Jacob, in leaving Canaan for Egypt, seemed to realize that he would never return to the Promised Land in life. This land, so connected to his ancestors, needed to be taken leave of properly. He stopped by Beersheba, the Well of Oaths, where both his father and his grandfather had encountered God and made covenants. God reminds him one last time of the promises He has made, particularly that He will make of Israel a great nation and that Canaan will still be the Promised Land, that Jacob and his descendants have not left there permanently. With this reassurance, the weak, equivocating Jacob becomes once more the strong, faithful Israel and he sets off.
The list of Jacob's family here is carefully planned out to make a perfect number (70) of people. Seven, a number of celestial perfection, and ten, a number of order, come together here. Most lists of families in the Bible seem to include particularly meaningful numbers of people. These 70 people are the beginnings of the tribe of Israel, just as there were 70 descendants of Shem who were the beginnings of the Chosen lineage/tribe. God's restarting with a perfectly chosen group of people.
Joseph, the type of Jesus, is returned to his father in the same way Isaac was returned to Abraham after both were given up as dead, offered as a tragic sacrifice. Joseph sets his family up with as good a start as possible, making sure they explain their trade to Pharaoh properly so that it becomes only logical to him to set the family up in the pasturelands of Goshen. Joseph's family, like the Church Christ founded, was intentionally made separate from the rest of the world. Goshen was far from most important Egyptian settlements, a little isolated cradle of plenty where the family could prosper.
When the family meet with Pharaoh, they impress him. Particularly, Jacob's longevity and humility impresses Pharaoh and he lets them have great land. Then the problems come. The Egyptians use first money, then livestock, then land to buy bread from Joseph until he has essentially every resource in the country. There is, at the end of the period, no more private land ownership, but an entire nation of serfs working Pharaoh's land. The only exceptions to this are Israelites and priests. As Jacob draws near his death, his family/tribe has become incredibly successful in Egypt. The Egyptians clearly cannot take this for long.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Genesis 44-45: Benjamin is Straighter than the Tall Palm Tree
Since Joseph first saw his brothers, he has wanted to forgive them and reveal himself. At the same time, he needed to be asked for forgiveness. He needed them to truly repent, and his destiny as revealed by the dream needed to be truly fulfilled. He needed them to pull together as a brotherly unit and prove their character. These brothers had turned on the youngest in envy before, and he was hoping to see that they would not do so again.
Notably, Joseph projects the complete image of Zaphenath-Paneah, the Egyptian wiseman and Grand Vizier. He pretends to use a very typical form of divination involving liquids in a cup to get information he gets from God. He makes the other Egyptians go eat somewhere else as a sign of how much higher his status is and refuses to eat with his Hebrew brothers, a common Egyptian prejudice at the time. He pretends not to understand Hebrew.
Mercifully, his brothers pass his tests. Judah, as spokesman for the ten, makes an impassioned confession, assuming the guilt on the shoulders of the entire group instead of letting it fall only on Benjamin. He confesses Joseph's supposed death and the impact that it has had on the family, without excusing himself. Judah, once again, does absolutely the right thing, and comes before the throne of mercy and justice with a humility that would be totally instructive for anyone. It's enough to make you want to weep...the lost lamb has led his brothers back home.
Joseph embraces his brothers and expresses his utter conviction that God's plan for him to come to Egypt and give them life was the best possible plan. Even Pharaoh is so touched that he offers incredibly generous treatment for the brothers when they bring Israel/Jacob back with them to live in Egypt. Their every want will be more than provided for. Reconciliation with Joseph, like reconciling with God, prompts a shower of generous love and blessings...a heaven, really. Joseph treats Benjamin, his full brother and the virtuous one, with especial generosity, but none are left out, and the past is forgotten.
Notably, Joseph projects the complete image of Zaphenath-Paneah, the Egyptian wiseman and Grand Vizier. He pretends to use a very typical form of divination involving liquids in a cup to get information he gets from God. He makes the other Egyptians go eat somewhere else as a sign of how much higher his status is and refuses to eat with his Hebrew brothers, a common Egyptian prejudice at the time. He pretends not to understand Hebrew.
