1. At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah.
2. There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her and lay with her;
3. she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was named Er.
4. She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan.
5. She gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him.
6. Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.
7. But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the LORD's sight; so the LORD put him to death.
8. Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother."
9. But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother.
10. What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also.
11. Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Live as a widow in your father's house until my son Shelah grows up." For he thought, "He may die too, just like his brothers." So Tamar went to live in her father's house.
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2 comments:
This one is tough to meditate on.
It is hard to take that God just kills Er just like that. How wicked was Er? I guess Er was unimaginably wicked for God to intervene and kill him.
And same goes for Onan. I guess God has a special plan for Tamar perhaps...
Yeah, this story with Tamar was always kind of sordid in my opinion. It just grosses me out now to think of a man having sex with his sister in law. Are morals just cultural? I mean, do they change with time and place. What seems right in one culture seems so wrong in another.
It's confusing. Trying to balance cultural sensitivity with an innate craving for an absolute right and wrong.
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