[Text: Gen. 38] “Selfishness in the Family of God”

This passage may be,…well, is…shocking in its graphic recounting of sexual sin in the family of Abraham. But the Lord never includes anything in His word, no matter how scandalous, that His people don’t need to hear. So listen and be shocked...and then may we all be even more shocked at the grace of Yahweh toward sinners like Judah and me.

[Read and Pray]

As we read this story, you might be thinking, “How on earth does this horrible story fit into this section of Genesis?” That’s a fair question and it has a few answers. From a literary standpoint, this story only heightens the suspense in the heart of the readers who are wondering what will become of Joseph, who was sold as a slave in Egypt. So, you’re looking at an early-Hebrew version of a “cliff-hanger.” At another level, this story is also working to contrast Judah’s lack of self control with Joseph’s obedience in the following chapter. We’ll consider that more when we get to chapter 39.

But, finally, this passage introduces the people of God to the lead brother among the sons of Jacob. Judah will become first among the eleven remaining brothers after Joseph’s enslavement and the people of God needed to know what he was like.

And what they saw was not exactly inspiring. They saw their forefather’s abandonment of the family of God, his rejection of the word of God, his failure as a father, his abuse of his daughter-in-law, his unrestrained lust and his harshness against the sin in others – sin that he easily excused in himself.

This story brought to mind a saying, however, reminding me that Judah’s actions – while deeply wrong in themselves – had something beneath them. It’s been said that, “seldom is the issue the Issue.” That is, rarely is what you see on the surface the full picture of what is really going on.

Beneath the deeply wrong actions of Judah (and everyone else in this story) is an undercurrent of intense selfishness. And whether my lifestyle mirrors that of Judah’s or not, intense selfishness is something with which I am quite familiar.

I know selfishness because selfishness is putting my desires and interests above all others. And I’m pretty much a professional at that.

Selfishness is me getting angry when my boys need me 10 minutes before my alarm goes off. Selfishness is using our Christian freedom in an unloving way and looking down on those who don’t feel as “free” as we do. Selfishness is ignoring the poor to keep a bank account comfortable. Selfishness is using other people, sexually or otherwise, to serve my own purposes and desires. Selfishness is…

So join me as I try to resist the temptation to distance myself from Judah. Although his sin may be expressed (to a greater or lesser extent) differently from ours, the source is the same – hearts that love self and serve self rather than Yahweh.

And near the end of this passage, we’ll hear from Judah’s own lips the sentence that is passed on those who love and serve self over Yahweh. As he condemns Tamar to death, he condemns all of us who wish ourselves to sit on the throne of Yahweh.

But at the end of this story there is grace; grace in Judah remaining alive, grace in children being born, and grace in the Story of Redemption moving forward. And when the Story reaches the turn and Jesus comes, selfishness is the opposite of what we in our Savior. And because Jesus is selfless in his love and work, you and I have hope that leads us to die to self and live in the new life he gives.

But first things first; look with me at this story of Judah’s life.

After Judah and his brothers sell Joseph into slavery, it seems that Judah doesn’t want to be around his family anymore. In v. 1, Judah “went down” from his brothers and becomes friends with Hirah, and begins looking a little like Esau as he selfishly rejects his family, the people of Yahweh, in favor of the Canaanite peoples Yahweh has rejected. Judah begins to believe the lie that he is his own and he acts on that by isolating himself from the people of God.

That’s the thing about sin. It isolates us and makes us withdraw from people. Rebellion against Yahweh always leads to severed community with people as we reject one of the things we were made for.

So Judah sees a Canaanite woman and takes her as his wife in rejection of the word of Yahweh for His people. Again, the selfishness of Judah is driving his actions. It’s like he says, “I know best and I know what I want.” And he goes after it despite the fact that Abraham forbade Isaac from marrying a Canaanite woman and when Isaac’s son, Esau, married a couple of Canaanite women, nothing but heartache followed. The Canaanites served other gods, valued other things, and were always running from Yahweh following broken paths of life. Marriage to them would only hurt the people of God. But Judah selfishly believes he “knows best.” So he marries her and has three sons: Er, Onan and Shelah. And then he takes a wife for his firstborn, Er. Tamar was her name.

Then v. 7. We’ve seen Yahweh’s long patience with so many people who did so many terrible things, so to hear that Yahweh put Er to death means that Er’s heart and actions must have been unspeakably evil. And he dies childless, which in the context of Genesis is significant. Remember that through the offspring of the family of Abraham, Yahweh will bring the redemption of all things. But Er’s line is ended as a sign of judgment from Yahweh. Redemption will not come through him.

So Tamar becomes a widow. But she is the widow of Judah’s firstborn son, which in their culture means she has certain rights. She has the right to be the future matriarch of the line of Judah. And there was a tradition – later confirmed by Yahweh in the Law but it pre-existed the Law – a tradition called Levirate Marriage (coming from levir, meaning “brother”) that would make Tamar a mother, even after the death of Er.

