood from upon
her, she covers herself with aveil, also indicating married
(38:26):
women didn't normally have aveil.
She wraps herself up and shegoes and she sits in the
entrance of Enaym, which couldmean eye, or well, or spring.
They often called springs eyesof water, the water coming out,
which was on the way to Timnah.
So she goes to Enim.
Maybe she was living close toEnim at the time and he had to
(38:50):
pass by to get to Timnah.
So she sat she's at Enim, onthe way to Tim, for she saw that
Selah was grown up and she wasnot given to him as a wife.
Maybe Judah got him a differentwife, maybe he's I mean, being
single isn't really an option.
So she's realizing Judah's notgoing to follow through on his
(39:11):
word.
I'm not being given to him, Idon't have any other options.
So she makes a very calculated,risky, gutsy choice and she
sits on the way to Timnah.
So then, verse 15, judah, as hepassed by, saw her and he
assumed that she was aprostitute, for she covered her
face.
Scholars are they can't agree,and we don't know for sure
(39:34):
whether.
Do prostitutes always covertheir face?
Is that a sign of somethingelse?
Is it that she's sitting atthis particular spot that he
thinks she's a prostitute?
Is it because she covered herface?
We're not sure.
Whatever the situation was, shewas sending prostitution signals
and Judah picks up on them.
So he turns to her and he saysplease, please, let me come into
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you.
It's a little rougher than thatin the Hebrew.
It's not like a polite please,it's like hey, you, I want to
have sex, let me do this.
For he did not know that shewas his daughter-in-law.
And so she says what will yougive to me that you come into me
?
She acts like a very shrewdbusinesswoman, knowing exactly
(40:19):
what she's about and exactlywhat she's needing.
She says what will you give meto come into me?
And he says I myself will senda kid from the flock, a baby
goat or sheep, I will send thatto you.
And she said OK, obviously youdon't have it with you.
So what's a pledge, a surety, adown payment until you send it?
(40:40):
And he's like huh, what shouldI give you?
And she says I want your seal,your cord and your staff.
Often men would have a seal theyused.
Sometimes it was a ring.
In my Hebrew text originally Isaid signet ring.
It might have been a ring.
It could also have been acircle seal on a cord around his
(41:04):
neck, um, but they use thosefor payments, as a signature on
any legal documents, anyagreements.
You need your seal, um, it'skind of like your signature.
It's um, like your driver'slicense, social security card,
kind of thing, your seal, yourcord and your staff the staff is
the position of his patriarchalauthority.
It's kind of thing You'reseeing your seal, your cord and
your staff the staff is theposition of his patriarchal
authority.
It's kind of like your ID badgeat work saying this is who I am
and this is how important I am.
(41:25):
And, yes, you have to let me upto C-suite in my building.
Thank you very much.
And so she's like give me yourdriver's license, social
security card and work badge.
And he gave it to her.
And then he came to her and sheconceived by him.
And then she arose and she wentand she removed the veil and
she put on the garments of herwidowhood Verse 20,.
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And then Judah sent to her thekid goat in the hand of his
friend, the Adulamite, to takethe pledge back.
He wants his stuff back fromthis woman.
But the friend did not find her, and so he's asking around
where is she?
Where is she?
Where is she?
And the men of the place arelike there's no woman like that
here, like there's not aprostitute hanging out at our
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gates.
I don't know what you'retalking about.
And so verse 22,.
The friend returns to Judah andsays I didn't find her.
But the men said there wasn't.
And so Judah, at this pointhe's nervous, this is an awkward
situation.
And he's basically like, okay,I don't want us to be shamed,
it's an honor.
Shame.
Culture Men had freedom to visitprostitutes.
It may not have been the norm,but if one is available, they
(42:33):
were allowed to do it.
Sexual immorality there's verymuch a gender inequality when it
came to sexual freedom.
Men couldn't sleep with anotherman's wife and shouldn't be
sleeping with another man'sdaughter.
But a prostitute is kind of inthis liminal space and she's
(42:53):
okay.
And it doesn't matter thatyou're married, you're not
cheating on your wife to sleepwith a prostitute.
Culturally, in their culture,you're allowed to do what you
want with a prostitute.
So he's, but you still I meanyou don't necessarily want to
advertise it and it is kind ofshameful when, like, you did
this but now you can't find her,you didn't know where she is,
(43:16):
like, and you gave her yourstuff, like, are you an idiot?
