A Series on
Advent
The five women in
Matthew’s genealogy: Tamar
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Genesis 38
[In Matthew’s genealogy
of “Jesus the Messiah, the son of David”, five women are named. All of them
were in some sense outsiders. This was true not only because they were women,
but for other reasons also. This Advent series we will be looking at these five
women to gain a better understanding of our loving Heavenly Father who sent his
son as a baby to live on earth. He was God incarnate.]
In 1970, the musical group The Guess Who released a hit song by the title
of “Hand Me Down World”. It was written to raise social awareness during a time
of turbulence. Here’s the chorus.
Don't give me no
hand me down shoes
Don't give me no hand me down love
Don't give me no hand me down world
I got one already
Tamar knew what it was like to live in a hand me
down world. In fact, you could say that she was the personification of a hand
me down world. Her story is quite bizarre by today’s standards, but that wasn’t
totally true at the time.
In antiquity, they had a custom known as “Levirate
marriage”. This is where if a husband dies, then his brother is to marry his
wife. By doing so, it keeps the family line intact and preserves the
inheritance. It also protects the widow from having to sell herself to pay off
any debt.
Tamar was married to the oldest son of Judah. When he
died, Judah had his second oldest son marry her. But then he also died. Judah
had a third son, but he sent Tamar to live with her father as a widow until
that son grew up. Privately though, Judah feared that his son would die just
like his brothers if he married Tamar.
According to the Jewish Women’s Archive, a national non-profit organization, there was a custom at the time where if a man had no son over ten years old, he could fulfill the Levirate marriage obligation instead of his son. This means that if Judah had wanted to do so, he could have married Tamar. But he didn’t.
Whatever Tamar’s motivation was, she laid a trap for
Judah pretending to be a prostitute. As a result, she became pregnant. When
Judah was confronted with the truth that he was the father, he responded in
humility.
26a Judah said, “She is more righteous than
I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” NIV
From this pregnancy, Tamar had twin sons, and along
with Judah, all four are mentioned in the genealogy of “Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham”.
Does it seem strange to you that such a story would
be included in Jesus’ genealogy? How could people like this be a part of God’s glorious
plan? The same question could be asked of all of us.
It certainly was a hand me down world for Tamar. In
fact, we still live in a hand me down world today. Thankfully though Jesus, the
Son of God, entered our world changing things forever.
Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us’, brought hope
for Tamar… and brings hope for us today.
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