Those three things did not seem to have any connection
whatsoever,
but in the Bible, they are appeared on Genesis 38 and Matthew 1.
Not only that, but the black widow had the honor of having her named
mentioned
in genealogy of Jesus Christ.
How she got the sperm donation was rather tricky
and dramatically cunning.
She almost got herself killed because of it.
In the
end we can say that all’s well that ends well,
and glory to God who looks at
humans’ hidden motives.
It all began with Judah. Judah, the third son of Jacob
married a Canaanite lady named Shua. They had three sons
named Er, Onan, and
Shelah. Judah then got a wife for his first son,
and her name was Tamar.
I believe that Tamar had some positive qualities
which made
Judah picked her as a bride for his oldest son.
She might be beautiful. She
might be strong.
She might come from a good, affluent family.
I am sure that
she was also smart.
Definitely was not a weak woman who played victim, this
Tamar.
Regretfully, Er was not a good man. He was wicked in God’s
sight.
The Bible did not describe Er’s behavior in detail,
but I guess they must
be really bad because God put him to death.
His sudden death, must left Tamar
devastated.
She had not got any chance to have kids with Er.
As a childless widow, Tamar did not have any future.
Judah
asked Onan, his second son, to marry Tamar.
Onan was willing to sleep with
Tamar,
but refused to have children with her. His reason was understandable.
The first son born of him and Tamar, would inherit Er’s name and property.
If
there was no son, Onan would be the one who got Er’s inheritance.
Onan used a traditional contraceptive method.
Thus Onan was
not obedient to his father and did injustice to his sister in law.
He was
willing to be a sperm donor through natural insemination
but refused to donate
his sperm.
God punished Onan for that. He died young.
Tamar was still a
childless widow who had no future.
She had married two men, but both died young
when they were with her.
Judah had a third son, a young boy named Shelah. He
was her only hope.
Judah, on the other hand, was not willing to give Shelah to
Tamar.
He was afraid that Shelah would be dead like the older brothers
if he
married her. He sent Tamar back to her childhood home
to wait for Shelah.
Anyway, if Tamar was out of mind, she was out of sigh.
I think in Judah’s mind, Tamar was like a
black widow,
a poisonous spider which killed her husband after they mated.
Judah would not want to risk Shelah, his only
living son.
He did not think that his sons were guilty. He blamed it on
Tamar.
( to be continued in two days )
