Commentaria in Genesim
Chapter Thirty-eight. Synopsis of the Chapter
Juda begets Her and Onan, whom God slew for wantonness and holding back in the act of marriage. Second, verse 16, Thamar craftily conceives by Juda, and bears Phares and Zara.
1. At that time Juda went down from his brethren, and turned in to a certain Odollamite, named Hiras. 2. And he saw there the daughter of a man of Chanaan, called Sue: and taking her to wife, he went in unto her. 3. And she conceived, and bore a son, and called his name Her. 4. And conceiving again, she bore a son, and called him Onan. 5. She bore also a third, whom she called Sela: after whose birth she ceased to bear any more. 6. And Juda gave a wife to his firstborn Her, whose name was Thamar. 7. And Her, the firstborn of Juda, was wicked in the sight of the Lord: and was slain by him. 8. Juda therefore said to Onan his son: Go in to thy brother’s wife, and marry her, that thou mayest raise seed to thy brother. 9. He, knowing that the children should not be his, when he went in to his brother’s wife, spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in his brother’s name. 10. And therefore the Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing. 11. Wherefore Juda said to Thamar his daughter in law: Remain a widow in thy father’s house, till Sela my son be grown up: for he feared lest he also might die, as his brethren did. She went her way, and dwelt in her father’s house. 12. And after many days were passed, the daughter of Sue, the wife of Juda, died: and when he had taken comfort after his mourning, he went up to the shearers of his sheep, he and Hiras the Odollamite, the shepherd of his flock, to Thamnas. 13. And it was told Thamar that her father in law was come up to Thamnas to shear his sheep. 14. Then she put off the garments of her widowhood, and took a veil: and changing her dress, sat in the cross way that leadeth to Thamna: because Sela was grown up, and she had not been given to him to wife. 15. When Juda saw her, he thought her to be a harlot: for she had covered her face, lest she should be known. 16. And going in to her, he said: Suffer me to lie with thee: for he knew not that she was his daughter in law. And she answering: What wilt thou give me to enjoy my company? 17. He said: I will send thee a kid out of the flock. And she said again: I will suffer what thou wilt, if thou give me a pledge, till thou send what thou promisest. 18. And Juda said: What wilt thou have for a pledge? She answered: Thy ring, and bracelet, and the staff which thou holdest in thy hand. The woman therefore at one copulation conceived: 19. And she arose and went her way: and putting off the garment which she had taken, put on the garments of her widowhood. 20. And Juda sent a kid by his shepherd the Odollamite, that he might receive the pledge again which he had given to the woman: but he, not finding her, 21. Asked the men of that place: Where is the woman that sat in the cross way? And they all answering: There was no harlot in this place; 22. He returned to Juda, and said to him: I have not found her; moreover the men of that place told me, that there never sat a harlot there. 23. Juda said: Let her take it to herself, surely she cannot charge us with a lie; I sent the kid which I promised: and thou didst not find her. 24. And behold, after three months, they told Juda, saying: Thamar, thy daughter in law, hath played the harlot, and she appeareth to have a big belly. And Juda said: Bring her out that she may be burnt. 25. And when she was led to execution, she sent to her father in law, saying: By the man to whom these things belong, I am with child: see whose ring, and bracelet, and staff this is. 26. But he, acknowledging the gifts, said: She is juster than I: because I did not give her to Sela my son. However, he knew her no more. 27. And when she was ready to be delivered, there appeared twins in her womb: and in the very delivery of the infants, one put forth a hand, on which the midwife tied a scarlet thread, saying: 28. This shall come forth the first.
forth: and the woman said: Why is the partition divided for thee? and for this cause she called his name Phares. 30. Afterwards his brother came out, on whose hand was the scarlet thread: whom she called Zara.
Here Moses describes the genealogy of Juda rather than of the other brothers, because Christ was to be born of Juda by Thamar. Second, lest the Jews should despise the Gentiles, since the tribe of Juda, which was the noblest, descended from the Chanaanites through the mother Thamar. So Gennadius.
1. AT THAT TIME.—That is, in the sixteenth year of Joseph, a little after his sale, Juda took a wife. Juda was therefore then nineteen years old; for he was three years older than Joseph: for he was born in the year 88 of his father Jacob, but Joseph in the year 91, as I said in chap. xxx. Hence it follows that Hesron and Hamul, the grandsons of Juda by Thamar and Phares, could not have been born in Chanaan before Jacob’s going down into Egypt, which happened 23 years after Joseph was sold, that is, in the thirty-ninth year of Joseph; but that they were born after Jacob’s going down, while he was living and dwelling in Egypt. So Abulensis, although St. Augustine, Question 128, holds the contrary, because he supposes that Juda took a wife not in the same year in which Joseph was sold, but two or three years before. But the former is more true. For grant to St. Augustine that Her was born to Juda three years before the selling of Joseph, yet Her could not have taken Thamar before the sixteenth year of his age, after which Thamar was married to Onan; then she waited some years for Sela’s puberty; and at last, prostituting herself to Juda, she bore Phares. Now Phares was at the very least sixteen years old when he begat Hesron and Hamul; all of which require not 23 or 26 but at the least 34 years, before the completion of which Jacob had long since, namely nine years before, gone down from Chanaan into Egypt. For what the Jews assert, that Phares begat Esron in the ninth year of his age, is incredible and impossible.
SUE.—It is not the name of the daughter but of her father, Juda’s father-in-law, as is plain from the Hebrew.
3. AND HE CALLED HIS NAME HER.—In the Hebrew it is in the first case the masculine vayyikra, that is, and he called, namely the father Juda; but in the other two it is the feminine vattikra, that is, and she called, namely the mother, that is, Juda’s wife. Hence it is plain that the father gave the name to his firstborn Her, but the mother to the other two born afterwards. So Rachel called her younger son Benoni, but the father changed that name, calling him Benjamin.
5. SHE CEASED TO BEAR ANY MORE.—In Hebrew it is vehaya bichziv, which the Septuagint, the Chaldee and Vatablus render, he was in Chezib when she bore him, as if Chezib were the proper name of a city of Palestine. But better, according to St. Jerome in the Questions on Genesis, our Interpreter took Chezib not as a proper name but as a common noun, in which sense it signifies a lie or a failure, as if to say: she was in a failure of bearing, conception and childbirth failed her, she ceased to bear. Hence Aquila also rendered it, her bearing stood still. The words that follow require this sense, which plainly signify that he was her last son.