Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 38

At that time. — This does not mean at the time of Joseph’s sale, because there was only an interval of twenty-two years between that event and the descent into Egypt, and this period is hardly long enough for the events recorded in this chapter. According to the usual chronology, Judah, Leah’s fourth son, would not have been more than eight years old when he left Padan-aram, and only one year at most older than Joseph, the son of Jacob’s old age. But the more true chronology which we have followed allows time for him to have been Joseph’s senior by twenty years, and the events recorded here probably began soon after his father’s arrival at the tower of Eder.

Adullamite. — The town of Adullam, near which was David’s famous cave, has been clearly identified by Lieutenant Conder (Tent-work, ii. 158). It lay in the great valley of Elah, which formed the highway from Hebron to the country of the Philistines, some two or three miles south of Shochoh, and fifteen or sixteen miles west by north from Hebron. Judah went down there, not as Abenezra and others have supposed, because it was to the south, but because it was towards the sea, and the road is an actual descent from the hill country of Judah into the Shephelah, or lowland, in which Adullam was situated.

The sons of Jacob often, probably, with a few retainers, made expeditions in search of pastures for their cattle; and Hirah, apparently, had shown Judah hospitality on some such journey, and finally a friendship had grown up between them. Turned in to, however, literally means pitched (his tent) close by; and the friendship between Judah and Hirah, thus accidentally formed, seems to have ended in Hirah taking charge of Judah’s cattle.

Canaanite. —This is rendered in the Targum merchant, and so the Authorised Version translates Canaanite in Proverbs 31:24. In favour of this view is the fact that the marriage of Simeon with a Canaanite woman is regarded as an act so exceptional as to be worth recording (Genesis 46:10). But we may well doubt whether, at so early an age, the terms Canaanite and merchant had become synonymous. “Shuah” was the name of the woman’s father, as appears plainly in the Hebrew. (See also Genesis 38:12.)

Chezib. —Mr. Conder has found traces of this place at Ain Kezbeh, near Beit Nettif, a little to the north of Adullam (Handbook, p. 408). In Micah 1:14-15, it is called Achzib, and is there also placed near Adullam.

Go in unto thy brother’s wife.—We learn from this that the law of the Levirate, by which the brother of the dead husband was required to marry the widow, was of far more ancient date than the law of Moses. Its object, first of all, was to prevent the extinction of any line of descent, a matter of great importance in those genealogical days; and, secondly, it was an obstacle to the accumulation of landed property in few hands, as the son first born after the Levirate marriage inherited the property of his deceased uncle, while the second son was the representative of the real father.

A similar custom existed in parts of India, Persia, etc., and prevails now among the Mongols. The Mosaic Law did not institute, but regulated the custom, confining such marriages to cases where the deceased brother had died without children, and permitting the brother to refuse to marry the widow, under a penalty, nevertheless, of disgrace. Onan, by refusing to take Tamar, may have been actuated by the selfish motive of obtaining for himself the rights of primogeniture, which would otherwise have gone to his eldest son, as the heir of his uncle ‘Er.

For he said, lest he also die.—It is evident from this that Judah, for reasons which, in Genesis 38:26, he acknowledged to be insufficient, wished to evade the duty of giving a third son to Tamar. It does not follow that he blamed her for their deaths, for the loss of two sons in succession might well frighten him.

Philippsohn says that it became the rule, that if a woman lost two husbands, the third brother was not bound to marry her, and she was even called Katlannith. the murderess. (But see Matthew 22:25-26, where no such custom is acknowledged.)