What should we learn from what the Bible says about Tamar?

Tamar's husband "was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him." His brother, Onan, also invoked the Lord's displeasure, in his dealings with Tamar, and he too was slain. Tamar had the natural desire for children, and was evidently content to wait till Judah's third son was old enough to be her husband, which seemed to show that she valued her place in the family of Jacob.

But the action of Tamar in waylaying Judah was not one that sprang from faith in God, even if she valued a place in the family where there was the knowledge of the true God. Humanly speaking, the act of Tamar was more righteous than that of Judah as he confessed; but they were alike morally, partners in a grievous sin. Conduct such as this might suit the families of the Canaanites, but it was abhorrent to the holiness of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

It might be difficult for us to rightly assess the true worth of Tamar. Her desire for children was a right one, and we can admire her valuation of a place in the family where God's Name was known, and the righteous and trusting qualities evinced in her patient waiting in widowhood; but her actions to achieve her ends cannot be condoned, both because of the lack of confidence in God and for the unnatural character of the sin. Her deceit manifested the natural scheming that is only too common among those who have been brought into a place of divine privilege; it savoured of the guile that marked Laban, and that came out in Rebekah and Jacob when they deceived Isaac. How apt we are naturally to seek to obtain divine blessing in our own way.

In spite of her birth, her deceit, and her grave sin, Tamar received a place in the most honoured genealogical line in human history. It may be that beneath all the activities of the flesh there was a genuine faith in the God of Jacob, and a real, divinely implanted desire to be associated with those who knew the God of Abraham and of Isaac. Whether this was so or not, we do know that in the sovereignty of His grace God marked out Tamar, in spite of all that she was and did, to have her name associated with so many honoured names in Scripture, and with the most honoured, the Name of Jesus, the blessed Son of God. Divine grace and mercy can rise above all that we are naturally, and all that we have done, to give us part with Christ before the Father's face even now, and to share Christ's place in the coming day of glory, and in the Father's house for evermore.

What a hypocrite! Judah acts as if he is completely right and without blame, but it is he who has the greater guilt. It was he who caused Tamar to stumble and now he wants her punished. If I cause another to sin because of my own wickedness, how great then is my responsibility. Judah was the prime mover in these sins and now he places all the blame on Tamar. He would be horrified to have the responsibility and blame placed at his feet. Judah's pretended virtue is about to be exposed by the subsequent events. God's Spirit will say, as to his great heir, David, "Thou art the man" (2 Sam. 12: 7). He has a double standard, which is not acceptable to a holy God. Judah is ready to condemn Tamar to be burnt, but she had secured a pledge from him. This she now brought forward in evidence (v. 25) and Judah's complicity in the sin is manifested before all. This is the way God works. A frank confession will secure His mercy. Tamar is acknowledged as being more righteous than Judah (v. 26). In Psalm 92: 12 we read again of Tamar, "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree." (Tamar means Palm). The last verse of that Psalm is very appropriate to what follows in the narrative of our chapter: "the LORD is upright... there is no unrighteousness in Him." Having established righteousness He is now free to show mercy.

The closing verses (vv. 27-30) of this chapter show how mercy rejoices over judgment. Of this J. G. Bellett wrote, "The hope of Israel is in the womb, a blessing is in the cluster; but truly it is such a cluster of wild vine as might well be doomed to the sickle, if sovereign, abounding grace did not say, "Destroy it not" (Isa. 65: 8; Matt. 1: 3)." The midwife had seen nothing like this before and exclaims, "How hast thou broken forth?" (v. 29). But thus the line to Christ is carried forward. Pharez comes forth, the second Jacob, a supplanter. From this one there was to come the True Inheritor of every blessing. Christ is the righteous Supplanter of every usurper, and He will prevail and His kingdom will stand for ever. Out of Judah will come the chief ruler (1 Chr. 5: 2). We wonder how any good could come out of such a disastrous course of events, but what is impossible with men is not so with God. He brings glory to His Name out of darkest shame. This is fully shown in the cross, where Jew and Gentile joined together in the sin of rejecting and crucifying God's Son. It was from such sinners that a new body was formed, expressly to worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 2: 18).

What a hypocrite! Judah acts as if he is completely right and without blame, but it is he who has the greater guilt. It was he who caused Tamar to stumble and now he wants her punished. If I cause another to sin because of my own wickedness, how great then is my responsibility. Judah was the prime mover in these sins and now he places all the blame on Tamar. He would be horrified to have the responsibility and blame placed at his feet. Judah's pretended virtue is about to be exposed by the subsequent events. God's Spirit will say, as to his great heir, David, “Thou art the man” (2 Sam. 12:7). He has a double standard, which is not acceptable to a holy God. Judah is ready to condemn Tamar to be burnt, but she had secured a pledge from him. This she now brought forward in evidence (v. 25) and Judah's complicity in the sin is manifested before all. This is the way God works. A frank confession will secure His mercy. Tamar is acknowledged as being more righteous than Judah (v. 26). In Psalm 92:12 we read again of Tamar, “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree…” (Tamar means Palm). The last verse of that Psalm is very appropriate to what follows in the narrative of our chapter: “the LORD is upright … there is no unrighteousness in Him.” Having established righteousness He is now free to show mercy.

