He said, “What pledge shall I give you?” She replied, “Your signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her and went in to her, and she conceived by him.
Judah's meeting with Tamar turns on one small deal. He hands over the three things that prove who he is, and three months later they come back as evidence against him.
What the three items were
A signet was a seal. Here is how people carried it and what it did.
Morrish Bible DictionaryStones with words, letters, or symbols engraved on them. In ancient times people pierced them and hung them from the arm or the neck by a cord or chain, or set them in rings and wore them on the finger. The design was pressed into pieces of clay attached to official documents. In the East people do not treat such documents as genuine unless they are sealed.
So Judah handed over his signature, its cord, and his staff. His whole public identity was now in a stranger's hands.
How Judah came to be in that place
This verse is one step in a longer slide. Judah's wife had died, and the loss did not turn him back to God.
L. M. GrantJudah's wife Shuah died… Judah was not driven to the feet of the Lord by this. Instead he turned to the company of one whom he thought was a prostitute. He had promised to give his youngest son Shelah to Tamar, but he had not kept his promise. So Tamar took matters into her own hands. She deceitfully posed as a prostitute to seduce Judah (vv. 13-15). He promised to send her a young goat as payment for his fornication. She demanded some security, and he gave her three things that were plainly his own (v. 18).
The surroundings had shaped him too. He had married into Canaanite life, and that life had its own religious sins.
Truth & TestimonyThis shameful event happened at sheep-shearing time, the time when something is taken from the sheep. To take and leave naked is Satan's work. The practices of the Canaanite cult increased sexual temptation. Ritual fornication was part of their fertility magic. It seems that Tamar posed as a temple prostitute. Such was the world that Judah had married into!
The pledge becomes evidence
The pledge came back as a witness against the man who gave it. It reached him just as he was passing sentence on someone else.
Truth & TestimonyJudah acts as if he is completely right and blameless. Yet he is the one with the greater guilt. It was he who caused Tamar to stumble, and now he wants her punished. If I cause someone else to sin by my own wickedness, how great is my responsibility… Judah is ready to condemn Tamar to be burnt. But she had secured a pledge from him. She now brought it forward as evidence (v. 25), and everyone saw Judah's own share in the sin. This is the way God works. A frank confession will secure His mercy.
The judge who had to own his own sin
The man who had proposed selling Joseph is now the man exposed.
William KellyIt was not Reuben or any other of the tribal heads, but Judah, who proposed the sale of Joseph. Now he showed in his own house the evil which drew down curse on curse. In the end the head of that house had to own the sad shame of Tamar — more righteous than himself, though he had sentenced her to die by fire. Yet through this guilty Judah, and through Tamar, came He who cleanses from all sin by His blood.
Why this chapter stands where it does
The story of Joseph stops for a chapter, and the contrast is deliberate.
F. B. HoleGenesis 38 interrupts the story of Joseph… It seems that Judah's shameful story is told here to sharpen in our minds how firmly Joseph stood under a similar temptation… The Tamar of this chapter is the first of the women named in the genealogy of our Lord in Matthew 1. Of the four women named, only Ruth had a clean record morally, and she came of an accursed race. Such names would never have appeared in the record without the grace of God — the grace that triumphs over human sin.
The warning for us
Tamar wanted something legitimate — a place in the family — but seized it by scheming.
An Outline of Sound WordsHer desire for children was a right one. We can admire how she valued a place in the family where God's name was known… But her actions to achieve her ends cannot be excused. They showed a lack of confidence in God, and the sin itself was unnatural… How ready we are by nature to try to get God's blessing in our own way.
Summary
- Drift. His wife's death did not drive Judah to the Lord. It drove him to a stranger by the roadside.
- Pledge. A signet was an engraved seal on a cord, used to prove a document was genuine. Judah gave away the three things that could only be his.
- Proof. What he gave in the dark came back in daylight as evidence. It reached him while he was condemning another for his own sin.
- Confession. He owned that she was more righteous than himself. A frank confession is where God's mercy meets a person.
- Grace. Tamar's name stands in the genealogy of Christ. Such names stand there only because grace triumphs over human sin.