The Genesis of Justice 9. Tamar Becomes a Prostitute - and the Progenitor of David and the Messiah Schocken Bible Translation Contemporary English Version   Genesis 38: away from his brothers: More than geography seems to be meant. Yehuda begins to change as a person here, in preparation for Chap. 44. Note that the place Adullam assonates with Arabic (Õadula) “to turn aside.” Yehuda and Tamar (38): Chap. 38 has been the subject of many discussions, for it seems to be out of place. It interrupts the story of Yosef at a crucial dramatic spot, and is not chronologically fully consistent with it (Yehuda ages considerably; then we return to Yosef as a seventeen-year-old). Some feel that the suspension in the drama helps to raise tension; others argue that this is the only possible place to put an important tradition about the important brother. While these and other arguments may have their merit, one may discern some significant thematic connections as well, both within the context of the Yosef story and of Genesis as a whole. The episode first of all demonstrates the growth of Yehuda as a character who is central to the Yosef novella. Already in Chap. 37 he had demonstrated active leadership, albeit in a questionable cause. There he actually saved Yosef’s life, in contrast to Re’uven’s unsuccessful and ultimately self-centered rescue attempt. As the one who basically assumes responsibility, he will be made to undergo an inner development in the narrative, and again becomes the one to take charge of the youngest son (Binyamin, in Chaps. 43 and 44). The missing piece that begins to explain his nobility in this regard (Chap. 44) is the present chapter. Yehuda here learns what it is to lose sons, and to want desperately to protect his youngest. Although his failure to marry off Tamar to the youngest son leads to public humiliation (twice, actually), his response shows that he immediately accepts blame: “She is in-the-right more than I” (v.26). Such an interpretation is further confirmed by the restriction of the word “pledge” to here and 43:9. Yehuda has learned what it means to stake oneself for a principle. Only after we have been informed of Yehuda’s change can the narrative resume with Chap. 39. True to biblical thinking, redemption may start only after the crime has been punished (e.g., the Samson story, where the hero’s hair begins to grow immediately after his imprisonment). Actually the chronology works out quite well. We are told via 41:46, 53–54, that about twenty years elapse between the sale of Yosef and his meetings with the brothers in Egypt; this often signifies a period in biblical parlance and could encompass a generation or a bit less. Since Yehuda was quite possibly a father already in Chap. 37, the present story could well end just before the events reported in Chap. 43—in other words, Yehuda reaches full inner maturity just in time. The other function of this story seems to be to carry out the major theme of Genesis as we have presented it: continuity and discontinuity between the generations. What is at stake here is not merely the line of one of the brothers, but the line which (as the biblical audience must have been fully aware) will lead to royalty—King David was a descendant of Peretz of v.29. This should not be surprising in a book of origins; we noted the possible mention of Jerusalem in 14:18. Apparently a popular early theme, connected as we have noted to the power of God in history, continuity/discontinuity is repeated in somewhat similar circumstances in the book of Ruth (which contains the only other mention of “begettings” outside of Genesis and Num.3:1). The narrator has woven Chaps. 38 and 37 together with great skill. Again a man is asked to “recognize” objects, again the use of a kid, and again a brother (this time a dead one) is betrayed. 1 Now it was at about that time that Yehuda went down, away from his brothers and turned aside to an Adullamite man—his name was Hira. 2 There Yehuda saw the daughter of a Canaanite man—his name was Shua, he took her (as his wife) and came in to her. 3 She became pregnant and bore a son, and he called his name: Er. 4 She became pregnant again and bore a son, and she called his name: Onan. Ceziv: The Hebrew root connotes “lying.” 5 Once again she bore a son, and she called his name: Shela. Now he was in Ceziv when she bore him. Tamar: The name means “date palm.”; firstborn: Perhaps parallel to the ineffectual firstborn, Re’uven, of the previous chapter. 