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TAMAR
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FAMOUS
PAINTINGS
of Tamar and Judah
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THE STORY OF TAMAR
Bible Study Resource: Women of the Old Testament
Tamar, the Levirite Law, and Judah
Tamar means ‘date palm’, a name that suggests
strength, food, shade, and life
Judah means ‘give praise to God’
Er is the name of Tamar's first husband; it is a pun, since Er
spelt backwards in Hebrew is the word for 'evil'
Perez means ‘he who pushes through’, the one who
breaks through a wall
Zerah means ‘scarlet'
Onan means ‘the virile one’; in the circumstances, it
is an ironic name
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ON THIS PAGE:
What
the story is about:
Tamar marries, but remains
childless
Tamar
claims her Levirate rights
Tamar is accused of promiscuity
The birth of Tamar's twin sons
Summary
The
Cultural Setting for this story
Activities
and Focus Questions
Interesting
Websites
Activities and Focus Questions
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The fruit of a date palm
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What the story is about:
The story of Tamar contains four
different episodes:
1 Tamar married, but remained childless,
Genesis 38:1-11. Tamar married into the family of Judah, first to
Judah’s son Er and then, after his death, to Onan his brother. Because
of Onan’s actions, she did not become pregnant. For a Jewish woman,
this meant disgrace, because people thought that being childless was a
punishment from God.
2 She claimed her Levirite rights,
Genesis 38:12-19. Eventually, Tamar had to trick Judah in order to obtain
a child. By ancient Hebrew standards, her actions were legal and morally
right.
3 She was accused of promiscuity,
Genesis 38:20-26. Because she did not name the father of her child, it was
assumed that she had been promiscuous, and Judah sentenced her to be burnt
to death. But she saved herself by a clever ploy.
4 She bore twin sons,
Genesis 38:27-30. Her tenacity was rewarded with the birth of sons, one of
whom would be the ancestor of King David.
The story describes the way a
widow, Tamar, obtained a child for herself and an heir for her dead
husband’s inheritance. It shows a virtuous woman who risked everything,
her life and her reputation, to get what was rightfully hers. It is part of
the continuing Jewish preoccupations with social justice.
The story also
shows one of the main themes of the Book of Genesis: God’s promise to
continue the Jewish people, through many generations, against all odds.
For
a short version of Tamar's story, see BIBLE
MEN AND WOMEN: TAMAR
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'Tamar', Diane-Blair Goodpasture
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As a young woman, Tamar married
Er, eldest son of Judah and an unnamed daughter of Shua. It was a
good match and things should have gone well, but Er practised some form of birth control, probably
by withdrawing before ejaculation, and so Tamar was childless. God
punished Er
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people at the time saw withdrawal as a crime against Nature and God. Tamar
suffered a double tragedy: her husband Er died, and she lost the chance of having a child.
‘But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in
the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death. Then Judah said to
Onan ‘Go into your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a
brother-in-law to her; raise up offspring for your brother.’
Read Genesis 38:1-11.
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Widowed and without children, Tamar was low in the pecking order of the
tribe. But there was a way out: the Levirate Law.
This law was found in Deuteronomy 25:5-10. If a man died, and his wife
had not yet had a child by him, she could go to his brother and demand
that he marry her and give her a child who would inherit the property of
the dead husband. This practical law was about two things:
* the woman's right to have children, and
* keeping property within the family.
Under Levirate law, Er’s
younger brother Onan was obliged to give Tamar a child. But he refused
outright to
do so, probably because any child born to Tamar would carry Er’s name,
not Onan’s, and when their father died the child would inherit the dead
brother’s portion of the estate. He practiced the same form of birth
control, and Tamar did not conceive.
Onan thus failed to carry out the Levirate
obligation to Tamar, and disregarded his father's command. He died, and his death at such an early age was seen
as just punishment from God.
Since then, 'onanism' has become the technical word used
to describe uncompleted coition and masturbation.
Deuteronomy 25:9-10 describes
the punishment for a man who refused to obey the Levirate law: the woman
went up to him in a public assembly, pulled his sandal from his foot, spat
in his face, and said 'This is what is done to the man who does not build
up his brother's house'. To us the punishment does not sound very much,
but in the context of the time it meant public disgrace. The action in
verse 9
had symbolic meaning: the foot symbolized the male genitals, the sandal
the female sexual organs, and the spittle, the semen. The woman’s action
publicly humiliated the man, and his family's disgrace was remembered long
after he himself was dead. Public shame was often used to enforce the law
in ancient times.
When Onan died without giving
Tamar a child, she looked to the third son of Judah to be her husband. But
he was only a boy, too young to be a father. So Judah sent Tamar back to
her family, promising to send for her when Shelah, the third son, was old
enough.
Judah began to look on Tamar as a jinx,
in some way responsible for the deaths of his two eldest sons.
Tamar waited patiently, but after a
while it became clear that Judah did not mean to give her his third son
Shelah as a husband. She should not have been surprised. Many years ago Judah had been guilty of selling his
own brother Joseph to the Egyptians (Genesis 37:26). Now he refused to keep
the Levirate law.
