Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis

  51

  JUDAH AND TAMAR

  (a) Judah parted from his eleven brothers and went southward to lodge with Hirah of Adullam. There he met and married Bath-Shua, the daughter of Shua, a Canaanite, who bore him three sons in the city of Chezib: Er, Onan and Shelah. In due time Judah chose Er a wife named Tamar, also a Canaanite; but God, forewarned of Er’s wickedness, destroyed him, and Judah therefore ordered Onan to raise up children for his dead brother—a kindness later made obligatory by Moses in what is known as the Levirate Law. Onan, however, knew that no child born of such a union would be his, and so ‘threshed within, but sowed without’: that is to say, though often mounting Tamar, he always withdrew before ejaculation—a sin which God punished by death. Judah then said: ‘Pray, Tamar, return awhile to your father’s house at Enaim, and wear widow’s weeds until my youngest son Shelah is old enough to marry you.’ Yet, fearing that Shelah might be suddenly struck dead, like his brothers, Judah postponed the wedding year after year.378

  (b) When Bath-Shua died, Judah, to drown his grief, attended a joyful sheep-shearing near Timnah; and Tamar, aware by now that she was being cheated, saw Judah pass through Enaim on his journey there. She said nothing but walked a little way out of the city, shed her widow’s weeds, shrouded her face in a gaudy veil, came back, and sat down not far from the gate. Judah, returning at dusk, mistook Tamar for a sacred harlot, and asked: ‘May I lie with you?’

  ‘If the pay pleases me,’ she replied, disguising her voice.

  ‘Will a yearling kid be acceptable?’

  ‘It will. Have you any kids here?’

  ‘No, but I could send one from Adullam.’

  ‘In that case, leave me a pledge.’

  ‘Name it!’

  ‘Your seal, cords and staff.’

  Judah gave Tamar the pledge and they lay together; after which she stole off and secretly resumed her widow’s weeds.

  At Judah’s request, his friend Hirah brought the promised kid to Enaim, and asked all he met: ‘Where shall I find the sacred harlot who sat outside the City gate on such and such a day?’ They answered: ‘We saw none such.’379

  (c) Three months later, Judah heard that Tamar had plainly broken her marriage contract, being with child by some man other than Shelah. Obeying the custom of those days, he sentenced her to the stake. But as they led Tamar away, she sent Judah his seal, cords and staff, saying: ‘If I must die, let the Israelite with whom I sinned also die; he will be known by these tokens.’

  Judah, recognizing his own pledges, reversed the judgement. ‘She shall live,’ he pronounced, ‘for I myself am at fault: not having honoured the marriage contract made with this woman on my son Shelah’s behalf.’ So Tamar went free; yet Judah could not touch her again, nor could she marry Shelah.380

  (d) Tamar was brought to bed of twins. One of them thrust out a hand, but no sooner had the midwife tied a scarlet thread around his wrist, than he drew back, and his brother emerged first. She asked: ‘How have you broken through?’, and named him ‘Perez’. Afterwards the first twin re-appeared, the scarlet thread still shining on his wrist; and she named him ‘Zerah’.381

  (e) Like all noble mothers of Israel, Tamar possessed the gift of prophecy. She foresaw that the Messiah would descend from her; and it was this prescience that prompted her to obey the ancient Amorite law by which every girl, before marriage, must spend seven days outside the city gate selling herself to strangers.

  Some say that Judah, in his righteousness, refrained from Tamar at first, and walked on. But she prayed to God, at whose command the Angel of Carnal Desire flew down, whispering: ‘Turn again, Judah! If you despise this woman, how shall Israel’s kings and redeemers be born?’ Judah therefore turned and lay with Tamar—though not before assuring himself that she was unmarried, an orphan, bodily pure, and a servant of the Living God. Afterwards Tamar, rather than tell the messengers who it was that had given her the pledges, left the revelation to Judah. And some say that because of her prudence in this matter—since a righteous person will rather burn than publicly shame a kinsman—Judah not only acknowledged the twins as his own, but continued to cheer Tamar in her widowhood.382

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  1. It has been suggested that Hosea XII. 1 should read: ‘Judah again separated himself from God, while remaining faithful to the q’deshim (“holy ones”)’—meaning that he separated himself from his brothers, and adopted Canaanite religious customs, which included the q’deshim cult. The q’deshim were kelebites, or ‘dog priests’: male prostitutes dressed as women, who remained active under the later Judaean monarchy (1 Kings XV. 12; XXII. 47; 2 Kings XXIII. 7) in quarters assigned to them on Mount Zion itself. The admission of Caleb into the tribe of Judah supports this sense, which is consonant with Judah’s unashamed enjoyment of a q’deshah, or sacred prostitute. The q’deshah’s customary donation of her earnings to Temple funds was forbidden in the same Deuteronomic text as that of the q’deshim (Deuteronomy XXIII. 18). The last Scriptural mention of kelebites occurs in Revelations XXII. 15.

