ToC | Reading the Old Testament. . . Chapter 2. Genesis 12-50 | ToC

     2. Judah and Tamar (38)

With minimal transition the cycle introduces a story of Judah's family. Judah married a Canaanite woman who bore him three sons. His firstborn son, Er, married Tamar, but he died before having any children. According to the Israelite law of levirate marriage (from the Latin levir, meaning "a husband's brother"), the brother of a childless dead man is required to raise children to his dead brother's name by marrying the widow (see Deuteronomy 25:5-10). Judah's second son failed in his responsibility and died for it, and Judah out of fear intentionally withheld his third son.
    Once Tamar realized that Judah would not provide her with a husband surrogate, she devised her own plan. She dressed as a prostitute, perhaps of the type associated with the Canaanite fertility cults of Baal and Asherah. Judah engaged her services one day not knowing he had slept with his daughter-in-law. He left his seal and staff with her in place of the payment he would send later. When he attempted to make payment, the prostitute was nowhere to be found.

Cylinder Seal

Judah left his seal and cord along with his staff as pledge of payment to Tamar for services rendered. The seal referred to in Genesis may have been of the cylinder variety, a unique personal marker carved onto a short stone rod. Such a seal could be rolled in clay to seal a transaction or authenticate a document.

Musée du Louvre, Paris

    Three months later Judah learned that Tamar was pregnant and thought it could only be because she had played the harlot, since he had not provided her a proper husband. Judah decreed that she be burned to death. When Tamar appeared for the execution she produced Judah's seal and staff and said, "Do you recognize these?" Immediately he owned the items along with his responsibility and said, "She is more righteous than I am." Her righteousness was to be found in the duty she performed for her dead husband, to raise up offspring to perpetuate his name, something Judah had failed to accomplish. Tamar gave birth to twins, the younger of whom went on to become an ancestor of David (see Ruth 4:18-21).
    The reason for including this story is difficult to discern. It intersects the encompassing Joseph plot but does not obviously connect. Perhaps because it centers on Judah, later the tribe to become the core of the Davidic kingdom, there was reason enough to retain it. Some authorities have argued for its fittingness in this place on the basis of subtle literary allusions (see Alter 1981). Judah may serve as a foil for Joseph. Judah failed in his responsibility to his son and was exposed because of his sexual desire. Joseph upheld his responsibility to his master, Potiphar, by refusing to give in to the sexual advances of Potiphar's wife.

The literary and linguistic allusions that connect the Judah-Tamar story to the Joseph cycle are in Table 2.E.
ToC | Reading the Old Testament. . . Chapter 2. Genesis 12-50 | ToC