Advent 4, Tamar
A special guest post from Emily Hunter McGowin
Fellow Pilgrims,
Today brings the final post in our Advent series about the four women named in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew Chapter 1.
You can find my introduction to the series here. The first post, by Joy Moore on Ruth and Naomi, is here. The second, by Beth Allison Barr on Bathsheba, is here. The third, on Rahab and by me, is here.
Today’s guest post, the last in the series, is from the Rev. Dr. Emily Hunter McGowin, who writes beautifully about Tamar. CONTENT NOTES: the piece contains content about sexual assault and rape.
The Rev. Dr. Emily Hunter McGowin teaches theology at Wheaton College. She is also a priest and canon theologian in the Anglican diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others (C4SO). Her research focuses on the embodied, lived theology of regular Christians. Don’t miss her books, Quivering Families (Fortress Press, 2018), Christmas: The Season of Life and Light (IVP, 2023), and her brand new book, Households of Faith: Practicing Family in the Kingdom of God (IVP) available for preorder now.
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“Tamar,” a digital collage by Beth Felker Jones. The collages in today’s post and the entire Advent series are available for purchase as digital downloads (hi-res, watermark free), and proceeds will be shared with the guest authors.
Advent 4, Tamar
by Emily Hunter McGowin
“It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them.” These words from Gisèle Pelicot have become internationally known over the past few weeks. Pelicot is a French septuagenarian grandmother and the survivor of horrifying sexual assault by her husband and dozens of other men.
Many rape survivors choose anonymity to protect themselves from scrutiny and humiliation—and understandably so. But Pelicot waived that right, scorning the shame, and opened her rapists’ trial to the media. She invited the world to bear witness to what she endured. And rather than be crushed by the exposure, Pelicot seemed to draw otherworldly strength from it. Though delicate in frame, her spirit has shown diamond-like strength and resilience. She shouldn’t have to be so strong; but she has been. And it has been a wonder to behold.
Margaret Mead once said, “It has been a woman’s task throughout history to go on believing in life when there was almost no hope.” And “believing in life” has often required women to sacrifice their bodies, their peace, their dreams, and their dignity to secure a future for themselves and those they love. (Even then, their efforts are not always fruitful.) It ought not be so; and yet it is. Women know it well.
The Bible doesn’t gloss over this reality. Under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, the biblical authors tell many stories of the tragic things women have been forced to endure under patriarchy. More than that, though, they tell stories of God’s participation in the tactics mistreated women employ for their survival. Tamar’s tale is one example of such scandalous providence. Truly, the scriptures make clear that the God Who is Love is always working for human freedom and flourishing: in the lives of Tamar, Gisèle Pelicot, and all desperate women everywhere.
If you haven’t encountered it recently, I encourage you to pause here and go read Genesis 38. It won’t take long.
Here, every time God acts, God does so on behalf of Tamar. The Lord takes the lives of two men who mistreat her. Then the Lord gives her two sons. Her pregnancy, obtained through trickery, vindicates her amid mistreatment by a third man, her father-in-law (and her sons’ father).
What kind of mistreatment are we talking about? Tamar becomes part of Judah’s family when the patriarch chooses her to wed his son, Er. While Genesis says simply that Er was “wicked in the Lord’s sight,” Jewish tradition says that he, like Onan, intentionally “spilled his seed” to avoid pregnancy and keep Tamar beautiful (Gen 38:7). If the tradition is right, Er is the first of three men in Judah’s family who sexually exploit her. And God “put him to death for it.”
“It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them.”
At his father’s insistence, Onan marries Tamar to fulfill his social duty: to produce an heir in his brother’s name and secure Tamar’s place in Judah’s household (Deut 25:5–6). Childless widowhood was considered a humiliating curse in Israel. By producing a son with Tamar, Onan would help give her the dignity and security she was owed. But neither, it seems, mattered much to Onan.
Instead of fulfilling his duty, Onan repeatedly used Tamar for sexual gratification, while denying her the possibility of a son. Through exploitation and deceit, Onan gained the social esteem that came from “doing the right thing” without actually doing so, using Tamar while refusing the responsibility and material commitment meant to accompany such a union.
In short, Onan was a liar (presenting as the dutiful brother-in-law when he isn’t), a thief (stealing Tamar’s right to progeny and security), and a sexual predator (exploiting Tamar as a sex object). It’s hard not to imagine Tamar being relieved, therefore, when Onan, like Er, was struck dead, too.
“It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them.”
One might expect the death of two sons in their prime would lead Judah to some soul-searching: at the very least, perhaps an honest conversation with the woman at the center of both losses. But no. Rather predictably, he assumes something is wrong with her. So, to protect his youngest son, Judah tells Tamar to return as a widow to her father’s house and wait for his son to grow up.
Nothing in Tamar’s dealings with Judah’s family so far would suggest these are honorable people with honorable intentions. But what can she do? She submits to her father-in-law’s plan, takes the garb of a widow, and waits obediently in her father’s house for Judah to send for her. He never does.
