Genesis 38:3

Genesis 38 completely interrupts the story of Joseph. Genesis 39 takes it up again and at once tells of the great temptation he faced. It seems the shameful story of Judah is told here to sharpen our sense of how firmly Joseph stood under a temptation of the same kind. Judah seems to have been one of the better behaved sons of Jacob. Yet the practices that marked him and his family were evil, and were clearly accepted as nothing unusual.

How this warns us of our tendency to drift from God's principles! What happened in the same chosen family, generation after generation, may happen in the same chosen person, year after year. People may desert the principles of God by easy stages. They may first relax them, then forget them, then despise them. Those principles may pass from a firm hand into an easy one, then into an indifferent one, until at last a rebellious hand flings them away.

Er was the firstborn of Judah's strength. His father named him, and the meaning of his name may be "watchful". Er clearly became watchful for chances to do evil... Jehovah saw his wickedness, and he reaped the due reward of his actions... It is not easy to bring up children in an evil world. When parents introduce their children to the things of this present evil age, those children will throw themselves into the world with all its ruin and its turning away from God.

Right at the start Judah separates himself from his brothers and joins himself to the Canaanite — the "merchant" — by marrying the daughter of Shuah (or "riches"). These names tell us plainly what has marked the nation in the centuries since the cross! His seed still continues on the earth, though God's wrath rests on the first two sons. Their names speak: Er of "enmity", Onan of "iniquity". The third son, Shelah ("sprout"?), speaks of divine power in resurrection, bringing out of death. So a remnant is preserved.

This chapter needs few words to press home its proof of how low Judah had sunk, just as the next needs few to show Joseph blessed and a blessing. Both chapters mark the name "Jehovah", not just "God". In Genesis 38 that name judges the open breaking of His will. In Genesis 39 it makes Joseph prosper, because he sought to please Jehovah.

In Judah's history we find his utter wandering and misery. Yet in it, and out of it, comes the genealogy of grace. He marries Canaanites. Sin is in his family. He commits immorality with his own daughter-in-law. Everything had gone wrong. Yet out of this sprang the One in whom men would bless others.

The Tamar of this chapter is the first of the women named in the genealogy of our Lord in Matthew 1... Such names would never have appeared in that record if it were not for the grace of God — the grace that triumphs over human sin.