Tamar and Her Guardian-Redeemer
Genesis chapter 38 contains one of the most confusing and scandal-ridden stories in the Bible. One wonders why Moses felt compelled to include this incident in the history of Israel. So let me briefly describe what happened.
Judah, one of the sons of Jacob, married a woman from Canaan. The two of them had three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. When the oldest son, Er, grew up he married a Canaanite woman named Tamar. As the story goes, Er turned out to be very wicked and the Lord put him to death. Tamar had not born him a son by the time he died, so Judah talked to his next son, Onan, and told him to sleep with Tamar so that she could have a son to carry on the family line of her dead husband, Er. Onan slept with Tamar, but practiced withdrawal in order to make sure she did not conceive because he did not want to bring up offspring for his dead brother. The Lord viewed Onan’s actions as very wicked as well and put him to death.
Now Judah is left with only one son, Shelah. Not understanding why the Lord had put his other two sons to death, he decided that Tamar was jinxed. He told her that she should go back to her father and live as a widow until Shelah grew up. After Shelah grew up, Judah did not keep his promise to Tamar to make Shelah sleep with her to produce offspring for her dead husband.
About this time Judah’s wife died. After a period of mourning, Judah continued with his life. At some point he went to another town near where Tamar lived in her father’s household. Tamar heard about it and devised a scheme. She dressed up like a shrine prostitute and sat down near the entrance to a town that Judah would pass through. He saw this prostitute and, not knowing it was Tamar, decided to sleep with her. To seal the deal he offered her a young goat. She wanted some sort of collateral to make sure the goat would be delivered and asked for his seal, the cord that went with it, and his staff. Judah agreed and then slept with her. Afterward she immediately changed back into her widow’s clothes and went back to her father’s house.
When Judah sent someone to deliver the young goat to the prostitute and get back his collateral items, she was nowhere to be found. In fact, the people of that area declared that no shrine prostitute had ever frequented their area.
Tamar became pregnant and the word soon got around. Judah found out about it and told them to bring her out so they could burn her to death. Tamar sent word that the father of her child was the man who owned some items in her possession. And she brought out the seal, cord, and staff of Judah. Judah immediately recognized them. He also recognized that Tamar was more righteous than he was.
When Tamar delivered, she had twins. The name of the first was Perez, and the name of the second was Zerah.
Now when I was reading this chapter, I paused at the verse that says that the Lord saw Onan’s actions as very wicked and put him to death. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why God would see these actions as wicked! Why would God care whether or not a child was born to carry on the family line of a man, Er, that He Himself had put to death for being wicked? And it is almost certain that Onan already had a wife, so here he is sleeping with his dead brother’s widow! This made no sense at all! I pondered over this for several days and the Lord wouldn’t let me pass it up and move on to new material from His word.
So, I began researching this whole idea of a man marrying his brother’s childless widow to bear offspring for the dead. Turns out, this was a pretty common practice during that time and is referred to as levirate law. As a matter of fact, levirate law is part of the Mosaic law as well.
Deut. 25:5-10. If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.
However, if a man does not want to marry his brother’s wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to carry on his brother’s name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.” Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, “I do not want to marry her,” his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother’s family line.” That man’s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled.
So after reading this, I was even more confused. Moses wanted a man to marry his brother’s childless widow?! I just couldn’t get my mind around this thing! Nothing in my culture or Biblical paradigm could comprehend this.
Finally, after several days, I decided to see if levirate marriage ever occurred in the Bible. I found that there were two instances, one in this chapter, and the book of Ruth! So I went to the Book of Ruth and read the chapter where Boaz makes a deal with another man to gain Ruth as his wife.
Now when you get through reading this, you soon realize that Boaz is not the brother of Ruth’s husband. So what gives? Apparently by the time of Ruth, levirate law extended for some reason to the next of kin, not just a brother. Ruth had no living brothers-in-law, so it appears that the responsibility to bear offspring for her dead husband continues on to the next of kin. So here we are, passing off childless widows to the next of kin until she can bear a son. Why in the world is this taking place?
As I read the story of Boaz making the deal, the light began to dawn.