  2. This ancient myth is securely attached to a small area north-west of Hebron, where most of the place names are still preserved. Adullam, the seat of a Canaanite king dispossessed by Joshua (Joshua XII. 15), is Khirbet ‘Id al-Ma, some eleven miles north-west of Hebron; Chezib, or Achzib, or Cozeba (1 Chronicles IV. 22) is ‘En al-Kazbah in the Wadi al-Sant; Timnah, between Bethlehem and Beit Nattif, is Khirbet Tibna. Only Enaim, lying between Adullam and Timnah, has disappeared since Talmudic times, when it was known as Kefar Enaim (Pesiqta Rabbati 23).

  3. The brothers Er, Onan, and Shelah—Er’s sins are not specified, but his name reversed spells wicked in Hebrew—represent three original Judahite clans, the two senior of which declined in importance. By the time of the Babylonian captivity, Er had come to rank as a son, or sub-clan, of Shelah (1 Chronicles IV. 21); while Onan ranked merely as a son of Jerachmeel, son of Hezron (see 50. 3), son of Perez (1 Chronicles II. 26). Perez (or Pharez) had taken precedence even of Shelah; and Zerah, whom he dispossessed at birth, was lost to history. Arab tribal genealogists still record the rise and fall of clans in precisely this manner.

  4. Tamar’s sentence to death by burning antedates Deuteronomy XXII. 23–24, which condemns a wife or betrothed woman taken in adultery to be stoned; burning, in the Mosaic Law, was reserved for erring daughters of priests (Leviticus XXI. 9). Yet no stigma attached in early Judaea to men who lay with prostitutes—so long as these were not the property of a husband, or father, or in a state of ritual impurity; nor did they draw any clear distinction between a zonah, or lay prostitute, and a q’deshah, or sacred prostitute.

  5. It is hinted here that Judah suspected Tamar of being bewitched, like Raguel’s daughter Sara (Tobit VIII), whose six husbands had been mysteriously murdered, one after the other, on their wedding nights, by a jealous spirit. As a woman betrothed to an Israelite, Tamar took grave risks in playing the harlot, but since she handled the matter discreetly and got children from the man who had wrongfully denied them to her, she became exalted in popular tradition and listed with Rachel and Leah as a ‘heroic mother of Israel’ (Ruth IV. 12). Like Ruth the Moabitess, and Rahab the sacred harlot of Jericho (Joshua II), this Canaanite woman became (through Perez) an ancestress of David, and thus of the promised Messiah (see Matthew I. 3–6).

  6. Tamar means ‘palm-tree’, and the palm was sacred to the Love-and-Birth goddess Isis, otherwise known as Ishtar or, among the Arabs, as Lāt or ‘Ilāt. Arabians worshipped the great palm of Nejran, annually draping it with women’s clothes and ornaments. Lat’s son, Apollo of Delos—Lat is now generally equated with Leto or Latona—and the Nabataean God Dusares, were both born under palms: Apollo on Ortygia (Quail Island). In the original story, Tamar will have been a sacred prostitute, unrelated to Judah. She is linked to her sister Rahab by mention of the scarlet thread (Joshua II. 18) which marked their calling; and in the Ethiopian Kebra Nagast, Pharaoh’s daughter seduces Solomon with the help of three locusts (see 29. 3) an
d a scarlet thread.

  52

  THE DEATHS OF ISAAC, LEAH, AND ESAU

  (a) Jacob and Esau continued at peace for the next eighteen years—until their father Isaac died and was buried in the Cave of Machpelah. Only then, some say, did Esau tell his sons of the bartered birthright and the stolen blessing; yet still restrained their jealous rage, saying: ‘Our father Isaac made us swear to live in peace with one another.’

  They answered: ‘While he lived, that was well enough. But now let us gather allies from Aram, Philistia, Moab and Ammon, and root Jacob out of the land that is rightfully ours!’

  Eliphaz, being an upright man, dissented. Esau, however, keenly remembered the injuries Jacob had done him, and felt ashamed to be thought a weakling. He therefore led a huge army against Jacob at Hebron, but found the entire household in sackcloth and ashes, mourning Leah’s death.

