Understanding the Bible

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Okay . . . stuff to cover. Great stuff. Important stuff for us in our understanding of the faith before which helps us understand the faith today. When it comes to understanding the Bible there are two very weak approaches to consider – the first is done by believers who read one verse and think it tells the whole story. The second are critics who do the same. Great value comes the more spokes lead to the overall understanding. One spoke, better than none, twenty (representing all the spokes) the best. This principle will become really important in today’s discussion.

Approaches to Biblical Interpretation

We could simple read that Tamar dressed as a harlot and Judah lay with her and see it singly. Or we can pull back and take in more, and more and more and more to get understanding as to why and what is really being said. This take time – decades – along with the desire to diligently seek Him. So let’s begin by continuing on with the rambunctious chapter 38 where we left off with Er, first husband to Tamar being dead, Onan the second husband to Tamar being dead, and the third son of Judah having grown up now (Sheleh) but not being given to Tamar. And we read at verses 13-14 of chapter 38

13 And it was told Tamar, saying, Behold thy father in law goeth up to Timnath to shear his sheep.
14 And she put her widow's garments off from her, and covered her with a vail, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place, which is by the way to Timnath; for she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife.

The Story of Tamar and Judah

Now, most people today cannot fathom Tamar having sex with Judah and that is all that they focus on – the sex with her father in law. But was he really her father in law seeing that she had no children from either Er or Onan and was not give Sheleh as promised? Think about that. And then perhaps more importantly, think about the reason behind her trickery. Many people read her actions as an indictment on the character (because she knew this was Judah and Judah was unaware that this was Tamar because her face was covered) but I don’t think so.

We will talk about why in a moment but before we do I want to point out that the Genealogy of Yeshua (found in Matthew 1 and speaking of Josephs line) specifically references a number of “women” (five to be exact). Now, I am going to borrow from the insights of my brother Grady the Bear down in Sonora Mexico. He knows the word and we discuss it five days a week over the phone. By this point we know that marriage is a very important theme in the Bible – so important we have God open the human account with commanding the two created from one, to become one flesh. There is a whole bunch more to that but let’s begin today remembering the importance of marriage in the Bible.

So I want to cite parts of the first chapter of Matthew to point the five women out in the genealogy of Christ. Verse 1-3 read:

Matthew 1:1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
2 Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren;
3 And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat . . .

So, we have Tarah mentioned as she will conceive of twins from Judah through what we are about to read and it was because of her act one of those twins, Phares was part of the line that leads to King David and then to Jesus himself. Let me repeat that – solely because of her act to play the harlot Judah produced a son that would be in the line of Jesus. Jewish genealogies rarely mention women and they did all they could to remove any woman of questionable character. But not here. Matthew actually goes to some lengthes to include four women with questionable reputations in the line of Messiah. WHY? Males and females uniting in the Bible are super important.

So, the first of these four women with questionable reputations is Tamar. Matthew did not need to mention her name. He could have simply written: “Judah begot Perez and Zerah, Perez begot Salmon…” because Matthew does this with other men in the genealogical line. But He

Women in the Lineage of Christ

Purposely put her name in y and contrary to the custom of the Jews.

Again, why?

The second woman is Matthew’s genealogy mentions is “Rahab.” We know Rahab is identified as a harlot in scripture and many a Christian have tried to say that this was not true – they are not true. Rahab was a harlot. She first pops up in Joshua 2 where we read that Joshua sends spies into Jericho to see what was going on there and she showed them hospitality even to the point of hiding them from the men seeking to kill them. The question is what were those spies doing going to Rabab in the first place? We will talk about that more in part II next week.

But because Rabab showed love to her neighbor (the second great commandment and according to James 2) Joshua 8 tells us that when Joshua destroyed Jericho, God spared Rahab and her family. We are not told if or when she put an end to her harlotry but she did "marry" a important man in the Nation named Zalman and together they had a son named Boaz. Again, marriage is at the forefront of the story of Rahab, as it was with Tamar. Also Rahab was not a Jew, though she later married a Jew. So she was a Gentile who was included in the line of Christ and could have also been easily been left out of Matthews genealogy – but she wasn’t. Why?

