Tamar #39

Tamar is the daughter-in-law of Judah, whose story is told in Genesis 38. She is one of five women named in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, which is unusual for a genealogy of the ancient world, and her presence there draws attention to the way God’s purposes are worked out through unexpected people. The Bible also mentions other women named Tamar, including a daughter of David (2 Samuel 13), but they are different people.

Biblical Significance

Judah marries her to his eldest son, Er, who is wicked and dies. Under the custom later called levirate marriage, she is then given to his second son, Onan, who refuses to give her offspring and also dies. Judah then tells Tamar to live as a widow in her father’s house until his youngest son, Shelah, is grown, but he never fulfills the promise (Genesis 38:1-11).

When Tamar learns that Judah is traveling to Timnah, she takes off her widow’s clothes, veils herself, and sits by the road. Judah, thinking she is a prostitute, sleeps with her, and leaves his signet, cord, and staff as a pledge for payment. Months later, when she is found to be pregnant, Judah orders her burned. She sends the pledge items to him with the message, “By the man, whose these are, am I with child” (Genesis 38:12-25). Judah acknowledges them and says, “She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son” (Genesis 38:26).

The text treats her actions as neither simply commended nor simply condemned. Tamar’s aim is to secure descendants and a place in the family, which the law of levirate marriage was meant to protect, and Judah’s statement recognizes that he has failed in his duty to her. She gives birth to twins, Perez and Zerah, in a birth where the second child’s hand appears first but the other is born ahead of him (Genesis 38:27-30).

Legacy

Perez becomes the ancestor of a leading clan of Judah. At Boaz’s marriage to Ruth, the elders of Bethlehem pray that his house will be “like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah” (Ruth 4:12), and Perez appears in the line leading to David (Ruth 4:18-22). Matthew’s genealogy says, “Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar” (Matthew 1:3), naming her first among the women, alongside Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah, before Mary.

Readers have offered different reasons for their inclusion, including that they were foreigners or that their circumstances were morally complicated, and that Jesus’ ancestry reflects God’s grace toward people at the margins. Tamar’s story also shows a change in Judah, who later offers himself in Benjamin’s place (Genesis 44:18-34), and it remains a striking example of a woman who acts to claim justice when the men around her fail to provide it.