Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #17 in Genesis 38, and we will be reading Genesis 38:24-26:

And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt. When she was brought forth, she sent to her father in law, saying, By the man, whose these are, am I with child: and she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and bracelets, and staff. And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more.

We have already learned that Tamar is a picture of the elect children of God who produce the pledge of the Spirit.  We spent a good deal of time on that, so I will not go through it again.  If you remember, the word “earnest” in the New Testament, regarding the “earnest of the Spirit” that God gives each one He saves, comes from the Hebrew word “ar-aw-bone',” which is the word translated as “pledge” in our passage.  Just as Judah gave the pledge (the signet, bracelets, and staff) to Tamar, so too God has given His Spirit as a pledge to each one He has saved, guaranteeing that He would complete our salvation.  The full payment would be made at a later time, and that time is the last day of Judgment Day when God finishes the things of this world.

So Tamar produced the pledge after the judgment had been passed to let her be burned, and that is God’s judgment on sin: “For the wages of sin is death.”  In the Bible, fire typifies the wrath of God.  Judah, representing Christ, is pronouncing judgment upon a woman who appears to be an adulteress, and an adulterous woman is to die.  And mankind is married to the Law of God, placing man in the position of an adulterous woman.  But God spared certain ones through His salvation program, and those that are spared are able to produce the “pledge” in the Day of Judgment, which is the “earnest of the Spirit,” and we are sealed in the forehead.  The forehead is the place of the mind, and the heart, mind, and soul are synonymous in the Scriptures.  So in this present time of Judgment Day as the fire of God’s wrath is going across the face of the earth, each one who is truly saved (the great multitude) has that down payment, the pledge of God which is the “earnest of the Spirit,” and it delivers us from the penalty of being burned in the fiery wrath of an angry God.  Instead of being burned, we receive the declaration, “She hath been more righteous than I.”  Tamar was declared to be a righteous woman because she had the pledge. 

Historically, this all fits in with the Law of God regarding the “kinsman redeemer,” but it spiritually refers to becoming saved and having one sins washed away, making the sinner pure and clean and righteous before the eyes of God.  So that is the beautiful picture here of the pledge protecting the woman.

But the pledge not only protected Tamar, but it also protected her children because she had conceived twins.  We do not read too often of twins in the Bible.  We know that Jacob and Esau were twins, and God goes into detail about them.  We can also understand in the life of Joseph that God blessed Joseph by making him two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh.  He was given a “double portion,” compared to his brethren, because his two sons each became a tribe of Israel.  We know that the blessing of God is evident in a “double portion,” and it is a double portion for a woman to have twins.  To have a single child is a blessing, as we know from Psalm 127:3-5:

Lo, children are an heritage of JEHOVAH: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Children are a blessing of God, and it also spiritually points to being fruitful, which identifies with God’s salvation program. 

So as we look at this account historically and spiritually, we know that Tamar had conceived about three months earlier because it says in Genesis 38:34:

And it came to pass about three months after…

It was after her encounter with Judah along the road when she gave the appearance of a harlot, and Judah went in unto her.  So the two sons (twins) were conceived and given life by God at that point.  And it does not say it was exactly three months, but “about three months,” and we know that in a normal birth process there would be six months left to go.  But the fact that is says “about three months,” it could be less than, or more than, three months.  More than likely, it would have been over three months because it is around three months that women began to “show.”  Someone in her father’s house had recognized she was pregnant and told Judah, as it says in Genesis 38:34:

And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom.

So it is speculation, but I think it would have been after three months because a person would want to be sure of that fact.  Someone noticed that the woman was “showing,” but it may not have been very obvious because it was a new “baby bump,” as it is now called.  But at three and a half months, it would become very obvious, especially since they were twins.  So I am guessing that it was over three months, leaning toward three and a half months.  Why is that important?  Everything in the Bible is important, but if it were three and a half months, it would mean that after she was brought before Judah, it can be related to us all being brought before Christ in Judgment Day.

You might say, “What are you talking about?  The Bible does not say the elect will be brought before Christ in Judgment Day.”  Actually, yes, it does say that, if we go to 2Corinthians 5:10:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

This is referring to the elect.  There is no question about it.  How can we be sure?  It is because the Greek word translated as “appear” is the word “fan-er-o'-o,” and it is the same word that identifies with “demonstrating,” or “making manifest,” and used regarding Christ’s manifestation in going to the cross.  In order for Him to “make manifest” something, there had to have been an earlier reality of His paying for the sins of His people at the foundation of the world.  In other words, you cannot perform a demonstration if a thing has not been previously done, and that is the case for all the unsaved who cannot be “made manifest” before the judgment seat of Christ because that would mean they had earlier been brought before His judgment seat in some official way, but that did not happen.  This is the first time that judgment has happened for all unsaved people, but that is not so for God’s elect, because we were judged in Christ at the foundation of the world, and our sins were washed away as Christ paid for them through His death at that time, and we were declared righteous upon His rising from the dead.  In other words, we have already been judged, which is the reason why the Greek word fan-er-o'-o” can only apply to the elect who have already appeared before the judgment seat of Christ, and now we are making a second appearance, a “manifestation,” or “demonstration,” and that is happening now. 

But we all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, just as Tamar had come before Judah along with her twin sons.  The twin sons are not really “noticeable” at this point about three months after conception, but they are there.  It is not just Tamar whom everyone can see, but there are a couple of other people here, and we could say that these two children are evidence of blessing, even a “double portion” of blessing.  How could God paint a picture of a great multitude?  Perhaps He could have blessed her with sextuplets, but we do not read that in the Bible, and it was not God’s purpose to illustrate a truth that way.  On the other hand, twins that were spared being burned along with their mother could picture the great multitude, and the pledge delivered them as well as their mother.

One thing to think about is that if Tamar were three and a half months pregnant, then a normal pregnancy would continue for five to six months more.  That may be significant because of what God tells us in Revelation 9 regarding a figure of time for Judgment Day when He says of the locusts (the elect) in Revelation 9:4:

And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

We talked about that when we discussed the “earnest of the Spirit.”  We were sealed in our foreheads, or in our souls.  They were not to hurt those who do have the seal of God in their foreheads.  They are those who have the “earnest of the Spirit,” or the pledge, which is an invisible and spiritual thing, but God is Spirit and He sees the pledge.  Only those without the pledge will be burnt, or destroyed, as it goes on to say in Revelation 9:5-6:

And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

Verse 6 is indicating there is no salvation, as men cannot find “death in Christ,” or salvation.

So these two boys would be born five or six months after this judgment of Judah, their father.  Judah is the father of these two boys, and he would have burned them along with Tamar, but the pledge delivered them.  Because of that pledge, they would be born.  They would come forth out of the womb. 

This is what we want to look at further when we get together in our next Bible study.  We are going to try to understand some difficult language that appears in verses 27 through 30 concerning the birth of the twins.  I do not understand it completely, but there is a lot of very curious and interesting things that we will see as we finish this chapter.  We will get into this a little more in our next Bible study.