Genesis 38:6

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Judah took a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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לְעֵ֣ר

ʻÊr

H6147

“to/for · Er”

Preposition + Noun, Proper

Appears 10× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 38:3

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H5782

TWOT: None

Er = "awake" - the eldest son of Judah - son of Shelah and grandson of Judah

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

7: words
7: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is לְעֵ֣ר Er H6147 — appearing just 10 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

תָּמָֽר Tamar H8559

Shared distinctive vocabulary

לְעֵ֣ר Er H6147 occurs in 7 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
6 nouns

Verb forms

וַיִּקַּ֧ח Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 13 words from the Hebrew and 13 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 7 Hebrew tokens and 11 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Genesis 38:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 21:21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother took a wife for him out of the land of Egypt.
Genesis 24:3 I will make you swear by Yahweh, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live.
Matthew 1:3 Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Perez became the father of Hezron. Hezron became the father of Ram.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Genesis 38:6 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיִּקַּ֧ח יְהוּדָ֛ה אִשָּׁ֖ה לְעֵ֣ר בְּכוֹר֑וֹ וּשְׁמָ֖הּ תָּמָֽר

Judah took a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 38:6 Septuagint · lemma form

καί λαμβάνω ἰούδας γυνή ηρ ὁ πρωτότοκος αὐτός ὅς ὄνομα θαμαρ

And Judas took a wife for Er his firstborn, whose name was Thamar.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וּנְסִיב יְהוּדָה אִתְּתָא לְעֵר בּוּכְרֵהּ וּשְׁמַהּ תָּמָר

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וּנְסִיב יְהוּדָה אִיתָּא לְעֵר בּוּכְרֵיהּ בְּרַת שֵׁם רַבָּא וּשְׁמָהּ תָּמָר

And Jehuda took a wife for Er his firstborn, a daughter of Shem the great, whose name was Tamar.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Genesis 38:6 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Gen 38:6 And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, whose name [was] Tamar.

Ver. 6. And Judah took a wife for Er.] When he was but fourteen years of age, as appears by the Chronicle, seven years after the selling of Joseph. And here it is well observed, {a} that though Judah took a wife without his father’s consent, yet he will not have Er to do so.

{a} Musculus.

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.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

6. Tamar] = “a date palm.” A female name, occurring twice in the family of David (2Sa_13:1; 2Sa_14:27).

Judah, as head of the family, selects a wife for his firstborn, as in Gen_24:3, Gen_34:4.

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.

John Gill's Exposition

And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord,.... That is, exceedingly wicked, as this phrase signifies, Gen 13:13, was guilty of some very heinous sin, but what is not mentioned; according to the Targum of Jonathan and Jarchi, it was the same with his brother Onan's, Gen 38:9, which it is suggested he committed, lest his wife should prove with child, and lose her beauty; but if it had been the same with his, it would have been expressed as well as his. An Arabic writer (p) says, that he cohabited with his wife not according to the course of nature, but in the "sodomitical" way:

and the Lord slew him; by his immediate hand, striking him dead at once, as Ananias and Sapphira were stricken, Act 5:5; or by sending some distemper, which quickly carried him off, as a token of his displeasure at his sin.

(p) Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 16.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

And Judah took a wife (cf. Gen_21:21 Gen_24:4) for Er his firstborn, the early marriage of his sons Judah seems to have intended to prevent in them a germinating corruption (Lange)whose name as Tamar tree" (Gesenius). Though the name was Shemitic, it does not follow that the person was. Cf. Melchisedeck and Abimelech. Yet she is not expressly called a Canaanite, though it is more than probable she was. Lange conjectures that she may have been of Philistine descent, and thinks the narrative intends to convey the impression that she was a woman of extraordinary character.

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

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

Er

This is the name of one of Judah's sons. See how you translated this name in Genesis 38:3. (See: How to Translate Names)

was wicked in the sight of Yahweh

The phrase "in the sight" refers to Yahweh seeing Er's wickedness. AT: "was wicked and Yahweh saw it" (See: Idiom)

Yahweh killed him

Yahweh killed him because he was wicked. This can be made clear. AT: "So Yahweh killed him" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

translationWords

firstborn

Tamar

Yahweh

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

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Genesis, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 7 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʻÊr (“Er”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “Er” (ʻÊr) contribute to the verse as a whole?
This is the first place “Tamar” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does Genesis 38:3, which shares the word «Er», read alongside this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וַיִּקַּ֧ח» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 7 Hebrew ↔ 11 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 1 word in this verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 7 words in this verse.