Genesis 38:1-30 - Homiletics

The house of Judah: a family record of sin and shame.

I. THE WICKEDNESS OF ER AND ONAN .

1. Early . On any hypothesis Er and Onan can have been little more than boys when they were married, and yet they appear to have arrived at a remarkable precocity in sin. Nor was it simply that they had shed the innocence and purity of youth, but they had also acquired a shameful proficiency in vice. Young scholars are mostly apt learners, especially in the devil's school.

2. Unnatural . Though not described, the wickedness of Judah's first son had relation to some perversion of the ordinance of marriage; that of his second is plainly stated to have been uncleanness and self-pollution. Neither against nature nor contrary to grace are the endearments of the married state, but every act outside of the Divine permissions concerning woman is both.

3. Heinous . The act of Er is characterized as "wicked in the sight of the Lord," while that of Onan is said to have displeased the Lord. Hence it may be reasonably inferred that the essential criminality in both cases was the same. They were both perversions of a natural ordinance. They both militated against the purity and development of the theocratic family. Both indicated a contemptuous unbelief in the promise of the covenant, and a sacrilegious disregard for the calling of Israel as the progenitor of the promised seed. Hence both were deserving of Divine reprobation.

4. Disastrous . The tendency of all sin is ruinous, both for body, soul, and spirit. Whether as a natural result of indulgence in vice, or as a direct punitive visitation from God, Er and Onan were consigned to premature graves; and this, it should be noted by young persons of both sexes, is the almost inevitable consequence of indulgence in secret vice, and in particular of the practice of which Onan was guilty. Yielded to, it debilitates the physical constitution by a wasting of the vital powers, it impairs the mental faculties, it corrupts the moral nature, it sears and petrifies the conscience, and finally, what might have been a fair specimen of noble and virtuous manhood or womanhood it covers up, a poor, wasted, shivering skeleton, beneath the clods of the valley, causing it to lie down among the sins of its youth.

II. THE SIN OF TAMAR . The conduct of Judah's daughter-in-law, the young widow of Er and Onan, though not without its extenuations, in having been partly provoked by Judah's reluctance to marry her to Shelah, and partly inspired by a desire to take her place among the ancestresses of the promised seed, was yet in many respects reprehensible.

1. She discovered impatience . Although Judah did manifest a temporary unwillingness to give her Shelah for a husband, she might have reasoned that, after losing two sons, it was not unnatural that he should hesitate about exposing a third to the same risk of destruction.

2. She manifested unbelief . If Tamar did regard herself as wronged, as most undoubtedly she was, instead of taking measures to right herself, she should have left her cause to God, who had already vindicated her against the wickedness of her youthful husbands, and who in his own time and way would doubtless have interposed to assert her prerogative as a widow belonging to the family of Israel.

3. She practiced deception . Laying aside her widow's garments, and assuming the attire of a harlot, she took her station at the gate of Enajim, on the way to Timnath, and pretended to be a prostitute. Tamar manifestly was not a woman of refined and delicate sensibilities; but then she was a Canaanite, and had been the wife of Er and Onan, who were not calculated to improve her modesty.

4. She was guilty of temptation . It is true the narrative does not represent her as having been guilty of solicitation, like the "foolish woman" described by Solomon ( Proverbs 7:6-23 ; Proverbs 9:14-18 ). Perhaps she knew that Judah would not require solicitation; but if so she was all the more guilty in placing temptation in Judah's way.

5. She committed incest. The guilt of an incestuous connection which rested on Judah unconsciously she had knowingly and willingly taken on herself.

III. THE TRANSGRESSIONS OF JUDAH . More numerous, if not more heinous, than those of either his sons or his daughter-in-law were the offences of Judah. Jacob's fourth son sinned—

1. In marrying a Canaanitish wife . Though Judah's marriage with Shuah's daughter was blessed by God, who made it fruitful, it does not follow that it was approved by God.

2. In withholding Shelah from Tamar . Although it does not appear as yet to have been commanded that in default of issue a widow should be married by her deceased husband's brother, it is obvious that Judah recognized that it should be so, both by his own act in giving Onan to Tamar after Er's death, and by his own subsequent confession with regard to Shelah ( Genesis 38:26 ).

3. In deceiving Tamar . Instead of frankly telling her that he did not intend his third son to become her husband, he bound her to remain a widow, and sent her home to her father's house (instead of keeping her in his own) under the impression that Shelah was only withheld from her on the score of youth.

4. In committing sin with Tamar . Though in reality Judah committed incest, yet so far as his intention went it was only adultery, or fornication. Yet all forms of unchastity are forbidden in the law of God. And it gives a very low conception of the morality of Judah that he, a member of the consecrated family of Israel, who had himself been married, should have so openly, and deliberately, and coolly turned aside to seek the company of a common strumpet, as he imagined Tamar to be. Judah should have acted on the principle afterwards stated by Paul ( 1 Corinthians 7:9 ).

5. In condemning Tamar . "Bring her forth, and let her be burnt," said the indignant patriarch. It is obvious the sentence was excessive in its severity. It was not imperative, else it could not have been remitted; and a recollection of his visit to Timnath three months previously should have inclined him to lean to mercy's side. But the virtuous Angelos of society always procure indulgence for themselves by damning their fellow-sinners ( Measure for Measure, Act II .). Scripture counsels differently ( Matthew 7:3 ; Romans 2:22 ; Galatians 6:1 ).