Mercifully, his brothers pass his tests. Judah, as spokesman for the ten, makes an impassioned confession, assuming the guilt on the shoulders of the entire group instead of letting it fall only on Benjamin. He confesses Joseph's supposed death and the impact that it has had on the family, without excusing himself. Judah, once again, does absolutely the right thing, and comes before the throne of mercy and justice with a humility that would be totally instructive for anyone. It's enough to make you want to weep...the lost lamb has led his brothers back home.
Joseph embraces his brothers and expresses his utter conviction that God's plan for him to come to Egypt and give them life was the best possible plan. Even Pharaoh is so touched that he offers incredibly generous treatment for the brothers when they bring Israel/Jacob back with them to live in Egypt. Their every want will be more than provided for. Reconciliation with Joseph, like reconciling with God, prompts a shower of generous love and blessings...a heaven, really. Joseph treats Benjamin, his full brother and the virtuous one, with especial generosity, but none are left out, and the past is forgotten.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Genesis 42-43: Grovel, Grovel
Joseph, the type of Jesus, is in charge of handing out bread to sustain life. It is repeated over and over again in Chapter 42, "Go get bread so we can live and not die." The very lives of Joseph's brothers and father are in his hands. It is up to him to choose to save them, just as it was up to Jesus to incarnate, live, teach, and die for our sins so we could live. A popular Christian song (which, I'm sorry, is probably copyrighted but I'm not sure how to cite it) contains some powerful lyrics about the situation both are in:
I'm forgiven because You were forsaken.
I'm accepted...You were condemned.
I'm alive and well, Your spirit is within me,
Because You died and rose again.
Joseph's undeserved tragedies formed him into the kind of man who could forgive, and his brothers received forgiveness, acceptance, and food to sustain their physical lives because of what Joseph went through. After being sold off, Joseph might as well have died in the eyes of his brothers, and finding him again, having conquered his misfortune, now in charge of so much, it must have seemed almost as though he had risen from the grave. At this point, however, they still have no idea that it is he. Note the fairly inconspicuous fact that Judah, fresh from his descent into disaster and the Tamar Incident, Reuben the Usurper/Concubine Stealer, Simeon, and Levi the Massacre Brothers, are all there, all together again, seeking closure and forgiveness.
The stumbling point with receiving life and grace from Jesus is that you have to repent and truly look your sin in the eye to do so. When Joseph recognizes his brothers, thinks back to that life-defining dream God sent him, and decides to forgive, he could easily have done so right then. Boom, Genesis becomes 5 chapters shorter. We're all happy with the touching story and move on to Exodus. But he didn't. Joseph, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, realizes that God isn't finished with them yet. The family is, first of all, missing a member, and Benjamin must be gathered into the fold. At the same time, some of the brothers look critically at their own actions toward Joseph and begin to repent, but Reuben isn't yet convinced. He throws out a blame-deflecting "I told you not to!" Reuben's statement, however, did some good in that it revealed his own intent to rescue Joseph and indicated that he realized the evil nature of what they did.
Of note, this interchange takes place on the third day (symbolism much?) after three days of being locked in the very prison Joseph himself was in. People in the Bible are always being thrown into three days of some kind of horrible test and coming out better on the other side. Also notable is the fact that the bread money was returned sneakily by Joseph. The life-giving bread that God gives us is always without cost. His grace and His life are always freely given, not as a result of anything we can offer Him. Jacob reacts to this as though his sons stole it, like the indignant reaction we sometimes have to people who live lives of sin and then turn it around. Like the older brother in the prodigal son story, we cannot believe that we, who work so hard to do the right thing, can receive grace right alongside those who seem to do everything wrong.
