Genesis 38:6-11
Widowed twice, and sent home
Er dies, then Onan. Judah tells her to wait as a widow until Shelah grows up, because he is afraid of losing a third son, and then does nothing.
People of the Bible
Tamar
Had no legal way to be heard, so she made her father-in-law hand her the evidence himself.
Tamar is married into Judah’s family, widowed twice, and sent back to her father’s house to wait for a third husband who is never sent. Under the custom of the time she has no standing, no children and no way to compel anyone. So when she hears Judah is travelling nearby she covers her face, sits at the roadside, and takes his seal, his cord and his staff as a pledge for a payment he never comes back to settle. Three months later, accused and sentenced to burn, she sends the pledge to its owner and asks him to identify it.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Tamar
- 01
- 02
Genesis 38:12-19
The pledge at the roadside
Veiled at the entrance to Enaim, she asks for his seal, his cord and his staff, which is the whole of a man’s identity, until the payment arrives.
- 03
Genesis 38:24-26
Whose these are, discern
Brought out to be burned, she sends the three items ahead of her without naming him and lets him say it. He does.
- 04
Genesis 38:27-30
The scarlet thread
Twins, and a hand appears first and is tied with scarlet, then drawn back. Perez breaks out ahead of his brother, and the royal line runs through him.
Why it matters
Genesis interrupts the Joseph story to tell this one, which is deliberate. It is the account of a woman with no power forcing a powerful man to keep his word, and it is the moment Judah first tells the truth about himself. Her son Perez is named in the line to David, and Matthew names her in the genealogy of Jesus, one of only four women named there beside Mary.
1 song
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
