Genesis 38

Notes

1. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "turned in to" (KJV) / "visited" (RSV); at 38:16 "turned unto her" (KJV) / "went over to her" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 57

   The home gloss of נָטָה is "stretch out," of a tent (12:8; 26:25), an arm or the skies. Used without an object, of a person, it is to bend one's way aside: Judah "turned aside as far as" Hirah (v. 1) and "turned aside to her, to the way" (v. 16); compare the ass that "turned aside from the way" (Num 22:23). "Stretched out to her" would make a false sense in English (57), so both verses print "turned aside," and the one English holds the chain the chapter builds, the two turnings of Judah, from his brothers and toward Tamar. The rendering is a departure, noted here for both.

2. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 18

   Adullam is a town of the Judean lowland (Josh 15:35), later David's cave (1 Sam 22:1). The names of this chapter are in the table below.

   See the table

3. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "Shelah" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 110, 18

   שֵׁלָה is a different name from שֶׁלַח, the son of Arpachshad (10:24; 11:12–15), whom the English tradition also calls "Shelah." Ruling 110 gives the familiar form to the first in canonical order and a distinguishing spelling to the second, so Judah's son is "Shela," Everett Fox's form. The gentilic "Shelanites" (Num 26:20) keeps the same stem.

4. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 17, 18

   כְּזִיב sounds like the verb כָּזַב "lie, fail": a spring "whose waters do not fail" (Isa 58:11, לֹא־יְכַזְּבוּ). Rashi records the play: she ceased bearing after this son. The LXX makes Shua's daughter the subject, "she was in Chasbi when she bore them." The Masoretic "he" is Judah, and the place is likely Achzib of the lowland (Josh 15:44; Mic 1:14, where the prophet makes the same pun, "the houses of Achzib shall be an אַכְזָב, a lie").

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 17, 18

   עֵר "Er" is רַע "bad" spelled backwards, and the verse puts the two side by side. The home gloss "bad" is printed and the pun goes here, since English has no word that keeps the name and the gloss (17). Nothing is said of what he did.

6. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "slew him" (KJV, 38:7, 10) / "slew him" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 20

   וַיְמִתֵהוּ and וַיָּמֶת are the hiphil of מוּת "die," the causative, "made him die." "Kill" is הָרַג's (37:20, 26), and "slay" would give a third English word to one Hebrew. The stem is kept visible as at 37:18. In v. 10 the subject is not repeated; it is Adonai of the same clause, and the English keeps "he."

7. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "marry her" (KJV) / "perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her" (RSV)

   Rulings 10, 25

   יִבֵּם is a verb made from יָבָם, the brother of a dead husband, and names what he does: he takes the widow so that a son may "stand on the name of his dead brother, that his name not be wiped out of Israel" (Deut 25:5–10). Here the duty is already custom, before any law. A verb is kept a verb (10), and the phrase names the act without saying "marry." The next words give its purpose, וְהָקֵם זֶרַע, the hiphil of קוּם "make stand," the verb of making a covenant stand (6:18; 9:9; 17:7): "make stand seed for your brother," as Deut 25:7 has "to make stand a name for his brother." The Sadducees' question in Matt 22:24 quotes the law in Greek (ἀναστήσει σπέρμα, "raise up seed").

8. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "he spilled it on the ground" (KJV) / "he spilled the semen on the ground" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 37

   שִׁחֵת אַרְצָה has no object: "he ruined, to the land." שָׁחַת is the verb of the flood chain, the land and all flesh ruined (6:11–12) and Elohim ruining (6:13, 17), and its home gloss "ruin" is held (37); "it" is supplied. וְהָיָה אִם with a perfect is a repeated action, "whenever," not a single act. The sin is named in v. 9 itself: "so as not to give seed to his brother." It is the refusal of the duty of v. 8, not the act alone, though b. Niddah 13a and the later word "onanism" read the act.

9. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 125, 101

   וַיִּנָּחֶם, the niphal of נחם with a dead person in view, is "be comforted" (125d; 24:67, Isaac "was comforted after his mother"). Judah is comforted for his wife; his father, in the chapter before, refused to be (37:35).

10. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    בְּפֶתַח עֵינַיִם, "at the doorway of Enaim," is a place name that is also the word "two eyes" or "two springs." The LXX has "at the gates of Ainan"; Josh 15:34 has an Enam (הָעֵינָם) in the lowland near Adullam. Genesis Rabbah 85 and Rashi hear the words: "at the opening of the eyes," a crossroads where all eyes look, or the place where Tamar's eyes were opened to what she must do. The chapter turns on seeing: she "saw" that Shela was grown (v. 14), Judah "saw her" and did not know her (vv. 15–16), and he "recognized" (v. 26). פֶּתַח is "doorway," as at 4:7.

11. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 4

    עֵרָבוֹן "pledge" passed into Greek as ἀρραβών, the word of the LXX here, and of Paul for the Spirit, "the pledge of our inheritance" (2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; Eph 1:14), which the NT follows in its Greek (4). Its root is עָרַב "be surety," and Judah, who gives a pledge here, will make himself surety for Benjamin (43:9; 44:32).

12. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "harlot" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 1, 3, 46

    קְדֵשָׁה is of the root of קָדַשׁ "be holy": a woman consecrated, set apart. Deut 23:18 forbids a קְדֵשָׁה among the daughters of Israel and a קָדֵשׁ among the sons, and Hos 4:14 sets the קְדֵשׁוֹת beside the זֹנוֹת "whores" at the sacrifices. Akkadian qadištu is a class of women attached to a temple, attested as midwives and wet nurses. Whether the word implies sex for hire, as the English tradition reads it ("temple prostitute," NRSV), is contested. Here Judah "reckoned her for a whore" (זוֹנָה, v. 15), and the townsfolk report and his friend asks for a "consecrated woman," a different word, perhaps the more respectable one. The verse keeps the two words apart, and so does the English. The stranger attested sense, the root's, is printed (1); it settles nothing about temple practice (46). The WPRB keeps "consecrated woman."

13. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 37

    הַכֶּר־נָא: "Recognize, please" is the brothers' line to their father (37:32), and "he recognized" his son's tunic (37:33). The chain is held (37). b. Sotah 10b and Genesis Rabbah 85: Judah said to his father "Recognize, please," and now he hears it. Tamar does not name him; she shows the pledge and leaves him to say it.

14. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "She hath been more righteous than I" (KJV) / "She is more righteous than I" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 95

    צָדַק is the verb of the CORE צֶדֶק / צְדָקָה "justice" and צַדִּיק "just," so its English is "be just." With מִן it is a comparison, "more just than I," as Saul says to David, "You are more just than I" (1 Sam 24:18, צַדִּיק אַתָּה מִמֶּנִּי). The comparative is printed and not reversed: Judah does not say she is just and he is not, but that her claim on the duty of v. 8 is the stronger. Targum Onkelos expands, "she is in the right; she is pregnant by me," and b. Sotah 10b has a voice from heaven say מִמֶּנִּי "from me": these things came from me.

15. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 128

    כִּי עַל־כֵּן, "for therefore," gives the reason as the fact that grounds the verdict (18:5; 19:8; 33:10): she is in the right because of what Judah failed to do. עַל־כֵּן is "therefore," tagged on כֵּן (128i).

16. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "the midwife" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 20

    הַמְיַלֶּדֶת is the piel participle of יָלַד "bear": the one who helps a woman bear (35:17; Exod 1:15–21, the Hebrew midwives). The qal is "bear," the hiphil "produce" (20); the piel participle is printed by its English noun, "midwife," which has no other claimant. נָתַן יָד is printed "gave forth a hand," the home gloss with its English adverb, since "gave a hand" would mean help. "Knit" is the home gloss of קָשַׁר: she ties the scarlet on. The Hebrew has "scarlet," with no word for "thread."

17. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18, 128

    מַה־פָּרַצְתָּ עָלֶיךָ פָּרֶץ: the verb is פָּרַץ "burst out," the verb of the promise to Jacob's seed, "you shall burst out to the west and to the east" (28:14; 30:30, 43; Exod 1:12), held as "burst" (128h); the noun is "breach," a break in a wall (Isa 58:12; Amos 9:11). "Burst … breach" keeps the alliteration, and the name Perez is the noun itself. מַה may be an exclamation or a question, "Why have you burst a breach?" עָלֶיךָ "upon yourself" Rashi reads as "you have made yourself strong." Perez is the ancestor of David (Ruth 4:12, 18–22), and stands in Matt 1:3 with "Tamar" beside him. The subject of "he called" is not stated (v. 3 also has "he," vv. 4–5 "she").

18. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 18

    זֶרַח "Zerah" is the verb זָרַח "rise, shine," used of the sun (32:32; Isa 60:1–3). Rashi: named for the brightness of the scarlet on his hand. The firstborn by the midwife's sign comes second, as Jacob came out holding Esau's heel (25:25–26). The same name is borne by an Edomite chief (36:13, 17, 33).