Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #2 in Genesis 38, and we will be reading Genesis 38:2-11:

And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah; and he took her, and went in unto her. And she conceived, and bare a son; and he called his name Er. And she conceived again, and bare a son; and she called his name Onan. And she yet again conceived, and bare a son; and called his name Shelah: and he was at Chezib, when she bare him. And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, whose name was Tamar. And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of JEHOVAH; and JEHOVAH slew him. And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased JEHOVAH: wherefore he slew him also. Then said Judah to Tamar his daughter in law, Remain a widow at thy father's house, till Shelah my son be grown: for he said, Lest peradventure he die also, as his brethren did. And Tamar went and dwelt in her father's house.

We were looking at verse 1 last time.  Judah went down from his brethren, and he pitched his tent near a certain Adullamite named Hirah. 

Then it says in Genesis 38:2:

And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah; and he took her, and went in unto her.

We know that when we are involved in sin and we are not repenting of that sin, it often leads to more sin.  In other words, let us assume – and I think it may be a good assumption – that Judah went down from his brethren because he had a guilty conscience, and he wanted to get away from his family which would have reminded him of the terrible sin he had done.  Where better to go than to Adullam, which was a part of Canaan, and Canaan represents the world. 

So if one goes to the world and strikes up a friendship, and has conversation and activities with the people of the world, not only do they not remind you of your sins, but you can start feeling a little better about yourself because the people of the world have such obvious surface sins, and they are fine with that.  You can tell the difference right away because when you are around God’s people they just do not blurt things out of their mouths, like cursing, taking the Lord’s name in vain, gossiping about others, and so forth.  There is just a world of iniquity that flows forth out of man’s mouth, and it just rolls off the tongue. 

When you are around people who are under the hearing of the Word of God in a family that identifies with God and his kingdom, there is a carefulness of speech, and a carefulness in action that goes along with that.  It all relates to the holiness of God, and the fact that His people live according to the dictates of God.  Of course the sons of Israel had greatly failed in the matter of Joseph, but that does not mean their entire lives were that way.  They probably had a lifestyle that was godly in many respects. 

So Judah wanted to get away from that, and he went down to where this Adullamite lived in the land of Canaan, which was part of the world, and he pitched his tent there.  Then he began to forget his sin, and he started to live his life among the Canaanites.  And because he was there among them, he saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite, and again, the word “certain” is the word “eesh,” so he saw the daughter of a man of Canaan.  Judah went in unto her, which in this case was apparently a marriage.  He married her.  We can even tell this is so because he stayed with her for quite some time, and then we read in Genesis 38:12:

And in process of time the daughter of Shuah Judah's wife died…

Notice that it says the daughter of Shuah died, and you may have gotten the impression that her name was Shuah, but the name Shuah was the name of the certain man of Canaan.  So Judah’s wife died.  It was after that he was tempted with a harlot, and he went in unto her.  There is no indication that he would have done that if his wife had not died.  He was thinking to himself that he was free of marriage.  Who knows what was in his mind?  It was not anything good. 

Again, Judah had married this daughter of the land of Canaan, and that was exactly what God had commanded His people not to do.  We know the history because this has come up a few times earlier in the book of Genesis.  If we go back to Genesis 6, this was one of the big sins that caused God to send the judgment of the flood.  It says in Genesis 6:1-2:

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,  That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

This was the same sin Judah did.  Then notice the statement that immediately follows in Genesis 6:3:

And JEHOVAH said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

That was the timeline set for judgment, and Noah would have 120 years to build the ark, and then would come the flood.

Also, we can go to Genesis 24.  After Sarah died, Abraham was concerned that his son Isaac, the son of the promise, not marry a wife of the daughters of Canaan.  So he commissioned his servant to go to find Isaac a wife in Haran, as we read in Genesis 24:3-4:

And I will make thee swear by JEHOVAH, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell: But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac.

“Whatever you do, do not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan,” Abraham said, and he even made him swear.  This was the patriarch of Isaac and of Jacob, and of course this would have been known in that family.  The story would have been told.  It was the Word of God, and it would have been handed down from Abraham to Isaac.  Isaac would have known because he was waiting at home for the servant to come back from Haran with a wife for him.  Then Rebekah came, and without question, Isaac and Rebekah would have told their twin sons, Jacob and Esau, that this was the way of God’s people; you must be equally yoked in marriage.  You cannot be unequally yoked by marrying the daughters of the land of Canaan.  Their very testimony of what happened to them would have been a witness to their children.  Then Jacob and Esau would have passed that down.

Now when it comes to Jacob and Esau, if we go to Genesis 27 we find that Rebekah went to Isaac after the blessing had been given to Jacob.  And she was petitioning him and letting him know what must happen concerning their son who had received the blessing, and we read in Genesis 27:46:

And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?