So Judah doesn't really wantthis getting out anywhere, so he
just tells his friend okay,hush, hush, let's not do this.
And so it happens about threemonths later that it's
discovered that Hagar ispregnant and Judah was informed,
(43:36):
saying behold, tamar has beenunfaithful, immoral.
She fornicated, she is pregnantfrom her immorality.
Judah seems furious.
In two words, in the Hebrewtext, he utters a death sentence
upon her, which in Englishwould be cause her to come out
and let her be burned.
(43:57):
Burning is only for the most.
In any ancient Near Easternculture, only the most egregious
crime, stoning, was more commonthan burning, and there were
other things that were way morecommon than even stoning.
But the death penalty, and he's, I mean, we already have
established that Jude is not afan of Tamar.
He kind of wants to get rid ofher, which is why she's at her
(44:18):
father's house, so he doesn'thave to deal with her, because
he's hoping maybe everybody willjust forget about her, out of
sight, out of mind.
And so he says bring her outand let her be burned.
Finally I can just get rid ofher.
And she, as she's being broughtout, sends by a messenger.
(44:38):
There's messengers going backand forth a lot, so this is
public, this is not private.
She's not sending him a textthat only he gets.
She's sending by hand of amessenger, I imagine maybe a
sister or another woman in herfamily whose eyes are like
Tamara, you got him Brilliant,you got him girlfriend.
Anyway, whoever has this, shesends it by a messenger somebody
she trusts literally with herlife, someone who is in her
(45:01):
corner, takes the seal and thecord and the staff, but somebody
who also will be listened to byJudah's family and by all the
people.
So they're not just going toswipe it from this person like a
child.
A child.
It might be like they justswipe it and be like you don't
know what you're talking about.
So this is somebody with enoughstatus that they're going to be
heard.
They can't be ignored and theycan't just have the stuff swiped
(45:23):
from.
So she sends back the seal andthe cord and the staff with this
messenger to Judah with themessage that says do you
recognize these?
Because these belong to thefather of my baby.
That says, do you recognizethese?
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Because these belong to thefather of my baby.
So she comes in and she showsJudah the objects that he is the
man who got her pregnant, bothrevealing the fact that he saw a
shrine prostitute and we don'tknow what her motivation was.
But the effect of her actionsis revealing all the things he
(46:07):
was doing against her.
It forces him to admit.
I didn't give her my third son,which I was legally obligated
to do.
I potentially kept her suretypayment and down rate to enrich
my household while sending heraway.
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I shamed her by sending heraway and subtly blaming her for
the death of my two sons, andnow she, through a creative
application of the rules, hasbrought it to light that I have
not done what I was required todo.
(46:52):
We're not sure if Tamar had thisin mind, but the Hittite
version of leveret marriageindicates the father-in-law
could have sexual obligationstowards the bride as well.
In the Hebrew world, in theMosaic law, leveret marriage is
just the brothers.
The father doesn't haveanything to do with it.
But in the Hittite version ofleveret marriage, which again,
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tamar and Judah predate theMosaic law, so they're going off
of local traditions in theancient Near East.
In Hittite version of Leveretmarriage the father might need
to marry the bride to make sureshe has an heir.
So she may be applying Hittitelaw to their situation.
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And that's why she roped Judahinto it.
Because if you're not going togive me your son, she had no
access to Selah, she had accessto Judah and under Hittite law
that would be acceptable.
But he's not doing it.
So she does it at great risk toher life.
Because what if Judah hadlifted the veil while he was
doing his deed?
That would have it would gameover.
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At great risk.
She does this.
So let's we've worked throughthis story and I comment.
Send me a DM, send me an email.
This audio was created withpodcastleai.
And I comment.
(48:17):
Send me a DM, send me an email.
Comment on the social mediaposts.
I want to hear your thoughts aswe walk through the story.
But let's talk about the sowhat?
What does any of this mean?
What?
Why does this matter?
If we look at Judah, we seethis is a huge turning point for
him that kind of catapults himto being the man he needs to be.
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We see this later on in hisinteractions with Jacob and
Joseph.
But Judah, for our purposes, isnot the focus of this chapter.
Most commentaries andeverywhere else will talk to you
ad nauseum about Judah.
I'm not going to do that.
Let's talk about Tamar.
We can look at this story from acouple different lenses.
