The Trouble With Tamar

Thanks to Judah (the 4th son of Jacob’s wife, Leah), Joseph is alive. But he has been sold, first to the band of merchants, then by them to one of Pharaoh’s officials in Egypt.

Judah leaves the brothers and goes to stay with a friend. There he marries a Canaanite woman who gives birth to three sons (Er, Onan, and Shelah.)

Son number one marries but his wife, Tamar, becomes a widow when he is “put to death“ by the Lord. (All we know is that he’s described as “wicked in the Lord’s sight.

That was son number two, and Judah’s not anxious to risk losing the third, so he sends Tamar back to her father - supposedly to wait for Shelah to grow up.

It’s been a long time; Shelah is grown, but Tamar has been left widowed and waiting.

One day she learns that Judah (by now widowed himself) is en route to a town called Timnah to shear his sheep, and she decides to take action.

Judah doesn’t recognize her and, thinking she’s a prostitute, he propositions her.

At Tamar’s request, he gives her his seal and cord as well as his staff to hold as a pledge until he can send one of his young goats to her as payment. And they sleep together.

When Judah’s friend goes to deliver the goat and retrieve Judah’s belongings, not only does he fail to locate this “shrine prostitute,” the men of the town inform him there hadn’t even been a shrine prostitute.

So Judah drops the matter rather than pursue it and embarrass himself.

About three months go by, and he hears some news:

“Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.”

How dare she!

“Bring her out and have her burned to death,” he proclaims.

Not so fast, Judah.

Oops!

So Judah was ready to have Tamar burned to death over her supposed crime; for his own misdeeds, apparently confession was penalty enough. 

Aware as he was (not to mention responsible for) Tamar's "widowed situation," I wonder how Judah felt justified to judge her in the first place. Even if she had been guilty of prostitution.

Amid what appears to be so much hypocrisy, double standard, and a haste to condemn, where was justice for Tamar? 

More disturbing than Judah's actions, however, is the question they beg of me:  

How often am I guilty of assuming more grace than I extend? 

The Pharisees had that problem.

Look what happened one day when Jesus was teaching in the temple courts:

It’s easy to demand “justice” when it’s someone else on trial. Looking at themselves, however, was another story.

Wouldn’t you love to know what Jesus was writing?

Beginning with the older ones, the crowd dispersed one at a time. Turns out, no one there was perfect himself.

Almost no one, that is.

The ONE PERSON who could have thrown that first stone wasn’t inclined to do so.

Jesus taught a powerful lesson that day.

And that’s not all He had to say on the subject:

Seeing what’s wrong with other people must be one of the easiest things in the world. What's not at all easy is confronting the wrong within ourselves.

The temptation to minimize our own shortcomings and magnify those of others has to be one of satan’s handiest tools for trapping us in a pattern of pride and self-righteousness. What a clever way to ensure we neither recognize nor correct the faults within ourselves. 

When it comes to judging anyone else, there’s one thing I’m sure of:

It’s a job for which I’m neither CALLED nor QUALIFIED!

So the next time I’m tempted to obsess over what’s in someone else’s mirror, I’m going to take a closer look at my own; it’s sure to present all of the challenges I can handle!

By the way …

Tamar gave birth to not just one but two baby boys;

keep your eyes out for Perez!!

Blessings until next time, Kim