Ruth 4:1-10 -- Meanwhile Boaz went up to the town gate and sat down there just as the guardian-redeemer he had mentioned came along. Boaz said, “Come over here, my friend, and sit down.” So he went over and sat down.
Boaz took ten of the elders of the town and said, “Sit here,” and they did so. Then he said to the guardian-redeemer, “Naomi, who has come back from Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to our relative Elimelek. I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has the right to do it except you, and I am next in line.”
“I will redeem it,” he said.
Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the dead man’s widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property.”
At this, the guardian-redeemer said, “Then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it.”
(Now in earlier times in Israel, for the redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party took off his sandal and gave it to the other. This was the method of legalizing transactions in Israel.)
So the guardian-redeemer said to Boaz, “Buy it yourself.” And he removed his sandal.
Then Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, “Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelek, Kilion and Mahlon. I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from his hometown. Today you are witnesses!”
So now, we pick up on this term “guardian-redeemer”. I think we’re more accustomed to the King James translation, “kinsman-redeemer.” So as I read this passage, I realized why the two words are hyphenated together into one concept. Let’s take a look at them separately and determine their significance in this story as well as the concept of levirate marriage.
Let’s look at the concept of redeemer first. In Israel at the time of Ruth and Boaz, Mosaic law prescribed that land, real property, always returns to the original owner in the year of Jubilee.
Lev. 25:28 -- But if they do not acquire the means to repay, what was sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. It will be returned in the Jubilee, and they can then go back to their property.
So you see that even if the seller of his own property could not find the means to buy back his property, it was always returned to him in the year of Jubilee. Jubilee happened every 50 years. So there was no such thing as permanent ownership of property except by the person who inherited it through his family line.
Lev. 25:23-25 -- “‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.
“‘If one of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and sells some of their property, their nearest relative is to come and redeem what they have sold.’”
Ah! Now we see the word “redeemer” in the law concerning the land. The nearest relative does this so that his poverty-stricken kinsman will have his land back, and so that the person to whom he owes money will not be cheated.
Now let’s look at the word “guardian.” To understand this, we have to understand a fundamental part of the culture and society of the day. First and foremost, property did not get passed down through women. Property was only passed down through sons. A woman was cared for by her father until she married, and then she was cared for by her husband. If her husband died, she did not permanently inherit his land or property. She might hold it in trust for her children, but if she died without a son, the land would return to the family of her dead husband. If she had sons, then she was cared for by her sons. If she had no sons, she was destitute with no one to care for her. Her only means of being cared for was to produce a son by a nearest relative. The first son she bore would be considered the son of her dead husband, and he would inherit the land that belonged to her dead husband. Now the light has fully dawned!
So now you see what really happened when Boaz married Ruth. He inherited not only the land that belonged to Ruth’s dead husband, but also the land that belonged to Naomi’s dead husband, for Naomi could not inherit it, nor could any of her sons, all of them being dead. Naomi was past child-bearing age, so her only hope of being cared for was if Ruth could bear a son. You see now why Naomi and Ruth showed up back in Israel destitute.
Now, back to the story of Judah and Tamar. Does any of this make sense now? Tamar knew that she had no one to care for her if she had no sons. And it was Judah’s responsibility to give her a nearest relative as a husband so that she could bear a son for her dead husband. And the son she bore would inherit the land of her dead husband and would care for her. He would be her guardian in her old age. And he would redeem the land that would have belonged to her dead husband.
So, when Judah said that Tamar was more righteous, he was not referring to the fact that he too had been caught in adultery with a prostitute. He was referring to the fact that he had not taken his responsibility as a patriarch and saw to it that Tamar bore a son so that her dead husband’s family line would not disappear and so that she could be cared for. Now if you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking I’m starting to deviate from common sense. But you must understand that Judah did not secretly try to pay the prostitute so that no one would find out what he had done. No! He sent a friend to deliver the goat! The understanding of what God eventually wanted was not known at that time and no one thought it to be a terrible thing to sleep with a prostitute.
Furthermore when we read the end of the story of Ruth and Boaz, we find further proof.
