and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

Transcription

1 The Women in the Line of Christ Tamar Tamar is the name of the second of the women in the line of Christ. Although she is more prominent in scripture than Na'amah, her story is usually not really taught because it makes people uncomfortable. Her name means "palm tree." The Bible does not tell us explicitly tell us her racial origin, but since it doesn't, I believe she could well have been descended from the circumcised servants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. [1] She is the first of the four women who are mentioned in the Genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1. Matthew 1:2-3 "Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,--- 1:16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. Tamar was originally the wife of Judah's oldest son Er. In her life, she was first under the curse of finding herself married to an evil man. Then she came under the curse of widowhood. Because of that, she was childless which was a great humiliation for a woman in Israel in that day. Finally she was betrayed by Judah, who did not want to live up to his obligations to her as his son's widow. She had to resort to trickery to get her rights under the Levirate law, and have her children included under the promise to Abraham. As a result she came under the sentence of death for adultery. This was an unpromising beginning, but God has a habit of turning things completely around. Her story is found in Genesis: 1 / 13

2 Genesis 38:1-26 At And it happened in that time, [b] Judah left his brothers [c] and went down to stay with a man of Adullam [d] named Hirah. [e] There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. [f] He married her and lay with her; she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was named Er. [g] She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan. [h] She gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. [i] It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him. Judah got a wife [j] for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the LORD's sight; so the LORD put him to death. Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother." [k] But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. [l] What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also. Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Live as a widow in your father's house [m] until my son Shelah grows up." For he thought, "He may die too, just like his brothers." [n] So Tamar went to live in her father's house. After a long time [o] Judah's wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah, to the men who were shearing his sheep, and his friend (shepherd?) [p] Hirah the Adullamite went with him. When Tamar was told, [q] "Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah [r] to shear his sheep," she took off her widow's clothes, covered herself with a veil to 2 / 13

3 disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, [s] which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife. When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. [t] Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, "Come now, let me sleep with you." "And what will you give me to sleep with you?" she asked. "I'll send you a young goat from my flock," he said. "Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?" she asked. He said, "What pledge should I give you?" "Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand," she answered. So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. After she left, she took off her veil and put on her widow's clothes again. Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from the woman, but he did not find her. He asked the men who lived there, "Where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?" "There hasn't been any shrine prostitute here," they said. So he went back to Judah and said, "I didn't find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, There hasn't been any shrine prostitute here.'" Then Judah said, "Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn't find her." About three months later Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant." Judah said, "Bring her out and have her burned to death!" [u] As she was being brought out, [v] she sent a message to her father-in-law. "I am pregnant by the man who owns these," she said. And she added, "See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are." Judah recognized them and said, "She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn't give her to my son Shelah." And he did not sleep with her again. [w] In the story of Tamar we find the first obvious Levirate birth in the line of Christ in the birth of Tamar's son Perez, the son of Judah. In that passage we can see that the Levirate Law was recognized as the law of Israel even before the Mosaic Law as this account was dated over 400 years before the giving of the Mosaic Law. 3 / 13

4 This raises the question, What is the Levirate Law, and what is its significance? It was a law that was put unto play at least six times in the line of Christ. The Levirate Law was a way in which God ensured that where an Israelite father died childless, thus leaving his family line dead or extinct, it could be restored to life again through a Levirate birth. This Law was a pattern of God's promise to Adam that although his line was dead in sin, it would be brought back to life. Adam and his race were dead as Genesis and Romans attest: Genesis 2:16-17 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Romans 5:14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. Yet even so, God promised to raise a living seed for Adam and Abraham: 4 / 13

5 Romans 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. Romans 15:45 So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. Genesis 22:17-18 I will surely bless you and make your seed [x] as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your seed will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your seed all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." He kept the promise with the birth of Jesus Christ. Again and again in the line of Christ, God used real events as shadow prophecy. In just that way God used this Old Testament law called the Levirate Law in the line of Jesus Christ to prophesy the final "life from death" drama. Although the Levirate Law sounds slightly bizarre to our ears today, it is perfectly logical considering that the most important 5 / 13

6 destiny of the people of Israel was to deliver the promised child, the Seed of the Woman, the Messiah, out of a line of men who were descended from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. It was imperative that no line die out if at all possible. The Levirate Law was a law by which families of Israel might perpetuate the male line and the inheritance of their childless dead by having the widow conceive a child by a close relative called "the Kinsman redeemer." This law was in existence prior to the Law of Moses (our story of Tamar in Genesis 38) and it was also enumerated in that Law (see Deuteronomy 25:6 below). It not only was used a number of times in the line of Christ to perpetuate the line (we will see it next in the story of Ruth), but it is the Divine type of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, by which the dead line of Adam was raised and redeemed after the power of God overshadowed Mary so that she conceived the Son of Man and Son of God. God became our Kinsman-Redeemer. Below you will find the Levirate law as it appears in the Law of Moses: Deuteronomy 25:5 If brothers (close relatives) [y] are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother (kinsman-redeemer) [z] shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law (kinsman-redeemer) [aa] to her. Of course, we must understand that since Israel has fulfilled its destiny of bringing forth the Messiah, the Levirate Law no longer applies. To return to our story of Tamar: although there is much in this story that jars on our present day sensibilities, we cannot fall into the trap of judging the story as if it happened yesterday. It did not happen in the Church age. There was a whole different dynamic going on in God's plan 6 / 13

