Bible Discussion Thread

The main characters of this chapter are Judah, (Jacob's 4th son; son of Leah), and Tamar. It starts out with Judah taking a Canaanite woman for a wife. We do not know if any of is brothers had married outside the family or not. But it says that Judah had purposely separated himself from the family most likely to find a wife, since Dinah was the only sister and female relative around the area. His brother, Rueben, had slept with his fathers concubine. These boys needed wives at their ages!

From her(Shuah) was born three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. When Er was grown, Judah chose Tamar for a wife for Er. Jewish tradition says that Tamar was from Shem's lineage. (Shem lived into Jacob's lifetime.) Tamar did not have children by Er. The text says that he did evil in the sight of the Lord. God slew him. So, the custom was for a brother to marry his sister in law in order to raise up a child as an heir for is brother. Onan was old enough to fulfill this custom. But he did not want to father a child with Tamar. Instead of refusing to have intercourse with her, he chose to have the pleasure without the responsibility of fathering a child, especially for his brother. He used coitus interruptus (pulling out before ejaculation) and ejaculated outside of Tamar. God saw what he did and said it was evil. He slew Onan. I think that both Er and Onan were guilty of the same act: coitus interruptus. Why would God slay both within the context of this story if their sin was not somehow connected.

Some people say that Onan's sin was not wanting to allow for Tamar to become pregnant since the child would be considered his brothers. But it says that what Onan did was evil, not why he did it. If he had refused to sleep with Tamar, God may not have slew him. For me, I think that Onan's primary sin was sexual: coitus interruptus: a from of contraception, because he did it to avoid impregnation. And his secondary sin was is motivation, to not sire a child for his brother.