From the Torah reading  וישב Vayeshev (“he settled,” Genesis 37:1–40:23), we’ll be focusing this time on a comparison between Judah’s relationship with Tamar and Joseph’s relationship with Potiphar’s wife. As we look into this “intermission” in the story, we’ll take a detour into Hosea 3–4, which will give us insight into why the men in  those stories were guilty of a far greater evil than the sins of Tamar and Mrs. Potiphar.

Just as we finish reading Genesis 37, we reach an “intermission” in the story of Joseph when Genesis 38 is inserted regarding Judah and his family. These two stories are tied thematically, not chronologically. A good portion of Genesis 38 occurred before Joseph was sold into Egypt. 

Judah’s evil accusation against Tamar

We have an introduction to Tamar and Judah’s three sons. Judah’s three son’s were born before Joseph was sold into Egypt. The three sons are Er, Onan and Shelah. 

How evil were Er and Onan that God literally struck them dead. God did not strike Hitler, Mao, or Stalin dead but he struck these two sons dead? Why were their deeds worthy of instant death while Hitler, Stalin and Mao received some degree of mercy? I will not pretend to know what Er did to deserve death but we do know Onan’s sin. 

When Er died, Onan’s duty, based on both Canaanite culture and Israelite culture, was for the younger to have relations with his older brother’s wife only until she conceived a child. Once a child was conceived, the brother never had relations with his sister-in-law again. Onan upset this order for his sordid purposes, basically using Tamar as his concubine by spilling his seed after each sexual act so he could return to her repeatedly for sex, frustrating her goal of motherhood. 

After both Er and Onan died, Judah sends Tamar back to her father’s house. Judah blamed Tamar for the death of his sons and condemned her to permanent widowhood, childlessness and celibacy. 

Judah had no right to condemn her for his son’s sins. Judah should have been looking at himself and his own wife with prayerful introspection to find why Er and Onan were so evil that God literally struck them dead, but instead, Judah took the easy way out and pointed fingers at Tamar. He refused to see that he or his sons were at fault for his son’s death. 

Judah set up a scenario where Tamar could only marry Shelah or one of his heirs. Otherwise she has to wait for both of them to die before she could marry someone else. Tamar was Judah’s scapegoat. 

Mrs. Potiphar’s evil accusation against Joseph

To be thorough, Potiphar is a eunuch. He is not merely an “officer” of Pharaoh. How does a eunuch have a wife? I suspect that he was fully intact when he married before after he was promoted into the royal household, he became a eunuch. Leviticus 18 describes many varieties of sexual relations that the Egyptians found permissible that God did not permit the Israelites to do. 

In light of the fact that Potiphar was a eunuch, he also condemned his wife to permanent celibacy, childlessness and de facto widowhood. 

In light of our culture, what both Tamar and Mrs. Potiphar’s did was really bad, but was Tamar really bad? 

Why is Tamar ‘more righteous’ than Judah?

Tamar pretended to be a harlot, not just any harlot though. She masqueraded as a temple prostitute. She knowingly has sex for the purpose of conceiving a child. 

Judah realizes that Tamar was more right than him, but the reason he finds to commend her are odd: “inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah.” His scales of justice and righteousness seems off. Tamar playing the harlot is a death penalty offense. Refusing to allow your son to marry a widow is NOT a death penalty offense. 

Judah saw something, that we can see in the book of Hosea.

“Then the LORD said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband,