Genesis 38

Judah and Tamar

In the middle of Joseph’s story, Genesis turns to Judah. He loses two sons, breaks a promise to his widowed daughter-in-law, and is made to recognize his own pledge. He owns his fault, and the twins she bears carry the line toward David and Jesus Christ.

Genesis chaptersChapter 38 of 50

After Joseph was sold into Egypt (Gen. 37:36). The text gives no years; the note on verse 1 sets out one way to count them. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

Genesis 37 ends with Joseph sold into Egypt (Gen. 37:36), and chapter 39 picks him up there (Gen. 39:1).

Genesis 37 ends with Joseph sold into Egypt (Gen. 37:36), and chapter 39 picks him up there (Gen. 39:1). Between them the narrative turns to Judah, Jacob’s fourth son by Leah and “a natural leader among the sons of Jacob.” It was Judah who proposed selling Joseph (Gen. 37:26–27). This chapter tells what became of him: he leaves his brothers, marries, loses two sons, and fails his daughter-in-law Tamar, who takes the matter into her own hands. It is a frank story, and the notes describe its harder lines rather than quote them.

The story turns on a custom that the law of Moses later wrote down: a childless widow could look to her late husband’s brother to give her a son who would carry the dead man’s name (Deut. 25:5–10). Genesis shows the custom already at work. Later scripture remembers Tamar for her son Perez (Hebrew Perets, KJV “Pharez”). The people of Bethlehem bless Ruth with the wish, “let thy house be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah” (Ruth 4:12), and Matthew names her in the genealogy of Jesus (see the note on verse 29).

The chapter has five parts: Judah’s marriage and sons (verses 1–5); two deaths and a widow sent home (6–11); Tamar at Enaim (12–23); the sentence and the verdict (24–26); and the twins (27–30).

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 38 turns on one request, “Discern, I pray thee” (verse 25). The brothers had put the same words to Jacob over Joseph’s bloodied coat (Gen. 37:32); now Tamar puts them to…

Genesis 38 turns on one request, “Discern, I pray thee” (verse 25). The brothers had put the same words to Jacob over Joseph’s bloodied coat (Gen. 37:32); now Tamar puts them to Judah over his own seal, cords, and staff, and the Hebrew is the same in both places (hakker-na, “recognize, please”; see the note on verse 25). The man who helped deceive his father is made to recognize his own pledge, and what he sees is his own fault: “She hath been more righteous than I” (verse 26).

That is why the chapter sits where it does: it is about Judah. The brother who asked “What profit is it if we slay our brother?” (Gen. 37:26) says of Benjamin years later, “I will be surety for him” (Gen. 43:9), and offers, “let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord” (Gen. 44:33). Genesis does not say that the Tamar episode is what changed him, though it is “the only story included in the Genesis narrative to possibly explain Judah’s transformation”; the note on verse 25 gives that reading as a reading. The chapter ends not with Judah but with the line that goes on: Perez, through whom David and Jesus Christ descend.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–5

Judah leaves his brothers and marries

In plain words

About that time Judah left his brothers and stayed near an Adullamite named Hirah. There he saw the daughter of a Canaanite named Shuah, married her, and she bore three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. Shelah was born at a place called Chezib.

1 And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went down from his brethren, and turned in to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah.

Context #

Where this chapter fits in the Joseph story

Genesis does not say when in Joseph’s story this happens, and the narrator’s “at that time” gives no help.

Genesis does not say when in Joseph’s story this happens, and the narrator’s “at that time” gives no help. Chapter 37 ends with Joseph sold into Egypt and chapter 39 resumes there, so the chapter sits in the years after the sale. The account is compressed: “Judah moves, marries, and engenders three sons, two of them growing to marriageable age, all in the space of six terse verses,” and “the timing of these events vis-à-vis Joseph being sold into Egypt is uncertain.” One reckoning fits all of it into the twenty-three years between the sale and Jacob’s move to Egypt, but only by having Judah move and marry soon after the sale and marry his eldest son to Tamar at about fifteen.

