Dear Amy,
Why is Tamar included in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus?
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar.
― Matthew 1:2-3
In over forty generations only five women are mentioned. We already considered the varied and different reasons for the inclusion of Rahab, of Ruth, and of Bathsheba. The fifth and final is Mary the mother of Jesus. The first is Tamar. But why Tamar?
Is this primarily about Tamar, or is it about Judah? I have been pondering this long and hard. Here’s what I came to.
Let’s start with Judah. Joseph’s older brother, he was the one who sold Joseph into slavery. Later he took a Canaanite woman for a wife and had three sons by her: Er, Onan, and Shelah. Tamar became his daughter-in-law.
And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD put him to death.
And what [Onan] did was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and he put him to death also.
― Genesis 38:7, 10
Oh dear. Two sons so thoroughly wicked that the Lord put them both to death. We can infer what Judah’s own heart was like from the selling of his own brother into slavery and the Canaanite marriage and the family values, and it was unprincipled and ungodly and vile and dishonourable.
Tamar was no better.
And when Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep,” she took off her widow’s garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah was grown up, and 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. He turned to her at the roadside and said, “Come, let me come in to you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.
― Genesis 38:13-16
Tamar tricked her father-in-law Judah into having sex with her, and Judah thought he was having sex with a cult prostitute. What a pair! Neither one redeems the other.
Note that unlike Bathsheba and David, Tamar never became Judah’s wife. She is only ever described as his daughter-in-law. Perez and Zerah were illegitimate children. There was no marriage. What an absolute mess, and yet there it is, in the genealogy of Jesus no less!
And note too that what they had done is found among that long list of abominable sexual practices in Leviticus 18, a sordid list which includes incest, adultery, bestiality, and homosexual practice, about all of which the Lord said:
“Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.
― Leviticus 18:24-25
What then do we make of Tamar’s inclusion in the genealogy?
Both Tamar and Judah were unmitigated reprobates, absolute shockers. But that’s exactly the point, isn’t it? That’s exactly the point that Matthew is making by including her in the genealogy. What hope is there for such as them? Didn’t Jesus come precisely to bring hope to the hopeless?
“Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
― Matthew 9:13
Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
Praise the name of Jesus, Amy, the one who came not to call the righteous, but sinners! 🙏