[This was first posted in September 2012; there is no change in the original article, we are simply replacing the former translation with a more recent one: The Five Books of Moses by Everett Fox. This is a free download from the publisher Shocken Books, check this link:
http://toby.weebly.com/uploads/2/7/4/8/2748917/everett_foxxstorah.pdf.–
–Admin1.]
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As the previous chapter closes, the plot in the Joseph story has just thickened; one would expect its continuing build-up in this next chapter, instead the suspense is put on hold because out of the blue, this anti-climactic interlude about another son of Jacob veers off to another direction. Why? Could this story not have been inserted before the Joseph story? After all according to Torah for Dummies’ a rule of thumb for reading the TNK is:
”There is no earlier or later in the Torah.”
. . . the Torah isn’t a historical narration and isn’t in chronological order.
The text does say “at that time” and if its placement is the Joseph narrative, then that’s where it belongs chronologically. Except for the interruption, what does it matter if we are introduced to a phase in the life of Judah, 4th son of Jacob with Leah, from whom will descend the tribe of Judah. There will be many significant connections to that tribal name the discussion of which we will postpone for later articles; for now, we confine our thinking only to what the narrative says, that’s the whole point of rereading with all previous orientations, presuppositions and brainwashing erased!
We learned earlier about the patriarch Abraham’s preference that a wife for Isaac not be taken from among the Canaanite women so he ends up with Rebecca, daughter of Bethuel, sister of Laban. Jacob also seeks a wife from Abraham’s kin and ends up with Laban’s 2 daughters. Esau initially did take wives from Canaanite women until he heard Isaac’s preference for Jacob, and he goes to the tribe of Ishmael for his next wife. We read without judgment upon the practice of having multiple wives in the patriarchal families only because it was normal for the culture of those times. Monotheism was just beginning to be introduced in polytheistic religious settings, monogamy had not been prescribed in polygamous patriarchal societies.
The next generation, the 12 sons of Jacob, could not have been told about any prohibition regarding intermarrying with women from among the Canaanites; there would have been none then and 2 patriarchs’ preference is not yet law nor tradition. So Judah takes a wife–nameless daughter of Shua—from among the Canaanites and she bears him 3 sons:
- Er
- Onan
- Shelah
This story of Judah and his sons might be unsettling in our times when birth control opened a Pandora’s box of women’s issues, the discussion of which we will save for another article. For now, be aware of a natural way of birth control which is introduced in this chapter.
It is one thing to read in Scripture that Judah’s first 2 sons “died” but it is another to read that God killed both sons. Yes we could attribute command responsibility to the Creator of all living things and the source of all life knowing that once we are born, we are programmed to die and whatever causes our death, whether accident, sickness, or old age, that is only natural for all living creatures. So yes, in this sense God could be blamed for anyone’s death but that is not what is suggested here.
The Judah story relates that Er the eldest died because he was “wicked”; what constitutes “wicked” or “evil” seems to be associated with the practices of Canaanites, we can only deduce that much.
It is the custom that a brother marry the widow of his deceased brother so middle son Onan had to marry his brother’s widow Tamar; his sin is refusing to impregnate her by spilling his semen on the ground, probably the first mention of this method of birth control in the bible; “onanism” which the dictionary defines as masturbation/coitus interruptus. Does this mean that God does not allow birth control and considers it a sin? Or that sex is only for procreation? Or is the message here about something else? We’ll leave that up to the reader to decide because we’re clueless at this point; the consequence for Onan is — God gets him out of the picture too.
So the 3rd son is supposed to be the next to pick up where the 2 brothers left off, but that does not happen because Judah has already lost 2 sons in connection with Tamar . . . which leaves the widow Tamar to her own devices to ensure she conceives a child from her husband’s line. This is yet another story of deception, this time perpetrated upon Judah who will later be the son to tell Jacob the made-up story about Joseph. So, the Judah interlude with Tamar is fitting after all in the continuing theme of deception in the family of this 3rd patriarch.
NSB@S6K
Image from doubleportioninheritance.blogspot.com
Genesis/Bereshith 38
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.
5 Once again she bore a son, and she called his name: Shela.
Now he was in Ceziv when she bore him.
6 Yehuda took a wife for Er, his firstborn-her name was Tamar.
7 But Er, Yehuda’s firstborn, did ill in the eyes of YHVH, and
YHVH caused him to die.
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.
10 What he did was ill in the eyes of YHVH,
and he caused him to die as well.
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.
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.
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.
27 Now it was, at the time of her birthing, that here: twins were in her body!
28 And it was, as she was giving birth, that (one of them) put out a hand;
the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying: This one came out first.
29 But it was, as he pulled back his hand, here, his brother came out! So she said:
What a breach you have breached for yourself!
So they called his name: Peretz/Breach.
30 Afterward his brother came out, on whose hand was the scarlet thread.
They called his name: Zerah.
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