Half of the Story

Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.”  Genesis 38:16a  NIV

Sleep with you – Of course, the Hebrew doesn’t use our modern circumlocution.  The Hebrew text reads, “let me come in to you,” perhaps a bit too graphic for our tastes, but certainly a better conveyance of the complete lack of emotional involvement.  For Judah this is just physical; nothing more.  However, it’s not his part of the story that I find shocking. What’s disquieting is the total absence of any mention of Judah’s wife.  The beginning of this episode is the marriage of Judah to a Canaanite woman named Shua.  She is the mother of all his sons.  But that’s as far as the story goes with regard to her. According to the text, Shua dies before this next story begins. The plot shifts to Judah and Tamar because that is the part that matters to the author, but I can’t help wondering about Shua.  Don’t you suppose that Judah’s casual sex with a woman he thought was a shrine prostitute says something more about his prior commitment to his wife?  Don’t you suppose that his action reflects the relationship even if Shua died?  We focus on Judah’s inequitable treatment of Tamar.  We are scandalized by her action.  Tamar doesn’t ask a question I once heard many, many years ago before I met Rosanne: “If you love your wife, what are you doing here?”

Irvin Yalom wrote, “Every yes involves a no.”[1]  Perhaps that’s a statement worth seriously internalizing.  In this world, you can’t have it all!  You might think you can.  You might have the subtle religious addiction called “the Messiah complex,” believing that since you are God’s chosen, everything is available to you.  You even have a proof text, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).  But it simply isn’t true.  “All things” is completely contextual.  There is only one Messiah—and he isn’t you.  Even he couldn’t do everything.  So the prayer in the Garden.  “Every yes involves a no.”

Back to Shua.  Judah decided that Shua didn’t matter.  Perhaps he thought that this was only a moment’s physical excitement.  Perhaps he didn’t think at all.  After all, he wasn’t married anymore.  He just did what his yetzer ha’ra wanted.  What’s interesting is that he actually tried to keep the promise he made to this woman he went in to.  Apparently his business reputation was more important then his martial commitment.  Or perhaps the marriage was only a way to produce offspring.  The fact that the text explicitly mentions his wife is a Canaanite seems important.  His choice to marry her already moved him outside the expected tribal protocol.  And he was the tribal chief.  It seems that his moral conscience was already sliding.  Did he think of Shua as an equal partner, as his ‘ezer kenegdo?  And what did she think of him?  Perhaps the fact that there is no mention at all of their marital state isn’t just an oversight.  When sons die at the hand of the Lord, emotional consequences are inevitable.  Yet there is not a word about her reaction at the death of two of her children.  Aren’t we allowed to fill in the gaps?  Judah’s family is a mess.  His sons’ disobedience results in horrible tragedy.  His duplicity results in more damage.  Shua bears it—in total silence.  Perhaps we need some marginal notes if we’re going to understand the full story here.  “If you love your wife, what are you doing here?”

Topical Index:  Judah, Tamar, Shua, Genesis 38:16a

[1] Irvin D. Yalom, Staring at the Sun: Being at peace with your own mortality, p. 58.