Tuesday, Sept. 3
Genesis 38:1-30 Read it here
Of all the sections of the Bible that should be labeled as Not Safe for Children’s Time, Chapter 38 competes for top of the list.
Sexual practices have been a source of conflict between people and a challenge for the human relationship with God since the second chapter of Genesis. Here in Chapter 38 we see that nothing has changed. In a parallel to the modern day, it looks like the influence of the practices of the surrounding culture brings its own complications.
Before we get into the various moral issues raised, let’s look at the basic story:
• Judah marries and his wife bears three sons: Er, Onan and Shelah.
• Judah finds a wife for Er. Her name is Tamar.
• Er is judged wicked for unknown reasons and dies.
• Judah tells Onan to lie with Tamar so that she might bear a child who would be considered the son of Er. This practice, called levirate marriage, was practiced in the region and later supported in Deuteronomy.
• Onan avoids getting Tamar pregnant by spilling his semen on the ground. This is judged evil and he dies.
• Judah, concerned that Shelah could also die if he marries Tamar, avoids having him enter a levirate marriage with her.
• Tamar presents herself to Judah as a shrine prostitute. Judah, not recognizing her, has sex with her, which was practiced in the region as a way of ensuring the fertility of the flocks.
• Later Tamar, pregnant by Judah, presents herself to Judah. He is enraged that she has acted as a prostitute and orders her burned to death.
• Tamar shows him his own property she took in pledge for payment. Judah recognizes both his hypocrisy and his failure to provide for her through Shelah.
• Tamar gives birth to twins. One of them, Perez, is an ancestor of King David and consequently considered an ancestor of Jesus.
Over the years, the rudimentary birth control effort by Onan has sometimes been misinterpreted as masturbation, though his sin is unrelated to it. The main wrongdoing here seems to be his failure to provide an heir for his brother and Tamar. (In a culture where a widow would be in a very bad position without children to support her, this would seriously harm Tamar).
We find it shocking that Judah would employ a prostitute. The fact that he may have done so as part of a local religious practice seems to make it an even greater offense against God.
Once again we see people who we look on as heroes of the faith showing themselves to be far less than we would like them to be.
But once again we also see God working to redeem even the worst acts of unfaithfulness and prove his own creative capacity to bring blessing from a bad situation.