A Lineage of Grace (11 page)

“Let her go!” Judah shouted. When Zimran hit Tamar again, rage fired Judah’s blood. “Strike her again and I’ll kill you!”

Zimran was quick to defend himself. “You’re the one who told us you wanted her burned! And you’ve every right. She’s betrayed you and played the harlot.”

Tamar stood silent now, covered with dust, her face bruised and bleeding. She’d been beaten, dragged, struck, and mocked for
his
sin. Not even her own father and brothers cared enough to show her the least compassion. She stood and said nothing.

Judah’s face filled with heat. When had he ever shown this young woman any pity? She’d suffered abuse from Er, and he’d done nothing to stop it. She’d asked for her rights from Onan, and he’d told her to play the harlot. She’d pleaded for justice, and he’d abandoned her. Not once had she cried out before the city gates and embarrassed him. Instead, she’d humbled herself and dressed as a harlot in order to beget a child for his household. And then, rather than expose his sin, she had returned his staff, cord, and seal privately, protecting his reputation.

Tears filled his eyes. His throat closed. She stood before him, battered and bleeding, head bowed, uttering not a word of self-defense, waiting, still waiting, as she’d always waited for him to be the man he should be.

“When will you do what is right, Judah?”

“She is more in the right than I am because I didn’t keep my promise to let her marry my son Shelah.”

“That may be, but she has no right to play the harlot under my roof!”

Judah looked into the Canaanite’s dark eyes and saw a reflection of his own cold heart. Zimran’s pride was hurt, and he intended to destroy Tamar for it. Judah’s pride broke. Hadn’t he blamed Tamar for the sins of others? Without a twinge of conscience, he had rejected and abandoned her. Only a short while ago, he’d felt exultant at the thought of passing judgment upon her and knowing she’d die an agonizing death by fire. He’d sinned against her a hundred times over and in the full sight of God and never once cared about the cost to her. And now that his sins had caught up with him, he had a choice: Go on sinning or repent.

Tamar lifted her head and looked at him. He saw something flash in her eyes. She could expose him right now. She could pour humiliation upon him unendingly. She could tell how she’d tricked him at the crossroads of Enaim, and make him a laughingstock before her father and brothers and everyone else they might tell about it. Judah knew he deserved public ridicule and worse. He saw her anger, her frustration, her grief. And he understood it. But it didn’t change his mind.

Judah stepped forward and brought his staff up. He held it in both hands, ready to fight. “Take your hands off her, Zimran. The child is mine.” When he took another step forward, Zimran’s face went pale. The Canaanite stepped back, his sons with him.

“Take her then. Do with her whatever you want.” Zimran strode away with a bemused glance over his shoulder. His sons followed him.

Tamar let out her breath and sank to her knees. Bowing her head, she put her hands on his dirty feet. “Forgive me, my lord.” Her shoulders shook and she began to sob.

Judah’s eyes filled with tears. He went down on one knee and put his hand gently on her back. “It is I who need your forgiveness, Tamar.” The sound of her weeping broke his heart. He helped Tamar to her feet. She was shaking violently. One eye was blackened and swelling. Her lip was bleeding. Her clothes were torn, and scratches showed where she had been dragged across rocky ground.

All those years ago when he’d first seen her in Zimran’s field, he’d sensed something about this girl and wanted her for his household. Tamar was a Canaanite, but she was honorable and loyal. She had great courage and strength. Surely it had been God who had led him to choose this girl. She had risked everything to have the child who might preserve his household from complete ruin. He cupped her face. “May the God of my father, Israel, forgive my sins against you!” He kissed her forehead.

Her body relaxed. “And mine against you.” She smiled, and her eyes glistened with tears.

Judah felt a deep tenderness toward her. He walked beside her until she stumbled and then swept her up in his arms and carried her the rest of the way home. Acsah ran to meet them, ready to tend Tamar’s injuries.

Judah waited outside his stone house, his head in his hands. Pride broken, heart humbled, he prayed as he’d never prayed before, pleading for someone other than himself. It was dusk when Acsah finally came out to him. “How is she?”

“Sleeping, my lord.” Acsah smiled. “All seems well.”

Tamar hadn’t lost his child.

“Praise be to God.” He went out among his flock and selected the best he could find—a flawless male lamb. He confessed his sins before the Lord and spilled the blood of the lamb as atonement. Then he prostrated himself before the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and beseeched Him for forgiveness and restoration.

