Did I really need to know that Judah slept with his daughter in law? Yes. Yes I did. Here’s why:
There are parts of the narrative provided to us in the Bible that seem rather seedy. Today is a good example. Judah is the forefather of Jesus Christ himself. Think of it, Jesus traces his earthly heritage right back to Judah. In fact, He is called the “Lion of the tribe of Judah”. So you might think Judah was an upright godly man who did no wrong, right?
Well, not so much.
First of all, Judah marries a Canaanite woman. I don’t know if there were rules against intermarriage at the time, but Abraham (Judah’s Great-Grandfather) didn’t want his son Isaac (Judah’s Grandpa) to marry a local woman. And when Jacob runs away from Esau he travels back to the original homeland and marries from within the family. The family wasn’t perfect, but they had the same basic beliefs in God. This isn’t true for the Canaanites. They worshiped idols.
So when Judah marries a Canaanite woman, I think he is already doing the wrong thing.
The marriage produces several children who have poor moral character. You might infer that he didn’t marry well, or that his bent toward disobedience to God carried over into how he raised his kids. In other words: If a guy is willing to violate the command once, that says something about him in general. It appears his boys inherited some of that from their dad. His first son was wicked, and his second son was selfish. God extinguishes them both.
Remind me not to be selfish.
Another clue about Judah’s moral character is revealed. He doesn’t want to commit a third son to Tamar…even though he has an obligation to do so. So he lies to her and sends her away.
When she realizes it, she takes matters into her own hands and sleeps with Judah. He is filled with righteous indignation and wants her killed…until he realizes that he is the reason she had to do it in the first place. Then he softens his position. God has intervened and provided a child for her…..since Judah wasn’t willing to do so.
We don’t know if Tamar was a Jew or not. If she was, then the bloodline is pure for another generation since Judah is Jewish. If not, then it really doesn’t matter, since Jesus’ family tree has a couple of other “ingrafted branches”. It would be kind of interesting if she were Canaanite…it would further underscore the idea that Jesus came for all people.
Faithfully,
PR