HE OTHER DAY I READ A PRETTY depressing chapter for my personal worship. I am used to lots of difficult material in the Bible, and in my classes I try to teach my students to face up to the challenging parts of Scripture as well. But this chapter was very messy, and as I read it and reread it I wondered what it was doing in our precious canon. Perhaps it even took away the space of an uplifting Psalm such as Psalm 23? What was Genesis 38 doing in my Bible, the story of Judah and Tamar (and that's the order the Bible I'm reading at the moment chose as a title for the chapter--which is not in the Hebrew original)?

Marital Misfortune
Tamar, a young woman, most probably of Canaanite origin, married Judah's oldest son, Er (Gen. 38:6). The marriage was arranged by Judah. You remember the unpleasant details? Apparently Er was not an agreeable character, and he died.¹ However, he had no offspring, and Judah breaks the news to his second son, Onan, who has to provide an heir for his deceased brother, Er. The same principle of the levirate marriage is described later in Deuteronomy 25:5-10. Onan is not willing to produce a child that will not only belong to his brother and decrease his own inheritance dramatically, but also will not be perpetuating his own name for future generations. So while fulfilling his marital duties, he makes sure that Tamar can't become pregnant.

Once again there is a small pause in the narrative, and we see a glimpse of the divine perspective on the entire proceedings. A good recent translation of the Hebrew text puts it this way: "What he did was ill in the eyes of the Lord, and he caused him to die as well" (Gen. 38:10).² Judah knows that he should let Tamar marry his third son, Shelah, but he is still too young, and Judah is getting worried now and sends his daughter-in-law back to her family.

Have you noticed that this seems to be a very dysfunctional family? I'm not talking about the levirate marriage, which is indeed strange in a Western cultural context. I'm talking about Judah's family. He left home and married a Canaanite woman (verses 1, 2). Perhaps he felt guilty each day when he looked into the eyes of his father, Jacob (or perhaps he did not even dare to look him in the eyes anymore), because of his infamous role in the kidnapping and selling of his younger brother Joseph to an Ishmaelite trading caravan (Gen. 37:26-28). Whatever it was, he had moved out, and his first two sons followed in the footsteps of their father. Judah's future looks dark, since future is connected with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren in the biblical context, and so far neither of the latter populates his compound. Even more, his wife passes away (Gen. 38:12), and now he is really alone. Judah decides to hang on to his third son, Shelah (verse 14). After all, his first two sons' marriage to Tamar did not really seem to do them much good--at least that's how it appeared from the outside.

Tricked
Tamar is not a passive puppet in this story. Once she realizes that Judah is not planning to have Shelah marry her, she dresses up as a prostitute and waits beside the road. In ancient times (as in modern times), respectable women generally did not just sit next to the road waiting for Godot. Women sitting next to the road outside of a city generally belonged to the oldest trade on Planet Earth, and Judah enters into negotiation with the strange but alluring lady. A price is settled upon that he does not carry with him, so he has to present three items as a pledge: his personal seal, the cord he carries, and the staff he uses. Judah and the "faceless" prostitute have intercourse, and Judah is out of there--after all, this was just a one-night stand.

More Righteous?
Tamar is pregnant, and the news reaches her father-in-law after the first trimester, when things begin to show. Judah is indignant: "Bring her out and let her be burned!" (verse 24),* and we wonder a bit why nobody shouted after his indiscretion. However, the situation seems to get out of control. Tamar, pulled out of her father's compound, is about to be killed, when she presents Judah's pledge items. Yes, he is the father of her unborn baby. And Judah exclaims: "She has been more righteous than I" (verse 26). It is here that I stop in my reading, surprised to look at my own reflection, or perhaps yours? Tamar is taken care of, and she has not only one but two sons (verses 27-30). Tamar appears in the Davidic genealogy together with the other biblical female protagonist we find in Ruth 4:12. I'm not too worried about Tamar. But I am worried about Judah and his household and myself.

"She has been more righteous than I"--and we should not forget that the biblical author employs here the same Hebrew root (albeit in a verbal form) that also appears in the famous praise of Abraham's archetypical faith in Genesis 15:6: "And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness." Judah is caught red-handed, and he talks about righteousness! In only 26 verses he has lost two sons (similar to the loss suffered by his father, Jacob, who lost his most special son, Joseph, in the previous chapter because of Judah's ingenuity), his wife, his moral standing, and his social position in the community. This is messy and serious--and Judah drones on about relative righteousness!

And suddenly I remember the last time I looked at one of my brothers or sisters in church who had just done the worst thing imaginable (at least in my mind), and I felt a substantial bit more righteous.

Is that something that happens only to me? Do you also sometimes feel a certain righteousness boost when you compare yourself to the other saints? Clearly, the same principle applies in the other direction. We can observe some of the saints and just look on in wonder at their spiritual fervor, their humility, and dedication to the Lord. They make me feel bad on the relative righteousness scale. I quickly look away and try to find something more in my league.

Hope for the Flawed
I think Judah got it wrong (although we surely understand what he wanted to express). There is no relative righteousness if we put Jesus in the picture. After all, He is the one of whom Jeremiah said, "In those days and at that time I will cause to grow up to David a Branch of righteousness; He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth" (Jer. 33:15). He not only did the right thing or did it better than anyone else; He is my righteousness.

I'm tired of playing the relative righteousness game. I want absolute righteousness, and looking into the mirror, I recognize that I can't produce it, even with my best intentions.

Paul must have felt like that on his way to Damascus when he suddenly saw the risen Christ and realized--with horror--the many dark, blind spots of his own relative righteousness. In his famous chapter on Christ our righteousness he wrote later, "God set forth [Jesus Christ] as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:25, 26). This is heavy stuff and opens up new vistas.

There is hope for dysfunctional families such as that of Judah. After all, it was Judah who pledged (the same Hebrew root is utilized in Gen. 38:17, as well as in 43:9) the safety of his younger brother Benjamin before his father, Jacob, and who pleaded for Benjamin's release before the Egyptian governor Joseph (Gen. 44:32).

And there's hope for all of us who've fallen short. I don't have to trudge along in my own, hard-earned, extremely fragile and volatile, relative righteousness. I can access the throne of grace directly and ask for the absolute righteousness of Jesus to cover me, to renew me, to transform me.
And so can you.

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*Bible texts are from the New King James Version.

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¹ The Hebrew text utilizes here a Hiphil verbal form, which generally is understood as a causative. It does not always mean the active participation of the subject, but definitely points to responsibility.
² Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses: A New Translation With Introductions, Commentary, and Notes (The Schocken Bible 1, Dallas, Tex.: Word Publishing, 1995), p. 182.