The end of Chapter 42 and the beginning of Chapter 43 seem to be about leadership and taking initiative. Within this family, Jacob is clearly not the leader, as he isn't about to undertake an expedition to take Simeon, a wayward son, back at the risk of Benjamin, a blameless one. He's the opposite of the Good Shepherd, unwilling to put good sheep at risk for a lost one. Jacob even goes so far as to say that Benjamin is the only son he has left. The favoritism that his parents showed that nearly ruined his life and his relationship with Esau has led him to show equally destructive favoritism toward Joseph and Benjamin.
Reuben's attempt to take up the mantle of leader and go get Simeon is met with an absolutely deafening silence. Even with his own sons as "collateral", Jacob and the others won't trust him with Benjamin. He has been so thoroughly untrustworthy that there's no chance. He's ruined it. God's natural preference for younger brothers who (at least to his heart-piercing gaze) appear to be more virtuous than their elders shines through. Leaders are chosen by God in this family, not by birth.
Finally, we hear from the reformed sinner, now fine upstanding mensch Judah. He doesn't have to offer his own children as collateral on this loan. With his example, Jacob gets him ready to go, spurred to do the right thing when his son takes the initiative. Judah takes the money they found, plus interest, and his brother Benjamin, and Jacob's confidence in him shows. "If I have to be bereaved, I will be." Not the same Jacob who feared the loss of his son so incredibly much a few verses ago, now is he.
Joseph seems to fully understand his brother Judah's life turnaround, and he knew all along that it was Judah who got him out of the well while Reuben just talked a big game. When Judah comes clean and gives an honest confession, he pretends that he got paid for the food and lets the brothers keep the money...God's grace is a freely given gift, remember? As a result, they get invited in for a party, and Joseph's generosity just overflows. Things are beginning to come together, and he is so incredibly happy at all God is doing and has done, so moved at seeing his last brother, that he begins to weep for sheer joy.
I'm forgiven because You were forsaken.
I'm accepted...You were condemned.
I'm alive and well, Your spirit is within me,
Because You died and rose again.
Joseph's undeserved tragedies formed him into the kind of man who could forgive, and his brothers received forgiveness, acceptance, and food to sustain their physical lives because of what Joseph went through. After being sold off, Joseph might as well have died in the eyes of his brothers, and finding him again, having conquered his misfortune, now in charge of so much, it must have seemed almost as though he had risen from the grave. At this point, however, they still have no idea that it is he. Note the fairly inconspicuous fact that Judah, fresh from his descent into disaster and the Tamar Incident, Reuben the Usurper/Concubine Stealer, Simeon, and Levi the Massacre Brothers, are all there, all together again, seeking closure and forgiveness.
The stumbling point with receiving life and grace from Jesus is that you have to repent and truly look your sin in the eye to do so. When Joseph recognizes his brothers, thinks back to that life-defining dream God sent him, and decides to forgive, he could easily have done so right then. Boom, Genesis becomes 5 chapters shorter. We're all happy with the touching story and move on to Exodus. But he didn't. Joseph, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, realizes that God isn't finished with them yet. The family is, first of all, missing a member, and Benjamin must be gathered into the fold. At the same time, some of the brothers look critically at their own actions toward Joseph and begin to repent, but Reuben isn't yet convinced. He throws out a blame-deflecting "I told you not to!" Reuben's statement, however, did some good in that it revealed his own intent to rescue Joseph and indicated that he realized the evil nature of what they did.
Of note, this interchange takes place on the third day (symbolism much?) after three days of being locked in the very prison Joseph himself was in. People in the Bible are always being thrown into three days of some kind of horrible test and coming out better on the other side. Also notable is the fact that the bread money was returned sneakily by Joseph. The life-giving bread that God gives us is always without cost. His grace and His life are always freely given, not as a result of anything we can offer Him. Jacob reacts to this as though his sons stole it, like the indignant reaction we sometimes have to people who live lives of sin and then turn it around. Like the older brother in the prodigal son story, we cannot believe that we, who work so hard to do the right thing, can receive grace right alongside those who seem to do everything wrong.