7 in those days. The age of Israel was just in its second generation, and Israel's destiny as the source of the Messiah was Satan's strongest point of attack. Satan had attacked the promise to Abraham in Esau, who had scorned God's promise to Abraham. Now, he had attacked through the family of Judah. Judah's eldest son was so evil the Lord killed him. His second son was also evil. Evil in this case had to mean they had despised God's promise. Then Judah broke his word to Tamar concerning his youngest son. In the event, Judah then consorted with a woman he thought was a prostitute. Although, at least he was a widower at the time, what he thought he was doing was wrong. However, one thing seems clear, even though Tamar was deceptive in the way she went about it, she, at least could be said to pursuing a higher goal in keeping alive the lines out of which the Messiah might come. To her it was important. Why else would she not have just remarried to another family, instead of the risky course she took? Judah's comment when he discovered the truth is telling. He said "She is more righteous than I." He did not say she was less sinful, but she was more righteous. Why was Tamar more righteous than Judah? What was the true measure of righteousness in Israel? How was Abraham righteous? Genesis 15:5-6 "He (the LORD) took him (Abraham) outside and said, Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them.' Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be.' Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness." In calling Tamar "righteous," Judah was recognizing Tamar's faith and determination to be a part of the Great Promise. To finish the story: Genesis 38:27-30 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet [ bb] thread and tied it on his wrist and said, "This one came out first." But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, "So this is how you have broken out!" And he was named Perez. [cc] Then his brother, who had the scarlet [dd] thread on his wrist, came out and he was given the name Zerah. [ee] As it turned out, her son Perez was the ancestor of both David and "the son of 7 / 13

8 David," Jesus Christ. God was faithful to his promise to raise up the Messiah and He did it through the line of Judah. [ff] He used this method to bypass the evident evil pollution of the Canaanite thinking of Judah's wife Shua, which evidently showed up in her first two sons. This was a rather unconventional Levirate birth, but it perpetuated the line of Christ through the seed of faith. It is a principal reiterated in Scripture that the actual bloodline of the Messiah passed through people of faith (first example - Jacob rather than Esau). Tamar was redeemed from the all the misfortunes of her life by the birth of Perez who became part of the line of the Redeemer. Her life which had seemed meaningless became entered in God's Hall of Fame. She was also redeemed from the sentence of death by the seal and staff that Judah had left her as a pledge. The seal is a type of God's covenant (or promise), and the staff is a type of the Cross. [gg] [a] Genesis 17:10-13 "This is my covenant with you (Abraham) and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner--those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant." [b] Literally, in the Hebrew it reads, "And it happened in that time that Judah." In other words, this move may have begun "in the time that Jacob was living in Hebron." The events recorded in Chapter 38 had played themselves out by the time Jacob moved to Egypt (as evidenced by the fact that when Jacob and his family left for Egypt, the two twin grandsons, Perez and Zerah were with him - Genesis 46:11). This means that from the time of Joseph's disappearance until the departure for Egypt was 22 years. The time from their arrival in Hebron until their departure was about 26 years. The events of Chapter 38 occurred "in that time." [c] It could be inferred that Judah was reacting to the consequences of the episode with Joseph. We can understand that, from that point on, each of the brothers would have had no confidence in the reliability of their brothers. Furthermore, they were all hiding a terrible secret from their father, which had to have destroyed their relationship with him. Perhaps Judah could not stand living in that atmosphere. [d] Adullam was about ten miles to the northwest of Hebron. The name means "retreat" or "refuge." 8 / 13

9 [e] "Hirah" means "noble" or "splendid." Quite possibly Hirah was his shepherd (see also footnote on "her father's house" below), and one of the circumcised servants that had been attached to his family for three generations. [f] Shua means "prosperity." [g] Er means "watcher." [h] Onan means "strong." [i] Shelah means "missile [a weapon], sprout." [j] We may presume that Judah followed the pattern of Abraham and got a "godly" wife for his son. It does not say she was a Canaanite. She is honored by being mentioned in the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1:3. This is in contrast with his own marriage in which he procured his own wife from among the Canaanites. Perhaps he hoped that Tamar would cure the defects in his son, which must already have been apparent. [k] This law would be spelled out in detail in the Levirate law of the Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 25:6), but we have to understand that many of the commands of God's law were known before they were codified for Moses by God in the Torah. A careful study of Genesis and the Book of Job (both before the Law) make that clear. [l] This indicated that Onan had no respect for the laws Judah lived by, nor to the promise that the world would be blessed through the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. [m] Living in her father's house meant she was being supported by him and should have been under her father's authority, not Judah's, and free to remarry. What occurred in the 9 / 13