  When Jacob took offence at this unseemly breach of their covenant, Esau said: ‘You have always hated and deceived me! There can be no true brotherhood between us until lion and ox are yoked together before the plough; until the raven turns white as the stork; until the boar sheds its bristles and grows a fleece.’383

  (b) At Judah’s instigation, Jacob then bent his bow and shot Esau through the right breast. He was carried away on a pack-beast, to die at Adoraim on Mount Seir. Jacob also shot Esau’s ally, Adoram the Edomite. In the fierce battle that ensued, Jacob’s army would have been overpowered, had not a dust storm sent by God blinded their enemies. The Israelites slaughtered them in droves. A few survivors fled to Maale-Akrabbim, where they again suffered defeat. Jacob laid them under heavy tribute, and buried Esau at Adoraim.384

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  1. Adoram the Edomite is a non-Scriptural figure; his name has been taken from Adoraim, a Canaanite town mentioned in the Amama letters as ‘Aduri’, and rebuilt by Rehoboam (2 Chronicles XI. 9) on two hills—hence the dual form. The large twin villages of Dura al-Amriyya and Dura al-Arjan, some five miles west of Hebron, mark its site. Adoraim was occupied by the Edomites after Nebuchadrezzar’s capture of Jerusalem, but retaken and forcibly Judaized by John Hyrcanus (135–104 B.C.). Maale-Akrabbim (‘Scorpions’ Ascent’), south-west of the Dead Sea, marked the boundary between Judah and Edom (Numbers XXXIV. 4; Joshua XV. 3; Judges I. 36), and was the scene of Judas the Maccabee’s defeat of the Edomites (1 Maccabees V. 3). These Hasmonean Wars have here been put back into the mythical past to fill a narrative gap.

  2. Eliphaz is excused the slaughter which overtook his brothers; probably because the descendants of his son Kenaz were engrafted on the tribe of Judah (see 42. 4). An alternative account of Esau’s death at the burial of Jacob (see 60. h) is supplied by a midrash to justify Rebekah’s fear (see 43. a): ‘Why should I lose two sons in one day?’

  53

  JOSEPH IN THE PIT

  (a) At the age of seventeen, Joseph joined the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah on their father’s pastures. He returned to Hebron after only one month, unable to endure the feverish blowing of an east wind; but told Jacob that shame at his half-brothers’ evil ways had driven him home. Jacob believed Joseph, whom he loved better than all the rest as Rachel’s first-born, and the one most closely resembling himself, both in nature and feature. Joseph had grown very vain, daubed his eyes with kohl, dressed his locks like a woman, walked mincingly, and wore a long-sleeved tunic which Jacob had given him. The brothers jeered whenever their father was not present, and Joseph took revenge by further tale-bearing. Gad, the finest shepherd among them, usually chose the night watch and, if a wild beast attacked his flock, would seize its hind legs and brain it against a rock. Joseph once saw him rescue a wounded lamb from a bear and mercifully end its pain. The brothers dined on this carcase; but Joseph accused them of secretly slaughtering and eating the best rams. In answer to Jacob’s reproof, Gad declared that he never again wished to set eyes on Joseph.385

  (b) When sent out under the charge of Leah’s sons, Joseph once more returned home after a few weeks. There he complained of their consorting with Canaanite girls, and treating their half-brothers like slaves. A dream that he told further increased their hatred of him. He said: ‘We were binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly mine stood upright, while yours formed a ring around it, and bowed obsequiously.’

  They shouted: ‘So you are to rule us—is that the meaning of your dream?’

  Unmoved by their anger, Joseph told them another: ‘Last night I saw the sun, the moon, and eleven stars do homage to me.’ And when Jacob heard of it, he too exclaimed: ‘What dream is this? Must I, and your step-mother, and your brothers, all serve you?’386

  (c) Joseph thereafter remained at Hebron until, one day, his brothers drove the flocks to Mount Ephraim, and stayed so long that Jacob sent him in search of them. At Shechem, Joseph learned of their new camp near Dothan, a day’s march away, and pressed on. When they saw him in the distance, Simeon, Dan and Gad cried angrily: ‘Here comes that boastful dreamer! Let us murder him and hide the body in one of yonder pits. That will put an end to his dreaming.’ Reuben objected: ‘Why bring a curse upon ourselves by spilling innocent blood? Why not leave him in the pit to starve?’ This seemed good advice; so they stripped Joseph of his long-sleeved tunic, and threw him naked into the pit. It had been a well dug in a vain search of water, and was now the home of snakes and scorpions.387

  (d) The brothers sat down to eat, several bowshots away, and presently saw an Ishmaelite caravan approaching from Gilead, with spices, balm and gum-mastic for sale in Egypt. Judah asked: ‘Why let our brother die of starvation, when we can sell him to those Ishmaelites?’ They answered: ‘Not now! Because of his slanderous tongue, he must spend three days among snakes and scorpions.’

