Joseph Part 6: Judah and Tamar

Deceiving the Deceiver

We got to verse 16 but because its been a couple of weeks lets go back and review from verse 12

Genesis 38:12–23 CSB

12 After a long time Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had finished mourning, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers. 13 Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” 14 So she took off her widow’s clothes, veiled her face, covered herself, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had grown up, she had not been given to him as a wife. 15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. 16 He went over to her and said, “Come, let me sleep with you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, “What will you give me for sleeping with me?” 17 “I will send you a young goat from my flock,” he replied. But she said, “Only if you leave something with me until you send it.” 18 “What should I give you?” he asked. She answered, “Your signet ring, your cord, and the staff in your hand.” So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. 19 She got up and left, then removed her veil and put her widow’s clothes back on. 20 When Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get back the items he had left with the woman, he could not find her. 21 He asked the men of the place, “Where is the cult prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?” “There has been no cult prostitute here,” they answered. 22 So the Adullamite returned to Judah, saying, “I couldn’t find her, and besides, the men of the place said, ‘There has been no cult prostitute here.’ ” 23 Judah replied, “Let her keep the items for herself; otherwise we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send this young goat, but you couldn’t find her.”

"And the days were many," that is the days after Yehudah told his daughter-in-law, go sit in your father's house, and just wait, and she waited many days.

"And the daughter of Shua, that is the Canaanite wife of Yehudah, she died.

And Yehudah got over that real quick. He was comforted.

He went up to his shearers of his flock at Timnah, along with his friend Hirah the Adullamite." It's a random detail, but sheep shearing parties come up later in the Hebrew Bible, and it's part of a design pattern where when you read those later stories, you come back to this one. An important one is in 1 Samuel chapter 25, the story of David and Abigail and her husband named Naval.

The word "Naval" means like brutish idiot.

And that's what he acts like in the story. And that whole story circles around a sheep-shearing festival when Naval gets way too drunk, 'cause the wine flows. You're celebrating, you're celebrating. Look at the rich harvest of wool from the animals, let's party. 

How quick did he get over his wife's death? 'Cause, you know, I got a sheep-sharing festival I gotta get to. That's at least the effect of the narrative is like, and he's comforted and goes to the annual party.

"And it was reported to Tamar," verse 13. "Hey, look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah, you know, to sheer the flock." There's an assumed cultural custom that you dress as a widow for, in different cultures, different periods of time, but apparently that time is still ongoing. 

There is a contrast to Yehudah, where he is able to be comforted by his wife's death in fairly quick sequence while she is still dressed and publicly grieving the loss of her husband.

"So she removed her widow's garments, and then she covered with a veil, and she wrapped herself," disguise.

"And she sat at the entrance or door of," in our English translations usually transliterate the Hebrew words here, "petakh 'eynayim" is what almost all our English translations say. 

Petakh 'eynayim means "the opening of the two eyes" or "the door of two eyes."

Do you remember what the disguised deceiver said to the woman in Genesis 3? 

Genesis 3:5 CSB

5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

"Elohim knows that in the day you eat from the forbidden tree, your eyes will be open." It's exactly the Hebrew words. And what does it mean to have your eyes opened? Well you'll become like Elohim, having a knowledge of good and bad. 

So here is another disguised deceiver, standing by "opening of the eyes." Come on, that's good. That's very, very creative use of language. 

"It was by the road to Timnah," and why did she go sit there covered up and disguised? "Because she saw that Shelah, the third son, had grown up and she had not been given to him as a wife."

That's what she saw. Here's what Yehudah saw.

"When Yehudah saw her, he reckoned her to be a prostitute because she had covered her face.

And so, he turned aside to her by the road and he said, 'Come now please, let me go into you.'" Remember that phrase was used, in the opening unit. As crass in Hebrew as it sounds in English.

"He said this because he didn't know that she was his daughter-in-law." And that's how the narrator has stepped in again. So when he said, "Just go home to your father's house," this is earlier in the story, "and you know, sit there for a while and I will give Shelah to you.  He said this because I don't want my son to die." Now here we are again.

