COME AS A CHIILD LESSON 91 JUDAH AND TAMAR

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Our last lesson left us with Joseph living as a slave to Potipher in Egypt. 

The sons of Israel had told Joseph’s father that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.  They had taken the blood of a kid (a young goat)  and spread it over the coat of many colors that Joseph had been given by Israel.   Israel, now in a very sad state; has decided to grieve until he died too, so that he could then go into the next life and be with Joseph. 

And so life in the land of Canaan goes on.  Let’s just say it wasn’t a rose garden all the time.  There was always something going on.  For instance, take the thing that happened with Judah:

Judah was probably pretty miserable just watching Israel grieve over the

loss of his brother Joseph.  The story of what had really happened and the truth of the whole matter must have been eating away at Judah from the inside.  He was probably afraid he would say something to let the truth out of the bag.  He decided to leave for awhile and go somewhere more cheerful.  

Judah had a friend in Adullam named Hirah.  Judah’s friendship with Hirah seems to have spanned over twenty or more years.  He first met Hirah when he was a young shepherd, but Hirah must have simply been in training to be humble because  Hirah means “splendor” which would indicate that Judah’s friend Hirah was probably royal and lived lavishly after his days of education and training in the land of Adullam. 

This description of Hirah agrees with the theory of many scholars; that Hirah and Hiram were the same person who lived a long, long life.  Hiram, as he is called later in the scriptures came to be the King of Tyre.  He probably was being groomed for the kingship as a young man when he met Judah.  They both, being young men, were tending to their father's business and being educated about life. 

 Judah probably enjoyed the high life that hanging out with Hirah provided.  These men were of two totally different cultures.  Hirah did not worship the One True God.  He was a pagan and he highly influenced Judah to participate in pagan things.  This acquaintance had a slow and gradual effect over Judah’s personality.  

I will tell the story of the adventures of these two young men, but first, let us learn a little more about the city from which Hirah resided.    This ancient city of Adullam was located in the plain southwest of Jerusalem. The area of this piece of the earth now reeks with history from events of later dates beyond the times of Judah.   Much of this future history of Adullam included the fact that it was the place whose king was later slain by Joshua. It was one of the cities later rebuilt and fortified by Rehoboam, and it was re-occupied by the Jews after the captivity in the days of Nehemiah. 

There is also the history of David withdrawing from the King of Gath at Adullam.  He hid at the “cave of Adullam with his mighty men.”  All of these things, however, took place in Adullam AFTER the time of Judah and in this story Adullam is simply an ancient city inhabited by a royal rich ancient family tribe that became known for providing the best shepherds and craftsmen in the land.  This is the place where Judah’s friend Hirah lived.  It seems he was a shepherd when he was young, then trained as a craftsman as he became older.     

There, in the city of Adullam, with due credit to Hirah and his pagan influence over Judah; Judah met and married a Canaanite woman.  Judah did not consult with his father, as was the custom, nor did he consult with God.  He simply married this woman that had been forbidden to him and his bloodline.  This was the first subtle influence of paganism that crept into Judah’s life.  It would be carried on through his sons.

 This Canaanite woman, named Shua, became pregnant with Judah's first child, a son, whom Judah named Er.  Er means "watcher."  The Canaanite woman conceived again and had another son, and the mother named this son Onan.   Onan means "strong."   Then she had still another son, and she named him Shelah.   Judah only carried out the custom of his people of the father naming the sons with his firstborn.  After that he allowed the mother to give the names to their offspring.   She gave birth to Shelah at Kezib, a place southwest of Adullam. Shelah means "that breaks, that unties, that undresses."   It seems Judah lingered in this pagan land for quite some time.    

Judah married off his firstborn son, Er, to a wife named Tamar.  She too was a Canaanite woman, the second instance of the pagan culture creeping into the house of Israel from Judah’s association with pagan people.  We are told that Er was a wicked man and God caused him to die.  We do not know how he was wicked, or what God was so displeased with about Er that was so wicked; we only know that he died because he displeased God greatly.   It is suspected that God did not want a pagan with wicked ways as an ancestor in the line of the Messiah.  No one knows for sure.  The fact that Er was wicked DID play into the picture though, not just that he was a Canaanite.  Tamar was also a Canaanite, but she did not displease God and she was not killed.   

When Er died Judah told his second son, Onan, to sleep with his dead brother’s wife and fulfill his duty to her as a brother-in-law, which was the custom, so that Er's wife too might contribute children to the tribe.    If a brother died the next brother was to take his wife as his own and produce offspring for the brother’s name.  This was called a "kinsman redeemer" or 'leverite marriage."  It was more about property rights than anything.  The first son of the widowed wife by his brother would inherit the land of his deceased father and it would stay in his family.  Any other sons born to the brother by the widow of his brother would be considered his own sons, and inherit from his property.   

But Onan, knowing that the child would not be considered his own, deliberately did not produce an offspring with Tamar.      He would sleep with Tamar, but the scriptures say he spilt his seamen on the ground and this was wicked in the LORD’S sight.  So the LORD caused Onan to die too.  It seems that God was very displeased with Judah's children.  I'm sure it was more about the fact that paganism had crept into the family line of Abraham and the sacredness of the passing on of the covenant.  Rarely will you ever read a passage of scripture that says "God caused" someone to die.  Something has to be WAY WRONG for this to happen.

After the death of Onan, Judah said to Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s household until my son Shelah grows up.” 

