Story of Tamar as a Persistent Widow

(Gen 38:1-30)

Don C. Benjamin

Arizona State University

Although the Teachings of Joseph are not ancestor stories, they do include at least one ancestor story: The Story of Tamar as a Persistent Widow (Gen 38:1-30). The protagonist, however, is not the man Joseph, but the woman Tamar who is celebrated for her persistence.  Her antagonist is Judah who fails to provide Tamar with a legal guardian to conceive an heir for her deceased husband (Deut 25:5-10; Ruth 4:1-12; MAL 30, 33, 43, 45).[1]  The Story of Tamar as a Persistent Widow expands a reference to Judah in the Teachings of Joseph (Gen 37:2--Exod 1:6).  Judah saves Joseph's life by selling him as slaves instead of letting the other brothers murder him (Gen 37:25-36).   In return for protecting the household of Joseph from destruction, Tamar protects the household of Judah from destruction. Stories with an eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth motif, called the talion (Latin: talis), are popular in the Bible. 

The ancestor story celebrates Tamar for her courage in becoming a liminal (Latin: limen) woman.  She acts above and beyond the call of duty in order to give birth to a child.[2]  Tamar moves from sterility to fertility, from shame to honor.  Although Judah is a man without a household at the beginning of the story and a man with a household at the end, it is Tamar, not Judah, who acts to accomplish the change. Throughout the story, Tamar acts to prevent Judah from destroying his household.

In the first episode Tamar marries Er, who dies without an heir.  The words: ...Er, Judah's first-born, was wicked in the sight of the Yahweh; and Yahweh slew him (Gen 38:5) seem to portray the divine patron of Israel as savage, but, in the world of the Bible, these carried connotations of primary causality.  Primary causality is a world-view which emphasizes divine power.  Anything which happens, good or bad, happens only because Yahweh decrees it.  Yahweh is the cause of everything.   This world view is not the result of ignorance, but of choice.  The Hebrews knew that premature death was the result of secondary causes like war, crime, accident or disease, but they chose to describe an untimely death was always a divine sentence. When the Hebrews were confronted with evil, they affirmed that everything was still firmly under the control of Yahweh who is good, not under the control of a devil who is evil.

In the second episode, Judah appoints Onan, Er's brother, as Tamar's legal guardian to have a child with her who would be his brother's heir.[3]  Onan realizes that if Tamar remains childless while he appears to be carrying out his obligations, then he and his brother, Shelah, will divide Judah's inheritance two ways rather than three.

Onan’s sin is not masturbation, but social injustice.[4]  Ruth's legal guardian publically resigns his position because he cannot afford to support his own household and that of his covenant partner (Ruth 4:6).[5]  Onan publicly accepts the responsibility and then defrauds Tamar while continuing to enjoy the usufruct of her property.  Ostensibly, Onan’s practice of coitus interruptus fulfills his responsibility to Tamar, but in fact, he is sentencing her to death as a widow without a husband or a child.  He is also denying his dead brother his right to have his name (Hebrew: sem) or inheritance preserved.[6]  Tamar cannot charge Onan before the village assembly for his crime because there are no witnesses, but, like all widows, orphans, and strangers, Yahweh is her legal guardian (Deut 24:17-22).  Unable to be delivered by the village assembly, she is delivered by the divine assembly.

Now Shelah becomes Tamar's guardian. While the death of Onan delivers Tamar from his control, Judah considers it an indictment of Tamar as a femme fatale, a woman whose divine lover kills her human husbands.  This motif also appears in the book of Tobit, popular among Greek speaking Jews in Alexandria, Egypt (Tobit 3:7-17).  Consequently, Tamar is banished.[7]  Judah returns Tamar to the household of her parents, which marks her with a label of shame. 

