Commentaria in Genesim
So St. Ambrose elevates the selling of Joseph as made in type of the selling of Christ, although it is established that in itself it was a grave sin: for God knows how to order and direct all the sins and evils of men to a good end: whence he always draws some good out of evils.
It is therefore frivolous what R. Simeon Jochai says, that Thamar committed fornication by the impulse of God, in order to conceive the Messiah from Juda: just as Osee by the impulse and command of God took a fornicating wife, and had by her children, who are therefore called children of fornications.
But Scripture expresses this of Osee, and expresses nothing of the kind of Thamar. Again, that fornicating woman was by God’s command made the wife of Osee; but it is certain that Thamar was not made the wife of Juda,
18. AND THE STAFF;—A traveller’s staff, such as Jacob used on the road, chap. xxxii, verse 10.
23. LET HER KEEP IT, SURELY SHE CANNOT CHARGE US WITH A LIE.—In Hebrew it is, let her keep for herself (my ring, bracelet and staff), lest perhaps we be put to shame: for if we seek her, and demand these things back from her, she, taking it ill, will publish my fornication; and so she will bring me great confusion and ignominy; especially if she herself displays my ring. For men will laugh at my levity, wantonness and baseness, that I gave my signet ring to a harlot, and that she, by asking for this ring and keeping it, so deluded me that she can forge whatever letters she wishes in my name and seal them with my seal.
Again, if I demand the ring back, she, in order to keep it, will boast that I did not pay her the agreed price. And so she will publicly charge me with fraud and falsehood, and put me to confusion, though falsely: for I sent her the kid which I promised. For all this is understood, in this compressed speech of Juda, after the Hebrew manner, and is to be supplied. Hence our Translator, looking rather to the mind and sense of Juda than to his words, clearly renders: “Surely she cannot charge us with a lie: I sent the kid which I had promised.”
24. BRING HER OUT, THAT SHE MAY BE BURNED.—Juda says this, says St. Thomas, as if about to accuse Thamar in public judgment and to urge the judge to adjudge her to the fire. Second, and more probably, Juda here pronounces the sentence of burning on Thamar as a judge: whence it was at once carried into execution; for it follows: “And when she was led to execution.” For Juda was a father of a family, who, by the custom of that ancient age, was judge of his family: or rather Juda, as the most spirited of the brothers, had been appointed by his father Jacob as it were praetor of the whole family, which was numerous, namely of all the Hebrews: for these from the time of Abraham had their own commonwealth, distinct from the commonwealth of the Chanaanites, in which Jacob was patriarch and prince. For they were sojourners chosen by God and set apart from other peoples, and were as it were a walking commonwealth, until under Josue they fixed their seats in Chanaan. Juda therefore as praetor demanded his daughter-in-law Thamar for the pyre, for the certain and public crime of adultery: for she was betrothed to Sela, the son of Juda, and violated this betrothal by intercourse with Juda; and therefore she was an adulteress.
Hence it is plain that the penalty of adultery in that ancient age was death, and that by fire: as a little later God by Moses commanded adulterers to be put to death by stoning, Levit. xx, 10. Likewise for adulterous women he decreed the waters of malediction, which should burst their womb open, Num. v, 27. The Egyptians beat adulterers with rods to a thousand blows; adulteresses they mutilated of the nose, to perpetual disgrace. Witness Diodorus, book 1, chap. 6.
Among the Arabs, Parthians and other nations, adultery was always punished with death: which most philosophers have handed down, who judged adultery a graver crime than perjury. Witness Alexander ab Alexandro, book 4, chap. 1.
The Cumaeans exposed an adulteress in the forum to be laughed at by all; then carried her round the whole city on an ass, so that she would be infamous all her life, and hence she was called the ass-rider, because she had ridden an ass, witness Plutarch in the Problems. A king of Tenedos made a law against adulterers, that the bodies of both be cut with an axe, and he gave an example of that law in his own son. Plato, book 9 of the Laws, condemns the fornicator to the penalty of death; he asserts that an adulterer can be killed with impunity by the husband. Solon allowed the man who caught an adulterer to kill him, witness Plutarch in Solon.
Grave penalties against adulterers were enacted by Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Domitian, Severus and Aurelian, who devised this against the adulterer, that, the tops of two trees being bent down and his feet tied to them, and the trees then let go, he was torn asunder and hung on either side. Witness Coelius, book 10, chap. 6. Opilius Macrinus burned adulterers with fire, witness Alexander ab Alexandro above. The Saxons, while still pagans, forced an adulteress to kill herself by hanging, and over her burned and consumed funeral pyre they hanged the adulterer; witness St. Boniface in William of Malmesbury, book 1, chap. 64, On the English.
Moreover Mahomet decreed that an adulterer be publicly flogged with a hundred blows.
The Brazilians either kill adulteresses or sell them as slaves: witness Osorius, book 2, On the Deeds of Emmanuel.
Note: Juda here out of anger precipitates sentence: for he condemns Thamar unheard; again he condemns not only Thamar but her innocent offspring. For he ordered Thamar, who was with child, the fetus of three months being already animated, to be burned; and so the fetus would be killed both in body and in soul, which is against all law of nature and of nations. So Cajetan. For what some thus expound: “Bring her out,” namely, they say, not directly to the pyre, but to prison, to be kept there until she should have given birth, and afterwards burned, does not agree well with the text, which reads thus: “Bring her out,” not that she be imprisoned, but “that she be burned.” Whence also Thamar was at once dragged to the fire. For Moses immediately adds, saying: “And when she was led to execution.” For only after this does Thamar give birth, verse 27.
26. SHE IS JUSTER THAN I.—He does not say, holier than I, or chaster, but juster; because Thamar sinned more gravely than Juda: for he sinned by fornication alone, she by fornication, adultery and incest. Yet she was juster, that is, more equitably and justly did Thamar deal with Juda than Juda with Thamar:
for Juda did not keep to her his promises and covenants, denying her the marriage with Sela that had been promised; and so he provoked and drove her to contrive this stratagem against Juda, by which she might claim from Juda himself the offspring which she hoped for from Sela, since Juda unjustly hindered it. For since Thamar was already bound to the family of Juda and Abraham, and altogether desired offspring from it, and her Sela was denied her, she had no other way of obtaining her just desire than to seek offspring cunningly, though by crime, from Juda himself: Thamar therefore was more unjust before God, but juster before Juda.
BECAUSE I GAVE HER NOT TO SELA.—Understand: she therefore did this, to forge this charge against me.
HOWEVER HE KNEW HER NO MORE.—Thamar therefore remained thereafter unmarried, content with the offspring received from Juda, says Theodoret; for Sela could not, and would not, have her as wife, defiled as she was by this paternal incest, but took another, as is plain Num. xxvi, 19; of whom he begot various sons, and among them one who made the sun stand still, as is said 1 Paral.
27. THERE APPEARED.—The midwife, laying her hand upon the womb, perceived two moving within, and as it were struggling which should come out first.
28. THIS SHALL COME FORTH FIRST.—In Hebrew, this came forth first, as if to say: This is the firstborn, because he put forth his hand first; wherefore I will bind and mark him with a scarlet thread or cord, so that, if any doubt or uncertainty arise, it may be known from the thread that this one put forth his hand first, and is the firstborn.
29. DRAWING BACK HIS HAND.—St. Chrysostom teaches that all these things were done by the direction and disposition of God; namely, God wished not Zara but Phares to be born first, and to be the firstborn, because he wished Christ the Lord to be born of Phares.