Judah and Tamar
38 About that time Judah went down from his brothers and visited a man from Adullam named Hirah. 2 There Judah saw a daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He took her as a wife and went to her. 3 She conceived and gave birth to a son, and he named him Er. 4 She conceived again and gave birth to another son, and she named him Onan. 5 She gave birth to yet another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to Shelah.
6 Judah took a wife for Er, his firstborn. Her name was Tamar. 7 It turned out that Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord killed him.
8 Then Judah said to Onan, “Go to your brother’s wife. Perform your duty for her as the brother of her deceased husband and provide offspring[a] for your brother.” 9 Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, so whenever he went to his brother’s wife, he wasted his semen on the ground, so that he would not provide offspring for his brother. 10 But the thing that he did was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord killed him also.
11 Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah is grown up.” Actually he had said to himself, “I do not want him to die like his brothers.” So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.
12 After some time Shua’s daughter, the wife of Judah, died. When Judah had finished mourning, he went up to his sheepshearers at Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 13 Tamar was told, “Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” 14 She took off the garments that identified her as a widow, covered herself with her veil, disguised herself, and sat in the gate of Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah, because she saw that Shelah had grown up, but she was not going to be given to him as a wife.
15 When Judah saw her, he thought that she was a prostitute, because she had covered her face. 16 He turned to her by the roadside and said, “Please, let me come to you,” because he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.
She said, “What will you give me, so that you may come to me?”
17 He said, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.”
She said, “Will you give me something as a security deposit until you send the goat?”
18 He said, “What should I give you as a deposit?”
She said, “Your stamp seal on its cord and your staff that is in your hand.”
He gave them to her and went to her, and she conceived by him. 19 Then she got up and left. Later she took off her veil and put her widow’s garments back on.
20 Judah sent the young goat with his friend, the Adullamite, to get back the deposit from the woman’s possession, but he could not find her. 21 So he asked the men from that place, “Where is the sacred prostitute who was by the road at Enaim?”
They said, “There hasn’t been any sacred prostitute here.”
22 So he returned to Judah and said, “I could not find her, and the men of the place said, ‘There hasn’t been any sacred prostitute here.’”
23 Judah said, “Let her keep it, so that we are not disgraced. Look, I did send this young goat, but you were unable to find her.”
24 About three months later Judah was told, “Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has prostituted herself, and even worse, she is pregnant by prostitution.”
Judah said, “Bring her out and burn her.”
25 When she was brought, she sent this message to her father-in-law: “I am pregnant by the man to whom these things belong.” She also said, “Please help me identify whose these are—this stamp seal on its cord and the staff.”
26 Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, because I did not give her to Shelah, my son.” But he was not intimate with her again.
27 When the time came for her to go into labor, it turned out that there were twins in her womb. 28 When she was in labor, one of the twins put out a hand, and the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.” 29 But then after he had pulled back his hand, his brother came out first, so she said, “What a breakthrough you made for yourself!” That is why he was named Perez.[b] 30 Afterward his brother who had the scarlet thread on his hand came out, so he was named Zerah.[c]
Footnotes
- Genesis 38:8 Literally seed, which alludes both to semen and to the child that is produced from it
- Genesis 38:29 Perez means breaking out.
- Genesis 38:30 Zerah means scarlet.