“Went down” is literal (Hebrew yarad): from the hill country to Adullam in the lowland. It is also the verb that joins this chapter to the next. Judah goes down by choice (38:1). Joseph “was brought down to Egypt” (39:1), a passive form of the same verb, and he was “removed from his family by force and trickery.” Judah leaves his brothers on his own; Joseph is taken from his.

Sources: Ben Spackman, “The Story of Judah and Tamar”, Religious Educator 11, no. 1 (2010): 65–76. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.

2 And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah; and he took her, and went in unto her.

Context #

A Canaanite wife

Judah marries a Canaanite without a word of concern, which stands out against what Genesis has said about his fathers.

Judah marries a Canaanite without a word of concern, which stands out against what Genesis has said about his fathers. Abraham made his servant swear not to take a wife for Isaac “of the daughters of the Canaanites” (Gen. 24:3), and Isaac charged Jacob, “Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan” (Gen. 28:1). “Unlike his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather (Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham), Judah was not concerned about intermarriage with the Canaanites,” and the story shows “the effects of the covenant people forgetting the importance of marrying in the covenant”: “The negative results of this marriage out of the covenant are clearly shown here.”

The text names those results without tying them to the marriage in so many words: the two sons born of it are struck down for wickedness (verses 7, 10). On one reading that is the link, the marriage having “borne such fruit in his sons Ger and Onan, as Jehovah the covenant God was compelled to reject,” even though Jacob’s sons “were not unconditionally prohibited from marrying the daughters of Canaanites.”

Sources: Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

3 And she conceived, and bare a son; and he called his name Er.

4 And she conceived again, and bare a son; and she called his name Onan.

5 And she yet again conceived, and bare a son; and called his name Shelah: and he was at Chezib, when she bare him.

Verses 6–11

Two sons die, and Tamar is sent home

In plain words

Judah found a wife named Tamar for Er, his firstborn. Er was wicked in the LORD’s sight, and the LORD put him to death. Judah told Onan, “Do your duty as her brother-in-law and raise up children for your brother.” Onan knew the child would not count as his own, so he made sure Tamar did not conceive. That also displeased the LORD, who put him to death too. Judah told Tamar to go back to her father’s house and live as a widow until his son Shelah was grown, because he was afraid Shelah would die like his brothers. Tamar went home.

6 And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, whose name was Tamar.

7 And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him.

8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.

Context #

A brother-in-law’s duty

Judah calls on a custom that already existed in his day, before Moses wrote it into law.

Judah calls on a custom that already existed in his day, before Moses wrote it into law. “Marry her” is one Hebrew verb, yabbem, “do the duty of a brother-in-law”; the lexicon lists it only here and in Deuteronomy 25:5 and 7, where the custom becomes law. English calls the custom levirate marriage, from Latin levir, “husband’s brother.”

The custom was not Israel’s alone: Middle Assyrian and Hittite laws also had levirate rules. A Middle Assyrian law of the fourteenth century B.C. made the widow’s father-in-law responsible for arranging the marriage, and let him take the part himself if he had no other son over ten. The same appears to hold in Genesis: in pre-Mosaic times “the ultimate responsibility in assuring offspring fell to the father-in-law,” so Judah “was a legal proxy for Tamar’s deceased husband,” and “levirate marriage customs would have allowed for Judah himself to marry Tamar if she could not marry any of his sons.” That explains why Tamar later goes to Judah and not to Shelah. Deuteronomy changes the rule: there the brother-in-law may refuse, and is publicly shamed if he does (Deut. 25:7–10), while in Genesis 38 no right of refusal appears.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. “Levirate marriage”, Bible Dictionary. Genesis 37–41, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425. Ben Spackman, “The Story of Judah and Tamar”, Religious Educator 11, no. 1 (2010): 65–76. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

9 And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.

Context #

What Onan refused

Onan’s offense, as the text gives it, was refusing his brother an heir.

Onan’s offense, as the text gives it, was refusing his brother an heir. Verse 9 states the reason: he knew the child would not count as his, so he made sure Tamar would not conceive, “lest that he should give seed to his brother.” The LORD was displeased with “the thing which he did” (verse 10). One scholarly reading holds that the story’s attention to the levirate setting “shows that point at issue is the levirate obligation and not the general topic of birth control.”

