“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!” (Sir Walter Scott, 1808)

‘Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive’ means that when you lie or act dishonestly you are initiating problems and a domino structure of complications which eventually run out of control. (nosweatshakespeare.com)

Interestingly this quote is from a historical romance told in verse.

The account of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38 might well bear this inscription, yet God includes it in His word for all to read.

38 At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah. ² There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her and (… had three sons to her). Genesis 38

⁶ Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. ⁷ But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death. 

Judah was the line of Messiah; we’re told nothing about Er’s sin but I wondered if the Lord was protecting that lineage. In the Temple there was the Holy Place, for Priests and beyond that the Most Holy Place, only for the High Priest.

⁸ Then Judah said to Onan, ‘Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfil your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.’

But Onan disobeyed and the Lord, ‘put him to death also’.

Then followed a ‘tangled web’, where Judah told Tamar to go and live in her father’s house as a widow until his youngest son Shelah had grown up.

¹¹ Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, ‘Live as a widow in your father’s household until my son Shelah grows up.’ For he thought, ‘He may die too, just like his brothers.’ So Tamar went to live in her father’s household.

Judah withheld his youngest son from Tamar because he was afraid that he also might die.

¹² After a long time Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah, to the men who were shearing his sheep,

Judah lost his own wife but then went up to the sheep shearing. Meanwhile Tamar heard about it and disguised herself and went to meet him.

¹⁵ When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face.

Judah approached Tamar and asked her to sleep with him. She asked for his seal and it’s cord and his staff in pledge. Afterwards Tamar went back and resumed her life as a widow, but she’d  become pregnant by Judah. When it was discovered, Judah wanted to put her to death, but then she produced his seal, cord and staff. Judah was the father of twin boys, Perez and Zerah. Judah himself fathered the next generation in the line of the Messiah.

Tamar is the first of five women mentioned in the genealogy of Mary in Matthew’s Gospel. Far from her deeds being hidden, she is exonerated. Judah’s own words say it best;

²⁶ Judah recognised them and said, ‘She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.’ And he did not sleep with her again. Genesis 38

Once we begin to lie and scheme, none of us knows the final outcome. God was merciful in the case of Judah and Tamar.

Immanuel, Stay Strong, God is with us.