That night Judah slept without nightmares, for the first time in more years than he could count.

* * *

Acsah felt as though she were living on the edge of a cliff and could slip over at any moment. Tamar had changed greatly. She had taken command of the house like a first wife would, and her first order was to have all of Bathshua’s teraphim removed and destroyed. Shelah joined in protesting, but Judah was adamant in his support of Tamar. Acsah pleaded with Tamar, but it was no use. So she poured out libations in secret, praying to the gods of Canaan that she had managed to hide in her basket. Daily she did this out of devotion and love for Tamar, but when Tamar discovered her in the midst of the ritual, she erupted.

“If you won’t obey me, then keep your idols and go back to my father’s house with them!”

“I’m only trying to help you,” Acsah pleaded, weeping. “Please heed the ways of the past. It is for you and the child that I make contracts with the divine assembly!”

“Our way was wrong, Acsah. I am done with the old ways. If you insist on keeping them, you must leave!”

When Tamar took the clay idol and smashed it against the wall, Acsah cried out in fear. “Do you want the spirits to come against you?”

“This child belongs to Judah and to the God of his people. No other gods will be invited to assemble in Judah’s house ever again. If I find you pouring out libations to Baal, I’ll send you away!” Tamar reached out for Acsah, weeping. “Do not make me do it, Acsah. I love you, but we will bow down to the God of Israel and no other!”

Acsah had never seen the girl’s eyes so fierce. Convinced that the early stress of Tamar’s pregnancy had affected her senses, she went to Judah for help. Surely he would want to make sure all the deities were placated and his child protected! But Judah surprised her.

“There will be no other gods in my house. Do as Tamar says.”

Frustrated, Acsah obeyed. She spent the months watching over every aspect of Tamar’s physical health. She prepared Tamar’s meals and told her when to rest. She massaged Tamar’s womb and felt the first kick of the baby. She shared Tamar’s joy, for she loved the girl as well as the child she carried. She would sit and watch Tamar stroke her growing belly with an expression of love and amazement on her glowing face. Tamar was at peace, and Acsah found herself praying that the unseen God would show mercy upon Tamar and upon the child Tamar had risked everything to conceive.

As the time grew near for Tamar to give birth, Acsah asked if she could build a birthing hut. “Yes,” Tamar said, “but do not go by the old ways. Promise me!”

Acsah promised and kept her word. She built the hut herself. She swept the earthen floor and lined it with rush mats, but she didn’t chant or sing to the demons. She didn’t caulk every opening to keep the spirits out. Instead, she offered prayers to Judah’s God, for this was Judah’s child.

God of Judah, protect Tamar. Watch over this birth, and bless this girl who has turned away from everything she ever learned so that she could be among Judah’s people. I beseech you out of love for her. Show her mercy. Let this child she carries be a son who will love her and care for her in her old age. Let him be a son who will rise up in strength and honor.

It was a difficult birth. Acsah half expected it to be, after her ministrations to Tamar revealed the wondrous news that Tamar’s womb held not one but two heirs to Judah’s line.

Acsah had acted as midwife many times in the household of Zimran, but never once had she witnessed a birth as hard as this one. She loved Tamar even more fiercely, for though the girl suffered greatly, she did not complain. Hour upon hour, Tamar strained, sweat pouring from her. She bit down upon a leather strap to keep from screaming.

“Cry out, Tamar! It will help!”

“Judah will hear and be distressed.”

“He’s the cause of your pain! Let him hear! I’m sure Bathshua screamed!”

“I am
not
Bathshua!” Tears came as the cords in her neck stood out. “Sing to the Lord God, Acsah.” She groaned as the pains took hold of her again. Blood and water soaked the birthing rock on which Tamar sat.

And Acsah did sing, desperately. “I will proclaim the name of the Lord! I will proclaim His name and ascribe greatness to Judah’s God, the God of Jacob, the God of Isaac and Abraham.”

“His ways are just.” Tamar gasped for air and then groaned again, her hands drawing up her knees as she bore down.

The first child’s hand came forth, and Acsah quickly tied a scarlet cord around the baby’s wrist. “This one came out first,” she announced.

“Oh, God, have mercy!” Tamar cried out then, and the child withdrew its hand. She ground her teeth and bore down again. Acsah prayed feverishly as she laid hands upon Tamar’s abdomen and felt the two babies struggling within her. They moved, rolled, pressed. Tamar cried out again, and the first child came forth, pushing down and sliding free into Acsah’s waiting hands.