Inheritance may have been the motive. With Er dead, Onan was next in line, and a son born to Tamar would count as Er’s and take the older brother’s share; while Tamar had no child, her husband’s property “reverted to Judah and his other sons.” So Onan “went through the outward show of taking Tamar to wife but refused to let her have children.” These are readings of a short report. Er’s case is shorter still: he is only “wicked in the sight of the LORD” (verse 7), and the narrator apparently “considered the nature of his wickedness unimportant to relate.”

Sources: Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). Ben Spackman, “The Story of Judah and Tamar”, Religious Educator 11, no. 1 (2010): 65–76.

10 And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also.

11 Then said Judah to Tamar his daughter in law, Remain a widow at thy father’s house, till Shelah my son be grown: for he said, Lest peradventure he die also, as his brethren did. And Tamar went and dwelt in her father’s house.

Context #

Sent home, not set free

Judah’s instruction leaves Tamar in a place that is neither marriage nor freedom.

Judah’s instruction leaves Tamar in a place that is neither marriage nor freedom. He promises her Shelah when he is grown, and the text gives his private reason: “Lest peradventure he die also, as his brethren did.” Whether he feared that Shelah would turn out like his brothers, or that Tamar herself had brought death on her husbands, Genesis does not say; either way, “Judah’s concern here was clearly for Shelah and not for Tamar.”

Her position was precarious. By marrying she “was no longer a legitimate member of her father’s clan,” and without an heir “she was not yet a full member of Judah’s clan.” Under the Middle Assyrian law on the levirate (see the note on verse 8), a woman was “only truly a widow when her husband and father-in-law were both dead and she had no son.” Judah’s promise therefore bound her to wait, and verse 14 says what she saw when the waiting ended: “Shelah was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife.”

Verses 12–23

Tamar at Enaim

In plain words

Time passed. Judah’s wife died, and when his mourning was over he went up to Timnath to shear his sheep, with his friend Hirah. Tamar was told. She saw that Shelah had grown up and she had not been given to him, so she took off her widow’s clothes, covered herself with a veil, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, on the road to Timnath. Judah saw her and took her for a prostitute, because her face was covered. He did not know she was his daughter-in-law, and he proposed to her. She asked what he would give. He promised a young goat from his flock. She asked for a pledge until he sent it, and named his seal, his cord, and his staff. He gave them to her, and she conceived by him. She went home, took off her veil, and put her widow’s clothes back on.

Judah sent the goat by Hirah to get his pledge back, but Hirah could not find her. He asked the men of the place about the temple prostitute who had been by the road at Enaim, and they said there had never been one there. Hirah went back and told Judah. Judah said, “Let her keep the things, or we will be laughed at. I did send the kid, and you could not find her.”

12 And in process of time the daughter of Shuah Judah’s wife died; and Judah was comforted, and went up unto his sheepshearers to Timnath, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite.

13 And it was told Tamar, saying, Behold thy father in law goeth up to Timnath to shear his sheep.

14 And she put her widow’s garments off from her, and covered her with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place, which is by the way to Timnath; for she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife.

Imagery #

What a veil meant

A veil in Genesis marks a respectable woman or hides who she is; it does not mark a prostitute.

A veil in Genesis marks a respectable woman or hides who she is; it does not mark a prostitute. Rebekah “took a veil, and covered herself” when she saw Isaac (Gen. 24:65), and Leah was probably veiled at her wedding to Jacob, hiding that she was not Rachel (Gen. 29:23–25). “Wearing a veil did not in and of itself signify that a woman was a prostitute… veils most often indicated respectability”; a Middle Assyrian law banned prostitutes from veiling so that they would not be mistaken for honorable women. The Hebrew word, tsa‘iph, is the one used of Rebekah’s veil.

