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Extra Websites
Paintings by
April Aharon
Marc
Chagall
Hans
Collaert
Aert de Gelder
Kevissimo
School of Rembrandt
Emile Vernet
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A Determined Woman
Judah fobbed her off, and eventually she decided her only option was to
trick him. She disguised herself as a prostitute, took up a position at the side of the road
, and solicited him when he passed.
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The Bible Story
Then
Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the
duty of a brother-in-law to her; raise up offspring for your brother.’
But since Onan knew that the offspring would not
be his, he spilled his semen on the ground whenever he went in to his
brother’s wife, so that he would not give offspring to his brother.
Read more...
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'When Tamar went into
labor, she was the center of a tight little band of
kinswomen and villagers: a midwife, her relatives and her
friends. The pain was not a shock. She knew what to expect, having seen other village
women giving birth...'
Giving
birth in ancient times
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'Under
Levirate law, Er’s younger brother Onan was obliged to give
Tamar a child. But he refused outright to do so, probably
because any child born to Tamar would carry Er’s name, not
Onan’s, and when their father died the child would inherit the
dead brother’s portion of the estate. He practiced the same
form of birth control, and Tamar did not conceive.'
Tamar,
Bible woman
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Judah
and Tamar Read
Judah and Tamar's story here
 Things
to know about Tamar and Judah
-
The
story of Tamar and Judah seems astonishing - such an erotic
tale to be included in the Bible! But sexual intrigue
is not the point of the story. It illustrated an important
law that dealt with inheritance and the protection of women,
who in the early period of Israel's history could not
inherit property in their own right. If their husband died
and they were childless, they could be left destitute. The
Levirite Law avoided that contingincy. If a man died
childless his widow could insist that the dead man's brother
have sexual intercourse with her until she conceived a male
child, though whom she could inherit. A complicated but
practical arrangement.
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Judah and Tamar, Emile Vernet, 1840
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Tamar covers her face, a custom followed
by prostitutes at the time, but leaves her leg and breast bare, so that
Judah has no doubt of the offer she is making. They are discussing
price, and he offers his staff and seal as payment.
Emile Vernet was most famous for
his battle scenes - he was a young man at the time of Napoleon, and was
intrigued by the glamour and horror of war. Interestingly, when he
painted a scene from the Bible he chose an incident in which a type of
battle is being fought - between Tamar and Judah, for her right to a
child. She manages to outfox the enemy (in the form of the patriarch
Judah) by using the weapons available to a woman. The picture
itself is extremely suggestive - click for an enlargement to see
how Vernet made Judah's sexual intentions all too plain to see.
Bible reference:
Genesis 38:15-18
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Loss and
Deception:
the Story of Judah and Tamar, Kevissimo, 2009
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Judah
and Tamar lie together post coitus.
Each of the
two people depicted here is lost in thought. They do not communicate
with each other. Neither shows joy or happiness. Tamar looks outwards
towards the viewer, with whom she seeks to communicate. As far as she is
concerned, the necessary deed is done.
Despite the sex he has just had, Judah shows no emotion. His expression
is introspective, joyless. Even the comfort of a woman's body cannot
help him forget the loss of his wife and two sons.
Bible reference:
Genesis 38:15-18
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Tamar, April Aharon, 1990
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Tamar shows her body,
but not her face. Her vulnerable body is
almost lost in the swirl of emotions around her. But she is the central
focus of a chaotic landscape. The paleness of her skin
accentuates her fragility. She does what she does because she must,
because it is forced on her.
Bible reference:
Genesis 38:15-18 |
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'Thamar',
engraving, Hans Collaert, Antwerp, late 1500s
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Tamar ('Bella Thamar') stands triumphant
at the entrance of Enaim, on the road to Timnah. The staff and ring she
holds signal that she has been successful in her mission to seduce Judah.
The man and woman (Tamar and Judah) in the background of the engraving
suggest that coitus has already occurred -see also the neo-Latin inscription
at the bottom of the image.
Most images of this story show
Tamar and Judah together, and in fact there is a small picture of them
together at the back of the main figure. This engraving is unusual in
that it shows Tamar (Thamar) standing alone. She has accomplished her
mission and can now await the birth of her child - or rather children,
since she will bear twin sons to Judah. How interesting that none of the
paintings or engravings of Tamar ever seem to show her children....
Bible reference:
Genesis 38:19
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Judah and Tamar, Aert de Gelder, 1700
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Tamar has covered her face so that her
identity is hidden, but her clothes are disheveled, suggesting her task
as a prostitute. The suggestive angle of Judah's staff leaves no
doubt as to the activity underway.
Rembrandt was Aert de Gelder's
teacher, and his influence is clear in this painting. Rembrandt himself did a
charming drawing of Tamar and Judah sitting by the roadside apparently doing nothing more
suspect than chatting. It is unusual for
a painting of this period to be as robustly explicit about sex as this.
Bible reference:
Genesis 38:15-18
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Tamar,
Judah's Daughter-in-law, Marc Chagall,
1960
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Judah approaches Tamar who stands
waiting for him on the road. In Chagall's picture she is dressed in the
veil of a prostitute, with only her tiny, alarmed eyes peeping out at the
top. But her
clothing is flamboyantly red-orange, the color of sexual passion - the
archetypal 'scarlet woman'.
This lithograph was produced in the
same year that Chagall designed the stained glass windows for the
synagogue of the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. The windows
depict the twelve tribes of Israel, suggesting that Chagall at this time
was preoccupied with Jewish biblical history, and saw the encounter
between Tamar and Judah as a pivotal moment in the story of the Jewish
people.
