Genesis 38:11

Gen 38:11 Then said Judah to Tamar his daughter in law, Remain a widow at thy father’s house, till Shelah my son be grown: for he said, Lest peradventure he die also, as his brethren [did]. And Tamar went and dwelt in her father’s house.

Ver. 11. Lest peradventure he die also, &c.] Judah lays the fault all on her, whereas it was in his sons. Sarah, on the other side, blamed herself only for barrenness. {Gen 16:2} "Judge not, that ye be not judged": but "if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged." In judging of the cause of our crosses, we are oft as far out as she was, that laid the death of her child to the presence of the good prophet.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gen_38:11-30

Tamar

Lessons

1.

Sinful hearts when they suffer from Gods hand are apt to vent it upon creatures.

2. Carnal relations grow quickly weary of showing kindness when their aims are crossed by God.

3. Hard fathers-in-law, for their own ends, spare not to lay the hardest terms upon allies.

4. Such oppressors deal subtilly, though cruelly; they pretend fair at least.

5. Wicked hearts are apt to be jealous, and transfer faults and ill successes to others that are innocent.

6. Sinful fathers are willing to save children from death, but take bad ways to do it.

7. Widowhood is a solitary condition that binds souls to sit at home.

8. God overruling, natural hearts may be content to submit to hard injunctions from others when they cannot help it. So it was with Tamar when Judah layeth hard injunctions on her (Gen_38:11). (G. Hughes, B. D.)

Lessons

1. Injuries to daughters-in-law God may repay upon mens wives.

2. Days may seem many before Gods visit, but visitation will come for sin.

3. God may make death to be a just recompense of mens hard dealings.

4. Vain and sinful hearts are soon comforted after the death of wives.

5. Comforts carnal hearts do seek by fleshly feasting and employments.

6. Bad companions and opportune places bad hearts delight in to enjoy their lusts (Gen_38:12). (G. Hughes, B. D.)

Lessons

1. A lustful eye will quickly turn the foot out of the way to sin. Connection (Gen_38:15).

2. Men of lustful hearts turn of their own accord to evil with others without invitation.

3. Digression from mens lawful way tends to transgression against God and man.

4. Lust is a hard solicitor for its unclean enjoyments.

5. Lust runs blindfold even to defile near relations, and enquireth not.

6. Sometimes lust is put to it to pay a price for its pleasure. The whorish custom (Gen_38:16).

7. Unclean persons stick not to lessen their flock for increase of lust, so of estates.

8. Adulterous spirits are not credible with their own paramours; a price or pledge must be given (Gen_38:17).

9. Wicked hearts stick not at pledge or price unto whorish women for enjoying lust.

10. Unclean creatures are subtle to have a great pledge for a small price.

11. Be it ever so great, lust will give it to the whorish woman for its pleasure.

12. Blind lust doth not only solicit but violate nearest relations when it can.

13. Providence denieth not conception sometimes to the most incestuous mixtures of men and women.

14. It is the order of providence that conception should be for Judah as well as by him (Gen_38:18). (G. Hughes, B. D.)

Lessons

1. Sinful lust, when its turn is served, makes out of sight speedily.

2. Guile and deceit are usual adjuncts to lust of uncleanness.

3. Guileful harlots stay not long in common places, where they may be discovered.

4. Lust teacheth souls to put off, and to put on, any signals which might either discover or conceal them (Gen_38:19). (G. Hughes, B. D.)