Verse 15 ties Judah’s mistake to her covered face, and verse 16 says he “knew not that she was his daughter in law.” Where she sat did the rest: Judah “likely assumed she was a harlot because she was at a crossroads or city entrance, where harlots traditionally stationed themselves.” The KJV’s “open place” is Hebrew petach ‘enayim, “the entrance of Enaim,” most likely the town Enam of Josh. 15:34. The same two words can also be read literally as “opening of the eyes,” and on that reading the place carries an irony: Judah sees her and still does not see who she is. The text does not call Tamar a prostitute; Judah does.

Sources: Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425. Ben Spackman, “The Story of Judah and Tamar”, Religious Educator 11, no. 1 (2010): 65–76. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

15 When Judah saw her, he thought her to be an harlot; because she had covered her face.

16 And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee; (for he knew not that she was his daughter in law.) And she said, What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest come in unto me?

17 And he said, I will send thee a kid from the flock. And she said, Wilt thou give me a pledge, till thou send it?

18 And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thine hand. And he gave it her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by him.

Literary Structure #

From pledge to surety

The pledge Judah leaves is the first of two pledges in his story, and the Hebrew joins them.

The pledge Judah leaves is the first of two pledges in his story, and the Hebrew joins them. Tamar asks for the three things that most surely name him. The KJV’s “bracelets” is Hebrew pethilim, “cords”; the lexicon glosses the word “cord (from which seal was hung),” citing this verse and verse 25. The signet was a seal worn on a cord, “a cylinder seal used for legal identification,” and the staff “would have also contained personalized markings.” Judah is handing over “the Near Eastern equivalent of a wallet with driver’s license and credit cards,” and Tamar was “securing items that would have clearly identified Judah as the father if she succeeded in conceiving.” That he hands them over for the promise of a young goat “attests further to a serious (but apparently temporary) lapse of control over his physical appetite.”

The word for pledge is ‘erabon (verses 17, 18, 20). It shares its root letters, ‘-r-b, with the verb ‘arab, which the lexicon glosses “take on pledge, give in pledge,” and, with a person as its object, “go surety for the safety of” someone, at Gen. 43:9 and Gen. 44:32. In both places the one going surety is Judah: “I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him,” and “thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father.” In chapter 38 he leaves his seal to hold until he pays for a night; in chapters 43–44 he puts himself in pledge for his youngest brother. Genesis does not remark on the shared word, but the course is clear: Judah, “who suggested that Joseph be sold,” “became the one who was willing to become ‘the surety’ for Benjamin,” moving “from selfishness (offering tokens of himself as a pledge to pay a prostitute) to selflessness and redemption.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425. Ben Spackman, “The Story of Judah and Tamar”, Religious Educator 11, no. 1 (2010): 65–76. Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).

19 And she arose, and went away, and laid by her veil from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood.

20 And Judah sent the kid by the hand of his friend the Adullamite, to receive his pledge from the woman’s hand: but he found her not.

21 Then he asked the men of that place, saying, Where is the harlot, that was openly by the way side? And they said, There was no harlot in this place.

Language #

Two words for the woman who was not there

The KJV says “harlot” in verses 15, 21, and 22, but the Hebrew has two words.

The KJV says “harlot” in verses 15, 21, and 22, but the Hebrew has two words. Judah’s word in verse 15 is zonah, an ordinary prostitute. When his friend Hirah asks the men of Enaim in verses 21–22, he says haqqedeshah, “the consecrated woman,” which the interlinear glosses “the temple prostitute.” Deuteronomy uses the same word of the female cult prostitute that Israel was forbidden to have: “There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel” (Deut. 23:17), where the male counterpart is qadesh. The qedeshah has been explained as “the hierodule, a woman sacred to Astarte, a goddess of the Canaanites.”

Why Hirah chose the more specific word is not stated. One reading takes it as the politer term, “no doubt regarded as the most respectable designation for public prostitutes in Canaan,” which would suit a man asking the locals about a woman, but that is a guess about usage. For the story, both words describe a woman who does not exist.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

22 And he returned to Judah, and said, I cannot find her; and also the men of the place said, that there was no harlot in this place.

23 And Judah said, Let her take it to her, lest we be shamed: behold, I sent this kid, and thou hast not found her.

Verses 24–26

The sentence and the verdict

In plain words

About three months later Judah was told that Tamar had been immoral and was pregnant. He said, “Bring her out and let her be burned.” As she was brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law: “I am pregnant by the man who owns these.” She added, “Please recognize whose seal and cords and staff these are.” Judah recognized them and said, “She is more in the right than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” He did not sleep with her again.

