When we get to these long lists of
names in Scripture, we want to skip them.
You won’t find Matt. 1:1-17 in the lectionary. It’s boring, right? Well, reading a long list of names can be
boring and difficult, but genealogies are not boring. For example, to my knowledge, I had never
previously met my college roommate at UNC-Greensboro, but we got along well
from the start. Christine invited me
early on to the church she had been attending.
It was a college student welcome day, and after church there was a
potluck luncheon. Christine was also
into county line dancing and clogging.
That evening she invited me to go with her and her family, who lived not
far away. We drove to Christine’s house,
and she and her mom were trying to teach me a couple of the dances. Her mom inquired about church, and Christine
said, “There was so much food, it was like a Phillips reunion.” I said, “Phillips reunion? I’m a Phillips! Which ones are you?” So we pulled out the genealogy book that my
great-aunt and one of her cousins had spent years researching and preparing
about the history of the Phillips clan in North Carolina. Christine and I found out that we were 5th
cousins and had indeed been at some of the same reunions as children. Her mom found a couple of group photos, and
we pointed ourselves out. Christine’s
mom remembered my mom, and connections were made. I’m sure that some of you have researched
your own histories and found interesting stories. So although long lists of names can be
boring, the people whom the names represent are anything but boring. And certainly this list in Matthew has some
very interesting characters! This is
after all the genealogy of Jesus. It is
traced through Joseph through the kingly line.
The theme of Matthew’s gospel is Jesus is King, or Jesus is Messiah, so
this genealogy is important in setting the stage. Luke also contains a genealogy traced
differently. Luke’s theme is son of man
so Luke’s genealogy goes all the way back to Adam, whereas Matthew’s starts
with Abraham. King David is at the
center of both, the first common ancestor of Mary and Joseph. If you compare with the Old Testament, you
may think you find a few discrepancies, but this is because “begat” doesn’t
mean “father of” but legal direct descendant.
That’s why a few intermediaries may be left out, but the truth of the
statement remains.
While
there are indeed many interesting characters in these genealogies, only Matthew
includes women in his. In addition to
Mary, 4 women are named. All women other
than Mary are Gentiles, which is especially interesting. I think this helps to show that the Messiah
was never meant to be simply King of the Jews, but King of All, Savior of the
World. We will be looking at these women
during Advent this year.
On
this first Sunday of Advent, we will take a look at the first woman that appears
in Matthew’s genealogy, Tamar. One who
is first hopeless is given hope and honor.
Christ came to bring hope to the hopeless, and that includes us today.
I would never name
my daughter Tamar. They just don’t fair
to well in the Bible. Judah, son of
Jacob, made a happy home among the Canaanites in Abdullam. He befriended the locals, married a Canaanite
woman and has 3 sons. They are the ones
who occupy the Promised Land, whom God will command Joshua to wipe out, but that
time has not yet come. Judah chooses
Tamar, a Canaanite woman, to be the wife of his oldest son, Er. Let’s remember who the Canaanite’s are. Marriages arranged by parents are common, and
Tamar wouldn’t have thought twice about it.
Here is Judah forging an even stronger alliance with the
Canaanites. It is likely that Tamar is a
teenager. We don’t know how long Er and
Tamar were married, or what the pair thought of one another, but we know they
weren’t married too long, because they had no children. More importantly, we know what the Lord
thought of Er, and it wasn’t very good.
Our text says, “He was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put
him to death.” So Tamar gets passed
along to Er’s brother Onan. This seems
barbaric, but it was actually intended to be merciful. There weren’t a lot of careers for single
women back in Bible times. They lived
with their fathers or brothers (if their father was dead) until they were
married. If women did not have a man to
live with, they either had to support themselves by prostitution or were sold
into slavery, like the demon-possessed girl in Acts. Older widows were to be supported by the
community. Widows of child-bearing age
were married off to the nearest kinsman, so that an heir might be produced to
inherit the original husband’s property and to take care the mother.
The
original husband’s property would go with the wife in the care of the
kinsman-redeemer until the heir could inherit it. Unlike the situation in Ruth, whom we’ll
study in a few weeks, Onan wasn’t given the opportunity to refuse the request
to act as kinsman-redeemer. He was
ordered into it by his father-in-law. Judah
is trying to take care of Tamar, and honor the vows that were made in this
arranged marriage. Onan didn’t mind
inheriting his brother’s property, nor did he mind using poor Tamar for his own
pleasure. But he refused to allow Tamar
and his deceased brother to have an heir.
Tamar was in a pretty hopeless situation.
Onan was greedy, and
so he too died an early death.
Apparently, Shelah, the youngest son, and next closest kinsman-redeemer,
was not yet of marrying age, so Judah sends Tamar back home, but promises to
marry her to Shelah, when he is older. Tamar
would have been older than Shelah, but probably not by more than 5 or so
years. She still would have been well
within childbearing age by the time Shelah would have come of age. Judah, blind to the wickedness of his own
children thinks that Tamar is somehow cursed, causing his sons to die
young. Shelah grows up, but Tamar is
forgotten.
Once again, things
seem hopeless for Tamar, but this woman is smart. She knows her father-in-law well. So she dresses like a prostitute and waits
for Judah on the road to Timnah at Enaim.
