Genesis 38

3. Judah and Tamar ch. 38

This chapter seems at first out of place since it interrupts the story of Joseph, but we must remember that this is the toledot of Jacob. This is the story of what happened to his whole family, not just Joseph. The central problem with which the chapter deals is childlessness. The events of the chapter must span at least 20 years, years during which Joseph was lost to his family (cf. Genesis 37:2; Genesis 41:46-47; Genesis 45:6).

Judah tried unsuccessfully to ensure the levirite rights of his daughter-in-law Tamar. As a last resort Tamar deceived him into having sexual intercourse with her by masquerading as a prostitute. She thereby maintained her right to become the mother of Judah’s children, the younger of which displaced his older twin in an unusual birth.

"The following sketch from the life of Judah is intended to point out the origin of the three leading families of the future princely tribe in Israel [Shelah, Perez, and Zerah] and at the same time to show in what danger the sons of Jacob would have been of forgetting the sacred vocation of their race, through marriages with Canaanitish women, and of perishing in the sin of Canaan, if the mercy of God had not interposed, and by leading Joseph into Egypt prepared the way for the removal of the whole house of Jacob into that land, and thus protected the family, just as it was expanding into a nation, from the corrupting influence of the manners and customs of Canaan." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, 1:338-39.]

This chapter records the compromise of the Israelites, specifically Judah, with the Canaanites, Shua and Tamar, that resulted in the confusion of seed, the chosen with the condemned. This is the first time one of the chosen seed selected a wife outside the preferred families of the patriarchs. Like Esau, Judah chose a wife from the women of the land, even one of the cursed Canaanites (cf. Genesis 24:3-4; Genesis 27:46 to Genesis 28:2). It is perhaps the basis for the prohibition against mixing various kinds of seed, yoking two different kinds of animals together, weaving two kinds of thread into cloth, etc., in the Mosaic Law. [Note: Cf. Carmichael, pp. 394-415.]

"One gets the distinct impression that ever since the Dinah incident (ch. 34) Jacob has less and less control over the behavior of his family." [Note: Hamilton, The Book . . . Chapters 18-50, p. 433.]