The end of Chapter 42 and the beginning of Chapter 43 seem to be about leadership and taking initiative. Within this family, Jacob is clearly not the leader, as he isn't about to undertake an expedition to take Simeon, a wayward son, back at the risk of Benjamin, a blameless one. He's the opposite of the Good Shepherd, unwilling to put good sheep at risk for a lost one. Jacob even goes so far as to say that Benjamin is the only son he has left. The favoritism that his parents showed that nearly ruined his life and his relationship with Esau has led him to show equally destructive favoritism toward Joseph and Benjamin.
Reuben's attempt to take up the mantle of leader and go get Simeon is met with an absolutely deafening silence. Even with his own sons as "collateral", Jacob and the others won't trust him with Benjamin. He has been so thoroughly untrustworthy that there's no chance. He's ruined it. God's natural preference for younger brothers who (at least to his heart-piercing gaze) appear to be more virtuous than their elders shines through. Leaders are chosen by God in this family, not by birth.
Finally, we hear from the reformed sinner, now fine upstanding mensch Judah. He doesn't have to offer his own children as collateral on this loan. With his example, Jacob gets him ready to go, spurred to do the right thing when his son takes the initiative. Judah takes the money they found, plus interest, and his brother Benjamin, and Jacob's confidence in him shows. "If I have to be bereaved, I will be." Not the same Jacob who feared the loss of his son so incredibly much a few verses ago, now is he.
Joseph seems to fully understand his brother Judah's life turnaround, and he knew all along that it was Judah who got him out of the well while Reuben just talked a big game. When Judah comes clean and gives an honest confession, he pretends that he got paid for the food and lets the brothers keep the money...God's grace is a freely given gift, remember? As a result, they get invited in for a party, and Joseph's generosity just overflows. Things are beginning to come together, and he is so incredibly happy at all God is doing and has done, so moved at seeing his last brother, that he begins to weep for sheer joy.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Genesis 40-41: Any Dream Will Do
Three dreams, three interpretations...three wonders worked, and Joseph skyrockets from able prisoner/prison administrator to Grand Vizier of Egypt. His interactions with people of increasing clout prove to them time and again his gift for administration, his political savvy, and his ability to interpret prophecies. Through all of this, Joseph never forgets that both his hardships and his talents were undeserved and that God has been with him the whole time. Now to get "Go go go Joseph" out of my head...
The butler comes, like an innocent and humble man, directly to Joseph with his dream. He doesn't even necessarily jump to favorable conclusions when Joseph's interpretation includes the ambiguous phrase "lift up your head" (could mean restore former glory, or just behead you). The guilty baker, on the other hand, only speaks up when he hears the good news the other guy got. These two are much like the good and bad thieves who hung next to Jesus, each demonstrating his own character. In the end, though, human failing leaves Joseph with only God in whom to place his trust. The butler forgets him, at least for the moment. The lesson in this is clear: Trust God. The righteous Joseph isn't protected from hardship as a result of his character...bad things he doesn't deserve still happen, but God blesses him through all of this.
Pharaoh's dream, then, gives God a chance to prove His power and display the gifts He has given Joseph. Joseph does what he can to make the situation turn out well, shaving himself and making himself as much as possible like a clean, smooth, ritually pure Egyptian priest. He wants to give the impression to Pharaoh that he can fit in, and that his God is just like the Egyptian gods in terms of requiring respect and ritual purity but that His power is so much greater and more awesome. The God-given interpretation also conveniently points to Joseph's other God-given talent: administration.
Joseph from here on out becomes very Egyptian, taking an Egyptian name, marrying a very very high class Egyptian woman and giving his sons names that are based in words borrowed from the Egyptian language. Unlike the warnings God has given others against marrying foreign, pagan women, God does not seem to mind this. It is not "foreign-ness" that God is warning against, but rather the corrupting influence of particular cultures and religions that can be tempting. God does not want to see us stray from Him and foresake His ways, and if that means warning us against something that might tempt us away, so be it. Joseph, on the other hand, was faithful and trusting, less likely to be tempted away. Also, the blessing God had bestowed in the position of Prime Minister would have been ruined if Joseph had been inflexible culturally (rather than morally or spiritually). He can dress differently and speak differently, but he is still a faithful follower of God, and a prime minister has to act culturally appropriate. By the time all this is done, Joseph is unrecognizable as an ethnic Hebrew, even to his brothers.