The closing verses (vv. 27-30) of this chapter show how mercy rejoices over judgment. Of this J. G. Bellett wrote, “The hope of Israel is in the womb, a blessing is in the cluster; but truly it is such a cluster of wild vine as might well be doomed to the sickle, if sovereign, abounding grace did not say, “Destroy it not” (Isa. 65:8; Matt. 1:3).” The midwife had seen nothing like this before and exclaims, “How hast thou broken forth?” (v. 29). But thus the line to Christ is carried forward. Pharez comes forth, the second Jacob, a supplanter. From this one there was to come the True Inheritor of every blessing. Christ is the righteous Supplanter of every usurper, and He will prevail and His kingdom will stand for ever. Out of Judah will come the chief ruler (1 Chr. 5:2). We wonder how any good could come out of such a disastrous course of events, but what is impossible with men is not so with God. He brings glory to His Name out of darkest shame. This is fully shown in the cross, where Jew and Gentile joined together in the sin of rejecting and crucifying God's Son. It was from such sinners that a new body was formed, expressly to worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:18).

"And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar" (ver. 3). What is the reason for bringing in a woman, for naming Tamar here? There were women of great note in the lineage of the Messiah — persons whom the Jews naturally looked up to as holy and honourable. What Jewish heart would not naturally glow with strong feelings of respect in hearing of Sarah and Rebekah, and the other holy and well-known women recorded in Old Testament history? But there is no mention of them here. On the other hand, Tamar is mentioned. Why is it so? Grace lay underneath this, most rebuking to the flesh, but most precious in its way. There are four women, and only four, who appear in the line, and upon every one of them there was a blot. It is not that all the sources of reproach or shame were of the same kind. But to a proud Jew, with all these women there was connected what was humbling — something that he would have kept in the dark. Oh, wondrous way of God! What can He not do? How striking that the Holy Ghost should not here attract attention to those who would have brought honour in the eyes of Israel — nay, that He should single out these that a carnal Israelite would have held in contempt! The Messiah was to spring from a line in which there had been dismal sin. And where all that is in man would try to hide this and keep it back, the Spirit of God brings it plainly out, so that it shall stand not only in the eternal records of the Old Testament history, but here rehearsed. These, on whom there were such foul blots in the judgment of men, are the only women brought specifically before us. What is man? and what is God? What is man that such things should ever have taken place? And what is God that, instead of covering it, He should have drawn the story out of obscurity and set it in full revealed light, emblazoned, if I may so say, on the genealogy of His own Son! Not at all as if the sin were not exceeding sinful; nor as if God thought lightly of the privileges of His people — still less of the glory of His Son, or what is due to Him. But God, feeling the sin of His own people to be the worst of all sin, yet having introduced in this very Messiah the only One who could save His people from their sins, does not hesitate to bring their sin into the presence of the grace that could and would put it all away. Did the Jew think this was a scandal or dishonour done to the Messiah? From that same seed their Messiah must spring, and from no other line. It was narrowed to the house of David, and to the line of Solomon, and they were in the direct line of Judah's son Phares. No Jew could get out of the difficulty. What are we not taught by this! If the Messiah deigns to link Himself with such a family — if God is pleased so to order things that out of that stock, as concerning the flesh, His own Son, the Holy One of Israel, was to be born — surely there could be none too bad to be received of Him. He came to "save His people from their sins," not to find a people that had no sins. He came with all power to save: He showed grace by the very family whereof He was pleased to be a — or rather the — Branch. God is never confounded; neither, through grace, is he that believes, because he rests upon what God is to him. We never can be anything for God till we know that God is everything for us and to us. But when we know such a God and Father as Jesus reveals Him to us, on one side full of goodness, and on the other no darkness in Him at all, what may we not expect from Him? Who might not now be born of God? Who is there that such a God would reject? Such a hint in Matt. 1 opens the way for the wonders of grace which appear afterward. In one sense no man has such a position of ancient privileges as the Jew; yet, even as to the Messiah, this is the account that the Holy Ghost gives of His lineage. No flesh shall glory in the presence of the Lord.