24 And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.

Context #

By what right did Judah sentence her?

Judah sentences Tamar as head of the family she married into. She lived in her father’s house, yet “by law Tamar was still responsible to Judah, the head of her husband’s family,”…

Judah sentences Tamar as head of the family she married into. She lived in her father’s house, yet “by law Tamar was still responsible to Judah, the head of her husband’s family,” and Judah, “as head of Er’s clan and protector of the family’s honor,” ordered her burned.

The penalty is severe, and Genesis does not explain it. The later law of Moses prescribes stoning for a bride found unchaste (Deut. 22:20–21) and burning for a priest’s daughter if “she profane herself by playing the whore” (Lev. 21:9); whether burning was out of the ordinary in Judah’s day is a matter of speculation. The reversal is plain without comment: Judah “clearly applies a double standard by having visited a zonah (harlot) but condemning his daughter-in-law for having acted as one.”

25 When she was brought forth, she sent to her father in law, saying, By the man, whose these are, am I with child: and she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and bracelets, and staff.

Literary Structure #

The same words as chapter 37

Tamar’s request to Judah is the one the brothers made to Jacob, and the echo ties this chapter to the Joseph story around it.

Tamar’s request to Judah is the one the brothers made to Jacob, and the echo ties this chapter to the Joseph story around it. In chapter 37 they “killed a kid of the goats,” dipped Joseph’s coat in the blood, and brought it to their father with the words “know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no” (Gen. 37:31–32). Tamar sends Judah his seal, cords, and staff with the same request. The KJV hides the match: it renders the Hebrew hakker-na (“recognize, please”) as “know now” in chapter 37 and “Discern, I pray thee” here. The lexicon lists both verses under the verb nakar, “regard, observe, especially with a view to recognition.” These are the only two places the phrase occurs in the Hebrew Bible, “a good indication that these scenes are meant to be read together.”

A young goat figures in both stories as well: its blood on Joseph’s coat, and the payment Judah promised (Gen. 38:17). The Hebrew nouns differ (se‘ir in 37:31, gedi in 38:17), so that likeness is in the story rather than the wording.

What the echo means is a reading, not a record. One reading proposes that “when he himself is deceived during the Tamar story, it caused him to rethink his past actions,” which would help explain why he later offers to stay in Benjamin’s place, though “it is impossible to know for sure how to understand Judah’s actions in the narrative.” The text itself says only that Judah recognized what was his, and spoke.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Scripture Central, “Why is the Judah and Tamar Story in the Middle of the Joseph Story?”, KnoWhy #841, Mar. 3, 2026. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

26 And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more.

Language #

In the right, not blameless

Judah’s verdict is that Tamar is in the right on the matter he owed her, not that every step she took was right.

Judah’s verdict is that Tamar is in the right on the matter he owed her, not that every step she took was right. The Hebrew is tsadeqah mimmenni, and the lexicon glosses the verb as “have a just cause, be in the right,” with this verse listed as the example “of Tamar.” Judah’s own ground comes at once: “because that I gave her not to Shelah my son.”

Judah “admitted his sin,” but that does not clear Tamar: “although Tamar’s motives to have children with Judah, who was responsible for her, may have been good, the deceptive means and subsequent immorality were wrong.” The verdict in verse 26 is Judah’s; the narrator does not state whether she was right or wrong in what she did.

What changes is Judah. At verse 23 his concern was “lest we be shamed”; at verse 26 he “honestly owned up to his fault,” having come to feel “a greater concern for what God thought of him than for what his neighbors thought of him.” The verse closes that part of their story in a line, “he knew her again no more”; the later law of Moses forbids a man’s relations with his daughter-in-law (Lev. 20:12).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Genesis 37–41, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 27–30

Perez and Zerah

In plain words

When her time came there were twins in her womb. One of them put out a hand, and the midwife tied a scarlet thread on it, saying, “This one came out first.” But he drew his hand back, and his brother came out. She said, “How you have broken through! A breach for yourself!” So he was named Perez, “breach.” Then his brother came out with the scarlet thread on his hand, and he was named Zerah.