The butler comes, like an innocent and humble man, directly to Joseph with his dream. He doesn't even necessarily jump to favorable conclusions when Joseph's interpretation includes the ambiguous phrase "lift up your head" (could mean restore former glory, or just behead you). The guilty baker, on the other hand, only speaks up when he hears the good news the other guy got. These two are much like the good and bad thieves who hung next to Jesus, each demonstrating his own character. In the end, though, human failing leaves Joseph with only God in whom to place his trust. The butler forgets him, at least for the moment. The lesson in this is clear: Trust God. The righteous Joseph isn't protected from hardship as a result of his character...bad things he doesn't deserve still happen, but God blesses him through all of this.
Pharaoh's dream, then, gives God a chance to prove His power and display the gifts He has given Joseph. Joseph does what he can to make the situation turn out well, shaving himself and making himself as much as possible like a clean, smooth, ritually pure Egyptian priest. He wants to give the impression to Pharaoh that he can fit in, and that his God is just like the Egyptian gods in terms of requiring respect and ritual purity but that His power is so much greater and more awesome. The God-given interpretation also conveniently points to Joseph's other God-given talent: administration.
Joseph from here on out becomes very Egyptian, taking an Egyptian name, marrying a very very high class Egyptian woman and giving his sons names that are based in words borrowed from the Egyptian language. Unlike the warnings God has given others against marrying foreign, pagan women, God does not seem to mind this. It is not "foreign-ness" that God is warning against, but rather the corrupting influence of particular cultures and religions that can be tempting. God does not want to see us stray from Him and foresake His ways, and if that means warning us against something that might tempt us away, so be it. Joseph, on the other hand, was faithful and trusting, less likely to be tempted away. Also, the blessing God had bestowed in the position of Prime Minister would have been ruined if Joseph had been inflexible culturally (rather than morally or spiritually). He can dress differently and speak differently, but he is still a faithful follower of God, and a prime minister has to act culturally appropriate. By the time all this is done, Joseph is unrecognizable as an ethnic Hebrew, even to his brothers.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Genesis 38-39: Getting In God's Way
Looking back on Genesis so far, the major theme I notice is that God is tracing a line down through history. He has his reasons, and the human author of this Book often doesn't really know what they are, but the light of hope and salvation gets handed down from one generation to the next, making an arrow pointing to Jesus. Because Adam, Noah, Abraham, and their women are all human, they do not realize that God's plan will occur no matter what, and often they (intentionally or not) either try to "help" or they intentionally put roadblocks in His way. God is a loving God and He has an intense, single-minded desire for us. He went to any lengths required to save us and bring us to Himself, including bringing about good from the morally questionable or outright evil acts of humans. The Holy Spirit moved over history like a mighty wind. These two chapters outline this "nothing stands in God's way" theme in a remarkable way.
The story of Judah and Tamar is the first time we hear of a woman who would be directly mentioned in the genealogies of Jesus. From what I've always learned, the five women who the Evangelists specifically mention (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary) have a lot in common. All five bore sons in remarkable, improbable circumstances, all five were "fallen women" or outcasts, and all five lived lives of incredible faith. These five "turning points" were crucial in the carrying on of the line of Jesus, though they didn't know it. The first was an unloved foreign wife, denied her chance to do her duty to the family she grew to love. The second was also foreign, at the very least an independent business owner but may have been a prostitute, a madam, or both. The third was a foreigner too. The fourth was raped and her husband intentionally killed in battle. The fifth, of course...was a virgin who claimed divine paternity for her unplanned pregnancy. What male at the time of Jesus would have paid even the least attention to these lowest of women? The evangelists, however, inspired by God, saw past this and pointedly included them in Jesus' genealogy where Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Leah, and many other upstanding women were ignored.