10 narrative implies that Tamar willingly subscribed to the purpose of the Levirate law, which was to raise up a seed for the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It also might indicate that her father was one of the "circumcised servants" of Judah. These had all been part of the community of Israel since Abraham had circumcised his servants. He may even have been descended from one of Abraham's circumcised servants. [n] In other words, he had no intention of ever allowing Shelah to raise up children for Tamar, but had found a way to avoid the issue. [o] He was married to her from 21 to 26 years (see previous note). [p] The Septuagint and the Vulgate translate this "his shepherd" instead of "his friend." The Hebrew words are very similar in spelling. [q] It could well be that the event occurred like this. Tamar's father (who may have been Judah's servant) was with Judah's herds near Timnah. We know that Tamar lived with him. Word was sent that Judah was coming to inspect the shearing of his herds. Tamar heard, and went half way to intercept Judah. He probably had not seen her for a couple of years, so he did not recognize her voice. [r] Timnah is about 11 miles northeast of Adullam. Timnah means "portion." [s] The Hebrew word µyin±"y[e), a rare dual place name, "Two Eyes." The root of the word has a long and complicated history (KB p. 699). It may mean "spring" (Gen 16:7). Mentioned only in Genesis 38:14, 21, it is treated as a place name in the Rabbinical tradition, LXX, and most VSS, but KJV trs. it as "open place." Located in the high hill country SE of Jerusalem between Adullam and Timnah, a variant of the name, ENAM (q.v.) appears in Joshua 15:34 - The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. [t] Evidence that women in that culture did not ordinarily cover their face. The other time 10 / 13

11 being just before their wedding (see the marriage of Rebekah and Rachel (Genesis 24:65, 29:23-25). [u] Under the Mosaic Law (which was not yet in force - being given about 400 years later), if a priest's daughter was guilty of prostitution, she was to be burned to death (Leviticus 21:9). However, while others engaging in prostitution were considered defiled and detested (Leviticus 21:7, 14, Deuteronomy 23:17-18) there was no punishment prescribed by the Law. [v] Remember, she had been living in her father's house, which was evidently far enough away, that she had time to send a messenger in front of her arrival. [w] Although he obviously publicly acknowledged the boys as his sons. Four hundred plus years later, under the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 20:12), if a man slept with his daughter-in-law, it was a death penalty offense. However, since according to Romans 7:2 the death of the husband releases a woman from the law of marriage, it could be argued that Tamar was no longer Judah's daughter-in-law. Romans 7:2 "For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage." [x] The Hebrew word is [r"z < {zeh' rah} which is in the singular and means "seed" and means one descendant, not many descendants. The apostle Paul in Galatians makes it clear that the singular is important: Galatians 3:16 "The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say and to seeds,' meaning many people, but and to your seed,' meaning one person, who is Christ." [y] The word used here, which is translated "brothers" -.*(! also means close relatives or kin. [z] The Hebrew word here is {yä bäm'} which is a word that only appears in this verse (twice), verse 7 and in Genesis 38:8 (the story of Tamar). It refers to the office of kinsman redeemer. The qualification of a kinsman redeemer is listed in Leviticus 25:49 " An uncle or a cousin or any blood relative in his clan may redeem him." The office of a 11 / 13

12 kinsman-redeemer did three main things. Redeem the land of the family which had fallen into the hands of others, perform the office of avenger of blood (Numbers 35, Deuteronomy 19), or raise up a family for the widow of a kinsman by marrying her. [aa] The Hebrew word here is again {yä bäm'}. See note above. [bb] Scarlet can invoke both the image of blood and of the garments of royalty. [cc] See Micah 2:12-13 to see the significance of Perez' name, who was in the line of Christ. This was the first of five Levirate births recorded in the line of Christ in scripture. The sixth was the birth of Christ himself. [dd] Scarlet is a color which symbolizes both blood, and royalty. [ee] Zerah means "Sunrise," which is prophetic of the second coming. Remember, the Temple faces toward the Sun rising. The Lord will appear in Jerusalem directly to the west of the Temple when His foot touches the Mt. of Olives. Also, Malachi 4:2" But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings." Also Luke 1:78-79 " because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace." The two children seem to be figures of the two advents of Jesus Christ. [ff] Just a few years later God spoke through Jacob and prophesied that very thing: Genesis 49:10 "The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his." [gg] This type is most evident in the staff of Moses. 12 / 13

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