A Closer Look at Tamar

My Bible study this semester on the book Lost Women of the Bible has been interesting, learning about the cultural backgrounds and putting oneself in the shoes of biblical women (for lack of a better description!). The women in my Bible study group aren't shy about speaking up, which makes for lively discussion.

This week's chapter on Tamar fostered some interesting conversations, especially since Tamar is usually held up as a model of what NOT to do. When we think about Tamar, we usually think "prostitute." But Matthew's genealogy of Jesus includes only 4 women, one of whom is Tamar - and all of whom were "four Gentiles best known for their sexual escapades," as author Carolyn Custis James says. Why mention them in the lineage of Jesus? Why not include the great matriarchs like Sarah or Rebekah? In the rest of the chapter, James answers that question regarding Tamar.

Reading and discussing this chapter shed light in three areas for me. The first was a cultural understanding of the marriage and inheritance customs of the time. Tamar's first husband, Judah's oldest son, died (technically, was so wicked, God struck him dead - a coincidence his name was Er?).

Custom said for her to marry the next son, Onan, in order to carry on Er's line and pass the dead man's inheritance to a son. Next-in-line Onan, who obediently married Tamar, was not so obedient in the mandate to bear a son for his dead brother. The Bible doesn't really explain WHY Onan did what he did (or, rather, what he didn't do...); it gives the fact that Onan knew the child wouldn't be "his offspring" and records Onan's punishment. Really, Onan, was it such an odious task?

However, James explains that according to the inheritance laws of the time (I'll skip the math) Onan was going to inherit even more than what Er would have inherited as the eldest son. BUT if Onan and Tamar produced a son, the son would inherit Er's share, leaving Onan with his original small portion. (James also points out some other risks that Onan might have considered.) Instead of full obedience, Onan chose the route of selfishness and greed - and he paid the consequences.

James writes, "The stakes were high. It required extraordinary sacrifice that modern readers don't naturally appreciate, but God routinely calls his people to make sacrifices for one another. Sacrifice for the good of others comes with being his image bearer."

And that's the second idea - not that I didn't "know" that, but just being reminded in a fresh way that God expects us to sacrifice, and it's not easy. We forget what sacrifice means: "the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim." Something prized or desirable - like our will and our plans. James highlights that a lost lesson we can learn from Tamar's story is that of sacrifice.

The third aspect that stood out while reading this chapter was a reminder to look at the big picture. What is really going on here? James describes how the tale of Judah and Tamar appears in the midst of the chapters about Joseph, when the reader is impatient to find out what happens to Joseph in Egypt. An odd spot to throw in a seemingly random story about one of Joseph's brothers.

But the story about Tamar is also the story of Judah. He led the brothers in selling Joseph as a slave (Genesis 37:23-27), and James describes his continued fall: Judah "migrated into Canaanite territory. He lived among Canaanites, forged alliances with Canaanites, married a Canaanite woman, and ultimately started behaving like one. ... He seemed indifferent to his wicked sons...."

However, Judah's encounter with Tamar shook him up - and turned him around. Later, after Judah has reunited with his brothers and they leave to find food in Egypt, their meeting with Joseph reveals that Judah is a changed man. Judah offers himself as a slave to Joseph, to take Benjamin's place, and it was by this act that Joseph knew his brothers had changed.

Upon Tamar's shocking and public revelation that he is the father of her child, Judah finally repents of his actions and acknowledges, "She is more righteous than I." He had told Tamar that she could marry his youngest son and didn't fulfill the obligation; he didn't work to carry on his oldest son's name and therefore devalued the line of Abraham and God's promise; he left Tamar waiting in disgrace at her father's house; he sought out and slept with what he thought was a prostitute. (James points out, why else would Tamar think such a scheme as pretending to be a prostitute would work? Because she knew Judah's character, and he didn't even waste time on small talk.)

There is more discussion on this in the book, but James provides background and insight into Genesis 38 that offers additional - positive - lessons that can be learned from Tamar's story.

James also addresses the legacy that Tamar leaves behind at other points in the Bible:

When Boaz (a man of impeccable character and a direct descendant of Judah) took Ruth to be his wife, the elders of Bethlehem honored their union with a heartfelt blessing for Boaz that ended, 'May your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah' (Ruth 4:12, emphasis added). If Tamar is some scandalous skeleton in the family closet, why would anyone bring her up on a holy occasion like this? One would think that this was the height of bad taste and an embarrassment to the family. Yet Tamar is named without apology in a statement intended to honor the bride and groom.

Add to this the fact that just a few generations later, her name resurfaced twice when King David and his son Absalom both named their beautiful daughters after their great-great-grandmother Tamar (2 Samuel 13:1; 14:27), a fact all the more puzzling because back then a name was more than a label. It represented a person's character and destiny.

While I still can't figure out how Tamar's particular action was "righteous," I do have a deeper understanding of her motives and the story itself. Judah wasn't walking with God, and God worked his redemption through Tamar.