When taken at face value, Tamar and Judah both use each other in a tremendously cruel manner. The Judah who saved Joseph's life is gone, mired in guilt and grief, and in an attempt to escape, he has moved away, found a local pagan woman for a wife and made many pagan friends. Judah is (unbeknownst to him) the current lightbearer but is this guy the "holy seed of Abraham"? You wouldn't know it to look at him. He fathers sons, but they are pretty horrible guys. It isn't clear what the first one did, but he was so incredibly wicked that God actually intervened, according to the text, and killed him outright. You have to, by this point, be a fairly blatant sinner for your death to be attributed directly to God smiting you one. One novelization of the story that I read depicted Er as blaspheming horribly just prior to this sudden death. His brother Onan is just a jealous pig who flouts a cherished custom of marrying brother's widow and bearing sons that in essence belong to the dead brother. Onan wants what most guys would want, a chance to marry a girl of his own and bear sons that he can call his. His jealousy of Er, however, leads him to a petty revenge. Many would say that Onan's real crime was of not being open to life in his marriage, and it does seem clear that contraception and masturbation don't come out of this looking very good, but the jealousy factor behind it just makes this "stink to high heaven."
Tamar is handed off like property between these men and seems to have the right, in that time and place, to expect that she will be. When Judah married her to Er, she gained a right to the blessing of children. She had an unquestioned right to expect to bear children for Judah's household, and this seems understood by both sides. Er does wrong by not providing her with children for some reason not really explained in the text. Onan deliberately keeps them back. Finally, Judah selfishly tries to ignore her right to marry Shelah, possibly believing somehow that this girl is a "black widow", bad luck for her husbands. He forgets that, without marrying Shelah, Tamar can't marry anyone else and has no chance of avoiding being alone, penniless, and shunned. Finally, when her anger boils over, she takes up a plot for a fairly cruel, sinful
revenge which works out beautifully for God's purposes, with the birth of Perez and Zerah. Jesus didn't just eat with sinners and the outcast...he was born from them.
Perez and Zerah are just like Jacob and Esau...a younger twin who sneakily triumphs over his brother. The New Covenant, chosen by God, takes over for the Old Testament, the natural heir. Upon their birth, Judah receives something of a new birth of his own.
The next chapter about Joseph in Potiphar's house shows once again how God's plan can triumph over stumbling blocks, this time in an individual life. Joseph isn't the official bearer of the chosen line, but God has a plan for his life anyway. Joseph's close relationship to God leads him to put much more trust in this plan than Judah did, and it pays. Judah's descent into grief, guilt, trickery and a kind of incest even when free and relatively rich, is contrasted with Joseph's rise to importance and wealth despite the "curses" of slavery, isolation, and destitution. Other people trust Joseph almost instinctively with just about their entire lives, despite the risk that he might steal, lie and cheat to buy his freedom from bondage. Nobody trusts Judah with anything despite the fact that he's done fairly well with his own circumstances. Given the chance, Judah sleeps with Tamar, disguised as a prostitute, and he spends more effort making sure he's paid her properly than he does making sure his poor little widowed daughter-in-law is provided for. Joseph, on the other hand, does not give in to temptation, begging, or pleading and accepts quietly being lied about. This second tragedy still cannot stop God from blessing him, and soon even the jailer trusts him with unthinkable power. God promised to be with Abraham and his descendents, and to bless them and make them great. Joseph trusts, and therefore the worst things anyone can do to him cannot stop what God wants for him.