When she saw that she was to be
left a childless widow, she decided to act. She did not blame ‘the
system’, but took the initiative to obtain what was rightfully
hers. She dressed in the special clothing of a prostitute which
included a veil across her face that disguised her identity, waited for
Judah at the city gates, and persuaded him to have sexual intercourse with her.
The city gates described in the story would have been similar to the
gates of Dan; you can see fascinating photographs of this excavated gate at
BIBLE ARCHAEOLOGY:
CITIES
‘She put off her widow’s
garments, put on a veil, wrapped herself up, and sat down at the entrance
to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. She saw that Shelah was grown
up, yet she had not been given to him in marriage. When Judah saw her, he
thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face.’
Read Genesis 38:12-19.
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'Tamar and Judah', Horace Vernet
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It is likely that Judah perceived
Tamar as one of the sacred prostitutes. The Hebrew words for a sacred
prostitute (kedeshah, sacred woman) and a normal prostitute (zonah)
are both used in this story. In Israel, prostitutes were required to cover
their faces at all times.
Sacred prostitution was part of
Canaanite religious practice, and Canaanites were the dominant social
group at this time. The Canaanites saw sexuality, either human or in
Nature, as a divine force. According to Herodotus, a Greek historian
writing in about 450BC, a Babylonian woman would follow the following
practice:
She would disguise herself at least once during her
life, covering her face with a veil. In this way she discarded her own
personal identity. She would then go to the temple and receive a man who
was a stranger to her (Herodotus 1.199). This man, in this
particular act, represented the incarnate god. Their sexual act was meant,
by what is called ‘sympathetic magic’, to reflect and encourage
fertility in the Great Mother, Nature. Herodotus emphasized that, once a woman
had fulfilled this obligation, she was virtuous and loyal to her husband
for the rest of her life.
Tamar may have followed a
version of this practice, but she also asked for payment from Judah. He
promised to send her a kid from his flock, and in the meantime, as a
guarantee, he left his seal, cord and staff, all of which were personal
items that could be identified. Then she took off the special clothing of
a prostitutes, dressed herself again in her widow’s clothing, and
returned home.
This famous incident has been recorded by a number of painters;
see BIBLE ART: TAMAR
for some of their work.
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The seal, cord and staff were symbols of a person’s
identity, items of great personal worth, and it is surprising that
Judah gave them up. Judah's seal may have been a
cylinder seal similar to clay seals found in a number of archaeological excavations, particularly in the
Mesopotamian area. Herodotus (1.196) gives a description of the staff made
specifically for each person, with a personal emblem carved on the top of
it.
But to Tamar theses items meant
much more: they symbolised the son she would
have, the son who would succeed Judah.
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'Tamar',
Aharon April
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When Judah’s friend came to make
payment to the unknown prostitute and reclaim Judah’s seal, cord and
staff, the woman was nowhere to be found. Tamar had gone home, without telling
anyone who she was. But through this one act of sexual intercourse with
Judah she had become pregnant, a fact that was
soon evident to the people around her. Judah, who already blamed her for the deaths of
his sons, thought the worst when he heard that she was pregnant. She was
accused of ‘playing the whore’.
And Judah said “Bring her out
and let her be burned”.
Read Genesis 38:20-26.
Now Judah, as head of the tribe,
had the right to pass judgment on her, and to condemn her to death. The Code of
Hammurabi, law 129, reads ‘If the
wife of a man has been caught while lying with another man, they shall
bind them and throw them into the water. If the husband of the woman
wishes to spare his wife, then the king in turn may spare his subject’.
Deuteronomy 22:22, the Hebrew law code, recommends death for both the man
and the woman.
Judah pronounced that Tamar should
be burnt to death, a particularly cruel way to die.
But Tamar was not beaten yet. She sent the seal, cord and staff back to Judah, with the
message that they belonged to the father of her child, and Judah,
confronted by the evidence, had little choice but to acknowledge that she was in the
right, and that she had been acting according to the law.
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Ancient cylinder seal
from Mesopotamia
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Tamar’s insistence on her rights
was rewarded by the birth of not one but two children!
‘While she was in labor, one
put out a hand; and the midwife took and bound on his hand a crimson
threat, saying “This one came out first”. But just then he drew back
his hand, and out came his brother; and she said “What a breach you have
made for yourself!” Therefore he was named Perez.’
Read Genesis 38:27-30.
Tamar’s sons were called Perez
and Zerah. Perez would be an ancestor of King David.
Tamar’s actions were unorthodox by modern
standards. But in a way she ‘redeemed’ Judah. She saved him from doing
what was wrong, and was thus a pre-figure of Jesus, who was one of her
descendents.
In an odd sort of way, Tamar was
more loyal to the tribe of Judah than he was himself. She knew she had a
duty to produce an heir to her husband, and she was determined to do so,
come what might. Despite her somewhat unorthodox methods, she was a woman of
integrity who risked her life to fulfill her duty to herself and her family. She knew she
had the right to a child, and she knew that her first husband Er had the
right to an heir. So she acted to make this happen.
