All right, all right, all right. I'm glad to have you here with us today, and we're up to Genesis chapter number 38 And we've come to another parentheses in the story We need to take care of something here, and then we'll get back over to Dealing with Joseph and his adventures So here in Genesis 38 we're gonna read verse 1 down through verse 11 pray and see what the Lord's got for us today. I And it came to pass at that time that Judah went down from his brethren and turned into a certain Adulamite whose name was Hira. And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shewa, and he took her and went in unto her. And she conceived and bare a son, and he called his name Ur. And she conceived again and bare a son, and called his name Anan. And she yet again conceived, and bare a son, and called his name Shelah. And he was at Chezeb when she bare him. And Judah took a wife for her, his firstborn, whose name was Tamar. And her, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord slew him. And Judah said unto Anan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Anna knew that the seed should not be his, and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord, wherefore he slew him also. Then said Judah to Tamar his daughter-in-law, Remain a widow at thy father's house, till Shelah my son be grown. For he said, lest peradventure he die also, as his brethren did. And Tamar went and dwelt in her father's house. And Lord, being our helper today, we'd like to go on this thought here of all my sons, all my sons. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for all you've done for us. And we do pray, Lord, for your blessings upon this time of study here in your holy word. Do pray, Father, that it would fire the imaginations of your people so that each one of us, myself included, gets deeper into your word, sees what all's there, just takes and uses this as a launching point to learn just how vast your word is. And I know we'll never, ever possibly be able to understand it all, Lord, but it doesn't mean we can't try. And it certainly doesn't mean we can't sit here and pick up more on our own, instead of just leaving it up to the pastor to spoon feed us every Sunday and say good enough for the week. Help us, Lord, please. We love you, Lord, in Jesus' name I pray. Amen and amen. Now, we certainly have a soap opera going on here in this chapter. We're gonna be honest up front about it, and we're gonna, once again, we're gonna look at this as if we're trying to explore the chapter that we've never seen before. Now we're gonna come across a couple of marriages, some death, and betrothals, not betrayals, but betrothals, and a whole lot of babies being born for us. And as a matter of fact, we even get to see the liverate law being put into practice a few hundred years before Moses wrote it down there in the book of Deuteronomy. And a little bit of a preview of what is to come in the book of Ruth, I think. And I think we'll touch on that before we're done today. That's all very exciting. So let's kick off with a marriage. Sounds like a good place to start. And we see that in verse 1 to 5. And let me start off by saying that Judah, he's just simply doing a very normal thing. He's going out and he's looking for a wife. Looking to start a family of his own. And he came from a very large family. sure you know to some degree or another he wanted family and he proves that with this chapter and we should also bear in mind that this chapter like I said it's a it's a parenthesis it's a break in the narrative we're just pausing here now this break is important because we're being shown the budding of a new branch in the family tree uh... but in order to get to it we gotta see Judah get married first and this branch even though we're really not going to follow it right now uh... we're seeing it being established and it's important because if we continue to Genesis chapter 38 here if we just went from Joseph being in that pit sold into slavery and in chapter 39 He's a slave in Potiphar's house down there in Egypt. We would assume that the Bible is going to be following Joseph especially in his branch and we would be wrong and So we're giving this a little parentheses. Now Joseph's got a very important part to play, and he certainly represents an awful lot in comparisons and all that, but we've gotta see Judah's line starting to take over at some point, and this is the genesis of that. Now, by this time Judah, you know, he's staying a little closer to the house than, you know, back there at base camp. Then when we spoke about there in chapter 37 where it was 70 some miles away, you know, it's a little bit closer. In fact, it was about a mile northwest of Hebron now. So yeah, I'd definitely say it's a little closer. Unfortunately, we also see him breaking family custom and tradition by marrying a Canaanite woman. You remember Rebecca had a problem with Jacob marrying a Canaanite woman. She didn't want him to do like Esau had done twice over. Esau tried to make things right with mom and dad by marrying one of dad's half-brothers, Ishmael, marrying one of his daughters. But Judah, he just outright says, I'm going to marry me a Canaanite woman. Which is perhaps in of itself, just more proof of the moral decay in his life, and a fitting example of the condition of the rest of the boys too, that they were willing to compromise like that. And this is also proof positive as to why God needed to move the family over to Goshen down there in Egypt. Had they stayed put, the family would have intermarried with the Canaanites to the point that the Israelites would no longer