Season 4 Genesis 38 (Sue Wiberg)
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Week 6 Genesis 38 Names!
The Names in this chapter are stunning and tell the story of the One who is faithful to His promise and is faithful to take what the enemy intends for harm and turn to good in our lives!
Isaiah 43:1-3 God calls us by name!
It’s all about the Name of Jesus! The Name means “The Lord Saves”-Yeshua
Who are you, God, and what are you like?
Presupposing the goodness of God
Seeing Jesus through the lens of Joseph
Judah, son #4 who, is now in line to carry the promise.
John 10:10 The enemy’s goal is to stop the coming Messiah and to lead Judah and his family to destruction, but God!!!
Joy mentioned the movie “The Blind” yesterday. Saw Saturday night with my husband, and whew. God used this as I couldn’t help but cry at the harm that was portrayed in this movie. Highly recommend. What an incredible story of God’s intervention, rescue, and transformation!
Monday morning, God opened my heart to see that I have been in denial and minimized the harm that has been done to me.
Several lies: that I deserved it, that I have caused harm and it feels like I shouldn’t point the finger at another, that I should protect the other this way in love, that I am not being a good Christian in speaking about this, fear of falling into a victim mindset
God was never about blame but about truth! Denial of harm and the depth of harm done to me has actually led to a bitter root taking hold of my heart of unforgiveness and shame. Trying to control this harm and its impact on me has led to more problems.
God wants us to be honest about harm and bring it to Him. To walk through it and feel it with Him. Walk through. My way led to being stuck in it, and the bitter root harmed me and defiled others. Hard-hearted right there, not willing to walk through the pain of the harm with God.
Jer 6:14 TLB 14 You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there! Yet the priests and prophets give assurances of peace when all is war.
Heb 12:15 15 Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.
Jeremiah 30:12-17 read
Psalm 147:3 He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.
Joel 2:25 The Lord says, “I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts.[a] It was I who sent this great destroying army against you.
Feel like this is Judah. He is going through life in denial of harm done to him as a young man, not bringing it to the Lord but medicating it on his own. Numbing out through greed, lust, and partying, as we will see in this chapter. This denial and sin that resulted has harmed him and others around him.
Now Judah, son #4. The door to the Promise, to Jesus who is knocking on our doors in these same places.
Let’s start looking at the names of this chapter because they truly tell a story of the goodness of our God.
Judah=to praise. (When Leah gives birth to him, she says, now I will praise the Lord, Gen 29:30).
Judaism, the religion of Jewish people from Judah’s name-religion of praise!
It doesn’t seem like there is much to praise about Judah!Vs. 1 Judah just left being with brothers and selling Joseph for gain! Greed.
Leaves brothers/family. Runs to friend in Adullam, Hirah.
Hirah=a noble family
Adullam=justice of the people
This doesn’t seem to describe Judah’s friend, who seems to be a bad influence Canaanite.
Vs. 2 Sees a Canaanite girl and takes her. Daughter of Shua=wealth. Yup, that’s Judah!
Vs. 3 Birth to Er-watchful, awake. Pun because the reverse of this word in Hebrew is evil.
Vs4 2nd son Onan=Strong. Yep, he is living in his own strength to get what he wants, chip off the old block.
Vs. 5 3rd son Shelah=request, petition, born in Kezib/Chezib=falsified. Yep, Judah falsely says he will give Shelah to Er’s wife.
Vs. 6 Judah takes a wife but now arranging a marriage for his son. See something here as this was to be done in Israel as his forefathers did for their sons. Maybe it was a crack in the heart, realizing the way he did it wasn’t great.
Tamar=erect/palm tree. Probably a Canaanite, but unknown, and I wonder.
Psalm 92:12-13 12
But the godly will flourish like palm trees and grow strong like the cedars of Lebanon.
13 For they are transplanted to the Lord’s own house. They flourish in the courts of our God.
Vs. 7 Er evil, the reverse of God’s plan like his name. God kills him. This is Grace, justice, love, and mercy to all that come after.
Prov 10:27 Fear of the Lord lengthens one’s life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.
Vs. 8-10 Onan to marry and have children with Tamar for brother, levirate marriage. Onan used strength to get what he wanted: sex but no children for Er and Tamar. God again sees the evil in the heart and kills.
Onan wanted to enjoy sexual intercourse while intentionally depriving Tamar of a family and inheritance. Imagine how this hurt and offended her at each encounter.
Watching The Blind, it hit me to the point of tears how much the enemy comes after women/wives to tear to destroy families and keep them away from God and His plan. Enemy uses men to abuse and shame them. Men are abused in abusing women, too. Back to the Garden, the enemy targeted Eve, knowing the family would be in his hands if he could take her down.
The woman is the Ezer Kenegdo (Gen 2:18-suitable helper), as we’ve learned from Kristi McClelland, and Joy has spoken on often.
Ezer is a strong word for helper, aid, or strength. The word is often used for God as the helper and strength to Israel! The first word God used to describe a woman is word uses for Himself. The woman/wife is so important to the family to follow God!!!
God protected Tamar by sending her back to her family!!!
Vs. 12 Judah’s wife dies. Two sons and wife gone. Whoa! Grief. But grief doesn’t seem to last long.
But Judah, “after the time of mourning was over,” goes with Hirah to supervise shearing sheep. Great celebration and lots of partying/drinking!
Vs. 13 Someone tells Tamar Judah is coming. Who???
Vs. 14-18 Tamar removes mourning clothes, veils herself, disguises, and is almost like a betrothed woman as that’s what they did!