Ruth 4:11-16 -- Then the elders and all the people at the gate said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.”
So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When he made love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.”
Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. The women living there said, “Naomi has a son!” And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
You see Tamar was more righteous than Judah because she found a way to bear a son for her dead husband from one of his closest relatives – Judah! And when she gave birth, she had twins. Perez was born first and so he was the son that was considered to be the son of Tamar’s dead husband. See how the elders at the meeting with Boaz blessed him for what he was doing. And note to whom they compared him – Perez! They compared Perez’s family to Boaz’s future family! To me that’s just phenomenal! Boaz is not involved in any kind of scandal and yet he is compared to Perez who was born of a scandal.
So now, Tamar has a son and he will inherit the land of Tamar’s dead husband, and he will care for his mother when he is grown. Tamar has schemed and found a way back into Judah’s family. By hook or by crook, Judah, her father-in-law, has become her guardian-redeemer. And, believe it or not, she is more righteous than Judah because of her actions.
So what can we glean out of all this? What does it tell us about God’s heart? I want to key in on one of the things that we can glean from this. God cares deeply for those who are destitute and helpless. In our day we don’t find very many people who are really destitute and helpless. Most of them in America and the western world are young children or teens. The plight of the widow is not a problem in our day, because of all the social programs offered by the government, and because a widow, as a rule, inherits everything that both she and her husband owned. She does not have to depend on other male family members to care for her well-being. In addition, a woman can easily find employment in the western world.
God saw Onan’s actions as wicked partly because of what he was doing to Tamar. By refusing to give her a son, he was depriving her of the care that she deserved as a member of Judah’s family. He was looking at the extra portion of inheritance he would receive if he didn’t allow her to bear a son, putting his own greed ahead of his concern for her well-being. Without a son, she would become destitute and have no one to care for her in a society that did not value women as we do today. The ability to provide enough to keep soul and body together was very restricted for women. That’s why you find so many references in the Bible concerning the importance of caring for widows.
James 1:27 -- Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James considers caring for widows as one of the key components of religion that is pure and faultless in God’s eyes. So the question is, how are we doing in taking care of the “widows” of our society – the destitute and helpless?
Judah, one of the sons of Jacob, married a woman from Canaan. The two of them had three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. When the oldest son, Er, grew up he married a Canaanite woman named Tamar. As the story goes, Er turned out to be very wicked and the Lord put him to death. Tamar had not born him a son by the time he died, so Judah talked to his next son, Onan, and told him to sleep with Tamar so that she could have a son to carry on the family line of her dead husband, Er. Onan slept with Tamar, but practiced withdrawal in order to make sure she did not conceive because he did not want to bring up offspring for his dead brother. The Lord viewed Onan’s actions as very wicked as well and put him to death.
Now Judah is left with only one son, Shelah. Not understanding why the Lord had put his other two sons to death, he decided that Tamar was jinxed. He told her that she should go back to her father and live as a widow until Shelah grew up. After Shelah grew up, Judah did not keep his promise to Tamar to make Shelah sleep with her to produce offspring for her dead husband.
About this time Judah’s wife died. After a period of mourning, Judah continued with his life. At some point he went to another town near where Tamar lived in her father’s household. Tamar heard about it and devised a scheme. She dressed up like a shrine prostitute and sat down near the entrance to a town that Judah would pass through. He saw this prostitute and, not knowing it was Tamar, decided to sleep with her. To seal the deal he offered her a young goat. She wanted some sort of collateral to make sure the goat would be delivered and asked for his seal, the cord that went with it, and his staff. Judah agreed and then slept with her. Afterward she immediately changed back into her widow’s clothes and went back to her father’s house.
When Judah sent someone to deliver the young goat to the prostitute and get back his collateral items, she was nowhere to be found. In fact, the people of that area declared that no shrine prostitute had ever frequented their area.
Tamar became pregnant and the word soon got around. Judah found out about it and told them to bring her out so they could burn her to death. Tamar sent word that the father of her child was the man who owned some items in her possession. And she brought out the seal, cord, and staff of Judah. Judah immediately recognized them. He also recognized that Tamar was more righteous than he was.