exist, just like the Ishmaelites and Midianites we saw there at the end of the last chapter kept intermarrying, name became synonymous, till finally it just, Midianites-ish, the Ishmaelite name died out completely. The Israelite name. would have been put at risk and dying out completely. In fact, we see further proof of this with the mating going on here in verses 6 to 11. Now, Judah's got his three sons, Ur, which means watchful, Anan, meaning strength, and Shelah, which meant request. Now Judah arranged for her to get married to the palm tree. That's what Tamar means is palm tree. Now palm trees are a sign of victory. But this is a very interesting victory that's going to be coming through and it's only going to be coming through because of one of her sons that we'll see by the end of the chapter. Now watchful or may have only been watching out for number one, himself, because for whatever reason, he became too wicked in order for God to let him live. He got married, sure he consummated the marriage, but it just was a matter that God says, forget this buster, you're out of there. and strength, or Anan, was too strong-headed and refused to share any of his strength with his dearly departed dead brother, so God killed him as well. Now, one thing we cannot overlook is the importance of parents. Especially in their properly raising their children Judah at this time appears to be a very poor moral example and Given what we are about to see regarding Tamar She weren't no saint neither. Okay, so it's it's little wonder these two turned out like they did and By that being wicked and dead Now, verse eight is the liverate law on full display. Now, liverate, and that's if I'm even pronouncing that right, it's Latin, and it's for brother's wife, okay? Moses wrote it down over there in Deuteronomy, chapter 25, verses five to 10, if you wanna go look at that. Basically, it was one boy dies without having any heirs, but he was married. His brother was supposed to go in there, and get his sister-in-law slash wife now pregnant so that she can have a child and that child would have all the rights of inheritance that the first brother would have had. So in other words, he still would only be getting his smaller portion or that child that he just conceived with that woman there, she would be getting the double portion that his older brother would have had. Okay, and Anan was supposed to do it, but instead he refused at the last moment, and well, his rebellion against God got him killed. Now Judah, it seems, understood that he had raised a bunch of knuckleheads. So rather than send his last son to his possible doom, he opted to wait until that boy was old enough. At least I'm sure that's what he told himself, you know. Now it could also simply be a matter of the boy was really just far too young when all this happened for him to turn around and get married. Remember his name does mean request so it's a pretty good chance that mom and dad had wanted to have at least one more and they kept trying and trying and trying and years passed and all of a sudden one day she was finally pregnant again and so they named the child Shula when he came along. So yeah, maybe he was a little too young at the time to get married. Be that as it may, it was a very convenient excuse for Judah. Now Tamar, for her part, she was at least at this point content to wait for Shelah to get old enough to, you know, protect the inheritance rights of her late husband. Whether or not it was marriage that she disloved her that much or she knew she was, you know, You know, there was a double portion that she somehow had something to do with, I don't know, but she wanted to protect it and she was willing to wait because of it. But this soap opera still has a couple more dark turns to make, which we get in the moral failings, and we see that in verses 12 through 23. Now verse 12 and 14 tells us that basically enough time had passed for Sheila to grow up and get married, but the only news coming out of Judah's house was that his wife had died. And Judah just wasn't making no effort to get the two of them together like he was supposed to have. Now let's pause real quick and look at this sheep shearing business here because this is actually a very important aspect going on here both in their culture and a very important aspect as far as our story goes here in this chapter. Wool was a very valuable commodity, as it was, and it was also the most useful and abundant fiber around. Linen, which was made with flax, it was a luxurious item, which meant that it was very expensive. Good to use, but scarce. And silk, when it was available, it was more valuable than gold. So you really needed that wool there so that you can make clothes, plus the wool would help keep you warm, help you a little bit on the staying dry part if you caught out in a rainstorm, whatever the case is. They used wool to make their tents, their clothing, this, that, and the other. So it was very valuable. And so when they had their sheep shearing, It was a great time. And because of this, you know, while that job, when that job was done, they would have a festival to honor the occasion. Hey, look, you know, we just had this huge crop of wool come in and, you know, let's party. It was important, people. It was like, hmm. I'd like to say like our Thanksgiving. uh... time for the family to get together to celebrate to eat to have a good time obviously there was no football back then but it was an important time and it was at this time that uh... judah must have been really feeling his oats uh... because when he saw a woman there on the roadside who had