Once a woman has become part of her husband's household, her ties and loyalties are then broken with the household of her father (Gen 24:58).  To return to her parental household suggests that she is giving up her legal rights (Judg 19:2), casts a legal question of whether her marriage was originally valid (Deut 22:13-21), and lowers her status to that of childless widow rather than a wife and mother of an heir.[8] 

By ordering her back to the household of her father, Judah deprives Tamar of two important legal rights.[9]  First, he treats her as if she is legally a widow (Hebrew: 'almanah) without a legal guardian, when, in fact, she is not.  Only widows without legal guardians return to the households of their fathers or mothers (Ruth 1:6-14).  Second, by confining her to the household of her father, he is depriving her of her freedom of movement, which is certainly the most fascinating and legally the most powerful right of a widow in the world of the Bible (MAL art 33).

Judah deprives Tamar and her deceased husband of the honor due them by endangering the possibility that she will ever produce an heir, when he fails to arrange a marriage between Shelah and Tamar.  Again Tamar has no legal recourse to the village assembly.   Technically, Judah is fulfilling the responsibility of his tribe to provide her with a guardian.  In reality, however, he has condemned Tamar to death. Therefore, Tamar goes above and beyond the call of duty to protect the household of Judah from destruction. Dressed as a sacred woman, Tamar tricks Judah into having sexual intercourse with her and so fulfilling his responsibility as her legal guardian.[10]

 The shearing was the round-up or rodeo in the world of the Bible (Gen 38:13).  At the shearing the old world of breeding and grazing came to an end. Livestock, milk, cheese, meat, and wool were sold.  Debts were paid.  Likewise, at the shearing, the new world of breeding and grazing began.  Covenants for breeding and pastures were negotiated.

 Judah is not engaging in an act of sexual indiscretion with a prostitute when he has intercourse with Tamar, he is ratifying a covenant with her.  In order to finance the breeding and grazing expenses for the coming year, livestock owners like Judah borrowed from sanctuaries.  Judah approaches Tamar as a sacred woman (Akkadian: naditu) for a loan and notarizes their agreement by having sexual intercourse.  The reproductive ritual pronounces a blessing of fertility on the coming year. 

Tamar is wise, meticulous and efficient in her dealings with Judah.  She sets her commission as a share of the coming season's herd and collects Judah's staff and seal as collateral before providing him a loan. 

Judah is a fool who does not even recognize that his patron is, in fact, his daughter-in-law.  Judah's foolishness is even further displayed in the incompetence with which he negotiates with her for the coming season.  Judah recognizes his lack of good business sense when he tries to repay the loan and the sacred woman is gone.  His irresponsibility in negotiating and repaying the loan with the woman of Enaim summarizes his irresponsibility to Tamar and the household of Er. Instead of restoring the household, Judah's actions have placed it in greater jeopardy.

When Tamar formally announces her pregnancy, Judah does not recognize her.  He charges Tamar with adultery and sentences her to be burned to death.[11]  Tamar is able to save her life by producing Judah's staff and seal and proving that he is the father of her twins.  Judah's acknowledgement of Tamar's innocence accomplishes two things.  First, it fulfills Judah's legal obligation as the guardian of Er's household.  Second, it restores Tamar's honor as a wife whose concern for Er's inheritance has driven her to take extraordinary measures.[12]

While there is seldom more than one episode in the climax of an ancestor story, its denouement or conclusion, like its crisis, often has several episodes.  Each demonstrates the protagonist taking possession of her goals. 

In the first episode in the story Tamar formally sues Judah for recognition and he publicly acknowledges her as the mother of his heir (Gen 38:25-6).  In the second, she gives birth to twins.  She celebrates their birth with a hymn reflecting their adoption by Judah.  As in the Stories of Adam and Eve (Gen 2:21-4; 4:1-2), and the Stories of Lot and his Daughters (Gen 19:30-38), the birth of twins here signifies the beginning of a new world in which fertility is abundant.  For every pregnancy, there are two births.  As in the Stories of Cain and Abel, the twin motif here also reflects a tradition in the world of the Bible that sibling rivalry is the root of all evil.  Onan's refusal to complete his legal obligation had led to his death, and yet, ironically, Tamar had produced a heir for both Er and Onan.^[13]  Although the father of one household was dead, the right of his household to land and children remained intact.^[14]  Even though the legal guardian had a household of his own, the household of another became his responsibility.  The wise recognize that sometimes the life span of the father of one household must be extended, while the life of another father must be compromised to provide for and to protect the land and children of all.^[15]