Daily Devotions
Genesis
"Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been very guilty, and for our iniquities, we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered… to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to humiliation…" Ezra 9:7
Text: Genesis 38:1-30
TAMAR’S REVENGE
The years crept by! Shelah was now of marriageable age. Obviously, Judah had no plans to marry him off to Tamar! And she had waited all these years, believing that she would have yet another chance to be married and to make good! It was not her fault that her two husbands were slain by the Lord. If anything, she was the victim! Tamar decided that she would take action if Judah would not honour his word to her! She heard news that Judah was at Timnah, for the sheep-shearing season!
“And it was told Tamar, saying,
‘Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah
to shear his sheep.’
So she took off her widow’s garments, covered herself
with a veil and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place
which was on the way to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah
was grown, and she was not given to him as a wife.”
GENESIS 38:13-14
REPREHENSIBLE CONDUCT
Judah on the way to Timnah noticed the lady covered with a veil. He assumed that she was a harlot and propositioned her – as if it was a normal practice!
“When Judah saw her, he thought she was a harlot,
because she had covered her face. Then he turned to her
by the way, and said, ‘Please let me come in to you’;
for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.”
GENESIS 38:15-16
How low Judah had sunk! Having lost his wife, and his two sons, Judah sought comfort from a harlot!
BARGAINING THE FEE
It was not uncommon for bargaining to take place! Tamar played her role well.
“So she said, ‘What will you give me,
that you may come in to me.’
And he said, ‘I will send a young goat from the flock.’
So she said, ‘Will you give me a pledge till you send it?’
Then he said, ‘What pledge shall I give you?'”
GENESIS 38:16f-18
Judah was convinced that she was nothing but a harlot, bargaining for her fee. She asked for a pledge from him, seeing that he did not have a young goat with him to give to her. Deep inside, she must have been seething with anger against Judah!