That is the tradition Judah calls the “duty” of Onan in v. 8. As Onan (functionally) “becomes” his brother, he would be providing an heir for his dead brother. But the child would be counted as the son of Er, the firstborn. That means a child of Tamar’s, the widow of the firstborn, would displace any of Onan’s own children as heir of Judah. So their family position at stake.

But even more than that, think about the significance of offspring in the Story so far. Yahweh promised that by the offspring of the woman the serpent would be defeated. By the offspring of Abraham would blessing come to all the families of the earth. So, every child born is the rebirth of hope because of the promises of God.

So, by wasting the opportunity for God to bring another child into the world, Onan demonstrates on two levels the same intense selfishness we see in Judah. First, he selfishly tries to keep for himself what belongs to his brother and to Tamar. He wants his own sons (not Tamar’s) to have the place of honor. But second, Onan’s selfish actions spits on Yahweh’s plan of redemption. His selfishness showed that he didn’t really care about the defeat of the serpent or the blessing of Yahweh returning to the whole earth. He only wanted honor and privilege for himself and his family. So he, like Er, is put to death by Yahweh. No children of Onan’s would ever walk the earth.

But as soon as Onan’s selfishness dies with him, Judah’s comes back into view. He tells Tamar to go back to her father’s house and remain as a widow. He says that she is to wait until Shelah, his youngest son, grows up. Then she will be given children through him. But it was all a selfish lie on Judah’s part.

V. 11 tells us that Judah never intended to let her marry his last son because, it says, “he feared that (Shelah) would die.” Ignoring the real cause of his sons’ deaths, Judah treats Tamar as a cursed woman and aims to have her boarded up as a widow forever. Judah sends her home with the promise of marriage but no intention of following through with that promise. And through that Judah selfishly deprives her (1) of the chance to find another husband who could care for her and (2) deprives her of her right as Er’s widow, the right to become the matriarch of the family.

And over time, as she waits and waits to be given in marriage to Shelah, Tamar figures that out that it was all a lie. So, she sets into motion this plan to take what should be hers and, perhaps, take revenge in the process by exposing Judah for what he is. If she won’t be given offspring by Judah’s sons, then she’ll take them from Judah himself. Vv. 12-26 tell that story.

“In the course of time the wife of Judah, Shua’s daughter, died.” At the end of his mourning, Judah goes up to a sheep-shearing with his friend, Hirah. Apparently, these events were, in the Canaanite culture, similar in atmosphere to Mardi Gras today. It was a time of release, of moral flexibility. Apparently, Tamar knows Judah’s selfishness well enough to know exactly how to take advantage of this situation. So she sets herself by the road where Judah has to pass by and lets him think that she is taking customers.

And Judah bites. It becomes clear that he’s just there for the sex and his selfishness (and resulting foolishness) is on full display. She doesn’t even have to say anything and he comes to her asking for it. He’s willing to pay and, since he doesn’t have any goats in his pocket, he’s willing to give her the most significant symbols of his identity as a deposit until he can send his payment. The signet and staff would have been immediately recognizable. And they were of such greater worth than a goat from the flock that Judah here shows us the foolishness that usually accompanies intense selfishness. When your only focus is on satisfying your desires, then you’re willing to give up the most important things in life in order to get what you want.

How many men and women do this every day? When selfish desires are given free expression, how many people give up the most important things – their jobs, their wealth, their reputations, even their own families – in exchange for a moment of pleasure?

Because he is, Judah thinks this woman is here for the sex, too. He couldn’t be more wrong. Look a little closer at Tamar and you’ll see beneath her disguise to her motivation. The veil that covered her face was, yes, used by prostitutes of the day. But a veil was also the sign of a betrothed woman. Earlier in Genesis, Rebekah had veiled her own face as she met Isaac before they were married. Tamar was betrothed to Judah’s son, to the family of Judah. So she wore a veil. Yes, she let Judah assume he knew what it meant, but he never took the time to ask question it. His selfishness was blinding him. No, Tamar wasn’t there for pleasure or because she liked Judah – in fact, she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, which is one reason why she took a pledge from him. She was simply there to get what she’d been promised. I’m not saying the way she went about getting it was right. I’m simply looking at her motives.

When they’re finished, Tamar leaves with what she wants – a child from the line of Judah – and goes back home. It will be three months before anyone figures out what happened, just long enough for Judah to forget about all of this.

Meanwhile, Judah sent the promised payment by the hand of his Canaanite friend. Did you catch that? Judah himself isn’t willing to go so he asks his unbelieving friend to go for him. That’s significant, I believe, because it reveals the isolation of selfish sin. Judah had already removed himself from the presence of his brothers a long time ago. And so the only friend who knows who Judah really is and what Judah is really like is this Canaanite man who doesn’t really care what Judah does. Judah is known, but the man who knows him isn’t holding him accountable to faithful obedience to Yahweh. His friend isn’t helping him in any fight against sin. Judah is alone and if you are fighting alone against such deep selfishness, then no one is fighting your deep selfishness.