When Tamar delivered, she had twins. The name of the first was Perez, and the name of the second was Zerah.
Now when I was reading this chapter, I paused at the verse that says that the Lord saw Onan’s actions as very wicked and put him to death. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why God would see these actions as wicked! Why would God care whether or not a child was born to carry on the family line of a man, Er, that He Himself had put to death for being wicked? And it is almost certain that Onan already had a wife, so here he is sleeping with his dead brother’s widow! This made no sense at all! I pondered over this for several days and the Lord wouldn’t let me pass it up and move on to new material from His word.
So, I began researching this whole idea of a man marrying his brother’s childless widow to bear offspring for the dead. Turns out, this was a pretty common practice during that time and is referred to as levirate law. As a matter of fact, levirate law is part of the Mosaic law as well.
Deut. 25:5-10. If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.
However, if a man does not want to marry his brother’s wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to carry on his brother’s name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.” Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, “I do not want to marry her,” his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother’s family line.” That man’s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled.
So after reading this, I was even more confused. Moses wanted a man to marry his brother’s childless widow?! I just couldn’t get my mind around this thing! Nothing in my culture or Biblical paradigm could comprehend this.
Finally, after several days, I decided to see if levirate marriage ever occurred in the Bible. I found that there were two instances, one in this chapter, and the book of Ruth! So I went to the Book of Ruth and read the chapter where Boaz makes a deal with another man to gain Ruth as his wife.
Now when you get through reading this, you soon realize that Boaz is not the brother of Ruth’s husband. So what gives? Apparently by the time of Ruth, levirate law extended for some reason to the next of kin, not just a brother. Ruth had no living brothers-in-law, so it appears that the responsibility to bear offspring for her dead husband continues on to the next of kin. So here we are, passing off childless widows to the next of kin until she can bear a son. Why in the world is this taking place?
As I read the story of Boaz making the deal, the light began to dawn.
Ruth 4:1-10 -- Meanwhile Boaz went up to the town gate and sat down there just as the guardian-redeemer he had mentioned came along. Boaz said, “Come over here, my friend, and sit down.” So he went over and sat down.
Boaz took ten of the elders of the town and said, “Sit here,” and they did so. Then he said to the guardian-redeemer, “Naomi, who has come back from Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to our relative Elimelek. I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has the right to do it except you, and I am next in line.”
“I will redeem it,” he said.
Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the dead man’s widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property.”
At this, the guardian-redeemer said, “Then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it.”
(Now in earlier times in Israel, for the redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party took off his sandal and gave it to the other. This was the method of legalizing transactions in Israel.)
So the guardian-redeemer said to Boaz, “Buy it yourself.” And he removed his sandal.
Then Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, “Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelek, Kilion and Mahlon. I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from his hometown. Today you are witnesses!”
So now, we pick up on this term “guardian-redeemer”. I think we’re more accustomed to the King James translation, “kinsman-redeemer.” So as I read this passage, I realized why the two words are hyphenated together into one concept. Let’s take a look at them separately and determine their significance in this story as well as the concept of levirate marriage.
Let’s look at the concept of redeemer first. In Israel at the time of Ruth and Boaz, Mosaic law prescribed that land, real property, always returns to the original owner in the year of Jubilee.
Lev. 25:28 -- But if they do not acquire the means to repay, what was sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. It will be returned in the Jubilee, and they can then go back to their property.
So you see that even if the seller of his own property could not find the means to buy back his property, it was always returned to him in the year of Jubilee. Jubilee happened every 50 years. So there was no such thing as permanent ownership of property except by the person who inherited it through his family line.
Lev. 25:23-25 -- “‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.
“‘If one of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and sells some of their property, their nearest relative is to come and redeem what they have sold.’”
Ah! Now we see the word “redeemer” in the law concerning the land. The nearest relative does this so that his poverty-stricken kinsman will have his land back, and so that the person to whom he owes money will not be cheated.
