The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 495

EXPOSITION. introduce a passage from the life of Judah, CHAPTER XXXVIII. with the view of proving the necessity of Yer. 1.-And it ea.me to pe.ss. The pre- such removal, by showing, as in the case of sent chapter appears to interrupt the con- Judah, the almost certainty that, if left in ti11uitv of the narrative of Joseph'; history. Canaan, the descendants of Jacob would l'artly on this account, and partly because fall before the temptation of marrying with the name Jehovah occurs in it (vers. 7, 10), the daughters of the land, with the result, it has been pronounced a later Jehovistic in- in the first instance, of a great and mpiJ terpolation (Tuch, Bleek, Davidson, Colenso). moral deterioration in the holy seed, niHl 1ts design has been explained as an attempt with the ultimate effect of completely ob- to glorify the line or David by representing literating the line of demarcation between it as sprung from Judah (Bohlen), or to dis- them and the surronnding heathen world. close the origin of the Levirate law of mar- How the purity of the patriarchal family riage among the Jews (Knobel); but the was guarded till it developed into a powerful incidents here recorded of Judah and his nation, first by its providential withdraw- family are fitted to reflect dishonour instead ment in infancy from the sphere of tempt- of glory on the ancestry of David (Haver- ation (eh. xlvi. 5), then by its separate 11:ck); and the cnstom here mentioned of establishment in Goshen beside a people who 1·aising up seed to a dead brother by marry- regarded them with aversion (eh. xlvi. 34), ing his widow, though the idea may have and latterly by its cruel enslavement under uriginated ,rith Judah (Lange), is more likely Pharaoh (Exod. i 10), is a subject which in to have descended from earlier times (De- due course engages the attention of the litzsch, Reil). Rightly nnderstood, the object writer. At that time. (1) If the date of of the present portion of the record appears Judah's man-iage, as is most probable, wos to have been not simply to prepare the way shortly after the sale of Joseph (Reil, Kurtz, for the subsequent (eh. xlvi 8-27) genea- Lange, Alford, Wordsworth, Quarry), since logical register (Gerlach), or to r,mtrast the at the time of that atrocity Judah was still 'Wickedness of Judah and his sons with the living with his brethren, the only difficulty piety and chastity of Joseph in Egypt calling for solution is to account for the birth (Wordsworth), or to recite the private his- of Judah's grandchildren, Hezron and Hamul tory of one of Christ's ancestors (B11Sh, (the sons of Pharez, the twin child of Judah Muqihy, 'Speaker's Commentary'), or to by Tamar), in the short interval of twenty- show that the pre-eminence of Judah in the two years which precedeu Jacob's descent patriarchal family was due exclusively to into Egypt without making Er nnd Onan grace (Candlish), but also and chiefly to marry in comparative boyhood. The case justify the Di vine procedure in the su bse- becomes a little less perplexing if Hezron quent deportation of Jacob and his sons to ant! Hamul, though said to have come into Egypt (Reil). The special danger to which Egypt (eh. xlvi. 27 ; Exocl. i. 1 ; Deut. x. the theocratic family was exposed was that 22), may be regarded as having been born of intermarrying with the Canaanites (eh. there (Hengstenberg), since twenty- two xxiv. 3; :xxviii. 6). Accordingly, having years afforu sufficient space for tlie birth of canied forward his narrative to the point Judah's three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah, where, in cons1 quenre of J oseph's sale, a which may have taken place during the lirst way begins to open up for the transference of three years after their fother's marriage, and the patriarchal house to the land of the for the birth of Pharez and Zarah, e ten if Pharaohs, H,e historian wakes a pause to Er married as lato as eighteen. Of course if_ en. xxxn:1. 1--!IO.J 'l'HE BOOK OF GENESIS. 441