Lessons

1. Pawns may make naughty hearts careful to pay their debts for sin.

2. Wicked affairs are best trusted to hands of wicked friends.

3. Payment of debts by sinners is accounted just to take up pawns.

4. It is no rare thing for partners in sin to deceive each other; to get out of the way when they should be found.

5. Under Providence the debt of lust is not always paid, nor the pawn of iniquity restored (Gen_38:20).

6. Sinners are diligent to inquire about their sinful affairs.

7. Sinners are impudent to ask openly after harlots in the high way; to bewray the worst matter.

8. Under wife providence, such inquisitors have an answer of frustration (Gen_38:21).

9. The trustiest messengers of sinners may return bootless to such as send them.

10. Objects of uncleanness maybe found to ensnare persons to sin, but not to satisfy demands.

11. God sometimes ordereth the frustration, of sinners with a witness (Gen_38:22).

12. By patience perforce, unclean sinners may be content to sit down with loss.

13. Fear of shame and reproach make sinners willing to be losers.

14. Uncleanness is a reproachful thing in the account of the worst adulterers.

15. A self-conceit of having done their duties make wicked ones sometimes content to sit down losers (Gen_38:23). (G. Hughes, B. D.)

Lessons

1. There is a season of bearing ordered by Providence and to be observed Ecc_3:2).

2. Providence may order abundant fruitfulness unto incestuous mixtures. Twins to incest (verse 27).

3. God sometimes returneth unto unclean conceptions bitter travails.

4. Cross coming of children to birth is Gods ordering to mind of sin sometimes.

5. Creatures may be deceived in marking that for first which cometh last (verse 28).

6. It is Gods prerogative to make first and last in births, and other conditions.

7. Even in the fruit of the womb God makes one child retreat that the other may come forth.

8. The breaking out of the fruit of the womb is sometimes wonderful to creatures.

9. The wonders of God are reasonably prepetuated in the very names of children (verse 29).

10. The first in mans thoughts is many times last in Gods.

11. Safe births are great mercies, whether first or last; all come forth under providence.

12. Such mercies should be made known in the very names and beings of creatures (verse 30). (G. Hughes, B. D.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gen 38:11. Remain a widow till Shelah my son be grown — The contract of marriage, it seems, was so understood, even before any positive law was made on the subject, that, if the husband died without any issue, his next brother was to marry his wife, and as long as any of his brethren remained they were bound to marry her, if left a widow. Accordingly Shelah, the third son, was reserved for Tamar, yet with design that he should not marry so young as his brothers had done. For it would seem from Judah’s expression, Lest peradventure he die also, that he thought marrying too young was the cause of their death; though some consider his conduct as an evidence that he never intended to give his son to her.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

38:11 Judah is now presented as the model for his sons’ behavior—he, too, was unfaithful to his levirate responsibility to Tamar as next kinsman (see study note on 38:8). Judah and his sons were far too Canaanite in their ways (see study note on 38:27-30; contrast Boaz, Ruth 3–4).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

For she could not marry in any other family so long as Judah would retain her in his.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

11. Then said Judah to Tamar. Moses intimates that Tamar was not at liberty to marry into another family, so long as Judah wished to retain her under his own authority. It is possible that she voluntarily submitted herself to the will of her father-in-law, when she might have refused: but the language seems to mean, that it was according to a received practice, that Tamar should not pass over to another family, except at the will of her father-in-law, as long as there was a successor who might raise up seed by her. However this may be, Judah acted very unjustly in keeping one bound, whom he intended to defraud. For truly there was no cause why he should be unwilling to allow her to depart free from his house, unless he dreaded the charge of inconstancy. But he should not have allowed this ambitious sense of shame to render him perfidious and cruel to his daughter-in-law. Besides, this injury sprung from a wrong judgment: because, without considering the causes of the death of his sons, he falsely and unjustly transfers the blame to an innocent woman. He believes the marriage with Tamar to have been an unhappy one; why therefore does he not, for his own sake, permit her to seek a husband elsewhere? But in this also he does wrong, that whereas the cause of his sons’ destruction was their own wickedness, he judges unfavorably of Tamar herself, to whom no evil could be imputed. Let us then learn from this example, whenever anything adverse happens to us, not to transfer the blame to another, nor to gather from all quarters doubtful suspicions, but to shake off our own sins. We must also beware lest a foolish shame should so prevail over us, that while we endeavor to preserve our reputation uninjured among men, we should not be equally careful to maintain a good conscience before God.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(11) For he said, lest he also die.—It is evident from this that Judah, for reasons which, in Gen_38:26, he acknowledged to be insufficient, wished to evade the duty of giving a third son to Tamar. It does not follow that he blamed her for their deaths; for the loss of two sons in succession might well frighten him. Philippsohn says that it became the rule, that if a woman lost two husbands, the third brother was not bound to marry her, and she was even called Katlannith. the murderess. (But see St. Mat_22:25-26, where no such custom is acknowledged.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

