Genesis 38: God Does What He Wants

²⁷ When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. ²⁸ As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.” ²⁹ But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez. ³⁰ Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out. And he was named Zerah. -Genesis 38:27-30

The Bible has some stories that are simply odd. Genesis 38 includes one of them. In that day, if a husband died and left no son, his brother would be required to have intercourse with the widowed spouse in order to provide a son to carry on the family legacy.

That alone is strange enough.

In Genesis 38, a husband dies and his brother steps in. Since he won’t be the “real” dad, he refuses to allow a situation where a pregnancy will occur. God puts him to death.

Strange, part 2.

The dad of these two sons starts to get worried and stalls on giving his third son to the widow once the son has reached age to marry. Tamar takes matters into her own hands. She dressed like a prostitute and persuaded her father-in-law to sleep with her. Later it is found out she is pregnant. The father-in-law plans to put her to death for immorality (irony?) and finds out HE is the dad!

Strange, part 3.

Then Tamar has twin sons. She names them Perez and Zerah.

Now, for strange, part 4.

Fastforward to Matthew 1. There we find the family tree of Jesus. Guess who shows up? Tamar.

God uses whoever he wishes to do whatever he wants. Even when it’s strange to us.

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Dillon Burroughs is the author and coauthor of numerous books and is handwriting a copy of all 31,173 verses of the Bible at HolyWritProject.com. Find out more about Dillon at Facebook.com/readdB or readdB.com.