In the next chapter, Jacob packed and went to the land of Haran.  Then we read in Genesis 28:6:

When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan;

Now we know who the daughters of Heth are, as they are the daughters of Canaan.

Then we read in Genesis 28:7-9:

And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram; And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.

He was bitter, and he was rebelling against his father.  “I will go marry another wife of the daughters of the land.”  We see that it is not God’s elect who intermarry.  In Genesis 6 the intermarrying between the sons of God and the daughters of the land result in children that have “a name of God.”  They are professed Christians, and not true Christians.  Of course God’s election program prevails, and God could save a child, here and there, from that kind of marriage.  But, overwhelmingly, it leads to apostacy.  It leads to a path away from God.

And now Judah was on that road himself.  He has sinned a terrible sin, and his conscience could not handle remaining around his family where the Word of God was, and he went down from his brethren, and from hearing the Word of God.  He goes into the world, as it were, and there he found a wife.  This wife was fruitful, and she had children.  It says in Genesis 38:3:

And she conceived, and bare a son; and he called his name Er.

The name “Er” is Strong’s #6147, and it is the same as #6145.  If you look in the concordance, you will see the consonants, so it is the same word.  Strong’s #6145 is translated as “enemy,” in 1Samuel 28:16:

Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the LORD is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy?

We also see it in Psalm 139:20:

For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.

So Er’s  name means “enemy,” and he was an enemy of God, given what God said of him in Genesis 38:7:

And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of JEHOVAH; and JEHOVAH slew him.

That is God estimation of Er.  He was wicked.  And that tells us that he was conceived in sin, and born speaking lies.  He was born a rebel and an evil doer.  He was evil because he was a sinner.  And we all qualified in that way as evil, because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  In our natural fallen condition we were all wicked, so Er is a good representative of every sinner, and in his case God had no salvation program for him.

You might wonder, “What particular wickedness did Er do that caused God to slay him?”  The Bible does not tell us.  It just tells us that he was wicked in God’s sight, and God slew him.  And, really, that is sufficient because the world is given to wickedness, and we ourselves have committed great wickedness.  And just saying that someone is wicked just does not seen quite enough reason to us.  And since we are all wicked, why did God slay Er?  But the truth is that the wages of sin is death, and since we all have sinned, God can slay us in a million ways in whatever manner He chooses.  God can take our life through a heart attack, disease, or being hit by a car, or falling off a cliff, or by the hand of our fellow man in shooting an arrow, and so forth.  God determines how and when we will die.  We live on the earth as long as God wants us to live.  Our “breath” is in His hand, and our very life and existence are under His control.  All who have sinned are worthy to die except for a few certain ones, God’s elect, who have had our sin debt paid for, leaving the overwhelming majority of sinners in their sins.  And God can come to any of them at any time, and He can say, “Now it is your turn to die.  Your soul is required of thee this very night.”  Then we could substitute that name for Er’s name, and we could say, “So-and-so was wicked in the sight of JEHOVAH, and JEHOVAH slew him.” 

Of course we do not say that, especially when a loved one dies.  We have respect toward them.  And sometimes they are people we very much cared about, and there is much sorrow.  Nonetheless, that is a true statement concerning the condition of man,  He is wicked in God’s sight, and God can take him in death because of his wickedness at any time.

So the Lord chose this time in the life of Er, who was probably a young man.  His day had come, and God slew him.  He was an enemy of God, and God slew His enemy.  That is how it is for those that are unregenerate in their sins and in rebellion against God.  They are enemies of God, and God is able to take their lives justly and rightly.  There is nothing improper or unrighteous about it.

When we get together in our next study, we will continue to look at this passage, and how it sets up what is to come.  One thing to keep in mind is that Judah had three sons.  Er was slain.  Onan would not raise up seed to his brother, and God also slew him.  But then there was a third son.  We do not normally think of this son Shelah too much because the drama unfolds around Tamar and Judah.  Then there are children born to Tamar, and we concentrate on that.  But we know what actually happened.  Judah held Shelah back from playing the part of the “kinsman redeemer” because it did not work out well for his other two sons.  They were dead.  So he holds him from Tamar.  Finally, and unwittingly, he himself performs the role of “kinsman redeemer,” and in doing so he spares Shelah from marrying Tamar and, perhaps, from dying. 

I think we can see something we see many times in the Bible, and that is the “one third/two thirds” relationship.    One third lives, represented by Shelah; and two-thirds die, represented by Er and Onan.  And it ties right into the fact that the “kinsman redeemer” has stood in the breech and stepped up to replace Shelah from performing the duty of the “kinsman redeemer.”