He's, that was a secret knowledge that he has that he doesn't want her to know. Now it's about his lack of knowledge, and a secret that she knows.

"And she said, being the wise woman that she is, 'What are you going to give me so that you could come into me?' And he said, 'Well, you know, we're at the sheep-sharing festival. I'll send you one of these great goats from the flock, really fine quality.' And she said, 'Well, if you give me a pledge.'" So it's the word "'eravon." It's gonna be a key, key word in a couple chapters here.

So an 'eravon is, we might, we would call it a down payment or collateral, when you give something, a physical symbol that's like a tangible, you know, it's a symbol that you owe somebody. So down payment is okay. Pledge works, not like a pledge of allegiance, but like a pledge that I'm gonna follow through on something, so.

It's something in the place of another thing. And what is the other thing?

A sacrificial animal, that is a goat, yeah. One thing in the place of another thing. "'So if you give me a pledge until you send the goat,' and he said, 'Oh, what pledge do you have in mind that I should give you?'" And she said, "How about your credit card, your ID, and your keys?"

No, your seal, 'cause we're talking about an image. Like either a necklace piece or a ring that would be, like, have people's actual names written on them. They dig these up all the time in digs throughout the ancient Near East, even and in Jerusalem still today. So you'd press it into wax, on a scroll or something like that. So your seal, your ID. 

Your cord. There's different interpretations of what this might mean. Maybe the cord that is around, if it's a necklace or, and your staff, the heirloom. The family heirloom staff, that's in your hand.

And he said, wow, that's a high, that requires a lot of trust. No, he's just like, he just wants to have sex. "So he gave it to her. And he went into her and she conceived by him.

And she arose, and she went, and she removed the veil and she put on her widow's garments." Notice the symmetry of the story here. It begins with Yehudah going up to this party.

Her response, she takes off, puts on. Then you have the dialogue here at the center. And then she arose, she changes her clothes back.

She also sits down too.

the sitting, standing. is a good example of the symmetrical design of the story is creating these opposites, but it creates a frame around the dialogue in the middle. And the dialogue is all about this counter-deception. He deceived her, and now she is counter-deceiving him.

"So Yehudah, you know, being the semi-, not really, honest guy that he is, he sent the young goat by the hand of his friend, you know, the Adullamite, to take the pledge from the hand of the woman. And his friend, the Adullamite, he couldn't find her.

So he, that is his friend, the Adullamite, asked the men of her place saying, 'Where is that sacred woman?'"

So he just thought of her as a prostitute. What you find out here is that the place that she was standing was some sort of holy space, a shrine. That would've been like a Canaanite shrine, but a space where people believe Heaven and Earth are one there, at the opening of the eyes. 

Do you see the Eden echoes here? 

So a sacred woman who was at opening of the eyes by the road, and they said, "'No, no, there's no temple prostitutes around here.' So he went back to Yehudah and he said, 'Yeah, I can't find her.

And the men of the place said, there's been no sacred woman here.'" Look at the repetition. It's really, it's almost, it feels unnecessary. Which usually when there's something that feels like unnecessary repetition, it's usually a clue that there's literary structuring going on. 

The Riddle of the Two Words

When Judah first sees Tamar, the narrator calls her a zonah—that’s the common Hebrew word for a "prostitute" or "sex worker." It’s a secular, everyday term. But when Judah’s buddy Hirah goes back to find her, he uses a totally different word: qedeshah.

Now, qedeshah literally comes from the root qadosh, which means "holy" or "set apart." Most of our English Bibles translate this as "cult prostitute" or "shrine prostitute."

Sacred Inversion

So, why the switch? This is where the archaeology and the literary design collide. In the ancient Canaanite world—the world Judah is currently "going down" into—there were women associated with the temples of goddesses like Ashtoreth. These were "consecrated maidens."

Archaeologists have found temples in places like Pyrgi and Dura-Europos with small rooms that scholars think were used for these kinds of sacred sexual rites. To the Canaanites, this was "holy." But to the biblical authors, this was the ultimate "adultery"—a perversion of what is actually sacred.

