Genesis 38:5

Right at the start Judah separates himself from his brothers and ties himself to the Canaanite — the "merchant" — by marrying the daughter of Shuah (which means "riches"). These names tell us in plain words what the nation has been like in the centuries since the cross! Yet his line is still kept going on the earth, even though God's wrath rests on the first two sons. Their names speak of "enmity" (Er) and of "iniquity" (Onan). The third son, Shelah ("sprout"?), speaks of God's power in resurrection, bringing life out of death. So a remnant is preserved.

First we are taken back to Er and Onan, so that we remember what kind of history Judah's family had. In these two, the enmity against God, and the iniquity that this enmity shows itself in, are condemned and pass away. No fruit of righteousness — Tamar, the "palm" — can come from them. In the third son, Shelah, Judah's line finds something like its resurrection, and his name speaks of "peace," found here for the first time.

Shelah is the last son born, and his name is said to mean "a sprout." The people who are now outcasts will yet see a national revival. Israel is the fig tree putting out its leaves. Their long, dark winter will soon be over, and their springtime of sprouting will have come (see Matt. 24:32-35; Song 2:11-13). And the inspired writer is careful to tell us where Shelah was born: "Judah was in Chezib when she bore him." Chezib means "false." So the nation will sprout at a time when false prophets and false Christs are everywhere.

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

This passage gives us the first crisis over who will carry on Judah's line. We know that our Lord came from Judah (Matt. 1:3; Heb. 7:14), so we can see Satan pushing his way into these events. His aim was always to hinder the coming and work of the Messiah.

The chapter needs few words to press home its proof of how low Judah had sunk morally... And notice that it was not Reuben or any other head of a tribe, but Judah, who proposed selling Joseph. Now he showed in his own house the evil that brought curse after curse. In the end the head of that house had to admit the sad shame of Tamar, who was more righteous than he was — though he had sentenced her to die by fire. Yet through this guilty Judah, and through Tamar, came the One who cleanses from all sin by His blood.