Judah was Jacob and Leah’s fourth son, whose name means “praise,” or “thanksgiving.” Through the subsequent failures of Reuben sleeping with his father’s concubine, and Simeon and Levi’s murder of the entire city of Shechem in order to avenge their sister’s rape, a lot happens before what follows. This is the beginning of his story, and by the end of Genesis, we see that Judah is the one who will receive the blessing of the head of the family at the time of Jacob’s death, which is recorded in Genesis 49 and 50.
But long before then when Jacob is in Canaan with his sons, we see repeatedly that Judah never wants himself to come to harm, neither does he take responsibility. Judah does actually save Joseph, whom his brothers hated, from death at their hands by suggesting that all of them sell Joseph to the Ishmaelite traders who were passing by at the time (Genesis 37:12-36). But years later, the next time we see Judah is actually in Genesis 38. It says in verses 1-7:
At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah. There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her and made love to her; she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was named Er. She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan. She gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him.
Apparently, Judah had an eye for Canaanite women (something that was wrong in itself) and the one whom he married bore him three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. God actually kills Er because of his wickedness, and the story continues that Judah gave Tamar, Er’s wife, to his second-born son, Onan, and God kills him for spilling his semen on the floor instead of impregnating his brother’s widow, Tamar, to raise up offspring to his brother’s name [this was a common practice in both Hebrew and the Ancient Near East in general]. So God killed him for refusing to fulfill his obligation.
Judah is basically at his wit’s end. He is grieving the loss of two sons, and he doesn’t want to give Tamar to his third son because he fears that she is cursed somehow. He tells her to go back to her father’s house and live there as a widow under the presumption that his youngest son is not yet old enough for marriage. Then, a long time passes, and Judah’s wife dies. He is a widower.
Dr. John Street in “Passions of the Heart: Biblical Counsel for Stubborn Sexual Sins” alludes to the fact that when Judah goes to Timnah, possibly employing the same means he might have used to acquire his first wife, he pursues a prostitute. Judah most likely feels quite an inner weight of grief and loss. He has lost two sons to a “cursed wife.” And he has lost his own wife as well. Dr. Street points out that he is very likely absorbed in the process of grief and pain and is seeking solace in finding a prostitute in order to find a sense of release from the hurt and tension he likely feels.
It is a means of distraction that can divert him for a moment. Dr. Street also adds that Judah may have even felt that he is due this means of diversion after all the tragedy that has befallen him. People turn to all sorts of idols of the heart in order to find solace for their (or our) sense of undeserved ills that bring us all pain and barrenness inside. Oftentimes sexual expression of a related variety is the very path we choose, but it can be food, alcohol, drugs, video games, entertainment, etc.
What is it that you turn to? Maybe it is a combination of all of these things. Maybe we turn to express our need for release and recompense for undeserved hurts in any number of ways. Perhaps, we do positive things for a while in order to earn up enough “points” in order to indulge our fantasies and comforts. Idols of the heart are prominent motivators that Christians must subdue and subjugate to a true obedience to the word of God.
Judah, true to his habit, found a harlot. But the twist of the story now is that Tamar anticipates this [because it must have been known to her from their relationship as family], and she disguises herself as a prostitute, and at the actual exchange, she took Judah’s staff and seal as a pledge of his later payment of a goat to her for her services that day in Timnah. When his servant returned later with her payment, she was gone.
Again, we then see how Judah prioritized that he himself not come to harm. Genesis 38:22-23 reads that Judah’s servant reported:
“I didn’t find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, ‘There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here.’”
Then Judah said, “Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn’t find her.”
Now, it is not beyond the realm of possibility, according to Dr. Street on page 131 of his book, that heads of families were not exempt from levirate marriage if their sons could not be available to raise up offspring to their brother’s name. This is known in the Ancient Near East to have been possible for the older head of the family to fulfill as an obligation as well. If this is true, then to some degree, it makes sense of what Tamar did. In reality, Both Judah and Tamar were asserting what they themselves each saw they deserved because of their grief. Tamar wanted her due obligations given to her, and Judah wanted comfort and solace.
But when he found out that she was pregnant by prostitution, Judah, never willing to own up to even his own prior practices when he might have been found out, called instead for her to die by fire. But at this point, Tamar sends Judah his own staff and seal. And that is why Judah says at this point in Genesis 38:26ff.
Judah recognized them [the staff and seal] and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again.
Basically, levirate marriage was a custom of the time that was honorable for the day in which it was used. What is confusing also is that Tamar was “more righteous” than Judah because ultimately, though she was manipulating the situation, she was within the bounds of the custom. Judah, as far as he knew, was simply buying a prostitute, though it turned out to be his daughter-in-law. Ultimately, both were wrong and using sex in a way that did not honor God.
We see from this narrative that Judah was selfish, and he prioritized himself in more ways than one. He didn’t do his duty in fulfilling his obligations to Tamar, and he feared appearing as a laughingstock. He was willing to put Tamar to death for the very thing that he had been guilty of as well. Tamar wanted solace as well, but she wanted things to be made right, and she was willing to manipulate things to make it right.
We all have sinful tendencies. Many of us lack the cultural justifications for such a strange story that Judah has in Genesis 38. But the Ancient Near East was a more savage place than now, and yet the humiliation of its main characters is a mark of realism in the Bible. Judah should have turned to the God who comforts (Is. 51:12) instead of to cultic prostitution.
At the same time, we live in a culture that justifies very bizarre sexual behavior, a proliferation of the victimhood mentality, pornography, the sex trade, as well as an expanding culture of mental illness, which is used to justify all sorts of self-centered and isolationist behavior (often attributed to anxiety and introversion). But in order for Judah to be the leader he was going to be, he needed a great deal of change, and that is what we all need in our own lives as well. This is a book with the revolving theme of God turning evil into good. He promised it in Genesis 3:15, and He is in the business of changing outcomes and lives along the way. Next week’s blog post will offer this very great contrast.
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