The Irony of the "Holy" Woman

By having Hirah ask for a qedeshah (a "holy woman") at the "Opening of the Eyes," the narrator is stacking up the irony:

Judah’s Perspective: He thinks he’s just having a transaction with a zonah. He’s just hungry.

The Community’s Perspective: Hirah asks for a qedeshah, trying to be "polite" or "culturally sensitive" to the local Canaanite shrines.

The Reality: There is no qedeshah. The "holy woman" is actually the daughter-in-law he betrayed.

Judah is looking for a "sacred" ritual in a pagan town, but he’s totally blind to the fact that he’s currently violating the actual sacred covenant of his own family. He's worried about being a "laughingstock" for losing his wallet to a shrine prostitute, but he's already a laughingstock in the eyes of Heaven for how he’s treated Tamar.

No Sacred Prostitutes in Israel

What’s fascinating is that while many scholars used to think Israel practiced this "sacred prostitution," newer research (like that of Edward Lipiński) suggests there’s no real evidence it was ever an official part of Israelite worship. The Bible uses the word qedeshah almost as a "burn"—a pejorative term to say, "You call this 'holy'? We call it harlotry."

So, Tamar uses Judah's own "Canaanized" worldview against him. She sits at a place that looks like a shrine, lets him assume she’s part of that world, and uses his own lack of holiness to save the family line. It’s a brilliant, gritty counter-deception.

And so, it's placing this dialogue. So the whole thing is about these two guys went out of town for a party. I mean, it's actually a very predictable story, right? Two guys on a work trip, they drink a lot, right, illicit sex, and now the game is up, And they're trying to cover up the situation, and it's really focusing in on this moment of ,these guys are clueless. It's emphasizing how clueless they are and how they've been taken advantage of.

And Yehudah said, oh man, what do I do? What would you do? It's your wallet. You gave away your wallet, your heirloom walking stick. You know what I mean? So what Yehudah says, "Well, I guess I'll just let her keep them. Man, if this gets out, people will shame us in public." So this becomes a commentary. The moment he becomes aware of some wrongdoing on his part, it's when his reputation's on the line. But he seems to care nothing about his daughter-in-law's reputation, right? He'll just, like, leave her hanging for years, as a vulnerable widow, right?

The characterization techniques are really intentional here. So I don't want anybody to think bad about me in public. "So, you know, I sent the young goat and you couldn't find her. I guess we did our best, you know. I tried, trying to be a good guy here."

A Disguised Deceiver

So this little clue about the opening of the eyes, the disguised deceiver, there's so many creative reuses of the Eden deception story here, See the chart by Tim Mackie, Bible Project

But this emphasis about, at the Eden tree, that there's a big emphasis on what she sees. She sees that something is good, desirable, she takes it. The tree is beautiful to look at, and she believes it's going to open her eyes. So now here, in this story, you have Tamar, who is in the slot of a woman who is not being deceived, but is the deceiver. And it's using the language, but instead of the deceiver being a snake who's trying to destroy life and destroy the future of the human seed, here, she's trying to save the future of this family's seed through deception. 

we're now many, we're near the end of the Genesis scroll. And this is not the first time we've had deceptions and counter deceptions. But all of the language, the fact that she's named Tree, you know, Palm Tree, it's the tree of knowing good and bad. It leads to death. Both of Yehudah's sons did what was bad in the eyes of Yahweh and it led to their deaths, and so on. So it's a big contrast here, where it's an Eden inversion story. And so the author is depending on your knowledge of that story, the Eden story, and its vocabulary, and then assuming you'll be able to track with all of the clever twists and inversions that he's putting into the story here. And this is not the first time.

This is following a pattern because creative inversions of the Eden deception story have happened multiple times in the story of Abraham and in the story of Jacob and his wives, and then Laban, his uncle.

So by the time you get here, it's as if you are, you're supposed to theoretically be primed to notice the twists.

