Genesis 38:15 - Forerunner Commentary

Genesis 38:15

13 And it was told Tamar, saying, “Look, your father-in-law is going up ^ato Timnah to shear his sheep.”

14 So she took off her widow’s garments, covered herself with a veil and wrapped herself, and ^asat in an open place which was on the way to Timnah; for she saw ^bthat Shelah was grown, and she was not given to him as a wife.

15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a harlot, because she had covered her face.

16 Then he turned to her by the way, and said, “Please let me come in to you”; for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. So she said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?”

17 And he said, ^a“I will send a young goat from the flock.” So she said, ^b“Will you give me a pledge till you send it?”

18 Then he said, “What pledge shall I give you?” So she said, ^a“Your signet and cord, and your staff that is in your hand.” Then he gave them to her, and went in to her, and she conceived by him.

19 So she arose and went away, and ^alaid aside her veil and put on the garments of her widowhood.

Commentaries:

No entry exists in Forerunner Commentary for Genesis 38:15.

Genesis 38:15-17

Now you come to her motives for what she was doing here. She saw that Judah was tricking her, or keeping her from what was rightfully hers. Whether she was thinking that she would be barren (because, remember, she was probably by this time in her early twenties and beginning to feel like she was an old maid) and that Judah had a responsibility to her and he was not fulfilling it. Like Sarah and Rachel, and others, she was going to somehow take matters into her own hands and work this out. So she decides to pose as a harlot.

Evidently, this "young goat from the flock" was considered a delicacy. So it was a fairly high price.

That is, "something as an earnest, so that I'll know that you will actually give it to me."

Excerpted from Christ's Female Ancestors

Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Genesis 38:15:

Revelation 3:10

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Genesis 38:16 >>

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