Tamar - A Story For Men

As you probably already know, I love to write about the women of the Bible. I love challenging our ideas and beliefs about who they were and what their stories have to teach us. I was excited to take on the story of Tamar as it indisputably one of the most scandalous stories recorded in the Bible. However, I was not expecting to find that how significantly Tamar’s tale radically changed the perceptions of how one relates to God.

Tamar steps into the pages of Scripture in Genesis 38, but to understand the true import of her life and deeds, we have to step back to chapter 37 and follow the ripples she leaves in her wake found most predominately throughout out the rest of Genesis and still felt today. I am just hitting the high point so as always grab your Bible and read it for yourself, follow along, and double check me.

Tamar’s story is begins with an assault on Joseph. While she is yet to be named the stage is being set for vindication before Judah. The sons of Jacob conspire to kill Joseph, their father’s favorite son, but is stopped by Judah who suggests that they sell their brother into slavery instead. He orchestrates a grand cover up. Joseph’s distinctive coat is covered in the blood of young goat, and it is presented to their father, Jacob, with the request, “Please, identify whether it is your son’s robe or not.” Jacob is overcome with grief, and Joseph is taken to Egypt.

Chapter 38 opens by telling us the Judah has left his family, taken a Canaanite bride, and raised three sons.  The Bible never specifies why he left his homeland, but scholars speculate it was out guilt and shame for his part in Joseph’s tragedy and causing his father heartache. His sons now grown, he seeks out a wife, and Tamar arrives on set.

Tamar comes to the story with no background or indication of her lineage. She is simply a bride to first Er, who God promptly kills off and then Onan who God also does in – all told in the space of four verses. This is the part of the story where most people get hung up, after all how much more salacious can you get than the Bible’s specific recount of Onan “spilling his seed on the ground”? But this is just prologue for the real story.

For the modern reader, this blunt portrayal of levirate marriage is in and of itself off putting. After all what modern woman can imagine being handed off to her dead husband’s brother or brothers? What we must keep in mind is that levirate marriage was not intended as a cruelty, in fact it was just the opposite. Remember, this is a society of nomads with no city wall for defense, no standing army, and no one other than family to call upon in times of need. Once a woman left her father’s house, he had no financial or societal obligation to care for her. She was at the mercy of her husband’s family, and by including her in the household of her husband’s brother her children retained the rights to all of the first husband’s property. Her new husband was expected to do all the upkeep and management of his dead brother’s belongings so that it could be passed down to the children he would bear in his dead brother’s name. This insured that women were not simply cast aside or forgotten and forced into seeking support through things like prostitution.

Before we dismiss this custom as crude or barbaric, we should also recognize that we celebrate the upholding of this tradition in two separate Biblical accounts. First, in the story of Ruth where Boaz becomes Ruth’s kinsman redeemer and saves her from life of destitution, and then again in our story when Christ becomes our kinsman redeemer so that we too might share in the inheritance as a child of God. For this is the proper term applied to the brother who offers up his sacrifice in the division of property to care for one who is not his own – the kinsman redeemer. When we wrap our minds around this fact, we begin to understand why Onan’s sin was so heinous and worthy of death. Not only did he fail to uphold his duty and obligation to this woman, he did so in a way that that was degrading, abusive, and preyed upon her body to satisfy his lust.

Tamar is promised Judah’s third son Shelah, but she is required to live as a widow in her father’s house until the boy comes of age. She is left in a state of limbo. For while she is living with her father, she is still under the authority of Judah. She is neither married nor unmarried at this point as she technically considered to be the betrothed of Shelah. We do not know how long she lived in this manner, but we are told in verse twelve that it was “a long time after” before she makes her move.

Recognizing that Judah is never going to fulfill his promise to give her Shelah as a husband Tamar decides the dissatisfaction of her undefined state outweighs her fear of possible death, and does something so bold that even I wonder if I had the guts to do what she did. Putting aside her widow’s garments, she dons a veil and places herself at the crossroads waiting for Judah to appear, and ironically, in this place known at as “Open eyes” Judah fails to recognize her. He propositions her, and she haggles with him for a price. Dear Lord, this woman was bold as brass.

He promises her a young goat from his flocks, but she insists he leave his staff, cord, and seal as a pledge of his intentions. Much has been written about the significance of Judah relinquishing these items to a woman he believes is a prostitute. The staff would have probably been covered with carvings that documented his family history and affirmed his position in the community. The cord would have alsoe been custom made to indicate his status. The seal was used to convey his authority and serve as indisputable evidence of identity. Tamar was a smart gal who knew exactly what she was asking for and the boldness of this request shows she was playing for keeps, as she had to be as her life was literally on the line. At this point of the story, I have to wonder if Jacob, the original schemer, would have been proudly amused by his granddaughter-in-law, and we are reminded of Esau who traded away his birthright for a bowl of soup just as Judah now traded away his to satisfy other appetites.