Genesis 38:24-30

Genesis 38:24–30 CSB

24 About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law, Tamar, has been acting like a prostitute, and now she is pregnant.” “Bring her out,” Judah said, “and let her be burned to death!” 25 As she was being brought out, she sent her father-in-law this message: “I am pregnant by the man to whom these items belong.” And she added, “Examine them. Whose signet ring, cord, and staff are these?” 26 Judah recognized them and said, “She is more in the right than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not know her intimately again. 27 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twins in her womb. 28 As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand, and the midwife took it and tied a scarlet thread around it, announcing, “This one came out first.” 29 But then he pulled his hand back, out came his brother, and she said, “What a breakout you have made for yourself!” So he was named Perez. 30 Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread tied to his hand, came out, and was named Zerah.

"And it came about, three months later that it was reported to Yehudah, 'Your daughter-in-law Tamar has been a prostitute. And look, she has conceived by prostitution.' And Yehudah said, 'Make her come out, let her be burned alive.'" Snake, snake.

"As she was being brought out," notice an emphasis on her coming out, right?

"She sent to her father-in-law saying, 'You know, I have some information you might find interesting. I have conceived by the man to whom these items belong.' And she said, 'Just look at these and see if you recognize anything here. The seal, the cords, the staff, whose are these?' And Yehudah recognized.

And he said, 'She is more in the right than I am.'" The word "righteous" maybe is loaded in English in ways that she, in this situation, this relational dynamic that I've created here, her actions show she was more in the right than I am.

Why? Well, because of the fact that I deceived her. "'I did not give her my son Shelah, which is what I said that I would do.' And he did not know her again." Know being a turn of phrase for have sex with her again.

So first, that's Tamar's vindication. So clearly that whole little piece right there is leading up to, he thinks in his place of privilege and arrogance, right, that of course she's the one who's, you know, engaging in illicit sex and doing the wrong thing. When in fact, he realized that this woman just saved the future of my family.

"Now it came about, at the time that she was giving birth, look, twins in the womb." Is this the first set of twins in Genesis? No, no.

"And it came about as she was giving birth that he," the firstborn, "offered a hand or put out a hand.

And the midwife took and bound on his hand, a scarlet, maybe thread or something like that, saying one came out first.

And it came about as he drew back his hand, look, his brother came out and she said, 'What a breach you have breached for yourself.'" It's the word Perez. It's what his name is. Perez means breach.

It's also used, it's often translated "breakthrough" or "to break out," like when soldiers break out from a line or somebody escapes from a group. So here, coming out of the womb.

"'What a perez you have perezed for yourself,' so she called his name Perez.

And afterward his brother came out, the one with the scarlet on the hand, and so she called his name Sunrise, Zerah." 'Cause what's the color of the sky on the sunrise?

Reddish, you know, reddish, yeah. And that's literally, that's the last sentence of the story. So we're full-on riddle, like you're just meant to, like, just chew on that, the author says.

Yeah, I think that's why, in this context, and also breach, you know, is a term that, you know, that means the baby being born feet first. But it's a little different where it literally means to come out of, ahead of, or to break out away from. So breakout, but then I think of teenage acne or something, I don't know, so. Yeah, it's a challenging word to translate. So notice, what makes these two scenes correspond is the shared repetition of this, of coming out, somebody coming out. First, it's the younger daughter-in-law coming out, and she's in the vulnerable position.

But then, just through this twist of her counter-deception, she ends up overtaking, as it were, or gaining a victory over the older Yehudah. So it's very much that there's a daughter, a father/daughter-in-law, older/younger dynamic here, and it happens when she comes out.

In the same way, and it's all about her conception. In the birth scene, matching on the other side of this paragraph is about when the two sons come out, and what you think was the one with, you know, power, privilege, the firstborn, is usurped by the younger who comes out with scarlet on his hand.

So technically, who would be considered the firstborn in that situation?

Perez seemed like he was going to be the second-born, but he ends up breaking out in a victory, usurping what almost was his older brother. It's about the, in other words, the narrative is trying to set up like you thought the younger one was going to be at a disadvantage, but actually that second-born broke through and overcame.

so we're, with this birth of the twins and the younger and the older, we're at a very clear echo of the story of Yehudah's father, right?