His friend comes back to Judah telling him that he couldn’t find the woman and no one knew who she was. So Judah says to let it go. He’d rather lose the pledges he gave than become a laughing-stock. One commentator noted that, “(t)hough not afraid to sin against God, Judah was pained at the idea of losing his reputation before men.”[1] And isn’t that the heart of selfishness on display, when we are more concerned about being caught than being obedient to Yahweh?

So three months later, Tamar is found to be pregnant and Judah is told that she has been unfaithful to his family. In hot wrath and indignation Judah calls for a punishment much more severe than was ordinarily given. At this time, stoning was the punishment for unfaithfulness, but he calls for Tamar to be burned alive.

But aren’t we usually quickly angered and severe toward sin in others – the same sin we easily excuse in ourselves?

And as they are preparing to burn Tamar for selfishly pursuing her desires, she simply sends the signet, cord and staff of Judah, the pledges he’d given her himself, and asks him to identify them. “These belong to the man by whom I am pregnant,” she says.

Ironically, the most faithful human to Judah in this passage is Tamar, the person who suffered most from the selfishness of Judah. By exposing his selfish sin, she becomes Yahweh’s means of transformation in the life of Judah. And so, Judah doesn’t lie. He confesses his sin and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.”

Judah isn’t saying (and we can’t say) that what Tamar did was good. He’s saying that his selfishness led him into deep sin and the guilt lays more heavily on him than on her. And so by condemning her to be burned to death, what greater punishment did he deserve?

This story is so crazy and there’s selfishness, on some level, seen in every character in the story. But Judah’s heart and actions are the ones with the full brightness of the spotlight trained on them. In this story Judah, the ancestor of so many of the first readers, stands naked and his shame is exposed in front of his God, his community, and generation after generation of his family – remember, all of Israel throughout its history has heard this story.

And in that spotlight, Judah reveals the selfishness that pours out of a heart worshiping “self” instead of Yahweh. The flood of sin that wrecked this family (and still wrecks our lives) began as a small, poisonous stream fed by the serpent’s lie we heard at the beginning of the Story. It was the lie that says we are equal to (if not above) Yahweh and so we are entitled to live as we see fit, regardless of what Yahweh has said is good and right.

But once again, when everyone stands guilty and threatens the Story of Redemption through selfish sin, the power of Yahweh to bring about His purposes is revealed. Yahweh takes the sin of his people, even the sin of Judah and Tamar, and turns it to serve His plan of redemption.

Look at vv. 27-30. As the time comes for Tamar, spared from death, to be delivered, another set of twins comes into the family of Abraham. And like with Jacob and Esau, once again the one who is “first” (Zerah with his red string), is displaced by the “younger” Perez who pushes his brother out of the way and obtains the blessing of being the firstborn.

This is grace. Er and Onan’s sin was quickly ended by Yahweh and no children of theirs walked the earth. Did Judah deserve to see his children? Did Yahweh have to give him offspring who would continue the Story of Redemption? Not at all, but he did. That is grace.

And who is Perez, this scandalous son of incest who takes what doesn’t belong to him? He is Perez, whose father is sort of his grandfather, too. He is Perez, the great-grandfather of King David; Perez, the great-grandfather of our Lord, Jesus Christ. The promised Offspring of Abraham – whom Yahweh sent to rescue sinners like Judah and me and you – the promised Rescuer who would defeat the serpent belongs to the family of a man like Judah.

And in his family tree, his life, and his death we see the selflessness of our Savior who says he came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many; we see a selfless Savior who says he came not to do his own will, but the will of His Father who sent him. Our selfless Savior, Jesus, washes our feet, cleans us by his blood and raises us up with him because he loves selfish people like us. And we have hope because, though he loves us and accepts us as we are, he is not willing to leave us as we are.

Is selfishness the pattern of your life? Do you worship the god who has your name rather than the name of Jesus? Or even if you worship and name Jesus as Lord, do your actions, like mine, often reveal the warfare that rages between your flesh and God’s Spirit? Either way, there is more grace in Christ than you know. Whether your selfishness is revealed in the way you use sex or in your parenting; in your marriage or your bank account, know that in Jesus there is forgiveness of sin and hope for new life by the power of his Spirit and fellowship with his Body.

May we learn from Judah the danger of running from Yahweh and the foolishness of leaving your brothers for intimacy with the World. There is health in confession to God and there is free grace and forgiveness for you, paid in full by the blood of Jesus, the Son of God. And there is great help to be found by living in transparency with your brothers and sisters. I’m not talking about making all of your deepest darkest sins known to all of humanity. But I’m talking about living in close community with even a few – knowing them and being known by them – as you pursue obedience together and preach the gospel to each other when you fall.

Only the joy of the Gospel – the hope of grace, the confidence of new life as a son or daughter of God, the higher pleasure of Divine love and acceptance of us in Jesus – only the Gospel is powerful enough to replace our selfishness with love for God and love for others. And it is powerful because Jesus selflessly gave himself to rescue people like Judah and me and you.

[1] Genesis, ed. H. D. M. Spence-Jones, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 443.