her face covered and he recognized that her face being covered was like uh... if we saw a woman standing on a street corner wearing red uh... meant she was a prostitute and uh... he took advantage of this opportunity to party a little extra hard if you will uh... with this joyous occasion for him he was feeling a little bit more liberal and in part was showing further signs as to why the family was going to have to move down there to Egypt and they were just messing around too much with the Canaanites and their uh... traditions You see, the Canaanite practice for the festival time also involved adulterous fertility rituals, such as temple whores, which we will see a little bit later on there when the prophets really start preaching, and other prostitutes as well, you know, that fertility act there, and their whole deal was to quote-unquote stimulate the fertility gods to further bless the growth of the flock which would lead to greater harvest of wool, which You know, they wanted to see, you know, the more animals you got, the more wool you got, the richer you were because you got animals and now you got all the wool here, you know. It's all win, win, win, win, win. And this was something that Judah, he should have avoided. He shouldn't have engaged in it, but instead he opted to negotiate her price. Hey, you know, let's get it on here. Now that Signet, while we're dealing with her price here you know she asked for that kid and he didn't have a kid with him or he pledged a kid I should say but he didn't have one with him so he says hey I got you know what else can I give you here and she says well give me your signet and your bracelets and your staff the signet that was that ring on his finger there and uh... it would have his personal seal upon it and that that uh... seal there he would press it into some clear wax uh... on different contracts then it would seal it indicating that hey you know this is you know fully legal and i have authorized this transaction to take place uh... her desire for the staff and the bracelets uh... showed that most likely they were easily identified due to markings that were on there that would be specific toward him. And their uniqueness would make sure that along with the signet at these three items would form indisputable proof as to who they really belonged to. And that ownership would make it impossible for him to escape charges later on if indeed she did become pregnant from this encounter. Now, verse 19 leaves us with her hoping to have become pregnant from doing this. Since it was apparent that Judah had no intentions of giving his last son to her for a husband, she figured she might as well do whatever she can to protect the inheritance rights of her first husband, Ur. Now Judah wasn't looking for another go around with her and possibly he even may have felt a little guilty about what he did. We kind of get that impression because he sent his friend back there with the payment for his one night stand instead of settling up the account himself. Now with her not having been an actual harlot, no one knew anything about her, and it really would have not been a good idea to keep pressing the matter. One's reputation could be severely hurt by continuing to search for a particular whore's location. So Judah just wrote off the loss of those items. Gonna have to do without. Now we see, months later, Time has passed, it's months later, and we see this here in verses 24 through 30. While Tamar had been living in her father's house, she was first and foremost Judah's daughter-in-law, and allegedly betrothed to his last son, so legally she was Judah's responsibility. So when the news broke that this widow of undoubtedly a couple of years worth of time is pregnant, And that shouldn't be the case. The responsibility for her fell into Judah's lap. No pun intended there, of course. As the final authority for his house, he could call for her to be taken and burned alive without so much as a trial. That was his right. Now, of course, this also showed the double standard of the day and their system of things. Woman's pregnant, she's obviously guilty of adultery. Gotta stone her, burn her, whatever. She deserves death. Oh, we can't prove who the man is. We ain't got DNA testing. That won't be around for another 4,000 years or so. So, well, the man gets off scot-free. He can fool around as much as he wants. she gets pregnant she's caught and oh well for her hey no big deal for him now unless he's actually caught in the very act he gets away with it and i think that's uh... Might have kind of inspired the chief priest when they brought the woman there in John chapter 8 before Jesus. They just brought her, they didn't bring him. And we all know that was a setup anyways. But they probably looked at this situation and said, hey, you know, Judah wasn't being brought up on charges so we'll just follow that template there and we'll bring this woman like they brought Tamar. Fortunately for that woman there in John chapter 8, things worked out for her. He who is without sin let him cast the first stone and everyone had to walk away and the only one who had the right to cast the first stone was extending grace to her. Thank God for His grace! Anyways, back here to Genesis 38. Tamar, it appears that she was expecting a reaction like this, so part of the reason for holding on to those items when she did was so she'd have some proof of who actually dear old daddy was. And she brought her trump card. I honestly, I can just picture her, she's getting ready to head off to this court here, if you can call it that, and she's got her bag packed. She's