Welcome to the fifth week of Faithlogue’s 2024 Winter Series: “The Women of the Promise.” Please subscribe to receive each week’s post in your email inbox and to receive Faithlogue’s monthly subscriber newsletter. You can catch up on any missed posts here.
Passage: Genesis 38
Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.”
Genesis 38:26
Righteousness is understood as a matter of living up to the standards set for a relationship.
– Millard Erickson[1]
Rather than the physical hazards of famine and nomadic life, it seems relationships posed the greatest threat to God’s promise of blessing all nations through Abraham. Our first three matriarchs—Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah—struggled to be seen, heard, or known by their partners in the promise. Their messy stories reveal that only God is faithful to sustain His people and promises.
God kept His word despite their shenanigans. However, God did not eliminate the consequences (see Hagar and Esau). For example, the bitter rivalry between Leah and Rachel bred enmity among their sons. In turn, Leah’s sons despised Joseph as the favorite because he was Rachel’s son. They sought to kill him, but they sold Joseph to the Egyptians instead as suggested by Judah.
After this event, Judah fled. He ran far away from his family into Canaan. We might assume Judah retreated in fear or shame, but perhaps he assumed the brothers’ abuse of Joseph meant the end of God’s blessing.
Whatever his reasons, Judah fully embraced his new home. He married a Canaanite woman who bore three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. In turn, Judah chose a Canaanite woman to marry his son, Er. Her name was Tamar.
Tamar is the first named matriarch in Matthew’s genealogy. We know that God will build the tribe of Judah through Tamar, but on the day our story begins, her life was in danger.
She stood alone, three months pregnant before a crowd accusing her of prostitution. I imagine her hands trembled as she held up Judah’s seal, cord, and staff. These items were her only defense against the charge. If found guilty, Tamar would burn to death along with the babies she carried in her womb.
Tamar’s fate rested in the hands of her father-in-law, Judah. Based on Judah’s past decisions, this was a gamble. Judah sometimes chose the right course of action, but often he did not.
Years earlier, his son, Er, died in wickedness and left Tamar as a childless widow. In our society, Tamar would be free to marry into another family. However, in these ancient days, Tamar’s future and fertility belonged to Er even after his death.
Therefore, the relationship standard required Er’s brothers (or father) to step in and provide a son for Er through Tamar. This arrangement was called a levirate marriage. It existed solely for the purpose of preserving the family through male surrogacy.
In keeping with this standard, Judah gave Tamar in marriage to his second son, Onan. Unfortunately, Onan took advantage of the opportunity to have sex with Tamar, but he intentionally prevented a pregnancy. He likely hoped to retain Er’s inheritance for himself, but Onan’s greed amounted to nothing. He also died having violated the levirate duty.
That duty would next fall to Shelah. However, instead of recognizing the consequences of his son’s choices, Judah blamed Tamar for their deaths and postponed the arrangement. He sent Tamar back to live with her family as a widow until Shelah was older.
Their marriage day never came, so Tamar languished in her father’s home, widowed and childless. Eventually, Tamar realized that Judah would never fulfill his levirate responsibility to her. So, she decided to intervene when she learned Judah would be visiting nearby.
As the story goes, Tamar disguised herself with a veil and sat on the public street near a temple shrine. Judah mistook her for a temple prostitute and asked to have sex with her. She agreed, in exchange for payment of a young goat. She asked Judah for his seal, cord, and staff as collateral. These items uniquely identified Judah as responsible for future payment. Later, Judah attempted to settle payment through a friend, but he could not locate Tamar since she was not actually a temple prostitute.
For Tamar, this act was a matter of honor. She humbled herself for the sake of Er’s legacy because Judah refused to fulfill the standards of the levirate requirement. Tamar utilized the only course of action available to her.
For Judah, this event presented a minor embarrassment. He slept with a prostitute to satisfy his own needs after his wife’s death. So, when he learned Tamar was pregnant and suspected of prostitution, he never suspected his own involvement. Instead, Judah called for her death.
When Judah sentenced her, Tamar revealed his identifying collateral. Those items saved her life and the lives of Judah’s twin sons, Perez and Zerah. Tamar likely anticipated Judah’s acquittal, but I wonder if his words surprised her when he declared, “She is more righteous than I” (Genesis 38:26).
Tamar was more righteous than Judah because she lived out the standards for the levirate relationship, while Judah did not. In this way, Tamar’s story reveals the righteousness of God. He continually upholds the standards of the relationship that He promises to us.
Tamar’s story also foreshadows the lengths to which God will go for our inheritance. In a greater act of humility than Tamar, Jesus (who is fully God) lowered Himself to become fully human to satisfy the standards for relationship with God on our behalf. Jesus did what we could not do so that we could be righteous. Tamar sacrificed herself to make things right for Judah, but Jesus died to make things right for all of us. Praise the Lord!
[1] Millard Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015), 364.
© 2024 Lori Myers Berry
Thought Questions
- Tamar tricked Judah into fulfilling his levirate responsibilities. Do you think this method was her only course of action? What would you do in Tamar’s position?
- Does it surprise you to think of Tamar’s actions as righteous? Why or why not?
- In His sacrifice for our sins, Jesus fully satisfied the standards for us to be in a relationship with God. He did this on our behalf so that we could be righteous before God. How does this understanding inform your daily life?
Prayer
Dear God, you are righteous. Thank you for Tamar’s story so that we might glimpse what it means to be righteous. Thank you, Jesus, for making us righteous before God, because we fall short on our own every day. Please forgive us when we fail to live up to the standard of love you have set for our relationships. Forgive us when we run away, misuse others, and forget to follow through. Thank you for sustaining us like you sustained Judah and Tamar, not because we’ve earned it, but because of your unfathomable love for us. Please help us to love you and one another with righteous intent. Amen.