24 Now about three months after this, word came to Judah that Tamar, his daughter-in-law, had been acting like a loose woman and was with child. And Judah said, Take her out and let her be burned.
And if the daughter of a priest makes herself common and by her loose behaviour puts shame on her father, let her be burned with fire.
And his servant-wife was angry with him, and went away from him to her father's house at Beth-lehem-judah, and was there for four months.
And their fate will be used as a curse by all the prisoners of Judah who are in Babylon, who will say, May the Lord make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, who were burned in the fire by the king of Babylon; Because they have done shame in Israel, and have taken their neighbours' wives, and in my name have said false words, which I did not give them orders to say; and I myself am the witness, says the Lord.
The faith which you have, have it to yourself before God. Happy is the man who is not judged by that to which he gives approval.
So you have no reason, whoever you are, for judging: for in judging another you are judging yourself, for you do the same things. And we are conscious that God is a true judge against those who do such things.
Be not judges of others, and you will not be judged. For as you have been judging, so you will be judged, and with your measure will it be measured to you. And why do you take note of the grain of dust in your brother's eye, but take no note of the bit of wood which is in your eye? Or how will you say to your brother, Let me take out the grain of dust from your eye, when you yourself have a bit of wood in your eye? You false one, first take out the bit of wood from your eye, then will you see clearly to take out the grain of dust from your brother's eye.
Do not you, O Israel, come into error; do not you, O Judah, come to Gilgal, or go up to Beth-aven, or take an oath, By the living Lord.
And I said to her, You are to be mine for a long space of time; you are not to be false to me, and no other man is to have you for his wife; and so will I be to you.
And they went in to her, as men go to a loose woman: so they went in to Oholibah, the loose woman.
But still she went on the more with her loose behaviour, keeping in mind the early days when she had been a loose woman in the land of Egypt.
And they will have you burned with fire, sending punishments on you before the eyes of great numbers of women; and I will put an end to your loose ways, and you will no longer give payment.
And you went with the Assyrians, because of your desire which was without measure; you were acting like a loose woman with them, and still you had not enough.
But God came to Abimelech in a dream in the night, and said to him, Truly you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken; for she is a man's wife.
And though she saw that, because Israel, turning away from me, had been untrue to me, I had put her away and given her a statement in writing ending the relation between us, still Judah, her false sister, had no fear, but went and did the same.
They say, If a man puts away his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's, will he go back to her again? will not that land have been made unclean? but though you have been acting like a loose woman with a number of lovers, will you now come back to me? says the Lord.
For in the past, your yoke was broken by your hands and your cords parted; and you said, I will not be your servant; for on every high hill and under every branching tree, your behaviour was like that of a loose woman
And Nathan said to David, You are that man. The Lord God of Israel says, I made you king over Israel, putting holy oil on you, and I kept you safe from the hands of Saul;
And David was full of wrath against that man; and he said to Nathan, By the living Lord, death is the right punishment for the man who has done this:
Then they are to make the girl come to the door of her father's house and she will be stoned to death by the men of the town, because she has done evil and put shame on Israel, by acting as a loose woman in her father's house: so you are to put away evil from among you. If a man is taken in the act of going in to a married woman, the two of them, the man as well as the woman, are to be put to death: so you are to put away the evil from Israel. If a young virgin has given her word to be married to a man, and another man meeting her in the town, has connection with her; Then you are to take the two of them to the doorway of the town, and have them stoned to death; the young virgin, because she gave no cry for help, though it was in the town, and the man, because he has put shame on his neighbour's wife: so you are to put away evil from among you. But if the man, meeting such a virgin in the open country, takes her by force, then only the man is to be put to death; Nothing is to be done to the virgin, because there is no cause of death in her: it is the same as if a man made an attack on his neighbour and put him to death: For he came across her in the open country, and there was no one to come to the help of the virgin in answer to her cry.
And if a man has sex relations with another man's wife, even the wife of his neighbour, he and she are certainly to be put to death.
Then Abimelech sent for Abraham, and said, What have you done to us? what wrong have I done you that you have put on me and on my kingdom so great a sin? You have done to me things which are not to be done.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Genesis 38
Commentary on Genesis 38 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 38
This chapter gives us an account of Judah and his family, and such an account it is that one would wonder that, of all Jacob's sons, our Lord should spring out of Judah, Heb. 7:14. If we were to form a character of him by this story, we should not say, "Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise,' ch. 49:8. But God will show that his choice is of grace and not of merit, and that Christ came into the world to save sinners, even the chief, and is not ashamed, upon their repentance, to be allied to them, also that the worth and worthiness of Jesus Christ are personal, of himself, and not derived from his ancestors. Humbling himself to be "made in the likeness of sinful flesh,' he was pleased to descend from some that were infamous. How little reason had the Jews, who were so called from this Judah, to boast, as they did, that they were not born of fornication! Jn. 8:41. We have, in this chapter,
Gen 38:1-11
Here is,
Gen 38:12-23
It is a very ill-favoured story that is here told concerning Judah; one would not have expected such folly in Israel. Judah had buried his wife; and widowers have need to stand upon their guard with the utmost caution and resolution against all fleshly lusts. He was unjust to his daughter-in-law, either through negligence or design, in not giving her his surviving son, and this exposed her to temptation.
Gen 38:24-30
Here is,