Jacob and Esau. And remember, Esau came out

Hairy, And then in the next story, he's called Red.

There's absolutely a dynamic here this is being modeled after.

So this usurping of the younger and the older, but that itself is set in parallel to this conflict that Judah and Tamar were having. And she, you thought was, no way she's going to gain the upper hand in the scene, but it was through her cleverness that she, that she did so.

So there's so many layers going on. Let me just point out a couple things here. So first of all, within the context, remember story within a story, this is a story of how the younger is deceived by the older, put at a great disadvantage, near death.

But it's through a counter-deception that they gain ascendancy over the older and ends up saving the older's family and all of their lives. Like, that's the story. And then it ends with a birth of actual younger and older, of the younger overcoming the older.

This little story is itself going to become more clear as you go on to read the larger story of the younger Yoseph who was taken advantage of by Judah.

You can already predict what you think is gonna happen. Deceptions, counter-deceptions, younger being elevated over the older through a near death experience. Here we go. So very intentional how the plot lines have been set up. But notice, this one has come to resolution. The story of Yoseph and his brothers has not come to resolution. So we're about to reenter the story of Yoseph and his brothers, now armed with this story as, like, a little interpretive set of lenses, and you're set up to expect things that are going to happen. And lo and behold, they are. So that's one thing. 

There is a lot of shared language between this story and that strange story after Lot escapes the destruction of Sodom. And he escapes up into a cave with his two daughters, and his two daughters say, it's the end of the world, there is no future for our seed. And so they come up with this plan, the younger and the older. There's two, right? Two daughters. And they have illicit sex with their father in the cave to produce a future seed for themselves. 

That's exactly what's happening, being mirrored right here. 

A Birth Narrative for the Royal Seed of David?

And there is yet another story, the story of Ruth. Ruth who is, right, the descendant of one of Lot's daughters.

Lot's daughters gives birth to one guy who's called Moab. And Moab goes and starts a people group that lives east of the Jordan. And lo and behold, a whole scroll in the Hebrew Bible is dedicated to a story about a Moabite woman. And she is married to an Israelite husband, along with her other Moabite friend, married to two Israelite sons. What happens to those two Israelite sons?

They die, along with the dad. And so they migrate into the land, and it's through the Moabite woman's faithfulness that she- and the faithfulness of a descendant of Judah, that the family line is saved yet again. 

So all three of these stories make up the birth narrative of David. The last word of the book of Ruth is David.

And so, you have these stories about Lot and his daughters, Yehudah and Tamar, Ruth and Boaz, and they're all hyperlinked and patterned after each other. There's no birth story about David when you read David's story.

And that's because a triad of birth stories has been scattered throughout the Torah and the Prophets and the Writings and then coordinated together as David's birth story. 

what that shows us is that whoever's shaping the story is the same crew responsible for the arrangement of Ruth in the collection, the arrangement of Genesis. Somebody way down, post-David, way down the line, who is telling us that the only one responsible for the survival of the seed of David is not humans.

If it, the only one that they can attribute to the survival of the Davidic line is to Yahweh and his commitment to these really, really corrupt humans. And that's a really important takeaway from the story.

Intertextual Links Between Genesis 38 and 2 Samuel 11-13

David’s affair is with Bat-Sheva’ (2 Sam. 11:3) // Judah sleeps with Bat-Shua’ (Gen. 38:2, 12) ➞ Solomon’s mother Bat-Sheva’ is actually named Bat-Shua’ in 1 Chronicles 3:5!

The affair results in the death of David’s first two sons: Amnon, and eventually Absalom. // Judah’s two sons die.

The plot of both Genesis 38 and 2 Samuel 13 revolves around illicit sex with a woman named “Palm Tree” = Tamar.

Both Tamars are vindicated at a sheep-shearing festival (1 Sam. 13:23 // Gen. 38:13).

The names involved in both plot series are matched.

Bibliography

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