11. in thy father’s house] A widow without children went back to her father’s family; cf. Lev_22:13; Rth_1:8. A widow with children remained in the family of her husband, and under its protection. Judah evidently believes that the deaths of Er and Onan are somehow due to Tamar. Rather, then, than subject his youngest son Shelah to the risk of a similar fate, he sends Tamar back to her own people, on the pretext that Shelah is too young at present to perform the levirate duty. Compare the story in Tobit 3, where Sarah’s seven husbands are cut off in succession.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And in process of time the daughter of Shuah, Judah's wife,

died,.... Shuah was his wife's father, who was a Canaanite, Gen 38:2; what her name was is not certain, nor the exact time of her death; it was some time after Tamar was sent home to her father's house; and some take the death of Judah's wife to be a correction and reproof to him for his ill usage of his daughter-in-law, in neglecting to give her to his son, or not designing to do it at all:

and Judah was comforted: he mourned awhile for the death of his wife, according to the custom of the country, and of those times, and then he laid aside the tokens of it, and his sorrow wore off, and he appeared in company and conversed with his friends:

and went up unto his sheepshearers to Timnath; a city in the tribe of Judah, Jos 15:57, said (s) to be six miles from Adullam, where Judah lived; here he had his flocks of sheep, at least this was judged a proper place for the shearing and washing of them, and this time of the year a proper time for it, at which it was usual to have a feast; and Judah went up to his shearers, not only to see how they went on with their work, but with this view to make an entertainment for them, see Sa1 25:3,

he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite; he took him along with him for a companion, and to partake of the entertainment.

(s) Bunting's Travels, p. 78.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Till. Juda had no design to give her to Sela, as the custom of that age required. (Calmet) --- She waited patiently for a time; when, perceiving that she was neglected, she devised a wicked scheme to punish Juda, even at the hazard of her own life. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

At thy father’s house, whither he sent her from his house, that Shelah might not be insnared by her presence and conversation. So he dismissed her with a pretence of kindness, and a tacit promise of marriage to her, which he never intended to keep, as the following words imply; for he said; or rather, but he said; for the Hebrew chi oft signifies but, as Gen 45:8; Psa 37:20; Ecc 2:10; 6:2. So here is an opposition between what he said to Tamar, and what he said to himself, or in his own heart, as that word said is oft used: he intimated to her that he would give Shelah to her, but he meant otherwise, and said in himself, I will not do it,

lest peradventure he die also as his brethren did; imputing the death of his two sons either to her fault, or to her unluckiness, rather than to his own or his son’s miscarriages.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

11. Lest… he die also — Judah probably entertained some superstitious fear of Tamar, as if she were the cause of the death of his sons. Compare the story of Tobit. Gen_3:7. But it was their wickedness, not hers, which caused their sudden death.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Then said Judah to Tamer his daughter-in-law, Remain a widow alma-nah, from alam, to be solitary, forsaken, signifies one bereft of a husband, hence a widow (cf. Exo_22:21) at thy father"s house, (cf. Lev_22:13) till Shelah my son be grown. It is implied that this was merely a pretext on the part of Judah, and that he did not really intend to give his third son to Tamar, considering her an unlucky woman (Delitzsch, Keil, Kalisch), or, at least, not at present, under the impression that the deaths of Er and Onan had been occasioned by their too early marriages (Lange). The reason of his failure to release Tamar from her widowhood is added in the ensuing clause. For he said (sc. in his heart), Lest peradventure he die also, as his brethren did. And Tamer went and dwelt in her father"s house.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Shelah the third son was reserved for the widow, yet with design that he should not marry so young as his brothers had done, lest he die also. Some think that Judah never intended to marry Shelah to Tamar, but unjustly suspected her to have been the death of her two former husbands, (whereas it was their own wickedness that slew them) and then sent her to her father's house, with a charge to remain a widow. If so, it was an inexcusable piece of prevarication; however Tamar acquiesced, and waited for the issue.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

