Judah and Tamar

Genesis 38

The story of Judah and Tamar is likely set in the foothills (often called the Shephelah) of Judah around the general area of Adullam. The story opens by noting that Judah went “down” from his brothers, though it does not mention where his brothers were living. The last mention of their location, however, is in Genesis 35:27, where it notes that they were in Mamre in the vicinity of Hebron, appropriately situated at significantly higher elevation than Adullam. After settling in this area, Judah married a Canaanite woman, who bore him three sons. The passage also notes that Judah’s wife was living in Kezib when she bore their third son, so presumeably Judah was living there as well. This is likely the same location called Aczib elsewhere in Scripture (Josh 15:44; Micah 1:14). Judah then took a wife, Tamar, for his oldest son, but his son soon died. So Judah instructed his second son to fulfill the common custom of marrying his brother’s widow and raising children in his brother’s name. Though this son married Tamar, he refused to have children by her, so the Lord put him to death. Then Judah instructed Tamar to remain in her father’s house as a widow until his third son is old enough to marry her, but secretly he feared that his third son might die like his brothers if he married her. Sometime after this Judah’s wife died, and Judah made plans to go “up” to Timnah, where his sheep were being sheared. Several other passages of Scripture (Joshua 15:10; Joshua 19:43; Judges 14; 2 Chronicles 28:18) mention a place called Timnah, which was located at Tall Batashi along the Sorek Brook, but it is unlikely that this is the same Timnah mentioned in this story, because Tall Batashi is at a very low elevation, so it could hardly be said that Judah went “up” to that Timnah from Aczib or Adullam. Instead the Timnah of Genesis 38 may have been located at Khirbet et Tabbaneh northeast of Adullam (likely also mentioned in Joshua 15:57) and higher in elevation. If Timnah is indeed located there, Enaim may have been located at Khirbet Beth Ikka, though this identification is less certain (see also Joshua 15:34, which mentions a town called Enam). Returning to the story, the passage notes that, upon hearing of Judah’s plans to go up to Timnah, Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute, went up to Enaim, and seduced Judah on his way to Timnah as part of a plan to bring shame upon him for not providing his third son, who was now an adult, to her as a husband. It is interesting to note that the word Enaim, which means “the place of two springs,” can also mean “the place of two eyes,” and some commentators have speculated that the writer was making a play on words with the name of the village, because it was at Enaim that Judah failed to recognize Tamar, and later he failed to recognize his own hypocrisy in denouncing Tamar for her sexual immorality.

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