Now in all this history of Tamar's the thing that strikes me in this connection is, that there is no redeeming feature about it. If I take the record attached to the other names which have place with hers in this genealogy, I may find perhaps in each case something that breaks the darkness a little. But I find nothing similar recorded about Tamar. She comes before me in this picture as a sinner and nothing else. The wife successively of two men, each cut off for his wickedness by divine judgment, she dares yet in her own person, by crime equal to theirs, provoke divine judgment. But the wonder above all this is, that it is this very sin that brings her name into the Lord's genealogy — for this sin it was that made her the mother of Pharez, one of the direct line in Christ's ancestry.

Now, in all this history of Tamar's, the thing that strikes me in this connection is, that there is no redeeming feature about it. If I take the record attached to the other names which have place with hers in this genealogy, I may find perhaps in each case something that a little breaks the darkness. But I find nothing similar recorded about Tamar. She comes before me in this picture as a sinner and nothing else. The wife successively of two men, each cut off for his wickedness by divine judgment, she dares yet in her own person - by crime equal to theirs - provoke divine judgment. But the wonder above all this is, that it is this very sin that brings her name into the Lord's genealogy; for this sin it was that made her the mother of Pharez, one of the direct line of Christ's ancestry!

Now, in all this history of Tamar's, the thing that strikes me in this connection is, that there is no redeeming feature about it. If I take the record attached to the other names which have place with hers in this genealogy, I may find perhaps in each case something that breaks the darkness a little. But I find nothing similar recorded about Tamar. She comes before me in this picture as a sinner and nothing else. The wife successively of two men, each cut off for his wickedness by divine judgment, she dares yet in her own person, by crime equal to theirs, provoke divine judgment. But the wonder above all this is, that it is this very sin that brings her name into the Lord's genealogy — for this sin it was that made her the mother of Pharez, one of the direct line in Christ's ancestry.

The story of Tamar shows us how, in God's marvelous way of grace, Christ comes into connection with Judah, and thus it is her name appears in the Lord's genealogy in the gospel of Matthew, first of those four women's names, whose presence there demonstrates the grace which has stooped to take up men. Each of these four has its own distinctive gospel-feature to bring out, as elsewhere shown. It is Tamar's sin that brings her in, as it is Rahab's faith; while for Ruth to come in, the sentence of the law as to the Moabites must be set aside, and Bathsheba — named even as the wife of Urias — shows us grace triumphing over even a believer's sin. A salvation for sinners, — through faith, — apart from law, — and eternal: this is what the simple insertion of these names declares. Tamar's sin was the very thing which brought her into the Lord's genealogy: and as sinners simply have we title to rejoice in a work accomplished for sinners. Judah will find, in a day that is near, his title, not in legal righteousness, nor in mere descent from Abraham, but in the truth which God has emphasized for us here.

The history of Tamar shows us in God's own marvelous way how Christ comes into connection with Judah, and thus it is her name appears in the Lord's genealogy in the gospel of Matthew, first of those four women's names, whose presence there demonstrates the grace which has stooped to take up men. Each of these four has its own distinctive gospel-feature to bring out, as has been elsewhere shown. It is Tamar's sin that is insisted on, as it is Rahab's faith; while for Ruth to come in, the sentence of the law has to be set aside, and Bathsheba shows us grace triumphing even over a believer's sin. A salvation for sinners, — a salvation by faith, — a salvation from the sentence of the law, — an eternal salvation: this is what the simple insertion of these names declares. And in this chapter of Genesis, whatever else may be contained, we are assured, as every where, for Jew first, and for Gentile also, sin it is which through the infinite pity of God connects us with a Saviour. Tamar's sin alone brought her into the Lord's genealogy and God has taken pains to record, doubly record, this striking fact. Even so as simply sinners have we title to rejoice in a. work accomplished for the need of sinners. Judah shall find in a coming day his title, not in legal righteousness, nor in Abrahamic descent, but in what God has emphasized for us here.

Tamar is the first. Her shameful history of fornication is recorded in Genesis 38. What a dark story it is, full of the evil deeds of the flesh. Sin in its blackness is seen there. But how did she get into the genealogy? The answer is, by her sin. It was her shameful sin that puts her here in the genealogy of Him who has come to save that which is lost, the Saviour of men. The Holy Spirit has put her name in and shows by it that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Saviour of sinners. He has come to save the vilest and the lowest. And the second one is Rahab. Who was she? A Canaanitess. Unclean and outcast, a harlot full of abomination. Yet here is her name too linked with Salmon (meaning clothed) and Boaz, her son, which means, "In strength." She had believed the messengers as they had come, and the scarlet thread, the sign of her deliverance from the doomed city, was in her window. "By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace" (Heb. 11:31). It was faith by which she came into line. Every Jew knew her history and knew too that she had come in to share Israel's blessings. Still the proud Pharisees murmured when Jesus sat down and ate and drank with the publicans and the sinners and the outcasts gathered around Him, murmuring because He sought the lowest.