Глава 38

Gen.38:1–2. At that time Judah departed from his brothers and settled near an Adullamite whose name was Hirah. And Judah saw there the daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shua; and he took her and went in to her. An episode from the life of Judas, the story of which is in Chapter 38. interrupts the story of Joseph, stands with this story not only in a temporal connection (“at that time”), but also in an internal logical one: the offspring of the pure, chaste Joseph, in the person of the strong tribe of Ephraim, subsequently became the head of the northern (Israel) kingdom; the descendants of Judah formed the main mass of the kingdom of the south (Judea) and, at the end of times, gave from their midst the Messiah, who did not disdain to be born from the tribe of Judas the incestuous; according to the Midrash, before the enslaver (Pharaoh) was born, the last liberator (Messiah from the tribe of Judah) was born. According to Jewish commentators, Judas left his brothers as a result of the sale of Joseph, tormented by his conscience for the advice given, albeit well-intentioned. Regarding the time when everything told in ch. 38, Aben-Ezra, Rosenmüller and others believed that not all of these incidents took place after the sale of Joseph - in the 23-year period from this event until Jacob’s resettlement to Egypt, since during this period Judah could hardly have had 3 sons from his first wife, “been a widower for a long time” (v. 12), then give birth to Perez and Zara, and finally have grandchildren from the first: Esrom and Hamul ( Gen. 46:12). Judah leaves Hebron - the last residence of Jacob - and settles in the area (west of Hebron) Adollam, in the Saphala valley (later, near the city that arose here there was a cave that gave shelter to David, 1 Sam. 22:1; cf. Josh. 15:35; 2 Chron. 11:7). The Adollamite Hirah here became a friend of Judah (v. 12). Here Judah married the daughter of a Canaanite, Shua. The Jews, following the initiative of the Targum Onkelos, understand the word kenaani (v. 2) in the common sense: merchant (as in Prov. 31:24), but in clear contradiction with the context, out of a tendency to reject what troubled them, in view of Gen. 28:1, the event of the marriage of their patriarch with a Canaanite woman. Shua is the name of the father of Judah’s wife, and not of herself (as understood in the LXX, in Syriac, Slavic), as the masculine suffix with the word schem (name) shows. Gen.38:3–5. She conceived and gave birth to a son; and he called his name Ir. And she conceived again, and gave birth to a son, and called his name Onan. And she gave birth to a [third] son ​​and called his name Shelah. Judah was in Chezibah when she gave birth to him. The marriage of Judah with a Canaanite woman, apparently, was not happy: the unnatural vices that had long characterized the Canaanites penetrated into the family of Judah, which, according to the judgment of God, were the cause of the early death of the first two sons of Judah: Ira (from Hebrew - “fear”) and Onan (from Hebrew - “strength”). When mentioning the birth of the 3rd son of Shelah, the place where he was born is named - Kezib, Heziv (maybe Achziv), a city near Adollam (Joshua 15:44; Micah 1:14); from this only the son had offspring. vulg. the name kezib conveys descriptively: “parere ultra cessavit.” Gen. 38:6–10. And Judah took a wife for Ira, his firstborn; her name is Tamar. Er, the firstborn of Judah, was disgraceful in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death. And Judah said to Onan: Go in to your brother's wife, marry her as a brother-in-law, and restore seed to your brother. Onan knew that the seed would not be his, and therefore, when he went in to his brother’s wife, he poured out [semen] on the ground, so as not to give seed to his brother. What he did was evil in the sight of the Lord; and He slew him also. Judah marries his first-born Er (apparently at an early age) to Tamar (“palm tree”: Tamar’s origin is not indicated, perhaps from the Philistines), but his early childless death, perhaps sudden, was evidence of his displeasure with God (cf. Proverbs 10:27). Judas, based on the ancient, later deliberately regulated in the Law of Moses (Deut. 25:5–10), the custom of the so-called. levirate marriage (Latin levir = Heb. jabam, brother-in-law), i.e. marriage of a childless widow with her brother-in-law or other closest blood relative to restore offspring to her deceased husband, whose name was given to the first-born from this new marriage (the custom of levirate, with some modifications, also existed among the Egyptians and Indians; now found among the Mongol tribes), Tamar gives the widow to his second son Onan. But the latter branded himself with a vile sin, which henceforth received his name (masturbation); The severity of his sin was increased by his low ill-will towards the memory of his brother, whose name only the first son was to