Marriage and Gentile Inclusion

Thus far, we have the first woman playing a harlot because she was been left out of marriage in the family of Judah by Judah, and one of her sons from playing the harlot contributes to the line of Christ then we have the second Gentile woman actually being a harlot who later marries a Jew and they have a son from whom Jesus would come. Lots of marriage themes, lots of sons surrounding the various ways these marriages are had.

Our third woman mentioned neither plays a harlot, nor was a harlot but to many Jews (not all) she was worse, at least under the law. And her name is Ruth. Matthew reads:

5 And Salmon begat Booz of Rahab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse;
6 And Jesse begat David the king;

Ruth was of a questionable reputation only by virtue of her birth. She was otherwise an outstanding woman. She was born and raised in Moab and the Moabites had mistreated Israel when it came into the land.

While closely related to the Jews, the Moabites were Gentiles and not typically seen as blessed of God. So, Ruth had that strike against her. Ruth’s husband, Malon, died, as did her brother-in-law and this left her mother-in-law, Naomi alone.

Ruth's Loyalty and Legacy

Well Naomi decided to go back to Israel, and when she said her goodbyes to her two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, Orpah left her but “Ruth clung to Naomi” and went to Israel with her. It was here that Naomi told Ruth how to pursue a man named Boaz, who was the son of Rahab the Harlot. Ruth followed Naomi’s insights and she and Boaz fell in love, MARRIED and had a son named Obed who brought great joy to Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz. So, even though Ruth was a woman of good character, an orthodox Jew would likely have questioned her in the line of King David and Christians ought to wonder about her in that line as well.

The answer to Ruth is found in her heart toward Israel, just as it was in Tamar and Rahab, as Ruth says to Naomi:

“Ask me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy G-d my G-d; where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried; the L-rd do so to me, and more also, if aught but deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. part thee and me.”

In spite of her race, genealogy and make-up, Ruth was welcomed into the line of David and then into Jesus because of her heart. To me, Tamar’s heart was right. Rahabs heart was right. Ruths heart was right, and now we come to the last two women named in Jesus line – with the fourth not playing a harlot, not being a harlot, and not being a gentile but she was a Jew who married a Hittite and her name was Bathsheba.

This is

Bathsheba and the Concept of Ketubah in Israel

What we read in Matthew in reference to her: “and David the king begat Solomon “of her that had been the wife of Uriah.” Worse than a harlot was an adulterer in the Nation of Israel – especially a female adulterer. There is an imbalance presence in the ways Jews saw adultery and married woman were not point blank allowed to commit the crime. Why?

When Jews got married anciently (and even today) they signed what was called a ketubah. The best way to understand a ketubah in our day would be like a pre-nuptial agreement – in some ways. Now listen – it was in place to protect the wife and would include property that she brought to the marriage which was typically bestowed on her by her dad. And the ketubah allowed her to take every bit of that property with her in the event that her husband committed adultery with a married woman. She could receive a written bill of divorce in that instance. If she had sex with anyone – married or not – the man could divorce her and keep her property. But if she remained faithful she was in good standing.

We will return to the ketubah later. So in Matthew's gospel, he does not mention her by name which shows some inclination to punish her both for her choices to have married a Hittite and for then having an affair with David as a married woman, which is recorded in 2 Samuel 11.

Creation of Man and Woman in Genesis

Now, it is really easy to pick on Bathsheba and yes, she showed weakness both in marrying a Hittite and in her affair with David. But I want to share some things that we need to remember relative to all of these women – even if I am considered biased.

