TORAH FOR CHRISTIANS
SEASON SIX EPISODE TEN
THE STORY OF TAMAR
Quiet women rarely make history. Tamar made history. And she is also responsible for our future. Let’s find out why. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.
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Welcome to Torah for Christians. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr.
Genesis Chapter 38 holds one of the most interesting – and important – stories in the entire Book of Genesis. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most neglected. Fair warning, this story is risqué so please don’t listen to this podcast within the hearing range of small children.
The story of Judah and Tamar is a welcome digression from the Joseph novella, which brackets this chapter. Usually, we focus on Joseph: his dreams, descent into Egypt and his role in the survival of the ancient Hebrews. But let’s not talk about Joseph today; let’s talk about Tamar.
The story begins with Judah, Jacob’s son. Judah left the family compound and married a woman simply named Shua’s daughter; she does not have her own name. She bore him three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah.
When Er came of age, Judah arranged for him to marry Tamar. But due to his evil ways, God caused Er to die childless. According to the laws of the land, which we will examine further in just a moment, Judah then gave Tamar to his second son, Onan. Onan though refused to consummate the marriage and instead spilled his seed onto the ground. For this sin, God caused him to die as well.
Shelah though was still a child when Onan died. Judah therefore sent Tamar back to her father’s house, to wait until Shelah came of age.
While waiting for Shelah to grow up, Judah’s wife died. After the requisite period of morning, Judah went to Timna to shear his sheep. This is when Tamar comes back into the story.
Tamar disguised herself as a harlot and waited for Judah on the side of the road. Judah, looking for some temporary compassion, slept with her. As payment for sex, Judah agreed to give her a baby goat. Since none of his goats were hanging around, Judah left his signet ring, his belt, and his staff as a pledge, a guarantee of future payment.
Unbeknownst to Judah, Tamar became pregnant. When Judah found out, he commanded that Tamar be killed since now, she could not marry Shelah.
And then the fun began. She told Judah that she had physical proof of the father’s identity. When she produced the signet ring, the belt and the staff, Judah recognized these items as his own. He also realized that he was the one to blame for denying Tamar to Shelah and admitted such publicly. And he never slept with her again.
We’ll get to the coda at the end of this podcast. But first, there are some important concepts to understand before we move on to talk about Tamar in greater detail.
Why was Tamar expected to marry Onan and then Shelah after Er’s death? There was a custom in the ancient Near East, which is encoded in the Book of Leviticus, called levirate marriage. Under the laws of levirate marriage, if a man dies without an heir, his widow must marry the next youngest brother. Should she give him a son, that child is accorded to the dead brother and has the right of inheritance. We might find this strange, but it was an important part of family law in the ancient world. For the record, Jews don’t practice this law today.
This explains why Tamar had to marry Onan after Er’s death. And since Shelah was still a minor, she was forced to wait for him to come of age. And she was willing to do so; it was Judah’s fault that it did not happen. In other words, this was a “revenge pregnancy.” Had Judah done the right thing and given Tamar to Shelah, this incident would never have happened.
Unlike the Dinah story, which we discussed in our last podcast, Tamar took agency in this story. And, she has a voice. Even though she was not a Hebrew, Tamar respects Hebrew customs and law; she willingly married Onan and was waiting for Shelah. When she saw that Judah did not fulfill his promise to her, she decided to get even in the most public way.
Interestingly, the Torah does not condemn Tamar. Also, Tamar is not the villain; it is Judah. Judah is the one who breaks his promise. Judah violates the law of the land. Judah is the one who sleeps with a prostitute. Judah is the one who is forced to publicly apologize to Tamar. And Judah is the one who ultimately embraces Tamar’s twin sons, Perez and Zerah as his own children.
The rabbis also posit that this entire story is a punishment for Judah – not for the sin of withholding Shelah but rather, for lying to Jacob about Joseph’s fate. Judah had told his father Jacob that a wild animal devoured Joseph; as payback for betraying his father, Tamar betrays him. And with this in mind, we now understand why this story is placed here in the middle of the Joseph story; it is actually intrinsic to it.
Tamar is pretty clever. She designed a plan to blackmail Judah. She also found a way to get even with him. And, most important perhaps, she found a way to “be fruitful and multiply”, just at God had commanded to Adam. And her children were, by definition, Hebrews since lineage flowed through the father in Biblical times.
It’s interesting that she gave birth to twins. Immediately, we think back to Rachel, who gave birth to Jacob, her father-in-law, and Esau. But in the case of Rachel, it was Jacob, the second son, who carried on the tradition. Here, it was Perez, the first-born, who is the son of record.
Perez, the older twin, is key to the entire story. It may not be apparent here, but it becomes clear in the Book of Ruth. We talked about Ruth on our podcast dated May 20, 2022, so we won’t go into any great detail here; I encourage you though to listen to that episode immediately.
But at the very end of the book, in Chapter Four, we learn of Boaz’s ancestry, Boaz being the husband of Ruth. Boaz is a descendant of Perez, the seventh-generation grandson of Judah and Tamar. And who is the great-grandson of Boaz and Ruth? None other than David, the future Messiah of Israel.
Now we know why this story is in the Bible; it is the origin story for the Messiah. Just as learned that Ruth was a descendant of Moab, the son born of the incestuous relationship between Lot and his older daughter, Boaz is the son born of the illegitimate relationship between Judah and his daughter-in-law, a union specifically forbidden in the Book of Leviticus.
As I have said many times on Torah for Christians, it amazes me that the Messiah, the descendent of King David, is ultimately descended from illegitimate sexual unions. This points to the later idea that, while God punishes the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation, those punishments at some point end and there is forgiveness and yes, purpose, even in the most egregious of situations. All hail Tamar!
I want to thank you for listening to Torah for Christians. Please go to www.torahforchristians.net to access previous podcasts and transcripts. Next week, we explore the strange and strained relationship between Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. Stay tuned.
I wish you a wonderful week and, as always, say Hinei Mah Tov … L’hitraot, till we meet again. I’m rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.