Tamar disappears, using Judah’s own command to fade out of sight in her father’s house, but soon the truth is discovered and whispers reach his ears. Tamar is pregnant and she is pregnant because she has played the harlot. (38: 24). You can almost hear the relief at being rid of her in Judah’s voice as he makes the command that will reveal more to us about who this woman is.

“Bring her out,” said Judah, “and let her be burned.” Genesis 38: 24

Wait, what? The punishment of sexual immorality is stoning, not burning. Why would he demand such a gruesome punishment? The answer is found in Leviticus 21:9

“When the daughter of a priest defiles herself through harlotry, it is her father who she defiles; she shall be put to the fire.”

Ah, how the plot thickens! Tamar is not just any woman, she is the daughter of a priest! And if tradition is correct, not just any priest, the daughter of Melchizedek! Now of all the figures in the Bible one of the most enigmatic is Melchizedek. Here is what we know of him: He visited with Abraham. He is the King of Salem (later to known as Jerusalem). He is a priest of God Most High. (Genesis 14). Christ is identified as a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 7:17).  (This is where I stop myself from racing down a fascinating rabbit trail and get back to our regularly scheduled programming.) If this is true, then Tamar would have been a desirable bride for any family and connects the descendants of Judah to a royal birthright to the throne of Jerusalem that originates from the time of the Flood. (And offers an interesting parallel to the priestly ancestry of Jael.)

Returning to our text – this is where things start to get real interesting.

Tamar hears of her father-in-law’s decree, and she sends the seal and staff to him with the message:

“I am with child by the man to whom these belong.” And she added, “Please, identify whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.”

If the words, “Please, identify” sound familiar they should. For they are the exact words with which Judah presented Joseph’s robe to his father. The blood of the kid offered up to cover his sin against his brother to appease his appetite for prestige, a kid offered to a whore to satisfy his sexual greed, a life he tried to destroy in Joseph, the lives of his sons taken from him, the deception he committed, and the deception he fell prey to – all running parallel to each other and crashing upon his heart until he declares:

“She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her my son Shelah,” Genesis 38:26

This is a turning point of history. Judah recognizes his wrong and he repents!

We read that and we think, “Sure he did, that is the proper response. You screw up, you repent, and you ask forgiveness. That’s how this thing works.” Let me reach through this screen and shake you while I scream – “NO! NO! NO! IT WASN’T! THIS IS SOMETHING RADICALLY BRAND NEW! NOWHERE IN THE PREVIOUS HISTORY OF SCRIPTURE TO THIS POINT HAS ANYTHING LIKE THIS BEEN SEEN!!!”

Others had accepted God’s love, acceptance, and provision. Others had been thankful and obedient. Others had called out to God for help, but no one else had had the guts to stand up and admit their guilt before God and the world.  Judah alone, out of all the patriarchs, feels sorrow for what he has done, and Judah alone demonstrates how that type of brokenness changes who we are. In Genesis 44, he will stand before the second highest man in Egypt, before the brother he betrayed, and he will offer up his own life for the life Benjamin. He will prove that he has laid aside self-interest and moves through this life with compassion and humility because he learned it at the hands of a woman.

Is it any wonder that Judah was deemed worthy to be the father of the tribe that would bring give birth to our Savior?

So how then shall we view Tamar? Were her actions blessed and divinely sanctioned? I doubt it. As much as I want her to be the shining heroine, she failed to act in faith and resorted to self-reliance in order to achieve justice on her behalf. And while God blessed her with twin boys who would be the pride of a nation, and her name would be praised among the women, she would return to that place of limbo the wife, but not quite wife, of Judah who would never be intimate with her again. (Genesis 38:26) We do not know how the story would have played out if she had made her appeal to God instead of scheming to manipulate circumstance, but the Bible was never big on telling us what should have happened and offers to us instead what did happen. In doing so, we are confronted with the God of redemption who does not erase our mistakes or even our willfulness, but folds them into the pages of history as a testament to his mercy and power to redeem all things.

I believe Tamar is remembered and celebrated for two reasons:

Her story is a cautionary tale for men, not to trifle with the lives of women or fear the consequences. From her life we learn the significance of the kinsman redeemer, and the gravity with which God views such a role. First demonstrated in the deadly consequences of Onan's abuse and negect under the guise of obedience, and then in the blessing of children as she took what was hers by law. For while I do not believe her actions were as God would have desired, he protected her first from Judah's recognition at the roadside and then from his wrath when she dared to expose his shame as Judah, also by right of law, could have commanded her death despite his involvement.

Tamar was the rock against which Judah was broken. She showed him what it was to be the recipient of the sins that he had committed against others. Through her he knew the grief of Jacob in losing his son, through her he knew what it was to be duped and played for a fool, and through he knew what it was to repay evil for evil, but above all he learned the power of repentance and honesty before the Lord and others. I believe that it is for this reason Tamar is remembered, not as example to be followed but rather as the means through which God softened the heart of jaded man. And this is why I call this story for men so that they might not repeat the sins of Judah against the women God has placed in your care.