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We can look at it from theposition of the original
participants, those who areacting out the events.
What did they know?
What did they not know?
They don't know anything aboutMosaic law, because this is all
they have.
Or we could look at it from theoriginal hearer's perspective,
those who were given the book ofGenesis by the redactor,
whether that redactor's Moses orpost-exilic editors, we don't
(49:22):
know who the redactor is.
There's several theories.
I'm not going to get into them.
So are we dealing from theoriginal hearer's perspective,
who has the whole book ofGenesis and is hearing the whole
book of Genesis in flow, andpossibly has knowledge of Exodus
, Leviticus, numbers,deuteronomy as well.
Which perspective are welooking at?
Let's look at a coupledifferent ones and think through
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some observations, someimplications, maybe even some
applications.
One thing I think is reallyimportant from this passage we
don't know her motivation.
I've gotten some questions.
Was she a woman of faith?
Was she acting out of faith?
Did she have trust in the Lordto take care of her?
One person wanted to know wouldshe have been forced into
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worshiping her father's godswhen she went back to her house,
if she was worshiping the Lordwith Judah?
We have no idea what's going on.
Judah doesn't seem to befollowing God very well at all.
In this passage he's removedhimself from the family of
promise, tamar.
We don't know her background,whether she knew the Lord or
whether she's a Canaanite, pagan.
We have no idea if she hasfaith.
(50:26):
But what we do know is that ourGod is a God of justice and our
God delights that justiceprevailed for Tamar.
That's why Judah, as patriarch,is able to say she is more
righteous than me.
We don't know if it was herpurpose, if she purposed to do
(50:50):
this.
But the effect of what she didchallenged an abusive man in
authority and the effect ofTamar's actions required the
abusive man to own up to what hedid publicly and to give her
justice and what she deservedlegally, according to the
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customs of their day.
And as we think through Tamar'sstory from that vantage point,
it presses on a lot of genderpolitics and power politics in
our churches and in ourcommunities, because there's a
lot of churches and there's alot of places that tell women no
, you don't stand up to men inauthority who have abused you.
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First, peter 3, you just pray,be quiet and pray.
You don't need to seek outsidehelp, you don't need to go to
the police.
You don't need to go to the law.
You don't need to have anyoneback up your legal right.
You don't even really deservelegal rights.
You just need to pray and trustthat God will come through for
you.
But in stories like JL in Judgesor Tamar here in Genesis 36, we
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have women who stand up, usingcreative means to deal with
abusive men in power.
And they may not be thinkingthrough I'm going to challenge
an abusive man in power that maynot be their thought frame.
We don't know what theirthought frame is, but the
results of their actions arethat an abusive man in power is
challenged.
Their actions are that anabusive man in power is
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challenged and, in this case,admits it.
Judah admits I messed up.
She's more righteous than me.
The Hebrew, literally, isrighteous from me.
She is righteous, not me.
She wins.
Yeah, I accept the public shamethat this brings and he has to.
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As a man in power who has usedand abused her by sending her
away, possibly keeping all ofher stuff, denying her her
rights, he has to admit whathe's done.
He doesn't continue to use her.
He doesn't sleep with her again.
Our God is a God who likes itwhen justice is served, and it
(53:05):
would do those in our circleswho have power to take that
seriously.
Curiously, exodus 22 says,starting verse 21,.
Do not mistreat or oppress aforeigner, for you are
foreigners in Egypt.
Do not take advantage of thewidow or the fatherless.
(53:27):
Tamar is kind of presented asboth, so she has a father, but
she's definitely a widow.
Do not take advantage of thewidow.
If you do, and they cry out tome, I will certainly hear their
cry, my anger will be arousedand I will kill you with your
swords.
Your wives will become widowsand your children fatherless.
The God of Genesis.
Even though we do not know ifTamar or Judah were paying
(53:48):
attention to him at all, wedon't know their relationship
with God at all but we do knowthat the God of Genesis cares
about widows and heprovidentially made sure Tamar's
scheme worked so that she wouldget justice and so that Judah
would be challenged.
So on one level, as we look atthe story of Tamar, we can see
(54:11):
our God is a God of justice andhe delights when it is carried
out and when widows get whatthey deserve, what they are owed
.
God delights in women who docreative things.
They may be outside the norm.
Obviously it's not herdeception and seduction of Judah
(54:36):
that he is saying is morerighteous than him.
