Genesis 38

I want to preface this post by clarifying that I by no means am qualified to fully dive into all the theological implications or contextual significance. My thoughts in this post are simply that - my thoughts.

I decided recently that my next focus for morning devotions would be the story of Joseph. Exactly 1 chapter in and boom there is the story of Judah and Tamar. If you know the story, you get why it’s one that gets skipped over in Sunday school more often.

If I’m honest, I almost skipped it since what I really wanted was to read Joseph’s story. In my mind, I know the story, and so why not skip it for now.

It took a moment for the Holy Spirit to push a little to humble me back into my spot and remind me that He put it in there and not as a mistake.

So, I read Genesis 38.

I didn’t particularly expect to get a lot out of it. After all, it’s really one of those stories that makes you scratch your head as to why it’s inspired Scripture.

Rereading it, however, brought a truly unexpected comfort to my life.

Tamar’s story is messy.

There’s really not another way to say it. We don’t really know a lot besides the fact that her first husband was so wicked that God decided to kill him, and that the second followed right along in his footsteps. The Bible doesn’t blame Tamar for her husband’s actions - God actually kills the men because of their wickedness - and yet Tamar’s life still ends up looking pretty terrible on paper.

Then her father-in-law lies to her. Rather than taking responsibility for raising his sons to be so wicked, Judah decides to blame Tamar for his sons dying, and keeps his 3rd from her in his attempt to save him.

The story then goes on to show Judah making some morally questionable (read as: absolute sin) decisions. This isn’t to let Tamar off the hook - she definitely makes some *cough cough* questionable decisions - but it is to point out that Judah’s values are clearly demonstrated as being heavily selfishly motivated.

Judah then tries to hold Tamar accountable for being immoral without considering his own lack of ground to stand on until she proves to him that he’s every bit as complicit in the situation that he’s been so outraged by.

Needless to say: the story. is. messy.

And it still makes the cut.

God doesn’t sit there and cross you off of some magical list of who He can call and who He can use just because your past has been broken. The Bible over and over again shows just how broken people are to emphasize the fact that redemption is not dependent on us. We can’t earn it and without His grace we’d be screwed.

There are things in my story that I have responsibility for.

There are things in my story that were never my fault.

Neither category puts me outside of God’s grace or goodness.

God didn’t abandon Tamar.

God didn’t abandon Judah.

In fact, BOTH Judah and Tamar are included in Jesus’ genealogy.

Our stories and circumstances may not always make sense to us. There may be things we look at and we simply don’t understand what the purpose is. And yet even in that confusion God is at work.

Judah and Tamar both learned more about God through this story. I don’t know per se what those exact lessons were, but you can see Judah’s recognition of his own depravity in the ending. God doesn’t make accidents in the paths He lets us walk, and sometimes those paths may just be for our own understanding of just how truly dependent on Him we really are.