In Genesis 5 Moses gives us a reiteration of the creation of Man and says:

1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

We might suggest that when God created Adam in His image, before Eve being taken from his side, that this speaks to God being “one” represented in two genders – male and female – remember, God called their name Adam. Before taking and forming woman as a help-meet, we read in the first chapters of Genesis that Adam was alone and this was the only time that God said something in His creation was NOT good, and then he TOOK FROM ADAM whatever was necessary or present to create a female or woman.

Again, God TOOK from Adam what would become EVE and then commanded them to become one again via sexual union – which was and I maintain is, marriage.

So in the one, there were two. But they were one – before being separated and after. One – expressed in two forms – male and female. Of the two, the female was deceived and was the first to partake of what God said do not eat. The male simply didn’t seem to even care and partook of the forbidden fruit through the influence of what came from Him, his wife.

Where the original couple were ONE – both male and female – after the fall, they faced the most difficult condition – to be attracted to each other (which is consummated in them becoming One again) but to also be repelled by each other (to compete, argue, and strive for domination over each other). Extrapolated out, this condition would lead to all sorts of issues caused by both parties – yearning, loneliness, rejection, frustration, incompatibilities, and the paradoxical desire for compatibility.

Marriage and Its Significance

But “Marriage” – the two being one – as fundamental to the creation and the foundation from which all that God would do in the Bible. We will talk more about it in a minute. Many people want to criticize Tamar, and Rahab, and Ruth (at times) and Bathsheba but do not these four women in various ways represent the plight of women and the various ways they engage with the world and therefore God’s love for women and all that they represent?

We want to see these depictions as cautionary tales but I see all of them as significant TYPES – which is what the whole Old Testament is – that speak to what God would do through His Son for the whole world.

Relative to Bathsheba,

Bathsheba and Her Context

She was a daughter of Eliam who was a mighty warrior in David's army. So, she looked at David with awe, probably from a child. It is believed that she was of noble birth hence her proximity to David’s home. The Jews suggest that she was inordinately beautiful, which can be as much a curse to a girl as a blessing and something they have to learn to navigate through life too.

When I was in seventh grade, there was a girl my age named Nancy. She came from a broken home, a mom who worked, and Nancy was bestowed, in seventh grade, with very large fingernails. Amazingly enough, I never pursued her because she wasn’t my type, but the mongrel males in our school, who had zero integrity, passed Nancy around like a bag of chips. By the time she was in ninth grade, Nancy was a wreck. I remember thinking, why give such a defenseless needy girl those things, God? And it was here I started—“started” to develop some sense of the plight women face in this world. God subsequently gave me three daughters to push the point home.

Remembering that Eve was beguiled, and like it or not, this is a trait of some women by virtue of their make-up—from the very start of the human race. Also, remember that Adam, in the end, was pretty much a loser. Could it be that Bathsheba, beautiful, raised in the mythos of “David the giant killer,” who apparently and wrongly married Uriah the Hittite, longed for love and acceptance? Could it be that David capitalized on this to his advantage, beguiling her?

The Role of Women in the Lineage of Jesus

After David had her Hittite husband killed, he took her and made the widow his wife because, at death, the marriage contract between two was canceled and after the son of her first pregnancy died (as punishment for David’s actions) she conceived again and bore another man in Jesus’s genealogical line—Solomon. Who would build the first temple and in all of his wisdom took 700 wives (with ketubahs) and 300 concubines.

Understanding Concubines

Wait. What is this concubine business about? Concubines were wives without ketubahs. Simple as that. Wait. A wife had to be loyal or the husband could divorce her and take her property, but the husband was allowed to have other wives, concubines and could visit unmarried harlots? Yes. Sound insulting? Sound unfair? Sound misogynistic? Sure. But as a type for God and all that He would do, it fits. We’ll get back to this again.

So, when David old and dying, Bathsheba successfully conspired with the prophet Nathan to block Adonijah’s succession to the throne and won it for Solomon… again, through whom our Savior came. Another woman, another sketchy circumstance, another marriage, another product of that marriage contributing to the very genetic line of the Messiah—all because of the acts of the women involved.

There is one woman left in Matthew’s genealogy as we finally read:

Final Woman in Genealogical Line

15 And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob; 16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. Mary—pure and good, but pregnant outside of marriage.

So we have a pretend harlot who acts in order to conceive as a means to stay in the line of Judah where she was supposed to be, we have a real harlot who, from the heart, loves her neighbor in faith and takes action to protect them who then marries a Jew and brings forth a son named Boaz, and we have another woman who was once married to a gentile who dies, and then she marries this Jew named Boaz and their union brings forth a son, and then these two bring forth a king name David, who unlawfully takes a woman that is a Jew but married to a forbidden Hittite and they bring forth another son named Solomon, and then after several other generations we have a final woman mentioned by Matthew, this one pure and a virgin but she conceives of the Holy Spirit which casts doubt upon her character… and she would bring forth the Messiah.

And who did He marry? Let’s talk about who this Son was married to before becoming incarnate, shall we? When He was the Word of God and was with God and was God.

Going to Deuteronomy 7:6-9, we read the One God speaking to the Nation of

The Relationship Between God and Israel

"For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;

In the face of choosing Israel above all others we read in Exodus 34:14 that God has traits similar to a husband with his wife by ketubah when he says

(for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),

Israel's Betrayal and Consequences

Wives and woman can be beguiled, tricked through words and attention, drawn away and enticed – and God, the Nations husband was a jealous husband. And He professes His loyalty to Israel His bride in passages like Amos 3:1-2 where we read

Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities."

But this was not enough for God’s wife, Israel. And we read in Hosea 4:12

My people ask counsel from their wooden idols, And their staff informs them. For the spirit of harlotry has caused them to stray, And they have played the harlot against their God.

Then we come to Ezekiel 16:8-21 who tells the heartbreaking tale of the marriage God had with Israel, saying

'When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine,' says the Lord GOD. “Then I washed you in water; yes, I thoroughly washed off your blood, and I anointed you with oil. I clothed you in embroidered cloth and gave you sandals of badger skin; I clothed you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your wrists, and a chain on your neck. And I put a jewel in your nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate pastry of fine flour, honey, and oil. You were exceedingly beautiful, and succeeded to royalty. Your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through My splendor which I had bestowed on you," says the Lord GOD. “But you trusted in your own beauty, played the harlot because of your fame, and poured out your harlotry on everyone passing by who would have it. You took some of your garments and adorned multicolored high places for yourself, and played the harlot on them. Such things should not happen, nor be. You have also taken your beautiful jewelry from My gold and My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images and played the harlot with them. You took your embroidered garments and covered them, and you set My oil and My incense before them. Also My food which I gave you—the pastry of fine flour, oil, and honey which I fed you—you set it before them as sweet incense; and so it was,” says the Lord GOD. 'Moreover you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire?

The Broken Covenant

Jeremiah 3:1 says "They say, 'If a man divorces his wife, And she goes from him And becomes another man's, May he return to her again?' Would not that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the harlot with many.

The Faithfulness of God

By the time we get to Hosea, God the Husband has grown tired of her adulteries and says

The Charges Against Israel

Hosea 2:2-7 'Bring charges against your mother, bring charges; For she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband! Let her put away her harlotries from her sight, And her adulteries from between her breasts; Lest I strip her naked And expose her, as in the day she was born, And make her like a wilderness, And set her like a dry land, And slay her with thirst. 'I will not have mercy on her children, For they are the children of harlotry. For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has behaved shamefully. For she said, 'I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my linen, My oil and my drink.' “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, And wall her in, So that she cannot find her paths. She will chase her lovers, But not overtake them; Yes, she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, For then it was better for me than now.’

Finally, in Jeremiah 3:6-8 God is fed up and says

The LORD said also to me in the days of Josiah the king: 'Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there played the harlot. And I said, after she had done all these things, ‘Return to Me.’ But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also.

God's Loving Forgiveness

Hosea, however, speaks of God’s loving forgiveness of Israel his wandering wife, and says

Hosea 2:14-16 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Will bring her into the wilderness, And speak comfort to her. I will give her her vineyards from there, And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; She shall sing there, As in the days of her youth, As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt. “And it shall be, in that day,” Says the LORD, “That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’ And no longer call Me ‘My Master,’

The writer of Hebrews, citing Jeremiah 31 reminds the Jewish believers of that day of when God said

Jeremiah 31:31-34 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, "Know the LORD," for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace. I will remember no more."

When would this reuniting of God be with His first wife whom he divorced? It would commence when the Bride Groom, Jesus of Nazareth, would come to first call the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and then some gentiles, and make them His holy, pure, unspotted from the world “Bride.”

Now think about the ketubah again. And think about how men could take on extra wives by ketubah and concubines but the wives could have NO other lovers. This was a type or picture of Yeshua first coming to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and then later inviting Gentiles into the church/bride. These other sheep which were not of that fold are the other nations that were allowed to come in by faith and heart to join in as the Bride to Christ. And just to seal the deal, her first husband, her first spouse – God, from the Old Testament, would have to die. That is why Paul wrote:

Romans 7:2-3 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as

Marriage in the Bible

Long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.

Bringing this all together, God, though He granted Israel a bill of divorcement because of her adulteries, was still married to her which is why Jesus teaches about marrying another as adultery. But, when His Son came to earth, and He called the Lost sheep of the House of Israel to believe on Him (just like the Nation was called to believe on God and be faithful to Him in the Old Testament) his calling of His bride would look like what Hosea said in:

The Prophecy of Hosea

Hosea 2:19-23
“I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice, In lovingkindness and mercy; I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, And you shall know the LORD. 'It shall come to pass in that day That I will answer,' says the LORD; 'I will answer the heavens, And they shall answer the earth. The earth shall answer With grain, With new wine, And with oil; They shall answer Jezreel. Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth, And I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; Then I will say to those who were not My people, 'You are My people!' And they shall say, 'You are my God!'"

These words echo Jeremiah’s words too. And this was all fulfilled when Jesus came and called and gathered the faithful from out of Israel to be His true Bride and then added others. And guess what, when He died on the cross, His death freed Israel from being married to God any longer and the whole new covenant was then ready to be put in place with Christ being the Bridegroom, with the faithful from Israel and the Gentiles becoming the Bride, and Him taking her to be His own – once and forever more.

The former marriage was over at the death of God on the Cross. And the wrapping up of everything related to that former marriage, day, age and law occurred at the utter destruction of Jerusalem. There will never be a divorce of Jesus from His Bride. But he will take on concubines even other nations, peoples, and gentiles who have a heart of faith. We are all the children of that union – you and I – who continue to join the Kingdom above by faith, and in spirit and truth.

Women Representing Israel's History

Some suggest that the four “quote unquote” evil woman represent four major times in Israel’s history:

The Patriarchs (represented by Tamar and Judah),
The conquest of Joshua (represented by Rahab),
The time of the Judges (represented by Ruth),
And the time of the undivided kingdom (represented by the wife of Uriah, Bathsheba).

Some suggest that they respectively cover the three major divisions of the OT including:

The Law (Tamar/Genesis),
The Prophets (Rahab in Joshua and Bathsheba in Samuel),
And the Writings (Ruth).

I tend to see the inclusion of these woman as illustrating that Yeshua was savior of harlot, pretend to be harlots, gentiles, adulterers, and virgins. Yet all were looking for marriage in one form or another. This teaching is not to ever suggest or condone polygamy, adultery or visiting harlots. In the marriage of Christ and His bride, the choice to love is given both parties, with the law destroyed. So while all in Christ to free to do as they will, those who love their husband will choose to respect him and husbands in Christ will choose to love their wives.

Next week, in the actual telling of Tamar and Judah we will discover one more important element in the story that will wrap this picture up.

Questions/Comments

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Genesis 38.16 –
June 25th 2023