“A son!” Acsah laughed with joy, then gasped in surprise. “What!” It was not the child with the scarlet cord upon his wrist. “How did you break out first? He shall be called Perez,” she said, for it meant “breaking out.”

Within a few moments, the second child was born, another son who was named for the thread soaked in blood—Zerah, meaning “scarlet”—which proclaimed him firstborn, though he had come second.

Tamar smiled wearily. When the afterbirth came, she lay back on the rush-covered earth and closed her eyes with a sigh. “Sons,” she said softly and smiled.

Acsah cut the cords, washed the boys, salted and swaddled them, and placed them in their mother’s arms. Tamar smiled as she looked from Zerah to Perez. “Do you see what the Lord has done, Acsah? He has lifted the poor in spirit. He has taken me up from the dust and ash heap and given me sons!” Eyes shining with joy, Tamar laughed.

* * *

Judah couldn’t speak when he saw Tamar with two babies in her arms. His emotions were so powerful they choked him. Despite his sins, God had given him a double blessing through this courageous young Canaanite woman. He looked at his two sons and their mother, still pale from her travail, and realized he loved Tamar for the woman she was. He not only loved her, he respected and admired her. When Judah had brought her home to Er, he’d never realized how God would use her to bring him to repentance, to change his heart, to change the direction of his life. Tamar was a woman of excellence, a woman worthy of praise!

She looked at him steadily. “I want my sons to be men of God, Judah. I want you to do to them whatever God requires of you so that they will be counted among His people.”

“In eight days I will circumcise my sons, and as soon as you’re well enough to travel, we’ll leave this place and return to the tents of my father.”

Judah watched a trickle of tears seep into the dark hair at her temples. Her eyes were filled with uncertainty, and he guessed why. She had never received tender treatment from Bathshua or his sons. “My father, Jacob, will welcome you, Tamar, and my mother will love you. She’ll understand you and what happened between us better than anyone.” Tamar was still young, still vulnerable. No woman had ever been more beautiful to him than she was now, precious beyond measure. He would make her way smooth.

She raised her eyes. “How can you be sure your mother will accept me?”

“My mother went to my father in veils.”

Her dark eyes flickered in surprise. “Dressed as a harlot?”

“Dressed as a bride, but not the one he wanted.” He smiled ruefully. “Still, my father came to love her in his own way. She bore him sons. I’m the fourth of six.” Judah saw the pulse beat strongly in Tamar’s throat. She looked deeply troubled. It was a moment before he realized why, and the heat rushed into his face. He took her hand and covered it with his own. “Don’t misunderstand me, Tamar, or be afraid of our future together. I will show you the respect a man should have for a wife, but you are my daughter now. I won’t do as the Canaanites do. I promise.” He grimaced, his smile tender and apologetic. “A promise I mean to keep!”

Her dark eyes shone. “I trust you, Judah. You will do what is right.”

Bathed in forgiveness, his throat closed. He gently took her hand and kissed her palm.

EPILOGUE

In the years ahead, Judah was a different man. He renewed his relationship with his father and reasserted himself as leader over his brothers. He led them to Egypt to buy grain so that Jacob’s household could survive the famine that had come upon the land. It was then that God brought him face-to-face with the brother he had forsaken: Joseph.

Unrecognized as Zaphenath-paneah, the pharaoh’s overseer, Joseph tested them. When he demanded that Rachel’s last son, Benjamin, be left as his slave, Judah stepped forward, claimed the disaster upon them was due to their own sins, and offered his life in place of his brother’s. Seeing the change in Judah, Joseph wept and revealed his true identity. He’d long since forgiven them, but now he embraced them. Joseph sent Judah and his brothers back to Canaan with instructions to bring Jacob and his entire household back to Egypt, where they would claim the rich land of Goshen.

Tamar returned with Judah, her sons grown with sons of their own.

On his deathbed, Jacob-Israel gathered his sons around him and gave them each a blessing. Judah received the greatest one of all. The scepter would never leave his hands. From him and the sons Tamar had borne to him would come the Promised One, God’s anointed—the Messiah!

To his last day upon this earth, Judah kept his promise to Tamar. Though he loved her, he never slept with her again.

Nor any other woman.