Genesis 38:1-30

38:1-30 | The story of Judah serves as a foil for the story of Joseph. When he left his brothers and married a Canaanite woman, he put the Lord’s plans for salvation in jeopardy. This happened while Joseph was in slavery.

Because an heir was so important to families in theise times, cultural demands required the next-of-kin to marry the bereaved widow in hopes of producing a son so that her deceased husband would have an heir. This tradition, called levirate marriage, later became part of the Lord’s gracious provisions for Israel (Deut. 25:5-10) and served to preserve the line of David in the Book of Ruth. Onan, Judah’s second son, strategically avoided his duty for his brother, so the Lord killed him also (46:12; Num. 26:19). And Judah’s third son, Shelah, never was given Tamar as a wife, perhaps because Judah somehow blamed her for deaths of his other two sons.

38:7-24 | The text does not say what sin Judah’s oldest son, Er, committed; just that he was so wicked that the LORD killed him (1 Chron. 2:3). In Tamar’s desperation to produce an heir, she contrived a plan to deceive Judah into having sexual relations with her. Judah found her - a woman he believed to be a harlot - openly by the roadside, unaware that his daughter-in-law was impersonating a cultic prostitute. The Hebrew word translated harlot describes a person whose identity is hidden. Tamar was able to fool Judah because she had covered her face and was sitting where prostitutes often sat.

38:18 | The signet was a cylindrical seal with distinctive markings carried around the neck on a cord that was specifically associated with its owner. The signet was pressed in moist clay as a signature. It is implied that the staff had distinctive identifying marks as well.

38:26 | Judah’s words are astonighing: She has been more righteous than I. Tamar was motivated by a desperate desire to complete her obligations according to traditions of her time (which later became part of the Law; Deut. 25:5-10). Judah withheld his son Shelah from Tamar, forcing her to take drastic action.

38:29 | Jesse - the father of David - was a descendant of Perez, one of the twin sons of Judah and Tamar (Ruth 4:18; Matt. 1:3).

Only a God of grace could make a Canaanite woman like Tamar and a prodigal man like Judah members of His royal line and ancestors of the Messiah!