In an interview with The Paris Review, author Shelby Foote said the writer’s first job is to communicate what it’s like, for instance, to walk out in the rain. However, to do more, to tell a believable story, expressing what life is and what it’s all about, Foote said, “You got to complicate it up.” Foote’s friend, novelist William Faulkner, similarly said that a story will always struggle to express the full truth of the human condition if “it ain’t complicated-up enough.”
The book of Genesis has no issue with stories that are “complicated-up enough.” Take the tangled tale of Judah and Tamar found in its 38th chapter.
The story of Judah and Tamar is so peculiar, so complicated-up, that it cannot be fully rendered here. In fact, as the chapter opens, some might prefer to step out, treating what follows as an intermission offered within the dramatic saga of Joseph. And yet, because the account in chapter 38 swirls around the very person from whom the name of the Jewish people is derived, it would seem to be of some vital consequence.
Robert Burt, the author of In the Whirlwind: God and Humanity in Conflict, agrees. He believes, in fact, that Judah is the hidden hero of the entire book of Genesis.
Judah was the real thing: a wrongdoer ready to admit his injustice (to Tamar)...(but) also a victim of wrongdoing, he forgave (his father, Jacob) when no forgiveness was sought. In the whole of Genesis no one displays these qualities with the same force and clarity than does Judah...If there is one hero in Genesis, it is Judah—whose status as such is confirmed by Jacob’s blessing.
This makes some sense, as Judah’s life answers one of the seminal questions the book of Genesis introduces—how human beings might find a path back toward God after the fall. Though the story is “complicated-up” by Judah’s own sordid behavior, the full contour of his life credibly traces out real possibility and real hope for the human race, compromised and complicated as we are.
If you read the whole account, as I’d encourage you to do, what will strike you first is that those who wrote and gathered up the stories of Genesis didn’t whitewash anything. This is unvarnished stuff, but embedded in the disturbing but ultimately redemptive arc of Judah’s life, is something that resonates as truth, and it’s this: We human beings are capable of making some real bone-headed moves, but there’s also a divine spark inside us. We eventually see it kindled up, then ignited in Judah.
Though far more powerful than his daughter-in-law Tamar, after egregiously violating his responsibilities to her, Judah publicly confesses that she is more righteous than he. While we may not be inclined to pat Judah on the back for acknowledging the obvious, his realization represents real progress in the story of the human race. Right and wrong is being elevated above the prerogatives of power, which is to say we’re being further introduced to the concept of justice.
From his beginnings as a disfavored son of Jacob who ring-leads the harm done to his half-brother, Joseph, to his wretched victimization of the resourceful Tamar, to his climactic confession, Judah learns. He changes, and as the text returns to Joseph’s story, Judah’s subsequent willingness to courageously offer his life for his younger half-brother (Benjamin) in order to save their father, Jacob, from further grief, he’s proven he’s evolved. Perhaps Jacob even comes to understand this, because for his final act, he anoints Judah as the head of the tribe from which the Messiah shall rise.
Judah, your brothers will praise you...your father’s sons will bow down to you. You are a lion’s cub, Judah; you return from the prey, my son. Like a lion he crouches and lies down, like a lioness—who dares to rouse him? The scepter will not depart from Judah...until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his.
This, in the end, is the profound hope of the story of Judah. That there is a way back to God. The way back begins with an understanding of righteousness and a confession of sin. It continues with a change in behavior, then fully flowers through the work of God, with the appearance of Messiah, the Christ.
God—Thank you for trusting us with the complicated truth. Amen.
