In St. Matthew’s genealogy, we learn that “Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah, Tamar being their mother,” (Mt 1:3). The circumstances of the birth of Perez and Zerah is related in Genesis 38. The promise given to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through him (Gen 18:18) was carried forward by Abraham and his wife Sarah’s child, Isaac. Through Isaac, the promise was carried forward through Isaac’s son Jacob whose name God changed to Israel (Gen 32:23-33). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the three patriarchs of Israel. Judah was one of Jacob’s twelve sons, all of whom were heirs of the promise made to the three patriarchs. “Jews” are descendants of Jacob’s son Judah. 

Judah was living in Canaan with his other brothers, but he moved to southern Canaan and married a Canaanite woman whom we only know as the daughter of Shua. She bore him three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. Judah chose a Canaanite woman named Tamar to be the wife of Er. However, Er offended God greatly in a manner not specified and he died. Judah then told his second son Onan to take Tamar as his wife as specified by the “levirate” law. This law is given in Dt 25:5-10. According to this law, the wife of a brother who dies childless, in this case Tamar, is to marry the younger brother of the dead man. The first child of this union would be considered to be the dead man’s son so that the dead man’s name would not be erased. However, it should be noted that the Mosaic Law originated with Moses at least 450 or 500 year after this time. The levirate law which Judah observed must have been a Mesopotamian custom or tradition. However, Onan also died, and the nature of his sin was specified. Onan “spilt his seed on the ground every time he slept with his brother’s wife, to avoid providing a child for his brother. What he did was offensive to Yahweh, so he brought about his death also.” (Gen 38:9-10) Onan had reason to do this since the child would be the first-born but would not be his child. Why was this “offensive to Yahweh”? Modern theology tells us that his sin was that of not doing his duty to provide an heir for his dead brother. However, was this why Onan’s action was so offensive to God? Onan did not violate the Mosaic Law since that Law came several centuries after his time. Also, according to the Mosaic Law, Onan could decline to take Tamar as his wife. The rejected wife could then spit in the face of the man in the presence of the elders and scold him for not taking her as his wife. (Dt 25:8-10). Onan, however, did take Tamar as his wife and had relations with her, but he did not fulfill an essential purpose of his relations to her. He violated the divinely ordained marriage covenant and surely did greatly offend God.

What Judah did next shows us what the evil one can do when one is motivated by fear. Judah was afraid that Tamar was cursed and that his last son Shelah would also die if he married Tamar. Judah’s wife had also died so Shelah was his last son. Since Shelah was too young to marry Tamar at this time, Judah sent Tamar back to her father’s house until Shelah grew up. However, when Shelah got old enough to marry, Judah still did not give Tamar to him as his wife. He was probably hoping that Tamar would get too old to bear children so that he could find another wife for Shelah. Tamar saw this and realized that she was in a very bad position. She was betrothed to Shelah, just like Mary was betrothed to Joseph, and yet with virtually no hope of having children and carrying on the name of Judah. 

Tamar certainly heard from Judah about the promise made to Judah’s great grandfather, Abraham as well as the promises made to Isaac and Judah’s father Jacob. She also understood that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as the God of Judah, was the real God of Heaven. She wanted to be part of the promise. She had a plan, but she also needed the help of the God of Heaven to carry it out. He did help her. She learned that Judah was to travel along a certain road for the shearing of his sheep. She took off her widow’s clothes, put a veil on her face and dressed as a “sacred prostitute”. Sacred prostitutes were associated with pagan temples and in theory were supposed to help men to attain religious ecstasy. Of course, they expected to be paid for their services. Hundreds of years later this practice was condemned by the Mosaic Law; however, in the pagan Canaanite culture it was acceptable. She met Judah on the road, and he asked her to sleep with him, not knowing it was Tamar. We should not condemn Judah for this since this happened long before the Mosaic Law and the culture was pagan. She naturally wanted payment for her services. Judah offered her a kid from his flock, and Tamar accepted the offer, but she also wanted some security until he could send the kid to her. She asked for his seal, cord, and walking stick, and he gave them to her. These were items which definitely belonged to Judah. After she slept with Judah, Tamar left Judah, went back to her father’s house, and returned to being a widow. 

When Judah sent his friend to bring the kid to the “prostitute” by the roadside, his friend could not find her, and he learned that there never was a prostitute stationed in that place. After three months, Judah learned that his daughter-in-law, Tamar, was pregnant. Judah demanded that she be burned since adultery was condemned in pagan culture as well as in his own culture. Judah’s behavior contrasts sharply with that of St. Joseph who just wanted to quietly divorce Mary when he learned she was pregnant. Of course, Judah wanted Tamar out of the way so that he could give his last son Shelah to another woman. When Tamar was being led off to be burned, she sent back to Judah his seal, cord, and walking stick, saying that they belonged to the man who made her pregnant. When Judah saw that these things whichTamar sent to him were his, he said, “She is in the right rather than I. This comes of my not giving her to my son Shelah to be his wife.” He had no further intercourse with her. (Gen 38:26). Tamar had twins, named Perez and Zerah. Perez was the ancestor of David (Rt 4:18-22), all the kings of Judah, and ultimately of Jesus Christ (Mt 1:1-16) (Lk 3:23-38). Although Tamar never was Judah’s wife, he surely supported her and his sons and took them to Egypt when there was famine in Canaan (Gen 46:6-7,12). 

The Tamar episode points out a sharp contrast between the Bible and modern secular mentality. The encounter between Judah and the “sacred prostitute” Tamar was culturally acceptable at that time and was only condemned in Israel hundreds of years later with the Mosaic Law. Tamar was praised in the later historical book of Ruth (Rt 4:12) and was specifically mentioned as an ancestor of Jesus Christ (Mt 1:3). In our atheistic secular culture, what is acceptable behavior constantly changes according to the shifting political winds. Many people have been publicly disgraced for acting in a way which only a few years earlier was quite acceptable. Many revered figures from the past have been cast aside (cancelled) because what they believed or did does not conform to contemporary norms. The Bible is more “open minded” than our secular culture. 

Tamar must have had faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in order to carry out her “plan”. How did she know that Judah would even ask her to sleep with him or even that she would be pregnant from the encounter with Judah? She went to great lengths to carry on the name of a man (Judah) who did not treat her very well. How did Tamar know that over seven hundred years in the future she would be a female ancestor, the first non-Mesopotamian female ancestor, of the greatest king of Israel (David) and later Christ the King of the Universe? A genealogy of David in the book of Ruth lists Tamar’s son Perez at the start of the list (Rt 4:18-22). Tamar was one of the many “pagans” in the Old Testament who have shown extraordinary faith in the God of Israel. Pope Benedict asks “Why do these women appear in the genealogy? By what criterion are they chosen?” Perhaps we can see why Tamar was chosen. – Jim Nugent,CFP