During this fall at the church where I serve, we are
spending our time together in a sermon series looking at a section of the very
first letter that is recorded for us in the Bible called the book of Genesis. This
week, as we continue in this series, I would like for us to spend our time
together by picking up where we left off last week. And as we jump back into
this section of the very first letter that is recorded for us in the Bible,
called the book of Genesis, we will see the focus of this story shift from
Joseph to another one of the twelve sons of Jacob. Moses makes this shift of us
beginning in Genesis 38:1. Let’s look at it together:
And it came
about at that time, that Judah departed from his brothers and visited a certain
Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. Judah saw there a daughter of a certain
Canaanite whose name was Shua; and he took her and went in to her. So she
conceived and bore a son and he named him Er. Then she conceived again and bore
a son and named him Onan. She bore still another son and named him Shelah; and
it was at Chezib that she bore him.
Moses brings us into this section of the book of Genesis
by explaining that after leading a plan to sell his brother Joseph as a slave,
Judah separated from his brothers. Instead of heading back to Hebron with the
rest of his brothers, Judah went to the city of Adullam, which was located 15
miles northwest of Hebron. There Judah connected and developed a friendship
with a man named Hirah, who was from the land of Canaan.
To understand the significance of this friendship, we
first need to understand something about the Canaanites, who were the people
that resided in the land that God had promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The
first thing that we need to understand is that the people who inhabited the
land of Canaan were some of the most inhumane and cruel societies that ever
lived. These were societies that sacrificed their infant children to false
gods; these were societies that were involved in sexual behavior that was so
twisted and perverse I cannot even begin to describe in mixed company. In fact,
many historians and archeologists describe the Canaanite society as being
perhaps the most wicked society that ever existed.
Yet, in
spite of this reality, Judah chose to disconnect from his family and connect with
this culture. Judah then further connected with this culture by pursuing and
marrying a Canaanite woman named Shua. Despite the fact that Judah’s
grandfather and father had been warned against marrying anyone from the land of
Canaan; despite the fact that his father Jacob had made sure not to marry a
person from the land of Canaan, Judah chose to develop an intimate relationship
and marry someone who came from a different religious system and view of God
and the world. And as a result of this
relationship, Judah became the father of three sons, who were named Er, Onan,
and Shelah. Moses then reveals what happened as Judah’s children grew up in
verse 6:
Now Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn,
and her name was Tamar. But Er,
Judah's firstborn, was evil in the sight of the LORD, so the LORD took his
life. Then Judah said to Onan, "Go in to your brother's wife, and perform
your duty as a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your
brother."
When his oldest son Er reached the age of marriage, Moses
tells us that Judah found a Canaanite woman named Tamar to be his wife. Instead
of following the example of his great grandfather Abraham and his grandfather
Isaac, who guided their children to women who shared the same view of God and
the world, Judah guided Er to a woman who held a diametrically opposed view when
it came to God and the world.
You see, Judah’s close relationship with Hirah began to
change how he viewed the world. As time went on, the influence of that
relationship led Judah to marry someone who also embraced the culture of the
land of Canaan, which further influenced his view of God and the world. And the
influence of his relationship with his wife led Judah to guide Er to marry
Tamar who also embraced the culture of the land of Canaan. With each
relationship Judah moved further away from doing what was right in God’s sight.
Moses
then reveals the impact that the influence of these relationships had on the
lives of Judah’s children. While Judah’s relationships moved him further away
from God, his son Er was wholeheartedly opposed to God. Moses describes Er as
being evil in the sight of the Lord. Now while we are not told exactly what Er
had done, this word evil literally means to be morally corrupt. Er was so
morally corrupt that the Lord took his life. In other words, the Lord took him
out; the Lord killed him.
After the Lord responded to Er’s selfishness and
rebellion by killing him on the spot, Moses tells us that Judah commanded his
younger brother to “Go in to your brother's wife, and perform your duty as a
brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother." To which
we say “what”? A natural question that arises here is “so Dave, are you saying
the Judah commanded Er’s younger brother to sleep with Er’s wife so that she
could have kids? Isn’t that adultery? Isn’t that incest? Why would Judah ask
Onan to do that, because that seems jacked up? ”
If those questions are running through your mind, I want
to let you know that those are great questions to be asking. And to understand
the answer to these questions, we first need to understand two things. The
first thing that we need to understand is what is called levirate marriage.
Levirate marriage maintained that if brothers lived together, and if one of
them died without children, one of the surviving brothers was to either marry
or take his wife and father a child with her. The child born of this levirate
relationship would then carry on the name of his deceased father and eventually
inherits the family estate. Now, the brother in law can decline this
obligation, but to do so would result in public humiliation and disgrace. We
see this occur later in the Bible in the story of Ruth.
Now this leads to the second
thing that we need to understand, which is that what Moses is describing here
refers to a specific time in history with a specific group of people. This is
not a timeless principle; this principle does not apply today. During this
period, as God was creating and establishing what would become the Jewish
nation, Jacob, his twelve sons, and their descendants were responsible for
populating and controlling the land. So the levirate marriage was established
to make sure that land and property, along with the name and family tree of a
dead brother, would not disappear.
Now with all that in mind,
notice that Judah does not command Onan to marry Tamar. Instead, he only
commands Onan to have sex with Tamar so that she could have a child to carry on
the name of Er. You see, Judah is not concerned about taking care of his
daughter in law Tamar; he is only concerned about his dead son.
Now if that is not strange
enough, tomorrow we will see this situation get even stranger…
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