Reading: Genesis 38-40, Psalm 12

Today’s reading is tells two apparently disconnected narratives, one about Judah and the other about Joseph. Our last story about Judah did not give us the best impression of him- the kind of guy who sells his own brother into slavery and tells their father he is dead. But, let’s see how Judah does going forward.

In the first story, Judah takes the daughter of a Canaanite as his wife. Sounds fine on the surface, but intermarrying with the Canaanites has pretty clearly been painted as not a good idea in the story so far, so maybe not the best move. Two other things absent from this story that are in the other “finding a wife” stories in Genesis 24 and 29- the consent of the household and at least the voice of the woman involved. Might not be the best sign. Anyway, they have three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. Er marries another Canaanite, Tamar. Then God kills him for being evil. Well. Prior to this, God has directly killed people only when their evil reaches truly epic proportions (see Sodom and the story of Lot in Genesis 19) so we can assume he was a pretty bad dude. Judah tells his second son, Onan, to have children for his brother through her. This is extremely strange and awkward for us, and certainly not something we do today. At the time, and for many many hundreds of years after, this was a right thing to do. It was very important that a person’s name and inheritance be continued, and surviving brothers were responsible for making sure their deceased sibling had children. But Onan’s behavior is… well, pretty bad. See, he doesn’t just straight up refuse to have children for his brother- which he could have, though it would have caused a stink, it was not unheard of. No, Onan is quite happy to take his brother’s wife to bed, but unwilling to make her pregnant with a child that won’t “count” as his own and ensure that she has someone to support her. What a guy. God is offended by this enough that he kills him too. Shelah is too young to step in, and Judah is kind of getting skittish about giving his sons to this woman, so he sends her home to her father.

Time passes. Judah’s wife dies, Shelah grows up, but he does not bring Tamar back. One gets the impression Judah would like to forget she ever existed. But that is not going to happen. Tamar devises her own plan: she dresses as a prostitute and waits for Judah to walk by. This plan says something about Judah’s reputation. While cult prostitution was common in the ancient near east, it is certainly not part of the worship of the God of Israel. However, Judah apparently wasn’t against the idea, and Tamar knew it. She reels him in and gets pregnant by him. Judah, not knowing it was her, finds out she is pregnant and passes summary judgment on her: bring her out and burn her. Only when presented with direct evidence that he is responsible does he relent. She has twin sons, one of whom is Perez, about whom we don’t hear much, but his name will appear in some very important genealogies later in the story.

So what have we learned about Judah? He took a Canaanite wife, had incredibly evil sons, participated in cult prostitution, was willing to have his daughter in law burned to death, and finally, when cornered, took responsibility. Not a great track record. Judah’s story is full of irresponsible sexual activity from both himself and his family, and stands in stark contrast both to the design for man and woman laid out by God in Genesis 2 and with our next story, that of Joseph in the house of Potiphar in Egypt.

So Joseph got sold into slavery in Egypt, and gets purchased by Potiphar, a captain of the Pharoah’s guard. God makes sure he is successful, and he is so responsible that Potiphar delegates the entire household to him- Joseph has the run of the house and makes all the decisions. Everything seems to be going well. But then Potiphar’s wife decides Joseph should come to bed with her. Now, Joseph is in the perfect position to give in to this. He’s in charge of everything, and she’s asking. But he has respect for the authority of both God and his master. Eventually she get’s so aggressive he has to flee the house. Put off by this, she accuses Joseph of attempting to rape her, and he gets thrown in prison. While there, God again is with him, and he again is so responsible that the prison warden puts him in charge of the prison. After a while, he encounters two men: the baker and the cupbearer to Pharoah. We don’t know why they were there, but both had dreams, and Joseph interprets them correctly.

So what have we learned about Joseph? He values respect and responsibility. As a falsely accused imprisoned slave in a foreign country betrayed by his family, apparently has a pretty direct line with God. Now he has a line to Pharoah, who promptly forgets him. But even then Joseph doesn’t complain. He apparently trusts that God knows what he is doing. He is the closest thing to the hero we’ve been looking for we have come across so far.

It seems unlikely these stories were stacked next to each other for no reason. Judah and Joseph, who has much more story to come, are contrasted in circumstances and behavior. Joseph is mistreated at every turn but remains obedient and trustworthy. Judah mistreats at every turn and behaves like a scoundrel. But both of these characters are on a journey, and we will see over the next few days where they end up.