Judah & Tamar 3 - Genesis 38:20-30

38:20-30 - The terms of Judah's arrangement with the prostitute he had sex without without seeing her face as to recognize her as his daughter in law, was that he pay her a "kid" which is a baby goat I think, but he had to go get the kid from the field, so he left some of his identifiable personal affects with her as collateral. After he has sex with her, he doesn't even take the kid to her himself, he sends his friend "the Adullamite" to find "the harlot, that was openly by the way side." He didn't see her where Judah said she would be, so he asks around the people there and they all answer, "there was no harlot in this place."

the friend returns to Judah saying, "I cannot find her; and also the men of the place said, that there was no harlot in this place." Judah basicall says, "no worries, don't sweat it, I tried to pay her but it just didn't work out, let's not make a big deal about this." I'm so glad that he is so ok with the situation.

Here's where the show gets on the road, several months after Judah's encounter with the harlot, he probably hasn't even given it a second thought, but he finds out that Tamar is pregnant "with child by whoredom." The stance here is I can have sex with whoever I want but don't you dare have a woman who is under my control disrespect me by having sex with someone else. Regardless of the people involved, this is not a unique opinion to have, it's quite common among people today, even among women demonizing other women. My question is, if men think they can be as free sexually as they want, unless that unfettered sex is with other men, who exactly do they think will be available to them for sex if all the women adhered to their hypocritical standard? Slut shame a woman all you want, but unless she was with another woman, at least half that blame lies with a man.

Judah finds out Tamar is pregnant, and loses his mind, demanding, "bring her forth, and let her be burnt." I think I like this story because the hypocrisy is just so blatant, like it doesn't even try to hide Judah being a little rat. Tamar shows up and lo and behold she has the trinkets that identify the father of her baby, and wouldn't you know it, but it's Judah's stuff, the signet, bracelets, and staff. Judah thinks, "well crap," acknowledges these items as being his and laments "She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more."

It might seem counter-intuitive to associate the word "righteous" with the act of prostitution, but I think there's a lot to think about here. Tamar must have seen this as her opportunity to save her own life, because with Judah basically abandoning her, and surely her own father was getting older or had died by that point, she had nothing, she would have had to rely on the charity and kindness of others, and when life is survival, charity and kindness to others is in direct opposition to you own survival, so it might be pretty hard to come by. I'm going to have to think about this concept of prostitution as righteousness because I think there is a deeper message and stronger ties to the plight of women in this life, but I don't know what it is yet.

Tamar had really put all her eggs in this one basket, hoping that after one single sexual encounter that she would become pregnant by Judah. I know that Jesus is born in the lineage of Judah through Tamar so I guess my theory isn't valid here, but if we didn't have this piece of information, I would think that maybe Tamar had been in a relationship with someone else and had become pregnant and knew that she would be killed if she had been having an affair, so used this one sexual encounter with Judah to ensure that he thought he was the father, saving both her life and the child's.

Maybe it's because I have worked in women's health for so long, but becoming pregnant after one sexual encounter isn't statistically common enough for me to put all my survival eggs in that basket. Don't get me wrong, it happens, especially to teenagers, but it's not as straightforward as 1 sex = 1 pregnancy. I guess I mean to say, I wonder what Tamar's back up plan was. But yeah, when thinking this through, before checking to see exactly what it said as far as Judah and Tamar being in Jesus' lineage, I for sure thought that she had gotten pregnant by someone else and wanted to cover her own butt here. Interestingly, I think it's more common for a woman to become pregnant by her affair partner and pin it on another guy than it is to become pregnant after a single sexual encounter. That being said, even if Tamar was already pregnant with another man's baby, if Judah was convinced that he was the father, legally, they would have been his children, and therefore still in Jesus' lineage, not biologically but legally for sure. That's an interesting idea.

Tamar's luck continues with not only getting pregnant on the first try but also having two babies instead of just one. In an unlikely and painful turn of events, while laboring, when it was time to be born, one baby presented hand first and the midwife "took and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, saying, This came out first." But instead of deliverin the whole baby, the hand wearing the scarlet thread withdrew back up inside of Tamar's uterus, and the other baby was born first, and they named that baby "Pharez" or as he is called in Matthew "Perez," this is the one who's lineage Jesus came from. Then the second baby is delivered and named "Zarah" but this baby is considered the first born because his hand came out first and he had the scarlet thread on it.

I'm imagine how all this works with amniotic sacs and placentas and twins and all the mess that goes into the birthing process and wonder how it is possible that a baby's hand withdrew back up into the uterus and then the other baby was born first. Seems unlikely. Anyway, this whole situation is a mess and really makes me not like Judah either and feel bad for women throughout human history.

Finally, I really liked something I read at the end of an article that discussed the situation of Tamar, saying, "Throughout scripture, God chooses the weak, the desparate, the brave, the messed up, the least, and the hopeful to bring about a glorious restoration. He examined the motives of Tamar and blessed her by choosing her to be a part of a greater storyline. The lineage of Jesus carries on through Perez, the son she bore to Judah."