Genesis
38 - Judah marries Shua (a Canaanite) and has three
sons: Er, Onan and Shelah. When he grows up, Er is married to a woman named Tamar but dies with no heir; so
Onan is asked to fill his role (with Tamar) and give Er sons, but he dies too
after “wasting” his seed in his intercourse with her. The section ends with
this – “[T]he Lord considered it evil for Onan to deny a child to his dead
brother. So the Lord took Onan’s life, too” (38:10).
To me this is really good proof
that the writers of the biblical narrative are not just writing “from the
Spirit of God” but from their own particular culture and time. This practice of
a widow marrying her deceased husband’s brother was a “Levirate” custom – the
term comes from the Latin word levir (“husband’s brother”). The custom is still
apparently still practiced in the world today in places where secure passage of
land from generation to generation of a patriarchal clan is important. In
Hebrew history, the practice was mandated by Deuteronomy 25:5-6. There were
other parts of the law that prohibited a man from marrying his brother’s wife
(Leviticus 18:16).
Judah wants Tamar to “remain a widow until my
son Shelah is old enough to marry” her (38:11). A sentence is added to the text
here indicating that Judah didn’ t REALLY intend to marry his last surviving
son to Tamar. His failure to go ahead with the custom
will be the engine behind what happens later in the story.
When the time comes (and goes) that Shelah is
old enough to be married to Tamar, she plots to bring havoc down on Judah. She
pretends to be a cult prostitute and sits herself by the road; when Judah comes
along one day, she conceals her identity and convinces him to have intercourse
with her, and this time, she does get impregnated.
When Judah learns that Tamar has “acted like a
prostitute” and become pregnant, he sets out to have her burned (38:24). But
she communicates that it was he who made her pregnant and because she has
proof, Judah acknowledges that she is “more righteous than [he] is” (38:26). He should have gone ahead with the last
marriage she was entitled to, but he had not.
Tamar gives birth to twins: Perez and Zerah
and the story of their birth also is given is some detail. “While she was in
labor, one of the babies reached out his hand. The midwife grabbed it and tied
a scarlet string around the child’s wrist, announcing, ‘This one came out
first.’ But then he pulled back his hand, and out came his brother! ‘What!’ the
midwife exclaimed. ‘How did you break out first?’ So he was named Perez. Then
the baby with the scarlet string on his wrist was born, and he was named Zerah”
(38:28-30).
The reason the story is important
is because Perez is part of the genealogy of King David. Tamar
is one of three women mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy too (Matt 1). Also Judah’s repentance to Tamar is
part of his rehabilitation.
The Epistles of Ignatius
7 – But
“there are some people who persistently bandy
the Name about with the grossest hypocrisy, besides behaving in a number of
other ways that do no credit to God. You must keep away from these men as
you would from a pack of savage animals; they are rabid curs who snap at people
unawares, and you need to be on your guard against their bites, because they
are by no means easy to heal” (63).
“There
is only one Physician – Very Flesh, yet Spirit too; Uncreated, and yet born;
God-and-Man in One agreed, Very-Life-in-Death indeed, Fruit of God and Mary’s
seed; at once impassible and torn by pain and suffering here below: Jesus
Christ, whom as our Lord we know” (63). A note
here indicates that this passage’s rhythmic qualities may have been part of an
early Christian hymn.
8 – “So long
as there are no deep-seated differences among you, of a kind that could do
serious harm, your manner of life is just as God would have it. . . .with you,
even what you do in the flesh is spiritual, for your actions are all done in
Jesus Christ” (63).
9 – He does worry, however, for he’s heard
that men have visited them from elsewhere and that the teaching of these men is
“pernicious” (63). But they did not open
their ears to what it was these men taught. He describes their deafness to the pernicious teachings as a
great thing:
“Deaf as stones you were: yes, stones for the
Father’s Temple, stones trimmed ready for
God to build with, hoisted up by the derrick of Jesus Christ (the Cross) with
the Holy Spirit for a cable; your faith being the winch that draws you to God,
up the ramp of love” (63). Great imagery in this man’s writing – first the “symphony of minds” he
discussed earlier and now the Holy Spirit as a “cable” and faith the “winch
that draws you to God, up the ramp of love.”
They are all pilgrims carrying “sacred treasures on your
shoulders” and you are “arrayed in the festal garments
of the commandments of Jesus Christ” (64). Here, the
editor notes that Ignatius is referring to and co-opting an image that would have been very familiar to Ephesians of
that time. Pagan worshippers used to parade in such fancy garments
along the streets carrying statues of the god and “precious objects” from the
temple of Artemis (67). Now the precious objects carried must be “your
God and your shrine and your Christ” and the “sacred treasures” of Jesus’ words
that we carry in our hearts (63-64). Ignatius says he joins them in their
“jubilations” (64).
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