Daily Prayer: A Weekly Devotional for Prayer-Filled Living. (Photo: Jesus Club kids acting out a Bible story.)

Daily Prayer ©2006
A Devotional Guide to Prayer and Prayerful Living

Published weekly by the Partners of
Lutheran Ministries of SW Oklahoma

Vol. 13, No. 5
Week of 
January 29, 2006
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Tamar: Blessed by God or Not?
by Pastor Ronald Boelte


Tamar's story is an Old Testament lesson that is not often looked at. If we go to this story in Genesis 38 we see details about Judah's first marriage to a Canaanite woman and the birth of three sons. Following that is the account of the death of the two older sons and Judah's wife. These stories help to set the scene for Tamar. We see all this heartbreak and disappointment because the Canaanite wife and her children are unworthy for the ancestor line from which King David and Jesus would be born.

In Judah's eyes, Tamar is at best a jinx and at worst has caused the death of his two sons. Judah is unwilling to let Tamar marry his youngest son as was the custom. If we look at the Bible closely, Tamar is not guilty of either, but was an innocent victim of a marriage to two evil people. Judah incorrectly interprets these tragedies and sends her back to her father's house as a widow with a promise that she could marry his youngest when he was old enough.

Tamar is forced to wait and as time goes on she begins to see that Judah is not going to live up to his bargain. Tamar has to take matter into her own hands. She is definitely the victim of this story and yet her plan to have a child who would carry on Judah's line does seem to go beyond what would be normal and acceptable even today. She disguises herself as a harlot and seduces Judah. Her intent is not to disgrace Judah and his family, for she leaves the matter of how she will be treated in his hands. Judah sees his error and admits that Tamar has had good intentions. It was her desire to only continue the name of her deceased husband's and to bear a son for the family of Judah.

The conclusion of the story is that Judah has failed in his own attempt at establishing a family, and how God uses Tamar to form his true family line that would bring blessings to the whole world. Jesus would be born from an ancestral line that had very shaky beginnings.

 

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