Once again, God's plan continued to unfold through the unorthodox
actions of a woman.
'In the Joseph story, good things happen
to bad people, bad things turn out to be good things by misadventure. It
is no coincidence that just after the sale of Joseph into slavery, Judah
enters into ambiguous sexual relations with a Canaanite daughter-in-law,
Tamar. This is a comment on events in Samuel, transposed into the Joseph
story, but indirectly. In fact, these very stories may be the springboard
for the Shakespearean worldview: scum at the bottom, scum at the
top.' (Quoted from David's Secret Demons, Baruch Halpern,
William B. Eerdmans Publishing, Michigan, 2001, p.360)
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THE
CULTURAL SETTING FOR THIS STORY
It was probably in this period that women enjoyed greatest freedom and
prestige. The stories in Genesis and Exodus show them as independent and
strong, smart and tough. They display leadership and initiative. They
almost always get their way when they want something. Tamar
is a case in point: she knows her rights, and she pursues them decisively.
This was probably because women were necessary for the survival of the tribe, and they knew it.
They did a wide range of tasks, without which the clan or family simply could not have
managed - see the second section of BIBLE
ARCHAEOLOGY: WORK
for the range of these tasks.
They moved freely in society, and were not confined within the home. The Bible stories show that they spoke and
acted confidently.
Their contribution to the culture of the time was significant. The stories as we have them in the Bible were edited much later by male priests, but there are hints
that women had a thriving cultural tradition of their own - most of which has
unfortunately been lost because it was never recorded, as men's
stories were. These stories dealt with women who were famous at the
time, with families, children, food supplies, security/safety and home-places.
Some scholars suggest that many of the stories of Genesis were originally women’s
stories, preserved by women in the clan and later written down by the male scribes.
As well, women played an active role in religious matters. The concept of monotheism was just beginning to develop,
but many women probably worshipped a fertility goddess, the Great
Mother,
source of plant, animal and human life. Ancient Near Eastern religions certainly had fertility of the soil and animal life as one of their main focuses, with priestesses who served the forces of
Nature - the power of river and rain water, abundance of crops and animals,
etc. See BIBLE
ARCHAEOLOGY: ANCIENT RELIGIONS
for photographs, architectural models and information about religion in the ancient world.
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The stone stele on
which the laws of Hammurabi were recorded
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The laws of Hammurabi, a famous law-maker and king of Babylonia, provide insights into the lives of women in this period. There were laws to
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protect the rights of women in marriage
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protect women against rape
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define the punishment for adultery
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define the just treatment of women who were slaves
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regulate the behaviour of sacred women who
served in the temples
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lay down conditions for divorce, etc.
Another source of information about women and their lives was provided by love poems and lullabies of this period.
For additional information on the lives of women
in the Bible, see the links to
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________________________________________________________________________
ACTIVITIES
AND FOCUS QUESTIONS
Seeking Justice
Have you ever been in a situation
where you were unjustly treated? Describe this event, first by writing a
personal journal-entry, then by talking to a study partner.
In the journal entry, describe the
event and your personal reaction to it. What happened, and how did you
feel about it?
Describe the event to your
learning partner, then
discuss ways you might have dealt with the unjust
treatment you received.
Researching ancient laws
The
biblical law ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ was in fact an
attempt to limit revenge killings, and stop the blood feuds that were
prevalent in the ancient world. Use a search engine to learn about
laws in the ancient world, particularly the laws of Hammurabi. How do these ancient laws contrast with
laws in the modern world?
Focus Questions
1. What are the most interesting moments in the story?
Why do these particular moments appeal to me?
2. In the story, who speaks and who listens? Who acts? Who gets what they
want? If you were in the story, which person would you want to be friends
with? Which person would you want to avoid?
3. What is God's interaction with the main characters? What does this tell
you about the narrator's image of God? Do you agree with this image?
4. What is happening on either side of the story, in the chapters before
and after it? Does this help you understand what is happening?
5. The narrator/editor has chosen to tell some things and leave other
things out. What has been left out of the story that you would like to
know?
6. Are the characteristics and actions of the people in the story still
present in the world? How is the story relevant to modern life, especially
your own?
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INTERESTING
SITES - stories, pictures, reconstructions
SEXUALLY
CHARGED MOMENT WHEN TAMAR MEETS JUDAH - FAMOUS PAINTINGS
BIBLE ART: TAMAR A
SHORT VERSION OF THE STORY OF TAMAR
BIBLE PEOPLE: TAMAR EXCAVATIONS
OF CITY GATES, AS IN TAMAR'S STORY
BIBLE ARCHAEOLOGY:
CITIES MARRIAGE
AND CHILDBIRTH IN ANCIENT TIMES
WOMEN IN THE
BIBLE: MAJOR EVENTS
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Tamar - Bible Woman - Women of the Old
Testament;
Bible Study Resource
Tamar, the Levirite Law, and Judah
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