Unless we fully lean on God’s wisdom, insight, and understanding on all matters of life here; we will be prone to take matters into our own hands, using our own feeble minds to “fix” what is broken and needs to be restored.  That rarely goes well for us.

As soon as you read this next episode of God’s story in Judah, one the twelve sons of Jacob, you’re first thought might be, why is this story in the Bible?  What is the purpose of telling us about a young widow in need of care and restitution for being treated unfairly according to the tradition of the current culture?  Tamar is not just any young widow, she decides to right the wrong done to her but taking the matter into her own hands.  This “soap opera” type story will have a surprising ending.  Read on…

Genesis 38

Judah and Tamar

At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah. ² There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her and made love to her; ³ she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was named Er. ⁴ She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan. ⁵ She gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him.

⁶ Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. ⁷ But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death.

⁸ Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” ⁹ But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. ¹⁰ What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also.

¹¹ Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s household until my son Shelah grows up.” For he thought, “He may die too, just like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father’s household.

¹² After a long time Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah, to the men who were shearing his sheep, and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went with him.

¹³ When Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep,” ¹⁴ she took off her widow’s clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife.

¹⁵ When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. ¹⁶ Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.”

“And what will you give me to sleep with you?” she asked.

¹⁷ “I’ll send you a young goat from my flock,” he said.

“Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?” she asked.

¹⁸ He said, “What pledge should I give you?”

“Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand,” she answered. So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. ¹⁹ After she left, she took off her veil and put on her widow’s clothes again.

²⁰ Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from the woman, but he did not find her. ²¹ He asked the men who lived there, “Where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?”

“There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here,” they said.

²² So he went back to Judah and said, “I didn’t find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, ‘There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here.’”

²³ Then Judah said, “Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn’t find her.”

²⁴ About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.”

Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!”

²⁵ As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. “I am pregnant by the man who owns these,” she said. And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.”

²⁶ Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again.

²⁷ When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. ²⁸ As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.” ²⁹ But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez. ³⁰ Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out. And he was named Zerah.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

In summary, Tamar wanted to produce an heir for her deceased husband, but Onan refused to fulfill his moral obligation. When her father-in-law Judah didn’t keep his word, Tamar took matters into her own hands. She deceptively became pregnant by Judah. 

It’s human nature to repay evil for evil, but God promises to remedy the injustices we’ve experienced.

“The point of the story? God handles all Judahs. He can discipline your abusive boss, soften your angry parent. He can bring your ex to his knees or her senses. Forgiveness doesn’t diminish justice; it just entrusts it to God. He guarantees the right retribution. We give too much or too little. But the God of justice has the precise prescription.” –Max Lucado, The Encouraging Word Bible

This is another story of God working through Judah, and in Tamar, imperfect humans who God loves.  Unlike us, God never gives up on a person. Never. Long after we have moved on, God is still there, probing the conscience, stirring conviction, always orchestrating redemption. Why do we think it is necessary to “fix” our enemies when that’s God’s job?  But we still do.

This is another story of forgiveness when you look at it from God’s perspective.  Do you feel like you’ve been mistreated or wronged? Has someone given you their word but not followed through? Do we feel that you don’t have time for God to intervene and must “fix” it by taking the matter in your own hands guided by a deceitful heart and crushed spirit? 

The process:

• Instead, take time right now to write a letter to those who have hurt you. 
• Let go of the unhealthy emotions and feelings building up within your heart caused from hurt. 
• Then forgive them. 
• The last step is to love those who have hurt you with the love of God in you while asking God to bless them. (Our love is not strong enough to do this, it must come from the indwelling love of God who lives in us.)  Forgiveness, even before they ask for it, or even if they don’t ask at all is the process of letting God do what He does best in the lives of those He has created, knows, and loves. 
• God works miracles of love, mercy, and grace in our lives, too, when we let go.  What God does is provide a cleansing of hearts, renewal of minds with new, higher, nobler thinking, while doing His work of forgiveness within us.

Paul describes what happens when God’s love leads us with how God’s love behaves: 

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 

So, in the name of Jesus, boldly tell our real Enemy, of God and our souls, who tells us to take matters into our own hands, to get on down the road! Then begin the process of forgiveness. Keep no list of wrongs. Jesus tells us to pray for our antagonists rather than plot against them. Hate the wrong without hating wrongdoers. Ask for God’s wisdom and power to turn our attention away from what they did to you to what Jesus did for us. Outrageous as it may seem, Jesus died for them too. If he thinks they are worth forgiving, they are.  Yes, read that again and let Truth sink in and permeate our thinking.

More interesting thoughts to ponder…

• Judah got himself into trouble when he separated himself from his brothers and started to make friends with the Canaanites in the land. 
• Jacob had used a garment to deceive his father Isaac (Genesis 27:15), and Judah and his brothers used a garment to deceive Jacob (Genesis 37:32). Now Tamar used a garment to deceive Judah!
• The story of the patriarchs in Genesis reminds us of the grace of God and His sovereignty in human life. The men and women who played a part in this important drama weren’t perfect, and some of them were deliberately disobedient, and yet the Lord used them to accomplish His purposes.

Looking ahead…

One of the major purposes of Genesis is to record the origin and development of the family of Jacob, the founder of the twelve tribes of Israel. We will read later that the Israelites went down to Egypt a large family, and four centuries later they came out of Egypt a large nation. Since the tribe of Judah is the royal tribe from which the Messiah would come (49:10), anything related to Judah is vital to the story in Genesis.

Without this story in Genesis 38, you’d wonder at finding Tamar and Perez in our Lord’s genealogy (Matthew 1:3). Perez was an ancestor of King David (Ruth 4:18–22) and therefore an ancestor of Jesus Christ (Matthew1:1).

This is the rest of the story of God in Judah and Tamar.

Lord,

Thank you for preparing my heart to hear what you are saying in Your Word that goes beyond first impressions.  Thank you for teaching us forgiveness on your terms. Thank you for being our God who hears, understands, and knows. Why trust in our own puny view of things? Why try to take matters into our own hands, when you have a solution in the works before we even know we have a problem to solve?  I trust you with my life for you are Life. 
In Jesus Name, for Your glory, Amen