receive, and by his selfish calculation - to inherit his brother’s inheritance himself. God's punishment befell him too. Gen.38:11. And Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law [after the death of his two sons], “Live as a widow in your father’s house until Shelah my son grows up.” For he said [in his mind]: He would not have died like his brothers. Tamar went and lived in her father's house. Although it is possible that Shelah had indeed not yet reached marriageable age, the real reason for Judah’s order to remove Tamar to her father’s house as a widow was Judah’s superstitious fear and view of Tamar as a woman who brings death to those who marry her (cf. Tob. 3:7–8), (according to later Jewish custom, a woman whose 2 husbands had already died, strictly speaking, lost the right to a 3rd marriage). By stalling for time with the promise of marrying Tamar to Shelah, Judah was actually dooming her to eternal widowhood (v. 14), thereby causing her injustice, which he later confessed to (v. 26). Then Tamar, by cunning, achieves what was not given to her through legal means (vv. 14–26). Gen.38:12. Much time passed, and the daughter of Shuya, the wife of Judah, died. Judah, having been consoled, went to Timna to the shearers of his cattle, himself and Hirah his friend the Adollamite. The term “many days” according to Midrash is equal to 2 months. The mention of the death of his wife has a direct connection with the subsequent speech about the adventure of Judas (vv. 16-17), which could not have taken place in a married man. According to the usual mourning, Judah goes with his friend (according to LXX and Vulg., cf. Slav. - a shepherd: mixing Hebrew rea, friend, with roeh, shepherd) with his Hiroah to Timna (on the north-west border of the tribe of Judah, Josh. 15:57) for the feast of shearing of sheep (cf. Gen. 31:19; 1 Sam. 25:4; 2 Samuel 13:23). Gen. 38:13–15. And they told Tamar, saying, Behold, thy father-in-law is going to Timnah to shear his cattle. And she took off the garment of her widowhood, covered herself with a veil, and, covering herself, sat down at the gate of Enaim, which is on the road to Timna. For she saw that Shelah had grown up, and she was not given to him as a wife. And Judas saw her and considered her a harlot, because she had covered her face. Having learned about this, “Tamar decided by deception to share a bed with her father-in-law and give birth to children from him, not for the sake of carnal lust, but in order not to be left without a name. However, in this matter there was also God’s providence, which is why her intention was actually fulfilled” (John Chrysostom, Bes. 62, 662). With all this, Scripture does not praise or even justify Tamar’s act (not without her self-sacrifice at the risk of honor and life). The place where Tamar sat waiting for Judah is called in v. 14 and 21 Enaim, that Targ., Midrash, many Jewish commentators and Vulg:. (“in bivio itineris”) is understood in the sense of a common noun: “2 sources”, “2 roads”, etc.; but it is more likely that the LXX transmission is “πρὸς ταῖς πόλαις Αιναν” - Enaim or Genan will then be the name of a city in the tribe of Judah (Josh. 15:34), between Adullam and Timnah. Here, like harlots, who usually went out into the streets and crowded roads (Prov. 7:12; Jer. 3:2), Tamar sits down by the road (perhaps at the crossroads of 2 roads, as the dual f. Enaim and the remark of v. 16: “turned to her”), prudently covering her face with a veil, so as not to be recognized. This covering of the face, however, was not a sign that the woman belonged to the class of harlots (Rebekah, at the first meeting with Isaac, is also covered with a veil, Gen. 24:65), and it was not because Judah (v. 15) mistook Tamar for a prostitute, but rather because of Tamar’s location in a public place and other circumstances, which prompted Judah to see in Tamar something like a servant of Asherah or Babylonian Melitta, - qedeschah (v. 21); Herodotus speaks about the cult of this family among the Babylonians (1 book, 199). Gen.38:18. He said: what pledge should I give you? She said, “Your seal, and your bandage, and your reed, which is in your hand.” And he gave it to her and went in to her; and she conceived from him. As a guarantee of future payment, Tamar demands from Judah those things, the undoubted ownership of which Judah later had to prove the paternity of Judah in relation to the 2 sons of Tamar: a ring, a baldric (skin) and a cane - all this was a common property among the Babylonians (Herodotus 1 bk., 195), and from there it passed to Canaan. At the same time, on the ring, as well as on the canes, various emblems of their owner were probably cut out very early (the emblem or coat of arms of the tribe of Judah was a lion, Dan’s was a serpent, Issachar’s was a donkey, Benjamin’s was a wolf, Gen. 49:9, 14, 17, 27). Gen.38:21. And he asked the inhabitants of the place, saying, “Where is the harlot