Judah propositions her for sex, thinking of a prostitute.
Has no payment with him, spontaneous, sees and takes, Judah style.
Tamar is shrewd to request a guarantee, of items linked to his identity! A walking stick or scepter is a symbol of leadership! His seal, like ID and cord. Specifically his.
Seems a lot like Esau! Giving away identity to gratify the flesh!
Vs. 19-21 Tamar heads home to widow’s clothes, and Judah sends Hirah with a goat to pay her and get back his things.
Asks about shrine/cult prostitute, more accepted to minimize Judah’s appearance of doing something shameful as this is more accepted in Canaan. But none.
Vs. 22-23 Not found. Judah, more worried about being laughed at and shamed, lets his identity go!
Vs. 24 3 months pass, and someone tells Judah Tamar is pregnant and acted like a prostitute! Who told him???
Judah, in righteous indignation, calls for her to be burned!
No Grace in Judah’s heart at all!!! No Grace because he is living in denial of the need for grace!!!!
Burning punishment for prostitute, but only if a priest’s daughter! Lev 21:9 What???
Often, the things that anger us most are things that we are in denial about ourselves!
Vs. 26 Tamar shows Judah’s identifying object, and what Judah says, she is more righteous than I am, scholars say is a confession, repentance, and turning of the heart.
Lev 18:15: It is sinful to have sexual relations with DIL
The Fire has been turned on Judah, praise God. And that’s what his name means!!! God has brought this fire to reveal what he is made of and burn off the impurities of his heart through a breakdown, breakopen, breakthrough.
Amos 2:4-5 This is what the Lord says:
“The people of Judah have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished!They have rejected the instruction of the Lord, refusing to obey his decrees.They have been led astray by the same lies that deceived their ancestors.
5 So I will send down fire on Judah, and all the fortresses of Jerusalem will be destroyed.”
Malachi 3:2-5 2 “But who will be able to endure it when he comes? Who will be able to stand and face him when he appears? For he will be like a blazing fire that refines metal, or like a strong soap that bleaches clothes. 3 He will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold and silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord. 4 Then once more the Lord will accept the offerings brought to him by the people of Judah and Jerusalem, as he did in the past.
5 “At that time I will put you on trial. I am eager to witness against all sorcerers and adulterers and liars. I will speak against those who cheat employees of their wages, who oppress widows and orphans, or who deprive the foreigners living among you of justice, for these people do not fear me,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
Isa 48:10-11 I have refined you, but not as silver is refined. Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering.
11 I will rescue you for my sake— yes, for my own sake!I will not let my reputation be tarnished, and I will not share my glory with idols!
Prov 17:3 Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the Lord tests the heart.
Ps 66:8-12 Let the whole world bless our God and loudly sing his praises.
9 Our lives are in his hands, and he keeps our feet from stumbling.
10 You have tested us, O God; you have purified us like silver.
11 You captured us in your net and laid the burden of slavery on our backs.
12 Then you put a leader over us.[a] We went through fire and flood, but you brought us to a place of great abundance.
What Is a "Refiner's Fire"? (Biblestudytools.com, Pamela Palmer)
A refiner’s fire melts down a metal, such as gold or silver, for purification purposes. Once a metal is in its melted down state, the dross in the metal rises to the top and is then removed from the metal before it cools.
God spoke this analogy through the prophet Malachi to describe how he purifies our hearts. Just as a refiner’s fire, God will draw out our dross – our broken, sinful ways – so that we will stand pure and righteous before him.
A refiner’s fire does not destroy the metal, rather it allows the junk within to come up so that it can be removed. A refiner’s fire does not consume, it makes the metal better and more valuable. This comparison helps makes sense of what God’s redemptive work may look like and accomplish in each of us.
God will purify us in similar ways. He does not consume us, rather, being in relationship with God draws us to righteousness and away from sinfulness. God uses our suffering, our sinfulness, and our shortcomings to refine us just as a refiner’s fire, so that the dross within our hearts will rise to the surface and can then be removed. How humbling to stand before God with hearts made pure.
Jeremiah 23:29 Does not my word burn like fire?” says the Lord.“Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashes a rock to pieces?
We see evidence of this and will see a different Judah in Chapter 44, coming soon. And in the blessing of Jacob over Joseph in Genesis 49:10
Ironic, the scepter will not depart from Judah. The walking stick scepter the enemy tried to steal through temptation and sin, but God. Jesus will take up this scepter and Judah steps into the Name God gave him, to be praised.
And Hirah, the Adullamite. God’s work on us affects all those around us. I believe God flipped the script on this wayward friend to be a noble people of justice.
David in 1Sam 22:1 when Saul is after him, goes to the Cave of Adullam, the stronghold. This is where he surrenders to the Lord his own protection and makes the Lord his stronghold! Others join him there that are also misfits, sinner, struggling in life. God’s army!!!
Psalm 57 Written by David in the Cave of Adullam, turning to God for rescue! Cave of surrender!
Adullam part of Judah’s territory
Joshua 15:1, 35 The allotment for the clans of the tribe of Judah reached southward to the border of Edom, as far south as the wilderness of Zin. 35 Jarmuth, Adullam, Socoh, Azekah,
Tamar not innocent, God is not co-signing sin, but He shows His heart of compassion for what abuse she endured and honors her by putting her name in the lineage with Judah and sons Perez and Zerah in 1 Chronicles and Matt 1. Also mentioned in Ruth 4:12 as people speak blessing over Boaz and Ruth that they would be bless them with descendants like those of our ancestor, Perez the son of Tamar and Judah.