  Meanwhile, a Midianite caravan came up behind them. Drawn to the pit by Joseph’s shouts of terror, they hauled him out and afterwards sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. That night, Reuben repented of his cruelty. Unaware that the Midianites had forestalled him, he took a rope and went to rescue Joseph from the pit; there he called his name, but got no answer. He ran back in grief, shouting: ‘Joseph is already dead and, as our father’s first-born, I shall be called to account!’ Issachar then proposed that they should slaughter a he-goat, dip Joseph’s tunic in its blood, and pretend that a wild beast had killed him.388

  (e) Naphtali, their chosen messenger, brought Jacob the blood-stained tunic on the tenth day of Tishri, saying: ‘We found this at Dothan. Is it perhaps Joseph’s?’ Jacob cried: ‘Alas, a wild beast has devoured my son!’ He tore his garments, wore sackcloth, poured dust upon his head, and mourned miserably. When the household tried to comfort him, he drove them off, shouting: ‘Find me Joseph’s body without delay! Also catch the first wild beast you meet, and bring it here alive for my vengeance! God will doubtless deliver the murderer into your hands.’

  They fetched him a wolf, but reported that Joseph’s body was nowhere to be seen. Jacob railed at the wolf: ‘Murderous wretch, do you respect neither God nor me?’ God then granted the wolf human speech. It said: ‘By the life of our Creator, and by your life, my lord: I am innocent! Twelve days ago my own cub left me and, not knowing whether he were dead or alive, I hurried to Dothan in search of him. Now I am falsely accused of murder. Take what vengeance you please! But I swear by the Living God that I have never set eyes on your son, nor has man’s flesh ever passed my lips!’

  Jacob freed the wolf in amazement, and continued his mourning for Joseph.389

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  1. This is evidently a folk tale, like those of the Arabian Nights cycle, or the Milesian cycle borrowed by Apuleius for his Golden Ass, or those collected by Perrault and the Brothers Grimm—all of which combine popular entertainment with worldly wisdom, but have no historical basis. Nevertheless, it has been converted into myth by attaching it to particular localities—Hebron, Dothan, Gilead—and by making tribal ancestors the main characters. It serves as introduction to a longer myth which purports to explain the presence of Hebrews in Egypt during the Hy
ksos period, the rise of a powerful viceroy from among them, and their eventual return to Canaan, where they assumed the leadership of a tribal confederacy.

  Joseph is said to have borne so close a resemblance to his father, and to have been so beloved by him, because the original ‘Israel’ consisted only of the two Joseph tribes and their Benjamite allies (see 47. 5. 7. 8). Political manoeuvres, while these Egyptianized Hebrews were invading Canaan under Joshua’s leadership, are suggested by Joseph’s tale-bearing about the Bilhah and Zilpah tribes; by the peculiar animosity to him of Simeon, Gad and Dan; and by the reluctance of Reuben and Judah to shed his blood.

  2. Dothan, which occurs in the sixteenth-century B.C. list of Canaanite cities subject to Pharaoh Thotmes III, and in 2 Kings VI. 13–14 as a walled city, was built on a mound (now Tell Duthan) thirteen miles north of Shechem, overlooking the Damascus-Gilead-Egypt caravan route. Since Dothan commanded the main northern pass to the hill country of Ephraim, a fateful conference of the Hebrew tribes that already occupied a large part of Canaan—the question being whether to join forces with their Israelite cousins or appeal for armed Egyptian help against them—may well have taken place there. The chronicler does not disguise hostility to Joseph as an intruder and mischief-maker. That the Midianites sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites is an ingenious gloss on a confused passage in Genesis, where the priestly editor has been clumsy in his interweaving of two discordant literary sources: one an Ephraimite document, composed before the destruction of the Northern Kingdom (721 B.C.); the other Judaean, composed later. According to the Ephraimite account, Joseph’s brothers sold him to Midianite merchants; according to the Judaean, they sold him to Ishmaelites. Similarly, in the Ephraimite version Joseph’s protector is Reuben; in the Judaean, Judah. But by the time that the Genesis text was established, Jerusalem had become the new centre of Israel, and Reuben had merged with Judah; so both brothers appear in a good light. Elsewhere, the more murderous parts are allotted to the landless tribes of Simeon, Gad and Dan.