The story of Judah and Tamar is the first time we hear of a woman who would be directly mentioned in the genealogies of Jesus. From what I've always learned, the five women who the Evangelists specifically mention (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary) have a lot in common. All five bore sons in remarkable, improbable circumstances, all five were "fallen women" or outcasts, and all five lived lives of incredible faith. These five "turning points" were crucial in the carrying on of the line of Jesus, though they didn't know it. The first was an unloved foreign wife, denied her chance to do her duty to the family she grew to love. The second was also foreign, at the very least an independent business owner but may have been a prostitute, a madam, or both. The third was a foreigner too. The fourth was raped and her husband intentionally killed in battle. The fifth, of course...was a virgin who claimed divine paternity for her unplanned pregnancy. What male at the time of Jesus would have paid even the least attention to these lowest of women? The evangelists, however, inspired by God, saw past this and pointedly included them in Jesus' genealogy where Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Leah, and many other upstanding women were ignored.
When taken at face value, Tamar and Judah both use each other in a tremendously cruel manner. The Judah who saved Joseph's life is gone, mired in guilt and grief, and in an attempt to escape, he has moved away, found a local pagan woman for a wife and made many pagan friends. Judah is (unbeknownst to him) the current lightbearer but is this guy the "holy seed of Abraham"? You wouldn't know it to look at him. He fathers sons, but they are pretty horrible guys. It isn't clear what the first one did, but he was so incredibly wicked that God actually intervened, according to the text, and killed him outright. You have to, by this point, be a fairly blatant sinner for your death to be attributed directly to God smiting you one. One novelization of the story that I read depicted Er as blaspheming horribly just prior to this sudden death. His brother Onan is just a jealous pig who flouts a cherished custom of marrying brother's widow and bearing sons that in essence belong to the dead brother. Onan wants what most guys would want, a chance to marry a girl of his own and bear sons that he can call his. His jealousy of Er, however, leads him to a petty revenge. Many would say that Onan's real crime was of not being open to life in his marriage, and it does seem clear that contraception and masturbation don't come out of this looking very good, but the jealousy factor behind it just makes this "stink to high heaven."
Tamar is handed off like property between these men and seems to have the right, in that time and place, to expect that she will be. When Judah married her to Er, she gained a right to the blessing of children. She had an unquestioned right to expect to bear children for Judah's household, and this seems understood by both sides. Er does wrong by not providing her with children for some reason not really explained in the text. Onan deliberately keeps them back. Finally, Judah selfishly tries to ignore her right to marry Shelah, possibly believing somehow that this girl is a "black widow", bad luck for her husbands. He forgets that, without marrying Shelah, Tamar can't marry anyone else and has no chance of avoiding being alone, penniless, and shunned. Finally, when her anger boils over, she takes up a plot for a fairly cruel, sinful
revenge which works out beautifully for God's purposes, with the birth of Perez and Zerah. Jesus didn't just eat with sinners and the outcast...he was born from them.
Perez and Zerah are just like Jacob and Esau...a younger twin who sneakily triumphs over his brother. The New Covenant, chosen by God, takes over for the Old Testament, the natural heir. Upon their birth, Judah receives something of a new birth of his own.
The next chapter about Joseph in Potiphar's house shows once again how God's plan can triumph over stumbling blocks, this time in an individual life. Joseph isn't the official bearer of the chosen line, but God has a plan for his life anyway. Joseph's close relationship to God leads him to put much more trust in this plan than Judah did, and it pays. Judah's descent into grief, guilt, trickery and a kind of incest even when free and relatively rich, is contrasted with Joseph's rise to importance and wealth despite the "curses" of slavery, isolation, and destitution. Other people trust Joseph almost instinctively with just about their entire lives, despite the risk that he might steal, lie and cheat to buy his freedom from bondage. Nobody trusts Judah with anything despite the fact that he's done fairly well with his own circumstances. Given the chance, Judah sleeps with Tamar, disguised as a prostitute, and he spends more effort making sure he's paid her properly than he does making sure his poor little widowed daughter-in-law is provided for. Joseph, on the other hand, does not give in to temptation, begging, or pleading and accepts quietly being lied about. This second tragedy still cannot stop God from blessing him, and soon even the jailer trusts him with unthinkable power. God promised to be with Abraham and his descendents, and to bless them and make them great. Joseph trusts, and therefore the worst things anyone can do to him cannot stop what God wants for him.
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