Judah was probably afraid Shelah would die too!  It could happen to him just as it had happened to his brothers.  So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.  Technically, she should have inherited property from both Er and Onan, but she had not had children, so that was not possible.

A long time passed by.  Eventually Judah’s Canaanite wife died.  When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah, the city were the men who were shearing his sheep were working, and Judah's friend Hirah, the Adullamite, went with him. 

Someone told Tamar that her father-in-law was on the way to Timnah to shear his sheep.  There was always a great feast and festival associated with this event.  Tamar took off her widow’s clothes, covered herself with a veil as a disguise and sat down at the entrance to Enaim on the road to Timnah.  By now Tamar knew that Shelah had grown up, and she had not been given to him as a wife. She was not happy about the situation.  It meant that she was destined to die unmarried, a widow and childless in her own father's house.  

Judah saw Tamar sitting at the entrance to Enaim with a veil covering her face and thought she was a prostitute.  In Tamar's defense, temple prostitution was a respectable occupation in Canaanite society with many of the women in the village taking turns serving at the temple as their way of making an offering to their own god or goddess.  This does not excuse the practice but rather gives insight into Tamar's thinking that what she was doing was not for lust or money and a normal part of her pagan cultural practices.   
Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, Judah went over to Tamar on the roadside and said “Come now, let me sleep with you.”

“And what will you give me to sleep with you?” she asked.

“I’ll send you a young goat form my flock,”  he said.

“Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?” she asked.

He said, “What pledge should I give you?”

“Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand,”  she answered.  So he gave them to her and that night after he had tended to his business she met him after dark and he slept with her.  That night Tamar became pregnant by Judah.  After she left his side in the middle of the night she took off her veil and put on her widow’s clothes again.

Meanwhile, on the way home the next morning, Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from her, but his friend could not find the woman.  He asked all the men who lived there, “Where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?”

The men answered him that there had been no shrine prostitute there.  So the Adullamite friend went back to Judah and said that he could not find her anywhere.  He told him that the men living in the area had never seen any such woman and did not know of her. 

So Judah, in order to keep from being the laughingstock of the community decided to let her keep the things he had pledged to her because they could not find her to give her the goat.   The cord and the seal and the staff were of great importance to Judah in conducting his business and going about his life, but he had no choice.   They were very personal items, and totally worthless to anyone else; so he simply went about replacing them and tried to forget the whole matter.

Three months passed by.  Someone came to Judah and told him that his daughter-in-law, Tamar, was guilty of prostitution and that she was now pregnant.  Judah quickly judged her and told them to bring her out and have her burned to death!

As Tamar was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. 

It read:  “I am pregnant by the man who owns these.  See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.”

Of course Judah recognized them right away.  In his shame he proclaimed that “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.”   He commanded that she not be punished.

Judah did not sleep with Tamar again.

When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb.  As she was giving birth one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.”  But when he drew back his hand; his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” 

And he was named Perez which means “breaking out.”    Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out.  And he was named Zerah which means “scarlet or brightness.”

This has to be one of the oddest stories in the whole of the Old Testament passages.  Why is it there?  Yes, we know it actually happened and that the scriptures only speak of truth, but why are we given this particular story right in the middle of the story of Joseph?

We can begin to understand this by looking at the heart of Tamar.  Her

name in Hebrew means "a palm tree."  A palm tree has often been used to describe the nation of Israel in that it has its strength in its trunk and its roots and not its limbs and branches and leaves.  A palm tree is this way.  The heart of the date palm is its sap.  Unlike the saps of other trees (such as the olive tree and the almond tree) the sap of the palm is found only in its trunk, but not its branches and leaves.  Thus the old sages have a theory that the Palm tree, like Israel, has only a single heart.  Tamar had not been unfaithful to the people she had married into.  She had kept the rules of Leverite marriage, in that she had obtained her first child from the family of her dead husband.  She could have married again among her own people in her father's household where she was living, but she chose not to, even though she had to do so by deception.  The fact that the child was to be born from the family of her deceased husband and would carry on his name made it clear that Tamar was not acting as a prostitute, but merely keeping the customs of the husband's family that she had married into.

When Judah tried to pay off Tamar with the young goat or "kid" it is significant to note that he had once deceived his own father with the blood of a kid.  He had covered the coat of Joseph with its blood and told his father that Joseph had died.  Now his own outer cloak, called a "cord" when translated was being used to deceive him.  He was being deceived in the same manner that he had deceived another.  Funny how this pattern presents itself over and over in the scriptures.  Your sins will always find you out!

The items of proof, the pledge of Judah, had been a cord, a seal and a staff.  The word "cord" is often used to describe a light cloak that one would throw over his outter garment that proclaimed something of his family heritage.  It was worth nothing in monetary value, but it clearly spoke of who the owner who wore it was.  The staff would have been something like a walking cane, something that Judah had carved himself to represent his own individual life.  It was worthless to anyone but him.  It had great meaning to him alone.  The signet ring was a stamp that would be used to identify Judah's property.  It was a ring that would have been worth a lot to Judah, but useless to any other man.  
When Tamar is accused of adultery, she chose to send these identifying items instead of using them publicly to proclaim her innocence.  This brought honor to Judah instead of shame.  Instead of embarrassing her father-in-law by pointing her finger at him and saying "You are the father of my unborn child," Tamar left it up to Judah to admit the truth or stay quiet and let herself as well as her unborn child die by fire.  Finally Judah admitted his sin and Tamar's life was saved, including the sons who were born to her from the bloodline of Judah.