Hi Mike,

I would like to personally thank you for putting together this website. Your works have helped to reveal so many truths to me. The Lord has truly blessed you, and may He continue to do so.

Although I have read and seem to understand the scriptures and explanations given in your writings, when I try to read my bible alone I have problems deciphering the spiritual message/meaning behind certain stories or verses.

Please could you explain the spiritual application of the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38.

Why do brothers have to ‘go in and perform the duty of a brother-in-law’? Why did Tamar pretend to be a prostitute?

I have missed the message here, so please respond when you find the time. I appreciate that you’re very busy.

God bless,

S____

Hi S____,

Thank you for your encouraging words of gratitude, and thank you for your question concerning the spiritual significance of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38.

I have already written about the spiritual significance of this story. Please read this link, and if you still have questions, then feel free to get back to me:

Who Spiritually Is Tamar?

You ask specifically :

“Why do brothers have to ‘go in and perform the duty of a brother-in-law’? Why did Tamar pretend to be a prostitute?”

If you can see this ‘Tamar’, as well as the ‘Tamar’ who was the daughter of King David (2Sa 13), as being the persecuted, lied to, and abused Christ and His Christ, called “the Lord and His Christ” (Act 4:26; Rev 11:16), then you will understand the message of this story. Christ is the brother who raises us up and gives us seed even after we physically die.

Isa 53:8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

Act 8:33 In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth.

Luk 20:37 Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
Luk 20:38 For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.

He does this because He loves us and wants only to make us to prosper, unlike Judah or Amnon who were only pleasing themselves. Tamar is a direct grandmother of Christ, who is the son of God. God’s elect are called “Jerusalem above”, and it is only our own spiritual seed who are God’s true children. All others are ‘sons of the bondwoman’.

Gal 4:22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
Gal 4:23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
Gal 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
Gal 4:25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Gal 4:28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
Gal 4:29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
Gal 4:30 Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
Gal 4:31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

Judah, who signifies God’s rejected anointed in the story of his relationship with his daughter-in-law, Tamar, is “he that is born after the flesh” of verse 29.

Those who lie to us, abuse and persecute us as the daughter of the king, are always those who claim to be the son of the king and who claim to be Abraham’s seed and who claim to be God’s people. However, their deeds reveal them to be the seed of their father the devil.

Joh 8:37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.
Joh 8:39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
Joh 8:40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.

Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

The story of Tamar’s subtlety in tricking her father-in-law carries with it the same message as the story of Rebekah, who lied to Isaac, and Jacob, who stole Esau’s blessing. Neither story is told to encourage us to be dishonest or to be thieves. But like the story of the unjust steward who was commended by Christ for his resourcefulness, the story of Tamar deceiving her lying father-in-law, Judah, carries with it the same message.

I hope that between what is in that FAQ and what I have given you here you can see why Tamar deceived Judah, and what is meant by “raise up seed to your [dead] brother”.

Your brother in Christ,

Mike