Women who begat Jesus: Tamar

Women who begat Jesus: Tamar

The genealogy of Jesus, according to the gospel of Matthew, begins: A man was the father of a man, and that man the father of a man, and that man the father of a man and his brothers, and that man the father of a man and a man by Tamar, a woman.

My name is Tamar which means “date palm,” and like the fruit of palm trees, which grow in the desert and serve for weary travelers as landmarks for oases of water and offer them cool shade and protective covering, I am one offshoot of my family tree who serves for travelers on a spiritual journey as a symbol of courage amid desperation and betrayal.

My story is remembered in Genesis 38. I was the wife of Er, the firstborn of Judah, but Er was wicked in the sight of God, and so God put him to death. Then, as was the custom in our time and land, my father-in-law Judah told his next son, Onan, to produce a child by me for his dead brother. But since he knew the child would not be considered his, Onan instead spilled his seed on the ground. What he did was displeasing in the sight of God, and so he was put to death also.

Then my father-in-law Judah told me to return to my father’s house and wait until his last son, Shelah, was grown up. Only Judah was afraid that God would put Shelah to death, like his brothers, and so he forgot his promise to me. And in our culture, a woman who does not have a husband to protect her or sons to care for her might as well be a prostitute.

Well, that’s exactly what my father-in-law thought he saw—a prostitute—when he saw me—only he didn’t recognize me—sitting on the side of the road with a veil covering my face. Not knowing I was his daughter-in-law to whom he had broken his promise, he propositioned me. When he offered to pay me with a goat, I asked for his signet, cord and staff as collateral, which he gave me. Then my father-in-law came in to me, and I conceived a child by him.

After that one time, I took off the veil and went back to being a widow. When my father-in-law sent the goat in exchange for his signet, cord and staff, he was told there was no prostitute. Believing he had been robbed he let it go so that he would not be laughed at.

But when my father-in-law heard I had played the role of a prostitute and was pregnant, he did not laugh; he ordered me to be burned to death.

It was then that I displayed the signet, cord and staff and announced to everyone, “These belong to the man who made me pregnant.” 

           

Well, my father-in-law had no choice but to acknowledge that they were his. He was even moved to say, “She is more in the right than me since I did not give her to my last son.”

Never again, with me, did my father-in-law lie—in either sense of the word.