Bible reference:
Genesis 38:15-18
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Judah and Tamar, School of Rembrandt, circa 1650-60
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Tamar, disguised as a prostitute, offers
sex to her unsuspecting father-in-law Judah. He has been recently
widowed, and shows no reluctance.
This painting has been attributed
to a number of painters, including Gerbrand van den Eeckhout and Aert
van der Gelder. The subject of Tamar and Judah was popular among
Protestant painters of the time. The Bible story's message was that people
have a right to act
independently to obtain justice for themselves, and it therefore made an
oblique reference to the political events at that time, as the
Netherlands and other newly Protestant countries tried to break away
from Catholic Spain.
Bible reference:
Genesis 38:15-18
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How
Far Should a Woman Go?
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'She
disguised herself as a prostitute and solicited him when he
passed.'
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Tamar was Judah's
daughter-in-law, the widow of his two elder sons. Both her husbands 'spilt
their seed', practising a form of birth control, so Tamar was childless
- a terrible fate for a Jewish woman.
To change her fortune she demanded
her right to a Levirate marriage (marriage to her deceased husband's
brother, in this case Judah's youngest son Shelah). But
Judah fobbed her off, and eventually she decided her only option was to
trick him. She disguised herself as a prostitute, took up a position at the side of the road
, and solicited him when he passed. Recently widowed, Judah
was happy to comply, and Tamar conceived.
As payment for services
rendered, Judah promised to
send her a goat from his flock. In the
meantime he left his tribal leader's staff, his personal seal and cord
as a pledge.
Some months later when it became obvious she was pregnant
Tamar was branded as a whore, and condemned by the unsuspecting Judah to
burn to death.
At this dramatic moment Tamar produced the staff, seal
and cord, proving that Judah himself was the father of her child. In
time, she gave birth to twin boys, whom she named Perez and
Zerah.
Through Perez she became the direct forebear of King David.
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The
Bible text
Genesis 38
The
Story of a Determined Woman
Judah's
Family
1
It happened at that time that Judah went
down from his brothers and settled near a certain Adullamite whose name
was Hirah.
2There Judah saw the daughter of a
certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; he married her and went in to
her.
3She conceived and bore a son; and he named
him Er.
4Again she conceived and bore a son whom
she named Onan.
5Yet again she bore a son, and she
named him Shelah. She was in Chezib when she bore him.
6Judah
took a wife for Er his firstborn; her name was Tamar. 7But
Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord,
and the Lord put him to death.
Tamar's husband
Onan masturbates
8 Then
Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the
duty of a brother-in-law to her; raise up offspring for your brother.’
9But since Onan knew that the offspring would not
be his, he spilled his semen on the ground whenever he went in to his
brother’s wife, so that he would not give offspring to his brother.
10What
he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord,
and he put him to death also.
11Then Judah said to
his daughter-in-law Tamar, ‘Remain a widow in your father’s house
until my son Shelah grows up’—for he feared that he too would die,
like his brothers. So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.
Tamar
Takes Action
12 In course of time the wife of Judah,
Shua’s daughter, died; when Judah’s time of mourning was over, he
went up to Timnah to his sheep-shearers, he and his friend Hirah the
Adullamite.
13When Tamar was told, ‘Your
father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep’,
14she
put off her widow’s garments, put on a veil, wrapped herself up, and
sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. She
saw that Shelah was grown up, yet she had not been given to him in
marriage.
15When Judah saw her, he thought her to
be a prostitute, for she had covered her face.
16He
went over to her at the roadside, and said, ‘Come, let me come in to
you’, for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.
The Pledge
She said, ‘What will you
give me, that you may come in to me?’
17He
answered, ‘I will send you a kid from the flock.’ And she said, ‘Only
if you give me a pledge, until you send it.’
18He
said, ‘What pledge shall I give you?’ She replied, ‘Your signet
and your cord, and the staff that is in your hand.’ So he gave them to
her, and went in to her, and she conceived by him.
19Then
she got up and went away, and taking off her veil she put on the
garments of her widowhood.
Judah
is Puzzled
20 When
Judah sent the kid by his friend the Adullamite, to recover the pledge
from the woman, he could not find her.
21He asked
the townspeople, ‘Where is the temple prostitute who was at Enaim by
the wayside?’ But they said, ‘No prostitute has been here.’
22So
he returned to Judah, and said, ‘I have not found her; moreover, the
townspeople said, “No prostitute has been here.”
’
23Judah replied, ‘Let her keep the
things as her own, otherwise we will be laughed at; you see, I sent this
kid, and you could not find her.’
Tamar
is Pregnant, and Condemned
24 About three months later Judah was
told, ‘Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the whore; moreover she
is pregnant as a result of whoredom.’ And Judah said, ‘Bring her
out, and let her be burned.’
25As she was being
brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, ‘It was the owner of
these who made me pregnant.’ And she said, ‘Take note, please, whose
these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.’
26Then
Judah acknowledged them and said, ‘She is more in the right than I,
since I did not give her to my son Shelah.’ And he did not lie with
her again.
Tamar
has Twin Sons
27 When the time of her delivery came,
there were twins in her womb.
28While she was in
labour, one put out a hand; and the midwife took and bound on his hand a
crimson thread, saying, ‘This one came out first.’
29But
just then he drew back his hand, and out came his brother; and she said,
‘What a breach you have made for yourself!’ Therefore he was named
Perez.
30Afterwards his brother came out with the
crimson thread on his hand; and he was named Zerah.
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