Homilies on Genesis 46–67

Homily 62

HOMILY 62 ,,]oudah saw a Canaanite's daughter named Saua; he married her and lived with her. She conceived and bore a son, and named him Er."l E DAY [532] before yesterday the story about Joseph gave us adequate instruction on the harm caused by envy and how this deadly passion first destroys the soul nourishing it. You saw how Joseph's brothers, constrained by the impulse of this passion, forgot even the bonds of kinship and displayed the savagery of wild beasts to the one who had done them no wrong, manifesting their own wickedness without causing their brother such harm as the shame they brought on themselves. I mean, even if they sold him to barbarians , who in turn handed him over to Pharaoh's chief steward , yet, since he had grace from on high, everything seemed to him light and easy. (2) I would like today, too, to resume the same story and tease out instruction from it for your benefit. [533] But another account interrupts the sequence, which ought not be passed over; rather we ought explain it as far as possible, and then duly return to the Joseph theme. What then is the intervening account? The one to do with Joudah. He took as his wife Saua, a Canaanite's daughter, you remember, and after having three sons by her, the text says, he took Thamar as a wife for his firstborn Er. But since he was seen to be evil in the Lord's sight, God took his life. He bade Aunan take his brother's wife and raise up offspring to his brother;2 this is what the Law laid down, that on the death of a man his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring to his brother.3 But God put to I. Gen 38.2-3. 3· Deut 25·5· 198 2. Gen 38.2-8. HOMILY 62 199 death this evil man, toO.4 This put fear into Joudah, seeing such a rapid dispatch of his two sons; in his wish to console Thamar he promised to give her his other son but did not keep his promise, afraid that he too might meet a similar fate.5 (3) So, buoyed up with these promises Thamar sat in her father's house, the text says, waiting for her father-in-Iaw's promise to take effect. When she saw thatJoudah was not prepared to honor his promise, for a while she accepted it mildly, forbearing to have relations with another man, being content with her widowhood, and waiting for a suitable opportunity. She was anxious, you see, to have children by her father-inlaw : when she saw her mother-in-law die and Joudah make for Thamna to shear the flocks, she wished to obtain by stealth intercourse with her father-in-law and desired to have children by him, not out of incontinence-perish the thought -but to avoid appearing to be some nameless person. As a matter of fact, what happened was by divine design, and the result was that her scheme took effect.6 (4) "She took offher widow's weeds;' the text goes on, remember , "put on attractive clothes, did herself up, and took her seat at the gates:'7 Then, as if to excuse her, Sacred Scripture says, "she saw, you see, that Shelom had grown up, butJoudah had not given her to him as his wife"- hence her recourse to this stratagem. J oudah, ofcourse, thought she was a prostitute (she had concealed her face, you see, lest she be recognized),8 and "turned aside to her. She asked, 'What will you give me?' He promised to send her a kid. She replied, 'Provided you give me a pledge until you send it to me: He gave her his 4. Gen 38.10. It is interesting that Chrysostom, unlike some latter-day moralists, does not attribute Onan's death to his action in v.g. 5. Gen 38.11. 6. Gen 38.12-13. Chrysostom is unusually perceptive in discerning Tamar's intentions from the outset, though they are only implicit in the text. His treatment is unusual also in its forthright vindication of this woman's outwitting a man-perhaps partly because of his relationship to the Jewish people, as Chrysostom acknowledges below. 7. Gen 38.1 4. 8. Gen 38.15. 200 ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM signet...