Unexpected: Five Women in the Lineage of JesusSample

Tamar: Persevering in the Shadows

By Rebecca Rhee

Centuries before Jesus was born, the prophet Isaiah wrote that the Redeemer of the world would have “no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him” (Isaiah 53:2–3). From the gospels, we learn that Jesus spent years living in obscurity before His public ministry began. These truths reveal that, however the Messiah planned to fulfill His mission, it would involve working in the shadows as well as stepping into the light.

Should we be surprised, then, that the first ancestress of Jesus lived her life along the same trajectory: moving from darkness into light, battling evils until she triumphed?

The evils? Marriage to two brothers, Er and Onan, sons of Judah, who so offend God that He executes them. While we don’t know Er’s trespass, we do know Onan wastes his seed instead of impregnating Tamar with offspring that are hers by right of levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25, Ruth 4). Furthermore, Judah compounds his sons’ sins by refusing to marry his remaining son to Tamar for fear he will die too. And he nearly burns his daughter-in-law to death when he discovers she is pregnant.

Thus, Tamar must overcome two hardships that seem unconquerable: the death of husbands, whom she depends on for her livelihood as wife and mother, and degradation, being misperceived as a person of little worth who can be cheated, murdered, or blamed for others’ sins.

Tamar copes by disguising herself as a prostitute and retaining Judah’s seal, cord, and staff after their encounter. She saves herself from death by producing them as evidence of Judah’s involvement in her condition. It is she who controls the outcome of sex this time, not another.

Moreover, she forces Judah to publicly exonerate her, reinstating herself as someone worthy of carrying Abrahamic seed (Genesis 15:5,18).

Tamar allows the catastrophes in her life to become clay in God’s hand. Don’t we all wish to persevere in the shadows until we see our crises reverse course?

Tamar is tied to Jesus by so much more than blood. She foreshadows His ability to persevere with God so that life springs forth from death, hope from despair, and redemption from sin.

Questions:

1. Do you have difficulty with Tamar’s place in Matthew’s genealogy because her ploy was sexual in nature?
2. Why is it important to persevere in hardship?
3. What does Tamar’s story demonstrate about faith, hope, and redemption?