TTBIND: The Most Amazing Thing in Genesis

How can I pick just one amazing thing in Genesis!?!? It is full of amazing stories and incredible encouragements to our faith. It is one of my favorite books! (I have 66 of them!)

I am going to skip by Genesis 1's parallelism, Genesis 3:16 concept of "desire to master," the Tower of Babel being an effort to establish a permanent portal for God so that they could control God's presence and blessing, Genesis 6 and the Sons of God and the daughter's of men, the sons of Lamech, the Table of the Nations, the call of Abram and the covenant, the sacrifice of Isaac, or Jacob's Ladder, etc., etc, etc. Instead let's look at Genesis 38.

The most amazing thing, first of all, is that most look at Genesis 38 as merely a parenthetical story. That is amazingly short sided. :) Rather, Genesis 38 is one of the most important stories in Genesis and it is a turning point for Judah in his life. It starts out bland enough. Judah goes away and finds a wife (what is her name?) and has some sons and a daughter in law. Then we see Judah fall big time. Then the story ends and we are back with Godly Joseph for the rest of the story of Genesis. Seems almost like a hiccup. Just a story of how another patriarch messes up in a major way. But there is so much more.

Judah's life is in a free-fall at this point. His father has used him as a shield to protect precious Joseph and Rachael. His older brothers (all sons of the unloved Leah, like Judah) are also in a free-fall. Jacob (Judah's father) has just failed to protect or take action about the rape of their sister, Dinah. The brother's have seen Joseph get sold to Egypt. And Judah decides that he is going to leave the family. And he does. In Genesis 38, he flees to Canaan. He takes a Canaanite wife. And he has three sons. He has sworn away his family and his God.

Judah's first born, Er, is old enough for marriage and he takes a wife, a Canaanite named Tamar. But Er errs and God takes his life (as he is wicked before the Lord). Tamar now is to be given to the next son, Onan. Why? Levirate Marriage custom. To protect the woman, the next oldest brother takes her as his wife and raises up children to the deceased. Judah insures this happens and Onan marries Tamar. But Onan is wicked and dies. Tamar is looking like a bad omen. But fortunately, there is a third son. The son Shelah is next in line. Tamar has legal and customary rights to him. That is, unless he is too young, then the father-in-law (Judah) would serve as Levir and raise up children to the deceased. Judah claims this very thing. He tells Tamar, "Go back to your family and we will call you when he is old enough." Obviously this is false (and Tamar figures this out quickly) and Judah doesn't want to live up to his obligations to Tamar either. But this is where it gets intriguing.

Tamar takes matters into her own hands. She tricks Judah (whom is legally hers) and becomes pregnant with his son. Judah is plenty mad until she confronts him with the truth. At this point, Judah does a 180. He realizes that he has been less than honorable, and declares, "She is righteous, not I."

Keep an eye on Judah from that point forward. You will find that Judah is responsible for the fact that the family of Jacob (Israel) is saved from certain starvation. Judah becomes the towering figure of Genesis and only Joseph himself is a close second.

Genesis 38 is a turning point for the most important of the sons of Israel: Judah. And if that isn't enough, Genesis 38 introduces us to Perez, ancestor of Boaz, King David, and the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

But what about poor Shelah? He got left out! He is not even in the lineage anymore! But wait. Study Genesis 49 for a pretty remarkable word play that acknowledges the rightful place of Shelah and his name becomes, most commentators agree, the symbol of "the One to Whom it Belongs", the Messiah to come.

Enjoy Genesis as you read! It is phenomenal!
JJ