Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #3 in Genesis 38, and we will be reading Genesis 38:5-10:

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.

I will stop reading there.  Last time we discussed the name “Er,” which means “enemy.”  We also discussed “Shelah,” and that name can mean “happy” or “prosper.”  It says in Psalm 122:6:

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.

The word “prosper” is the same word translated as “Shelah.” 

I also mentioned that Judah had three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah.  We read in the account here that God slew Er, and then God slew Onan.  We will talk about that later.  That left only his third son Shelah, and Judah was afraid to give Shelah to Tamar after seeing what happened to his first two sons.  He did not want to lose him also, so that set the stage for the rest of the chapter, and what will happen is that Judah himself would perform the role of “kinsman redeemer.”  What Er and Onan failed to do, Judah will accomplish, although unwittingly.  He will be the one that will raise up seed to his own son.  And the result will be that Shelah is spared that marriage, and he will not be the one to raise up seed to his brother.  Instead, it would be Judah.

Judah can be a type and figure of the Lord Jesus Christ.  If we go to Genesis 49, God had arranged for Jacob to call his sons, and when he had called Judah, it says in Genesis 49:8-12:

Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes: His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.

Judah means “praise,” and Judah is the one his brethren will praise, and the sceptre will not depart from Judah.  It is a Messianic reference to the Lord Jesus Christ who would be born of the tribe of Judah, just as David, a great type of Christ, was of the tribe of Judah. 

So when Judah, the son of Jacob (Israel), steps in, so to speak, and takes the place of his son Shelah, it is a picture of what the Lord Jesus Christ did on behalf of His people.  Again, Shelah’s name identifies with being happy or prosperous, as all of God’s people are prosperous because God has had mercy in saving us.  This means that Shelah was “delivered,” in a sense.

Then we see the one-third/two-thirds relationship.  Two sons perish, and one son survives.  The one-third represent the elect, and the two-thirds represent the ungodly.  We could go to many verses to show how God often uses this ratio, but we will just go to Zechariah 13:8-9:

And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith JEHOVAH, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, JEHOVAH is my God.

Once again, what we see here is two sons that are cut off and died because God has killed them, and one son lived.

We are not going to turn there, but if you go to 2Kings 1 there is the account of the three captains and their fifties.  Two captains and their fifties were killed by fire coming down from heaven, and the third captain and his fifty were spared alive.  Again, it is one-third/two-thirds.

We see that also in view here in our passage.  Again, we see in Genesis 38:6 that Judah took a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.  And the name Er means “enemy.”  Then it says in Genesis 38:7:

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

Notice that God is emphasizing in verses 6 and 7 that Er was the firstborn, and yet he died, and another received the blessing.  It was not Er who got the blessing of the firstborn son, and that reminds us of a few different historical accounts in the Bible, starting with Adam.  Adam was the firstborn son of God, as far as this world is concerned, and Adam had the blessing of the firstborn.  He was given dominion over the earth, and God was blessing him greatly, but he lost that blessing.

And we know there came a “second Adam,” according to 1Corinthians 15:45-49:

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

The first man was Adam, a natural man.  He was slain by God, was he not?   Adam sinned, and that was also Er’s problem.  God told us that he was wicked in the sight of JEHOVAH and JEHOVAH slew him.  What happened to Adam?  Adam was wicked in the sight of JEHOVAH and JEHOVAH slew him.  God said, “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”  To die is to be slain.  He was slain in his soul in that day when he sinned in the Garden of Eden, but the workings of death were in his body, and he would later also die physically.

So God slew the first man, but raised a “second man,” or what He also calls the “last Adam,” who is the Lord Jesus Christ.  That is a figure we see repeated in a few different places in the Bible.  We will go to one more passage in Genesis 27 where Isaac was about to give the blessing to his firstborn son Esau, who is also called Edom because he was “red” when he came out.  And “Edom” is the same as “Adam.”  It is a Hebrew word that has the very same consonants, so it is the same word.  We read in Genesis 27:18-19:

And he came unto his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I; who art thou, my son? And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy firstborn; I have done according as thou badest me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me.

This was Jacob deceiving his father at his mother’s instruction and with her help.  His father was deceived, and he gave Jacob the blessing of the firstborn, thinking that he was Esau his firstborn.  Then Esau came in from the field in Genesis 27:30-35:

And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. And he also had made savoury meat, and brought it unto his father, and said unto his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his son's venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac his father said unto him, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn Esau. And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who? where is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? yea, and he shall be blessed. And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father. And he said, Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing.

The firstborn lost the blessing.  That is a consistent theme throughout the Scriptures.  Adam lost the blessing.  Esau lost the blessing.  We could even add that Rueben, the firstborn son of Jacob, lost the blessing.  And now Judah’s firstborn Er lost the blessing.  God slew him and he died.

This happens repeatedly in the Bible to teach us that man cannot obtain the blessing of the firstborn, which represents the blessing of God and the right to live eternally before God.  The natural man comes first, and the spiritual man is second.  The natural man cannot attain unto that blessing because of his sin.  That is why Adam failed.  That is why Er failed.  He was wicked in the sight of JEHOVAH.  That is why Esau failed.  He despised his birthright.  It is why Reuben failed, who went up to his father’s bed and lay with one of Jacob’s concubines, which was a grievous sin.  Sin causes the “firstborn” to fail always. 

But it is through the “second Adam,” or the “last Adam,” who is the Lord Jesus Christ, that the people of God can be counted for the seed in Christ, and Christ receives the blessing of the firstborn.  And, actually, He is the firstborn, the firstborn from the dead, as the Bible tells us.   He is the firstborn Son of God from the foundation of the world.  He is before all, in truth.  You know, God arranges these things in the Bible concerning the sons of men and who is the firstborn in order to teach us about man’s sinful rebellion, and the judgment of God because of it.

It goes on to say in Genesis 38:8:

And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.

By the way, I looked up the meaning of the name of Onan, and it is unclear what it means.  But lets us keep reading in Genesis 38:9-10:

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.

Onan married Tamar.  He went into the marriage bed, and he understood the purpose of this was to raise up seed to his brother, which would mean that the firstborn son in this relationship between Onan and Tamar would be as though he were the son of Er.  Er was the firstborn who had married Tamar before God slew him.  Onan did not like that idea.  He was not happy with that, and we can know that because it says, “…he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.” 

It is interesting that we read of other biblical information about this idea of being a “kinsman redeemer,” which is what it means to raise up seed to your brother.

By the way, this is also brought up in the New Testament.  We find it in Matthew 22:23-32:

The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

He answered the Sadducees who were trying to use this scenario as some kind of argument against the idea of the resurrection.  They thought they would catch Christ through this scenario of seven brothers who had married one woman, just like Er married Tamar and then died.  According to the Law of Moses, his brother was to go in unto his wife to raise up seed, but he also died, and so forth.  And the point of the Sadducees was that in heaven she would have seven husbands, so whose wife would she be?  The Lord pointed out that there is no “marrying or giving of marriage” in heaven.  We will be like the angels in that sense, and the focus will be on our spiritual marriage to the Lord Jesus Christ.

This reference to the Law of Moses is in the book of Deuteronomy, and when we get together in our next study we will go there and read what the Lord had Moses to write concerning a man who dies without having any seed.