his daughter-in-law

"his oldest son's wife"

in your father's house

This means her to live in here father's house. AT: "and live in your father's house" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

until Shelah, my son, grows up

Judah intends for Tamar to marry Shelah when he grows up. AT: "and when Shelah, my son, grows up, he can marry you" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

Shelah

This is the name of one of Judah's sons. See how you translated this name in Genesis 38:5. (See: How to Translate Names)

For he feared, "He might also die, just like his brothers

Judah feared that if Shelah married Tamar he would also die like his brothers did. AT: "For he feared, 'If he marries her he may also die like his brothers did" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

translationWords

Judah

Tamar

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

‘כי אמר וגו FOR HE SAID etc. — that is to say, he pushed her off with a straw (i.e., he put her off with a lame excuse) because he never intended to give her to him in marriage

כי אמר פן ימות FOR HE SAID LEST PERADVENTURE HE DIE — She is a woman of whom it may be presumed that the men she marries will always die young (Genesis Rabbah 85:5).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

ABIDE A WIDOW AT THY FATHER’s HOUSE. The meaning thereof is that “you should conduct yourself there as a widow until Shelah be grown up.” He suggested to her: “Place yourself in mourning, put on mourning garments, do not anoint yourself with oil, as a woman girded with sack-cloth for the bridegroom of her youth, until Shelah be grown up and he will marry you.” Such was the custom of a widow waiting to be married: she who desires to be married to a stranger wears mourning garments only for a short period as is the custom, and then feigning comfort arrays herself in scarlet. And she covered herself with a veil, as an indication that she was no longer mourning. See Ramban further, Verse 16. until she be married to a man.

FOR HE SAID, LEST HE ALSO DIE, LIKE HIS BRETHREN. That is to say, he dismissed her with a paltry reply because he never intended to give her to him in marriage. For he said, Lest he also die, like his brethren, for she has established herself as one whose husbands die young. This is Rashi’s Language.Now I do not know why Judah, a ruler of his generation, should be shy towards this woman and not tell her, “Go in peace from my house,” and why should he mislead her when she is even forbidden to Shelah, just as the Rabbis have said concerning a married woman: “Twice establishes a presumption [that the woman is a katlanith — a woman whose husbands die].” However since Judah was angered by her harlotry to the extent of condemning her to be burned, it would appear that he originally did wish her to remain in his family. It is also unreasonable to say that Judah did not hear about how his children sinned against G-d, thus causing Him to deliver them into the hands of their fate, while Tamar was guiltless in their death. The correct view appears to me to be that Shelah was fit for the marriage, but his father did not want him to marry Tamar while he was still a youth, lest he commit some sin with her as had his brothers who died young, for they were boys, none of them having attained twelve years of age. His intention was that when he would mature and would listen to the instruction of his father, he would then give her to him as a wife. But when she had waited a long time and it appeared to her that Shelah had grown up — although in the eyes of his father he was still a boy as he was not yet ten years old and therefore his father was bent on waiting longer — then Tamar, in her craving to give birth from the sacred race, hastened and did this deed.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

ויאמר... כי אמר פן ימות גם הוא כאחיו, in commenting on Yehudah’s reasoning, Bereshit Rabbah 85.5 quotes Rabbi Eleazar as saying [Rashi’s interpretation of his statement, Ed.] that although the Torah has enjoined us לא תנחשו, (Leviticus 19,26) not to be superstitious as for instance to allow a black cat crossing our path to determine our actions, there is such a thing as a סימן, a “hint from a higher domain,” to heed which is not idolatrous. Such a “hint” would be a catastrophe of the same kind three times repeated. This is what Yehudah was afraid of.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.