Her sexual act there, thedeceiving of him, is not what
Judah is uplifting, but it isthe fact that she acted within
the law of the land to bring tolight the injustice done against
her and have a child.
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Some commentators I've seen sayoh, tamar wanted the baby, she
wanted the baby to take care ofher in her old age, and all of
that is true.
We cannot view Tamar simply asa woman with baby fever or a
woman who's hoping this babythat she's going to have to take
care of will grow up to takecare of her.
Tamar, I believe that she'sgoing to have to take care of,
will grow up to take care of her.
(55:19):
Tamar, I believe and this is myI might be reading a little bit
, but this is my belief Tamar isa woman who recognizes the
position she is owed asmatriarch, the financial
implications that she's beensent away while still
technically being part ofJudah's household, so her
capital is still invested in hisbusiness, but she has no part
of it.
She's recognizing this, in myopinion, and wants to do
(55:43):
something about it, because herkey to position and power in
that family and I don't usethose words like she's power
hungry, but it is what she isowed from the marriage contract
Judah signed.
It is the equivalent of ustaking the contract to the
lawyer and saying, look, read it, make them, give me what they
(56:05):
said.
Only she doesn't have the voicebecause her father's not
standing up and doing anythingabout it.
He's not advocating, he's notgoing to Judah and saying, hello
, give her the third son, why isshe with me?
Why is she still in my house?
Do your job.
Her dad's not doing that,judah's not doing that, so she
has to find a creative way whenshe doesn't have a legal
(56:27):
standing voice to do it.
We also see later on Tamar'sincluded in Jesus' line, in
Jesus' lineage.
This is a woman God delights in.
As we read the Psalms, our Godis a God who loves justice.
Our God is a God who likeswomen.
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Our God is a God who cares forhis people.
Throughout this story, he isworking behind the scenes to
bring Judah around to where heneeds to be and to care for
Tamar, making sure that in theend she gets what she is owed
and she is cared for as a widow.
The weak, the wounded, thevulnerable have a special place
(57:11):
in God's heart.
He sees them, he cares for them, he works on their behalf.
He sees them, he cares for them.
He works on their behalf.
Even 1 Peter 3, that is sooften used against women to keep
them silent, to keep them notusing their voices Even 1 Peter
3 says husbands, be gentle withyour wives or God won't listen
(57:32):
to your prayers.
It is an echo of Exodus 22,where God says treat widows
kindly, or they will cry out andI will attack you, the weak,
the wounded, the vulnerable.
God cares about them.
There are all sorts of parallelsin this chapter between Judah
and Jacob and Joseph.
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Judah fell into sexualindiscretion where Joseph stayed
pure.
Jacob lost a son and refused tobe comforted.
Judah loses two sons and a wifeand is comforted and outdoing
his sexual indiscretions.
There's lots of parallels, butwhat stays the same is the God
who is working through veryimperfect people to bring
(58:16):
forward a perfect Jesus, becauseultimately that's what we need.
And in the meantime, he is usingwomen like Tamar to showcase
his justice and his loyalty andhis grace and his delight in
women who do things in creativeways to get the job done that
sometimes go outside of theconventional boundaries, though
(58:39):
not necessarily outside moralboundaries.
She used some deception onJudah, but she was within the
cultural, elaborate marriagebounds to get pregnant by Judah.
She is not a loose woman.
She is not a woman ofquestionable character, as the
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ESV Bible said.
She is a woman that I hope hadfaith in Yahweh, faith in the
Lord.
The text does not tell us, butshe is a woman who's included in
Jesus' line because God thinksshe's something special, because
she not only has sons that moveto David, but she is a woman
(59:28):
who cares about what God caresabout and is willing to risk her
life for the types of thingsthat God cares about, to risk
her life for the types of thingsthat God cares about.
So, as we close up thisdiscussion of Tamar, I can't
wait to talk to you further.
I want to hear what from thisepisode is new to you, what
shocked you, what wasinteresting to you, and any
(59:49):
further questions you have.
I have posts on Instagram andon threads.
Go to one of those posts,comment.
Let me know what you thought ofthe episode.
Let me know your questions,your favorite parts, all of that
.
I can't wait to talk to youmore, and we will be starting
Ruth before too long, so be sureto tune back to learn about
Ruth in her historical context.
(01:00:10):
Have a great day.
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