got a staff in hand and a couple of items in that bag there. She ain't got no DNA testing to prove who dear old dad was. She ain't gonna have time to tell her side of the story. She's going in there, she's brought before Judah, and I can just picture her as she's walking up, she's with inside of him, and he's just scowling at her, ready to say, all right, burn her. And she reaches in that bag and says, by the man who these belong to, staff in one hand, the bracelet and ring in the other, I'm with child by the guy who owns these things. Dear old daddy, owns these things. Why don't you take a look at them, Judah, and see if you can identify who it is. Ooh, you know what? It left Judah beyond speechless at that sight. Number one, he couldn't deny the evidence. Number two, he couldn't lie his way out to his friends. Oh, they were stolen or whatever. Especially since his friend Hiram knew that he was supposed to be retrieving those three things once he paid off that whore. And of course, the third thing, he couldn't condemn her, because he was just as guilty as she was. All he could do was acknowledge that she was more righteous or just than he was, because she had at least tried to honor the inheritance rights that belonged to her late husband, or his oldest boy. The same rights that Judah had willfully neglected for his son, both Ur and Shelah there. Because Shelah should have married her to have a child with her that would be Ur's heir. But instead Judah decided, no I ain't doing it. His declaration, by the way, had absolutely nothing to do with either one of their good moral character, because quite frankly, neither one of them had good moral character at this particular time. Now, six months or so later, it was time for her to give birth, and it seems obvious that they knew twins were on the way, given how the midwife knew to have a piece of scarlet thread ready to tie onto the wrist of the firstborn, that way, you know, Both boys or both girls, hey, we know which one was first born, and this is the one that gets the inheritance rights. Had to make sure about that. But aren't you glad that God overrules? Praise God, He does. He had other plans in mind. And we're gonna continue to see throughout Scripture how He does have a preference for the second over the first. Now Fares was the one who came completely out first, even though Zerah had thrust his arm out there and he'd gotten a scarlet thread tied to his wrist and he pulled back in. But out comes Fares, his name of course means breach or breaking through. but Phares is the one that God chose to use. Remember we said there at the beginning, we'd see a little bit about what would happen in the book of Ruth, and further on down the line, how God's going to be using the line of Judah instead of the line of Joseph, which we naturally assume is going to take place, but it's Judah's line that we're going to see. And as a matter of fact, if we read over in the book of Ruth, Chapter number four and I'd like to read verse 12 and a couple of the verses for you It says verse 12 and let thy house be like the house affair as remember their blessing Boaz and Ruth Boaz is just redeemed Ruth and he's gonna raise up seed to to take care of Elimelech's family and all that. And it says, And let thy house be like the house of Phares, whom Tamar barren to Judah, of the seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young woman. And then skipping down to verse 18, the Bible says, Now these are the generations of Phares, not of Judah. Praise God, church, not a Judah, but a Phares. Phares begat Hezron, and Hezron begat Ram, and Ram begat Amenadab, and Amenadab begat Nashan, and Nashan begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David. Now, the reason I'm getting so excited about Phares, and we ain't got time to go into that right now, because we're running a little late here, but if you want to, there on Sermon Audio, we've got a study over in the Book of Ruth, chapter number four it's titled the optimist or I'm sorry not the optimist but the opportunist and you can go over there and we'll explain to you exactly what all is going on with Ferris because it's important that we see why it started with Pharaoh. It's important that we see Pharaoh being mentioned here, because not only is he mentioned here in Genesis, but again in Ruth chapter 4, but again we find his name there in Matthew chapter 1 verse 3, and again in Luke chapter 3 verse number 33, which those show us there, not only does Pharaoh lead to David, who will sit on the throne of Israel there, over in 2 Samuel, but we see it leading down through the ages, To where jesus is brought into the family of joseph not the joseph of genesis, but the joseph of joseph and mary Praise god church, and he's taking in his joseph's firstborn son Even though he was not his father. He was his stepfather praise god. Jesus's father is in heaven Thank the lord for that, but by that adoption it gave him the legal human right to the throne of israel Praise god for that church. Aren't you glad that god overrides in our mistakes? I know I sure am and we see god overriding here in this little soap opera that i've titled all my sons And I hope that this study here has been a help to you and that you get into god's word and you'll study and learn more for yourself Run the cross references see exactly what god's got for you because church i'm telling you There's so much there than what this little bit is that we're trying to present in just a few minutes I hope you've gotten something out of this and that God will richly bless you. We'll talk to you next time. Have a good one.