who was in Enaim by the way?” But they said: there was no harlot here. The name qedeschah, dedicated (i.e., to the goddess of debauchery), when applied to a harlot, clearly indicates the Babylonian cult of Melitta or Belitta, or the Canaanite Astarte, and in both cults the wages of harlots were brought into the treasury of the goddess, which the Jews were strictly and unconditionally forbidden in Deut. 23:18. Gen.38:23. Judas said: let her take it for herself, so that they don’t laugh at us; Behold, I sent this kid, but you did not find her. Judah refuses further searches for the imaginary “qedesh” (qedeschah) out of fear that the desire to settle accounts with the woman by agreement (who, however, had already received more valuable things in comparison with the kid) would lead to ridicule of him: a fact - together with some other features noted in this story - indicating a fairly high development of moral sense in Jacob’s family, despite all the presence of phenomena that were disgusting to him. Gen.38:24. About three months passed, and they told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter-in-law has fallen into fornication, and behold, she is with child through fornication. Judas said: Bring her out and let her be burned. Just as Judah’s (sole) sentence over his daughter-in-law (betrothed Sheleh) on suspicion of fornication characterizes the patriarchal way of life - in contrast to the restrictions on parental authority in the law of Moses (Deut. 21:18-21), so the type of punishment - burning - indicates the pre-legal, patriarchal stage of Jewish criminal law; Perhaps this execution was borrowed by Judas from the neighboring Philistines (the Philistines burned Samson's wife for betraying her husband, Judges 15:6). Meanwhile, according to the Law of Moses, a violator of marital fidelity was stoned (Deut. 22:21), but only the priest’s daughter who fell into fornication was burned (Lev. 21:9), therefore the tradition of Jud. Tamar also considered the daughter of a priest, according to the rabbis - the daughter of Shem or Melchizedek, Beresch. r. Par. 85, s. 421. It is possible, finally, that the burning by Judah was assigned to Tamar, as the (alleged) priestess of Asherah (Deut. 7:25, 12:3). Gen.38:25. But when they took her away, she sent to tell her father-in-law: I am pregnant from the one whose things these are. And she said: find out whose seal this is, and the baldric and the cane. When Judah so decisively (like his descendant David - in the case of Bathsheba) (2 Sam. 12:5) pronounced the death sentence on Tamar, although he himself was guilty of insincerity in arranging the marriage of Tamar with Shelah, then Tamar takes out, obviously, the things of Judah that had been carefully kept by her and sends them to him, delicately, without mentioning his name, recalling the incident (v. 18). The Talmud and Midrash, praising Tamar's care for her father-in-law's good name, when she herself was threatened with death, teach the moral that it is better to die than to disgrace one's neighbor. From the expression “when they led her,” the Midrash concludes that the things mentioned were already lost, but God miraculously gave her other similar ones (Beresch. r. Par. 85.s. 421–422). Gen.38:26. Judah found out and said: She is more right than me, because I did not give her to Shelah my son. And I didn’t know her anymore. Tamar’s modest reminder awakens reproaches of conscience in Judah, and he (by inspiration from above, says the Midrash) openly and publicly admits his guilt before Tamar and the ownership of her future children; in addition, an awakened moral feeling (in connection with the so-called honor naturalis) forces him to refuse further cohabitation with his daughter-in-law. Gen.38:27–30. During her birth, it turned out that she had twins in her womb. And while she was in labor, the hand of [one] appeared; and the midwife took it and tied a red thread on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.” But he returned his hand; and behold, his brother came out. And she said: how did you dissolve your barrier? And his name was called Perez. Then his brother came out with a red thread on his hand. And his name was called Zara. These verses form an epilogue to the story of Tamar - a story about the birth of her twins, reminiscent in some features of the story (Gen. 25:22–26) about the birth of Esau and Jacob: Zerah (Heb. “sunrise”), who, according to human considerations, had to be the firstborn and receive all the benefits of the firstborn, had to cede both the primacy of birth and all the rights of the firstborn to his brother Perez (Heb. Pepper - a gap, as if contrary to nature), which one of the 5 sons of Judah formed the main line of Judah’s descendants, namely through him, David came from the tribe of Judah, and at the end of time - Christ the Savior (1 Chron. 2:5-9; Ruth. 4:17-22; Matt. 1:3-6; Luke 3:31-35). You might be interested in: