aspalding

Scripture
Today's Chapters:  Genesis 36-38
Today's Key Verses:  ²⁴About three months later Judah was told, "Tamar your daughter-in-law has been immoral. Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality." And Judah said, "Bring her out, and let her be burned."
(Genesis 38:25 ESV)
Observation
In the middle of the Old Testament story of Joseph, while Jacob is mourning (what he believed to be) the loss of his son Joseph, another son, Judah, separated himself from the family group and took up with a Canaanite friend, Hirah the Adullamite (Genesis 38:1). Judah, like Reuben, had previously shown a fair amount of independence during the fraternal negotiations over how to get rid of Joseph, and had suggested that they sell their youngest brother rather than kill him (Genesis 37:27). In Chapter 38, though, he took this independence to the next level. Judah left his brothers to join up with Hirah, and then made matters worse by marrying a Canaanite woman. By the time she died, Judah was steeped in the Canaanite culture, and decided to join the raucous sheep-shearing revelries with his friend Hirah. In the spirit of the festivities, he saw no problem propositioning a woman who might or might not have been a shrine prostitute. He assumed that she was a prostitute because she covered her face, but as Joan Goodnick Westenholz points out in a carefully researched article in The Harvard Theological Review, this was presumptuous on the part of Judah. And he was not dissuaded by the fact that if she was a prostitute, she would have been connected to the pagan religious practices of the Canaanites. In any event, after Tamar later was discovered to be pregnant, Judah attempted to solve two problems (the embarrassment of a pregnant daughter-in-law, and the ongoing dilemma of his duty to have is youngest son father a child by her) with one solution. He attempted to kill two birds, but not with one stone. He ordered her to be burned rather than stoned. Again, this reflected a closer connection to the Canaanite culture (where life was less sacred and where burning a convicted woman was more common) than his Hebrew culture (where the Mosaic law would eventually call for the stoning of adulterers - Deuteronomy 22:20-24 - and would reserve burning as the capital punishment in only a few specific circumstances - Leviticus 20:14; 21:9). Even prior to the Mosaic law, Judah had adopted a lifestyle that involved more permission to behave in sinful ways than the manner of living in which he had been raised by his parents. When he realized that he was the father of Tamar's baby (as a result of his own immorality), he was overcome by the realization that he, not Tamar, was deserving of the most severe punishment.
Application
It is commonly believed that cultural relativism (the idea that different cultures have different mores or customs) entails moral relativism. In other words, it is often presumed that just because a culture permits a behavior, that behavior is necessarily morally acceptable and right. Various cultures at various times and places have adopted a wide range of deviant practices, from infanticide to pederasty to cannibalism to the severe oppression and humiliation of women ... to any number of sexual and social practices. This can be appealing, and can work well for folks who prefer to "shop" cultures and sub-cultures in order to find and adopt cultural mores that suit their fancy. And it worked well for Judah, to the extent that Judah abandoned the mores of Jacob (and the God of Jacob) and took up the ways of the Canaanites. By God's grace, Tamar brought Judah face to face with his own depravity, and in his epiphany of remorse he repented. He suddenly realized that the lifestyle he had permitted himself was in complete opposition to the character and the holiness -- and the law -- of God.
Prayer
Father forgive me ... in Jesus name. Amen.