“After a long time,” the narrator says (38:12). After a long time… We don’t know how many years have passed, but enough that Judah’s third son is a mature adult and Judah is now a widower (38:12, 14). Unlike his daughter-in-law, Judah’s widower status offers no material restrictions and imposes no social stigma. But his freedom becomes her opportunity.
“It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them.”
Tamar is no fool. Now, with proof that Judah has no plans to do right by her, she makes her move. Though passive for much of the narrative, suddenly Tamar is a flurry of action: “she took off her widow’s clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah” (38:14).
Whether she intended to look like a prostitute or not, Judah assumes she is one. His words are terse and to the point: “Come now, let me sleep with you” (38:16).
Contemporary readers might raise their eyebrows at this invitation. Like today, prostitution or sex-work was looked down upon in ancient Israel, but also tolerated to a degree. There was no law against men paying for sex. Leviticus says fathers must not make their daughters prostitutes (Lev 19:29), nor should the sons of Aaron marry prostitutes (Lev 21:7).
The Hebrew scriptures assume that sex-work is a customary, albeit distasteful, aspect of society (Gen 38:21–23; Josh 2:1; Judg 11:1), and they assume (without endorsement) the patriarchal paradigm in which women’s bodies are under the control of their fathers. All this helps make sense of the fact that Judah soliciting a prostitute is treated as a matter of course. He’s a widowed patriarch; he knows what prostitutes look like and where to find them; he employs one without shame.
The irony is that Judah is using Tamar in the same way his sons did. But this time she’s getting something out of it. This time, she takes advantage of his exploitative behavior for her own gain.
At Tamar’s demand for payment, he willingly gives her his seal, cord, and staff, the symbols of his identity and status (38:18). Unwittingly, he gives her the heir his sons had unjustly denied her. Tamar exploits the exploiter. She beats the patriarch at his own game.
“It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them.”
When Tamar’s pregnancy is discovered, presumably due to “playing the prostitute,” it’s Judah’s prerogative to render judgment. Given his pattern thus far, it’s no surprise that he chooses the harshest possible punishment: public burning (38:24). But Tamar, patient and cunning, has already taken measures to secure her welfare. She sends Judah a message: “I am pregnant by the man who owns these… See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.”1
I don’t know about you, but I hear scathing mirth in Tamar’s words. She has been playing the prostitute, it’s true. But she’s done so at Judah’s own insistence, a man whose sons treated her like a prostitute countless times over.
James Baldwin said, “The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim. He or she has become a threat.” Indeed. And what’s striking about Tamar’s cunning is that she doesn’t have to say a thing. Judah sees his own seal, cord, and staff, and the truth is revealed.
Tamar sold her body, through trickery, to obtain the heir she was owed; but Judah and his sons exploited, disgraced, and then abandoned a vulnerable widow.
“It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them.”
To Judah’s credit, he acknowledges the hand of God in Tamar’s pregnancy: “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” And, the narrator notes, “he did not sleep with her again” (38:26).
Tamar gave birth to twin boys, Perez and Zerah, and, best we can tell, she lived out her days in Judah’s household as the honored widowed mother she should have been all along.
I understand contemporary readers might find Tamar’s story distasteful. Fair enough. It was certainly distasteful for Tamar to endure. The same is true of every other woman who has had to use her wits and wiles to survive in a patriarchal world.
But it seems the God revealed in Jesus Christ relishes vindicating the condemned and honoring the repugnant. What’s unique about Jesus’ lineage is not that it includes cunning women. In fact, all human beings are their descendants; we owe our existence to their tactics! What’s unique about Jesus’ lineage is that a few such diamond strong women are remembered and honored. Just as they should be.
Despite the persistence of “this present evil age,” where husbands drug and rape their wives, I still believe the gospel is good news for women. Through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God is making all things new. And new creation means freedom and flourishing for women.
Under God’s reign, women’s bodies are theirs to love and care for without interference. Under God’s reign, women’s security isn’t dependent upon their fecundity, their honor isn’t contingent upon their conformity, and their worth isn’t determined by what they produce or provide for others. Under God’s reign, all Tamars are vindicated, and they’re never forced to deceive or beguile in the first place.
In these remaining dark days of Advent, my prayer for all my sisters is that they would know, down to their very bones, “It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them.” May the God Who is Love write this truth upon our hearts and help us embody it in our lives.
The collages in today’s post and the entire Advent series are available for purchase as digital downloads (hi-res, watermark free), and proceeds will be shared with the guest authors.
Grace & peace,
BFJ
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For more on prostitution in the ancient near east and in Israel, see Wilda C. Gafney, Womanist Midrash, Volume 1: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2017), 118–121.
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I am named for Tamar. (Though my mom didn’t know her story beyond her place in Jesus’ genealogy at the time of my birth.) As a teen, I was horrified to learn about the life of the one who first bore my name. As an adult, I am proud to be named for a woman who was not content to take the life of shame handed to her but chose instead to stand up for her rights and her dignity by whatever means she had at her disposal. In my understanding, she is one of only a few OT persons called righteous and the only woman.