6 Yehuda took a wife for Er, his firstborn—her name was Tamar. (did) ill: I.e., he was evil, although we are not told specifically how. 7 But Er, Yehuda’s firstborn, did ill in the eyes of YHWH, and YHWH caused him to die. a brother-in-law’s duty: It was a well-known practice in biblical times that if a man died without leaving an heir, it was the obligation of his nearest of kin (usually his brother) to marry the widow and sire a son—who would then bear the name of the deceased man (Deut. 25:5–10). 8 Yehuda said to Onan: Come in to your brother’s wife, do a brother-in-law’s duty by her, to preserve seed for your brother! 9 But Onan knew that the seed would not be his, so it was, whenever he came in to his brother’s wife, he let it go to ruin on the ground, so as not to provide seed for his brother. What he did was ill: Onan dies because he does not fulfill his legal obligation to continue his brother’s line. The later interpretation, that his crime was masturbation (“onanism”), has no basis in this text. 10 What he did was ill in the eyes of YHWH, and he caused him to die as well. Otherwise he will die: Folk belief often regarded a woman who had outlived two husbands as a bad risk in marriage. The emotion here—a father’s fear of losing a young son—will return as central in 42:36. 11 Now Yehuda said to Tamar his daughter-in-law: Sit as a widow in your father’s house until Shela my son has grown up. For he said to himself: Otherwise he will die as well, like his brothers! So Tamar went and stayed in her father’s house. 12 And many days passed. Now Shua’s daughter, Yehuda’s wife, died. When Yehuda had been comforted, he went up to his sheep-shearers, he and his friend Hira the Adullamite, to Timna. 13 Tamar was told, saying: Here, your father-in-law is going up to Timna to shear his sheep. 14 She removed her widow’s garments from her, covered herself with a veil and wrapped herself, and sat down by the entrance to Enayim/Two-Wells, which is on the way to Timna, for she saw that Shela had grown up, yet she had not been given to him as a wife. 15 When Yehuda saw her, he took her for a whore, for she had covered her face. 16 So he turned aside to her by the road and said: Come-now, pray let me come in to you— for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said: What will you give me for coming in to me? 17 He said: I myself will send out a goat kid from the flock. She said: Only if you give me a pledge, until you send it. seal…cord…staff: Individual objects of identification in the ancient Near East, particularly the seal, which served to sign documents. See Speiser. 18 He said: What is the pledge that I am to give you? She said: Your seal, your cord, and your staff that is in your hand. He gave them to her and then he came in to her—and she became pregnant by him. 19 She arose and went away, then she put off her veil from her and clothed herself in her widow’s garments. 20 Now when Yehuda sent the goat kid by the hand of his friend the Adullamite, to fetch the pledge from the woman’s hand, he could not find her. holy-prostitute: Or “cult prostitute,” one attached to a shrine in Canaan. Sex in the ancient world was often linked to religion (as part of fertility rites), although the Hebrews sought to sever the tie. 21 He asked the people of her place, saying: Where is that holy-prostitute, the one in Two-Wells by the road? They said: There has been no holy-prostitute here! 22 So he returned to Yehuda and said: I could not find her; moreover, the people of the place said: There has been no holy-prostitute here! 23 Yehuda said: Let her keep them for herself, lest we become a laughing-stock. Here, I sent her this kid, but you, you could not find her. 24 Now it was, after almost three New-Moons that Yehuda was told, saying: Tamar your daughter-in-law has played-the-whore, in fact, she has become pregnant from whoring! Yehuda said: Bring her out and let her be burned! 25 (But) as she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law, saying: By the man to whom these belong I am pregnant.And she said: Pray recognize— whose seal and cords and staff are these? 26 Yehuda recognized them and said: She is in-the-right more than I! For after all, I did not give her to Shela my son! And he did not know her again. Fox, Everett, The Five Books of Moses, (New York: Schocken Books Inc.) © 1995. The Schochen Bible The Genesis of Justice