27 And it came to pass in the time of her travail, that, behold, twins were in her womb.

28 And it came to pass, when she travailed, that the one put out his hand: and the midwife took and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, saying, This came out first.

29 And it came to pass, as he drew back his hand, that, behold, his brother came out: and she said, How hast thou broken forth? this breach be upon thee: therefore his name was called Pharez.

Language #

Perez, the one who broke through

Both twins are named for the birth. Perets means “bursting forth, breach,” and the lexicon gives this verse as its example of a breaking forth “from womb.”

Both twins are named for the birth. Perets means “bursting forth, breach,” and the lexicon gives this verse as its example of a breaking forth “from womb.” The midwife’s words are hard to render, and translations differ: the KJV’s “How hast thou broken forth? this breach be upon thee” is one attempt, and “What a breach hast thou made for thy part? Upon thee the breach” is another. Zerah’s name (Hebrew Zerach) is taken to mean “exit, rising,” given “because he sought to appear first.”

The scarlet thread was the midwife’s mark of the firstborn: “This came out first” (verse 28). But the child drew back his hand, and his brother came out ahead of him, so that Perez was in fact the firstborn. He is the one placed before Zerah in the lists of Judah’s sons (Gen. 46:12; Num. 26:20). The thread marks the child who in the end did not come first.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Witness of Christ #

Tamar and Perez in the line of Christ

This birth begins a line that reaches Jesus Christ. Ruth traces it from Pharez to Obed, Jesse, and David (Ruth 4:18–22); Matthew opens the genealogy of Jesus with “Judas begat…

This birth begins a line that reaches Jesus Christ. Ruth traces it from Pharez to Obed, Jesse, and David (Ruth 4:18–22); Matthew opens the genealogy of Jesus with “Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar” (Matt. 1:3); and Luke has Phares and Juda in his own list (Luke 3:33). “Through her son Pharez, Tamar would become an ancestor of Jesus Christ.”

Matthew names few women before Mary, and Tamar is one of four: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. A plausible explanation is that each had “an irregular marital history that could be misjudged as scandalous by outsiders” and each “showed initiative in carrying out God’s plan,” which makes them “types of Mary.” That is one reading of why they are there; Matthew does not say.

Sources: Genesis 37–41, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

30 And afterward came out his brother, that had the scarlet thread upon his hand: and his name was called Zarah.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 38

The line of Jesus Christ passes through this chapter, by way of Pharez (see the note on verse 29). Hebrews says, “it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda” (Heb. 7:14), and John is told, “behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed” (Rev. 5:5). Chapter 38 shows how that line continued: through a patriarch who failed and was made to face it, and through a woman whom Judah himself judged “more righteous than I.”

Worth exploring next

Judah before and after. Gen. 37:26–27; Gen. 43:8–9; Gen. 44:18–34.
Judah beside Joseph. Chapter 39 follows at once, and Joseph’s refusal of Potiphar’s wife (Gen. 39:7–12) stands in contrast to Judah’s conduct here.
The custom after Genesis. Deut. 25:5–10; Ruth 3–4; the Sadducees’ question to Jesus in Matt. 22:23–33.
A hand at a birth. Gen. 25:24–26 tells of another set of twins.
Judah’s blessing. Gen. 49:8–12.
Two readings worth the time. KnoWhy #841, “Why is the Judah and Tamar Story in the Middle of the Joseph Story?” (Scripture Central), on the echo with chapter 37; and “The Story of Judah and Tamar” (Religious Educator 11, no. 1, 2010), which follows the links between chapters 37, 38, and 39.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
Genesis 37–41, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425.
Ben Spackman, “The Story of Judah and Tamar”, Religious Educator 11, no. 1 (2010): 65–76.
Scripture Central, “Why is the Judah and Tamar Story in the Middle of the Joseph Story?”, KnoWhy #841, Mar. 3, 2026.
“Judah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Levirate marriage”, Bible Dictionary.

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