Genesis 38

Where did Jesus come from? That story is very complex. Jesus is and always has been the Word, the eternal Son of God. But in the fullness of time, the Word became flesh. In His human nature He had a heritage. Part of that heritage goes back to Jacob's son Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar. Mary, the mother of our Lord, came from the tribe of Judah.

The tribe of Judah would be the tribe of kings. They were a very fruitful and important tribe, but the beginnings of the tribe, described in Genesis 38, were not particularly promising. Judah became connected with a Canaanite woman who bore him three sons, two of whom died long before their time.

These two sons were judged directly by God. They were wicked, and the Lord put them to death. The wife of the oldest was a woman named Tamar. When her husband died, by Judah's direction, the second son took the place of the first son in order to produce offspring with Tamar in his brother's name. When that second son also died, Judah promised to give his youngest son to Tamar in due time. However, he was quite unwilling to keep his promise. This is the sad beginning of the line of Judah: Three sons, two of whom died, leaving him with one younger boy and a daughter-in-law who had no children. Judah had determined to ignore that daughter-in-law, Tamar, in her misery and loneliness.

Tamar had another plan. After the death of the Canaanite woman by whom Judah had the three boys, Judah eventually came to a town to sheer his sheep. He found a woman there who seemed to be a prostitute. Little did he know that the woman that he had relations with was Tamar, who was not content to be abandoned and ignored by her father-in-law. Tamar became pregnant by Judah without Judah knowing that it was her.

When it became known that Tamar was pregnant, her presumed intimate actions were considered scandalous. When Judah heard about it he commanded that she be burned to death. She came to him personally with the proof that the father of her child was none other than Judah himself. She had his signet, his cord, and his staff which she had kept as a pledge for a future payment when she was posing as a prostitute with her head veiled so that Judah did not recognize her. She said to him, “By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant.”

Judah was convicted by what Tamar had done. He said, “She is more righteous than I,” since he had not given his youngest son to her as he had promised.

This story is in the heritage of all the kings of Judah and is part of the account that ultimately leads to the birth of Jesus Christ many centuries later.

The story of the line of Judah is a story of death, and not accidental death, but the loss of the lives of two men by the direct judgment of God. Two of the three sons of Judah were deemed to be so wicked that they should not live another day. It is hard to think of a providence more distressing than that in the life of any father.

Yet the story does get worse. It includes the record of Judah's entrapment by a woman he supposes to be a prostitute. This is a very embarrassing way to continue the account of what will be the tribe of kings. The patriarch of the clan went into his daughter-in-law as she was posing as a prostitute.

We are tempted to think that nothing good could come from such a beginning, but we need to find a way to celebrate the gift of life under even the most challenging circumstances. The problem is our sin, not the child that may come from that sin. The child is always a gift of God.

In this case there was more than one child. Tamar had twins, Perez and Zerah. Those two boys had such a fruitful heritage that the tribe of Judah, despite its very modest start, became one of the biggest tribes among all the clans of Israel. When Ruth and Boaz married many years later, the people of Bethlehem gave these words of blessing concerning their union: “May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem, and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.”

What had been a story of shame, by God's grace had become a blessing to be desired by others seeking the Lord's favor. How much more blessed was the union of Judah and Tamar when we consider that the Messiah came through this tribe.

God is able to put to death the wicked in a moment. This we must acknowledge with great sadness, recognizing what we ourselves deserve because of our sin. But the Lord is also able to bring His Son into the world through humble people who are counted as nothing by those who would presume to judge every baby to be worthy or unworthy. The Lord is God, and He has saved us through Jesus of Nazareth, a descendant of Judah through Tamar.