Archive -> May 13, 2006

Genesis 38’s sordidness

There’s a story in the Bible, Genesis Chapter 38, that speaks about a man named Judah (Yahuwdah), who goes and messes around with his daughter in law named Tamar, because he thought she was a prostitute. Now, the messed up part about it is that he impregnated his daughter in law, and three months later they confront him saying that Tamar is pregnant by whoredom. Judah answers by saying, “bring her forth, and let her be burnt” (verse 24). It’s not really his fault, because he’s only following how his God thinks. This is how the God of the Bible would have reacted to this situation. Let’s go through the story together.

In verse 1 Judah goes to Adullam, a Cannanite town, and stays with a man named Hirah. He then marries the daughter of Shuah, whom the Bible doesn’t name. They gave birth to three sons: Er, Onan and Shelah. Now before I go on, back then, according to the Bible, it was agains the law for the Israelites to mix their seed with the Canaanites (Genesis 24:3, 24:37). Judah married his first-born son Er off to Tamar. But in verse 7 his is, “. . . wicked (rah, meaning disagreeable) in the sight (ahuin, meaning eyesight) of the Lord (Yahweh); and the Lord slew (mooth, meaning killed, executed, put to death) him.” So Judah gives Onan, the second born to Tamar to carry on his brother’s seed. However, when they have sexual intercourse, he purposely spills his seed on the floor in verse 9. Verse 10 says, “and the thing which he did displeased the Lord; wherefore he slew (mooth) him also.” God killed two people so far. Now Judah’s last son Shelah wasn’t old enough to marry Tamar to carry on the seed of Er, so Judah sent her back to her father’s house until he became of age for marriage. Meanwhile, Judah’s mother-in-law dies. Then he goes to Timnath with his friend Hirah. Tamar gets word of this, and takes off her widow’s garment and puts on a face veil (verse 14), and I quote, “And she put her widow’s garments off from her, and covered her with a vail (tsaweef), and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place, which [is] by the way to Timnath; for she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife.”

I find this interesting at this point, that Tamar takes of her widow’s clothes and puts on a face veil to go whoring . . . I thought the face veil was worn to cover yourself out of piety. The same word, tsaweef, is used in Genesis 24:65 when Rebecca saw Isaac, a stranger, and she covered herself . . . So, whores wear the face veil of the pious woman . . .

So Tamar is playing the whore to lay up with Judah. He offers her a goat or kid from his flock, and his collateral is his signet ring, bracelets and staff. Her plan works and three months later she is pregnant with twins. Meanwhile Judah sent Hirah with the goat, and now one knows of th harlot in the town of timnath, so Judah pushes it under the rug, and says in Genesis 38:23, “Let her take [it] to her, lest we be shamed . . .” The word shame in Aramic (Hebrew) is booz, meaning contempt, springing from evil. In English it means to bring dishonor or disgrace. So Judah would have been disgraced by this incident, and he committed adultery which becomes against the Mosaic law later in Exodus 20:14.

To make a long story short, when he finds out about this he wants her to burn to death (Genesis 38:24). However, when he realizes that she was the whore that he laid up with he changed his mind, because it was his fault. If he would have given his last son, Shelah, to her to marry she would have never done this. She was taking revenge which caused Judah to commit adultery and he wanted to burn her to death without a fair trial or hearing.

These are the works of God’s chosen people, and you want me to proudly say that I am a part of this and that I condone this?

Excerpted from Did God Create The Devil? by Dr. Malachi Z. York