Genesis 38:25

Gen 38:25 When she [was] brought forth, she sent to her father in law, saying, By the man, whose these [are, am] I with child: and she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose [are] these, the signet, and bracelets, and staff.

Ver. 25. By the man, whose these are, &c.] So his secret sin comes to light. All will out at length, though never so studiously concealed. {Mat 10:26} "That which hath wings shall tell the matter." {Ecc 10:20} It was a quill, a piece of a wing, that discovered the Gun Powder Plot. {a}

Discern, I pray thee, whose are these.] So, when we come to God, though he seem never so angry and ill set against us, can we but present unto him ourselves his own; our prayer, Mediator, arguments, all his; and then say, as she here to Judah, "Whose are these?" he cannot deny himself.

{a} Ut taceant homines iumenta loquentur. - Juven.

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.

Verse 25. The signet] חתמת chothemeth, properly a seal, or instrument with which impressions were made to ascertain property, c. These exist in all countries.

Bracelets] פתילים pethilim, from פתל pathal, to twist, wreathe, twine, may signify a girdle or a collar by which precedency, &c., might be indicated not the muslin, silk, or linen wreath of his turban, as Mr. Harmer has conjectured.

Staff.] מטה matteh, either what we would call a common walking stick, or the staff which was the ensign of his tribe.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(25, 26) She sent . . . —The Talmud praises Tamar for so acting, as to bring no public disgrace upon Judah; and he acknowledges that he was most to blame, because the cause of her crime was his own failure to act justly by her.

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

And Judah acknowledged them,.... He knew them, and owned them to be his:

and said, she hath been more righteous than I; he means, not with respect to the sin of uncleanness committed by them, in which she was the greatest criminal; she sat not only in the way to tempt him to it, but she knew who he was, and wilfully committed incest with him; whereas he thought and knew of nothing else but simple fornication; but with respect to the affairs in connection between them: she had on her part, according to his direction, kept herself a widow, in expectation of being given to his son Shelah for a wife; but he had not made good his part, he had not fulfilled his promise, he had neglected to give her to his son, which he ought to have done, according to the usage of those times, and as he had suggested to her he would; and his neglect of this had been the cause and occasion of this criminal conversation between them; and this is the reason he himself gives of her being more righteous than he:

because I gave her not to Shelah my son; as he ought to have done, and as he promised he would:

and he knew her again no more; in a carnal way; he did not repeat the sin, but abstained from it having, no doubt, true repentance for it; though Jarchi observes, that some interpret the words, and Ben Melech says some copies read, "he did not cease to know her"; but took her for his wife and married her, which is supposed to be as justifiable as other things done before the law of Moses; but this is not likely, and it looks as if he never married any wife after, or, if he did, had no more children, since we read of no other but Shelah, and the twins he had by Tamar; and it seems as if Shelah also did not marry Tamar upon this, such an incest being committed with her, since he appears to have had children by another woman, Num 26:20.

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

Execution. The Rabbin say she was to be marked with a hot iron. If she was to die, before she was delivered, God prevented the cruel sentence from taking effect. (Haydock) --- Many nations have punished adultery with fire. Macrinus, the Roman emperor, ordered the culprits to be tied together and thrown into the flames. (Capitolin.) --- Moses commanded the daughters of priests, who should be detected in this crime, to be given to the flames, (Leviticus xxi. 9,) and others to be stoned; (Leviticus xx. 10,) whence the Rabbin have concluded, that Thamar was a priest’s daughter. (Calmet)

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).

When she was brought forth (literally, she was brought forth, and), she sent to her father-in-law (who apparently had not the heart to witness the execution of his own sentence), saying, By the man, whose these are, am I with child: and she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and bracelets (or chain), and staff.

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

הוא מוצאת WHEN SHE WAS BROUGHT FORTH to be burnt.

והיא שלחה אל חמיה SHE SENT TO HER FATHER-IN-LAW — she did not wish to put him to shame in public by saying “It is by thee that I am with child”, but she said only “By the man whose these are”. She thought: “if he is to acknowledge it, let him acknowledge it voluntarily, and if not, let them burn me and let me not put him to shame in public”. From this passage our Rabbis derived the teaching: Far better that a man should let himself be cast into a fiery furnace (even as Tamar was ready to be burnt to death) and let him not publicly put his fellow to shame (Sotah 10b).

הכר נא RECOGNISE, I PRAY THEE — The word נא is used as an expression of entreaty: Acknowledge (הכר) I beg of you, your Creator and do not destroy three lives (Genesis Rabbah 85:11).

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.

היא מוצאת, she did not make the matter public even when she was on the point of being executed. Therefore she only hinted at the owner of the trinkets she wanted Yehudah to recognise without accusing him outright as having given them to her after he had slept with her. לאיש אשר אלה לו, this prompted our ages in Sotah 10 to say that it is better for a person to throw himself into a burning furnace than to cause public embarrassment to a fellow human being. Tamar demonstrated this by the conduct the Torah attributes to her in our verse. The word לו, a reference to an unnamed third party left Yehudah the option to ignore her accusation, and for any future embarrassment on that score to be wiped out with her death.

ותאמר, this she said to the messenger she sent to Yehudah with the pledges that he had given her. הכר נא, Bereshit Rabbah 85,11 notes how the Torah “plays” with people. She hinted to Yehudah that he had used the same words to deceive his father into believing that Joseph had been devoured by a wild animal. Now it was his turn to be deceived. The punishment matches the crime. (37,32) The Torah, knowing what was to happen in the future, smiled to itself thinking: “wait until you will be deceived by these same words.”

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.