Apparently, Judah has adopted some Canaanite practices. Visiting a temple prostitute as part of a
sheep-shearing celebration would have been one of them. This is one of the practices for which the
Canaanites would be later condemned. This was not something Judah did while his
wife was alive. Tamar is smart enough to
ask for payment upfront. Judah promises
her a kid, which would have been a substantial payment, but Tamar wants
collateral, because, after all, she isn’t doing this to support herself, she
has had to take desperate measures in order to get back what it hers, namely,
her first husband’s property. Onan’s
would also be added to this unless Onan had had another wife and had produced a
legal heir of his own with her. We don’t
know. But in order for Tamar to get her
husband’s property back, she needed an heir.
So for collateral, Tamar takes 3 things that would specifically identify
Judah as her “customer”. She takes his
signet (how he would sign his name), his staff (identifying his clan), and his
cord from which the signet hung. Michael
Hollinger says, “That would be like taking someone’s drivers
license, passport, and a power of attorney all at once. That signet cord was
Judah.”
Judah
does send his promised payment by his friend Hirah to recover his pledge, but
Tamar cannot be found. No one knows anything
about her. No one knows anything about a
prostitute. Tamar does get
pregnant. Like Mary, Tamar’s pregnancy
is scandalous and could cause her to lose her life. Judah hears about it and is ticked even
though he had no intentions for her to marry Shelah. Tamar’s pregnancy is an embarrassment and
slight against his family. Adultery was
also a death penalty offense, although death by burning was a harsh
sentence. As Tamar is being bought out,
she makes it publicly known that the father of her unborn children is the owner
of the pledges she carries. Judah cannot
deny that the items are his. He has to
own up. Tamar is vindicated and
exonerated. Judah calls her
righteous. He knows that he did not own
up to his end of the deal by marrying her to Shelah. He knows he was cheating her out of an
inheritance. He also knows that he was
not acting as a follower of Yahweh should by visiting a prostitute. Tamar acted more “Jewish” than Judah
did. She knew what was rightfully
hers. Tamar did what she had to do in
that society in order to survive. She
had honorably waited for Shelah to grow up.
She had remained dressed as a widow, signifying she was unavailable for
marriage to someone else. Tamar is
vindicated and her inheritance is being restored.
Tamar endures a
difficult childbirth. One baby’s arm
comes out first. The midwife ties a red
cord to it, for it will be the firstborn (the rightful heir). But the hand is withdrawn, and the other son
is born first. He is Perez. His name means “dawning or brightness.” His brother comes out second with the cord on
his arm. His name is Zerah. His name means, “from the hand.” Like Jacob
and Esau, the second born twin is the honored one. Both grow up and have heirs of their
own. Zerah probably does become Er’s
heir, the one who would have received the property, but it is Perez whom God
chooses to honor to be the father of the kingly line. His father after all was not Er but Judah,
through whom God had promised a king. Interestingly,
in the genealogy in I Chronicles 2, Perez is listed before Zerah.
Judah doesn’t
marry Tamar, nor does he give her to Shelah.
Tamar is left to raise her children alone as a single mom. Unlike Mary, who had Joseph, Tamar raises her
children alone, without the help of Judah, although likely under his protection
or that of her relatives, but still without a direct father figure for her
boys. But it doesn’t matter. She had Er’s property to help her provide for
herself and her children. She is no longer
used and abused by men or subject to such abuse. Tamar is a victim no longer. She shows herself instead to be a woman of
strength. Hope had been given to a hopeless
woman. The one cast aside becomes
honored. Her shame is turned to honor as
she is named in Jesus’s genealogy. God
transforms Tamar’s and Judah’s sinfulness into righteousness. Jesus transforms our sinfulness into
righteousness, our shame into honor, giving us hope.
There is a larger
picture of hope in this story. Hope is
showed for the nation of Canaan. Later
on, God will command Joshua and the Israelites to totally eliminate the
Canaanites, but in this early period, God shows mercy. Abraham’s descendants are living in the
promised land, showing the people what Yahweh is like. And Tamar embraces Yahweh as her God and
passes that along to her children, who were raised without a Jewish
father. I’m sure other Canaanites became
followers of Yahweh as well, perhaps even through Tamar’s witness as they saw
the faithfulness of Yahweh in her life, and how God redeemed her. Furthermore, this is not the only Canaanite
in Jesus’s lineage. Next week we will
look at Rahab, another Canaanite ancestor of Jesus. Though the Canaanites deserved death for
their wicked practices, God shows mercy.
This was one of the most hated and dreaded peoples in Scripture, and
yet, God includes them in God’s great plan of redemption. God offers them time to repent and sends
witnesses among them. God gives us time
to repent and sends us witnesses. When we deserved death, God too showed us
mercy. Jesus gives us life for death. Who do we consider the enemies of God or our
enemies? Let us remember that God loves
them, God created them, God sent Jesus for them, and God wants to redeem
them. No one is without hope in Christ. The opportunity for salvation through
repentance is given to all. Let us pray
that God will raise up witnesses among them, trusting that God’s promise of the
redemption of people from every people group will be fulfilled.
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