Tamar, justified Part I

Genesis 38:26

Judah recognized them and said, "She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn't give her to my son Shelah."

Judah, the quiet man, spoke words to me today, words of vindication. Within man is that marvelous thing, that separation and completeness, illusory, that which Judah fiercely sought in me, failed. Words are like a rocky ground when spoken like he did, a ground upon which to stand. With his words he took me in, and now these beating children (for surely the women are right when they say I bear twins, this size, my sickness, their strong movements!) I bear for him. He is not my husband but in me goes forth his line, the line through which I am vindicated.

My people are not my people. I was a Canaanite woman, the daughter of this land, though they do not possess it. I grew up a woman in a world of men, the dwelling of my father where, though I was advanced above the common women, the servants, I belonged only to him and those to whom he would give me. A son is a glorious thing, a vine springing up, but a woman is for her beauty only. If she is not a royal woman then she works, she mothers, she bears sons. If she is beautiful, she is for the pleasure of men, to be looked at and used up. The very strong among us can use those assets of cunning or beauty to beat out a shelter from this world of men. I was beautiful.

O women, mourn with me the ancient loss of these ways! I have seen midwives curse the sight of daughters, complicit in the brutalities of the stronger sex. I have seen the women who dominate their sons and husbands, meeting strength with strength, a fear between them. I have seen, partook in the delight of man's gaze, the secret thrill of being seen, of being looked upon, whatever lay behind it. I have felt that anxiety, the long nights of uncertainty, we women lost in our sisterhood of fear, betraying one another for the desire of men. I have felt alone in this world, the fear of it closing upon me, even when the breeze was light and my father laughed.

O God of Israel, who hears his people, calling them his people though they are not! I, out of the daughters of the land, all the ruler's daughters, I was chosen to be Judah's daughter. I remember the day when he came, Er at his side, to inquire about the Canaanite women. They were his wife's people, Shua was my distant relation, and his friend Hirah was close to my father. So we came out to see this wealthy man and his son, half in awe and half in hope, for the rumors of Judah and his brothers had long been known to us. This was no ordinary local herder, no rich nomad looking for a wife to wander with him. This was Judah the son of Abraham, the legendary man, and who, it was said, was granted this land by the gods. Whatever he does, it was said, is blessed. His flocks and herds increase whether the harvest is good or poor, and sickness never touches them.

Among my ignorant people those legends now seem contemptuous, touching the least important parts of this family, and missing entirely the glory of it. But for men of the earth all that is seen is what is seen, the flocks and herds and mysteries of prosperity, a family that had increased even though they wandered with no wells, no consistent grazing ground, no walls to protect them. Just, it was said, their God, a God unlike our gods, for Judah would let no idols be found among his tents.

I came out, veiled. My father spoke to Judah and I was given to him. I went.

What were my emotions in those days? These are the things that you do, the place you go, the agreement made. My emotions were. I feared. But fear was my life and my days, and transferred to this new place, I was no more and no less in danger than before. My father was my husband was my father-in-law was in power, and I was beautiful. This is to say that men were men and women were women and I acted as I knew how to act. I am Tamar, a foreign woman in the tents of God.

That this was God, that this was the promises, that this family was a new family, these things dawned on my slowly. First, Shua was an invaluable woman. She too had been taken in, a story like my own, except that she was a pale and fragile woman where I was vigorous and strong. She told me of Judah's God when I in my ignorance asked her where the household gods were, and why in my marriage there had been only sacrifices to one God. This God, unnamed, was only the God of Jacob, the God of Isaac, the God of Abraham. The sacrifices were different too, careful, rich, the most perfect only (the mystery of their expanding wealth deepens when you consider this: the best of their flock are consistently sacrificed!). Shua spoke to me about this new worship in hushed terms, and I detected in her voice something that I had never heard in the voice of my own mother.

Then I saw them together, Judah and Shua. Judah spoke, instructing. To enter this household was not to simply to join some wandering tribe with a few absurdly glorified traditions, but to take upon myself a covenant, an agreement with God. But the terms of this agreement confused me for they seemed to be entirely one-sided. Even the sacrifices themselves were not done to appease their God but for some other inscrutable reason, which Judah explained in words that thrilled me even as I struggled to understand. This covenant, apparently, bound me to God, for though I was a foreign women, yet through me would come God's own line, his own people, and his own purpose. In this covenant, I was in them as I joined them, for God was working, God was acting, God was moving.

O Sovereign God, the Fear of Isaac, God who moves! This God was the God Judah recounted to me, the creator who had made man and woman, co-equal in creation and fall. This God spoke the promise of a son, that which Eve once hoped would be her own, whom she acquired in Cain, but who would wait, who was still in the future. This God said the seed of Abraham would be the one, for when God spoke of the seed that would be a mighty nation, he had one in mind, speaking of singular man, the line which Jacob's sons all carried, the nation to come through them.

All these things spilled out of the words of Judah and Shua, promises slowly pieced together into a coherent whole, pieces that showed the purpose behind the sojourn in the land, the sons of Abraham waiting for the land to be theirs, waiting for the seed to come, waiting for the promises. And as they spoke these cohered promises I heard in my heart the voice of God in them, the living voice, and here in these words I lived. I was, though I was not, as the family of God all was, a future hope and promise that the spoken word spoke to each living heart.

Er was beside me during this whole recitation. He had heard these things from his youth, could recite with his father every word of them, yet I searched in vain for that animating light that I saw in Shua. The promises, though complete in what they spoke, were like the ancient legends of my own people to him, dead, lifeless, a story told. He mocked them to me that night, scoffing as I tried to describe what I had experienced, laughing at those hopes and describing instead the world of his sheep, the world he was making, his plans, laughing as he described the violence he had planned for my family. Shuddering, I turned from him, refusing him.

When I awoke, he lay next to me dead.

I don't know what I expected to happen, but the shock and fear of seeing my husband dead next to me was overwhelming. When Judah found me, his eyes darkened, but to my surprise his contempt was reserved for his dead son. Foolish man! he cried. God showed me your death last night, your wickedness. I shrank back, forgotten in his anger. Shua took me out, and the last sight of my dead husband was obscured by his father, weeping and shaking with rage, something beyond the tragedy present.

The time of mourning was brief, and in those days I spent much time with Shua. It was here that she taught me to call upon God, of the nearness of access that the covenant brought to us. She told me of the words that to this day remain my favorite, God speaking to Abraham, saying I am your very great reward. She comforted me and explained the meaning in Er's death, his rejection of the living words and the punishment of God. There is no fear in Him, she said, but there is fear.

But why, I asked, does Judah live here, so far from his brothers?

I do not know, Shua answered, but there is a reason. He is waiting to hear something out here, away from them. When the time is right, he will return.

If the family has heard all this, if the possess this same promise, I asked, what keeps them apart?

She did not answer.