Now let’s look at the word “guardian.” To understand this, we have to understand a fundamental part of the culture and society of the day. First and foremost, property did not get passed down through women. Property was only passed down through sons. A woman was cared for by her father until she married, and then she was cared for by her husband. If her husband died, she did not permanently inherit his land or property. She might hold it in trust for her children, but if she died without a son, the land would return to the family of her dead husband. If she had sons, then she was cared for by her sons. If she had no sons, she was destitute with no one to care for her. Her only means of being cared for was to produce a son by a nearest relative. The first son she bore would be considered the son of her dead husband, and he would inherit the land that belonged to her dead husband. Now the light has fully dawned!
So now you see what really happened when Boaz married Ruth. He inherited not only the land that belonged to Ruth’s dead husband, but also the land that belonged to Naomi’s dead husband, for Naomi could not inherit it, nor could any of her sons, all of them being dead. Naomi was past child-bearing age, so her only hope of being cared for was if Ruth could bear a son. You see now why Naomi and Ruth showed up back in Israel destitute.
Now, back to the story of Judah and Tamar. Does any of this make sense now? Tamar knew that she had no one to care for her if she had no sons. And it was Judah’s responsibility to give her a nearest relative as a husband so that she could bear a son for her dead husband. And the son she bore would inherit the land of her dead husband and would care for her. He would be her guardian in her old age. And he would redeem the land that would have belonged to her dead husband.
So, when Judah said that Tamar was more righteous, he was not referring to the fact that he too had been caught in adultery with a prostitute. He was referring to the fact that he had not taken his responsibility as a patriarch and saw to it that Tamar bore a son so that her dead husband’s family line would not disappear and so that she could be cared for. Now if you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking I’m starting to deviate from common sense. But you must understand that Judah did not secretly try to pay the prostitute so that no one would find out what he had done. No! He sent a friend to deliver the goat! The understanding of what God eventually wanted was not known at that time and no one thought it to be a terrible thing to sleep with a prostitute.
Furthermore when we read the end of the story of Ruth and Boaz, we find further proof.
Ruth 4:11-16 -- Then the elders and all the people at the gate said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.”
So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When he made love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.”
Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. The women living there said, “Naomi has a son!” And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
You see Tamar was more righteous than Judah because she found a way to bear a son for her dead husband from one of his closest relatives – Judah! And when she gave birth, she had twins. Perez was born first and so he was the son that was considered to be the son of Tamar’s dead husband. See how the elders at the meeting with Boaz blessed him for what he was doing. And note to whom they compared him – Perez! They compared Perez’s family to Boaz’s future family! To me that’s just phenomenal! Boaz is not involved in any kind of scandal and yet he is compared to Perez who was born of a scandal.
So now, Tamar has a son and he will inherit the land of Tamar’s dead husband, and he will care for his mother when he is grown. Tamar has schemed and found a way back into Judah’s family. By hook or by crook, Judah, her father-in-law, has become her guardian-redeemer. And, believe it or not, she is more righteous than Judah because of her actions.
So what can we glean out of all this? What does it tell us about God’s heart? I want to key in on one of the things that we can glean from this. God cares deeply for those who are destitute and helpless. In our day we don’t find very many people who are really destitute and helpless. Most of them in America and the western world are young children or teens. The plight of the widow is not a problem in our day, because of all the social programs offered by the government, and because a widow, as a rule, inherits everything that both she and her husband owned. She does not have to depend on other male family members to care for her well-being. In addition, a woman can easily find employment in the western world.
God saw Onan’s actions as wicked partly because of what he was doing to Tamar. By refusing to give her a son, he was depriving her of the care that she deserved as a member of Judah’s family. He was looking at the extra portion of inheritance he would receive if he didn’t allow her to bear a son, putting his own greed ahead of his concern for her well-being. Without a son, she would become destitute and have no one to care for her in a society that did not value women as we do today. The ability to provide enough to keep soul and body together was very restricted for women. That’s why you find so many references in the Bible concerning the importance of caring for widows.
James 1:27 -- Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James considers caring for widows as one of the key components of religion that is pure and faultless in God’s eyes. So the question is, how are we doing in taking care of the “widows” of our society – the destitute and helpless?
