We have told the story already of Isaac's marriage to Rebecca and the birth of Esau and Jacob - and of their families. Isaac's marriage is monogamous and straightforward, although only having a set of twins rather than many other children is interesting. If we are talking about family history, we could surmise that this was a difficult birth and she could have no others. But it is of course a story, a legend of the origin of Jacob/Israel and Esau/Edom. The birth names are not eponymous, as Jacob's sons are (Reuben, Gad, Judah etc). Isaac's twins were not named Israel and Edom. We therefore have to assume that a Jacob/Esau tradition has a different function and origin from an Israel/Edom cycle. A legend of human origins in the ancient world (Noah, Shem, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Esau, Jacob) has been reshaped into a Hebrew origins schema.
Dinah.
Dinah was the only named daughter of Jacob, a daughter of Leah. Her name means 'judgement', and may be symbolic in this story. In Genesis 34, the extended family group arrived near Shechem and bought some land from the local chief, Hamor (whose name means 'ass'). His son the prince (named Shechem) liked and had sex with Dinah, wishing to marry her. Nothing happened until Jacob's sons returned home from pasturage. The term 'dishonour' is used several times, and 'violate'. Given the racialised nature of the broader story, the likely implication is that the proposed intermarriage was the real problem. Dinah, in their racialised view, had been violated by a foreigner, a descendant of Ham, an enemy. Tricks are a continued theme in Genesis. Jacob and his sons go along with the proposal, and require that the male inhabitants of Shechem are circumcised. This is in line with views of the exilic or postexilic Genesis writer on circumcision sealing the covenant (Genesis 17, see below) so the Shechemites were told that this ritual would make them kin. But the writer had laid out a strict kinship line which excluded swathes of the regional population, and circumcision without the kinship was an empty symbol. When the men were weak with infection and the injury, Dinah's full brothers Simeon and Levi slaughtered them, and all the brothers pillaged the city. The act was described as vengeance for dishonour. Although Jacob did not approve, his objection was that the act had brought potential trouble to the family. Dinah was rescued from her marriage. An occasion that might be relevant to the time of the Genesis writer was the period of Ezra and Nehemiah, when intermarriage was forbidden and Hebrews/Jews required to put away (divorce) their non-Jewish spouses.
Tamar
The next sexual story is in Genesis 38. The line of Judah was significant for Davidic kingship. Judah had separated from the rest of the family and married a Canaanite woman, Bathshua. They had three sons, Er, Onan and Shelah. Tamar became Er's wife. The scene is thus set. Judah had married into a Canaanite group, and therefore laid himself open to dire consequences. Er was declared as a bad sort, and he died, leaving Tamar childless. She then took the initiative. She should be married to son number 2, Onan to raise children for Er, who would then be firstborn. Onan was none too pleased, because that would mean that his children and line would not inherit. He went along with the sex but not the procreation - he made sure that his ejaculate fell outside Tamar's body, on the ground, so that she could not conceive a child. Then he too died, and Tamar should have been passed to the third son, Shelah, who was too young at that time. Privately, Judah feared that Tamar was jinxed and Shelah would suffer the same fate. So he declared her a widow, to live single in his household. This Tamar fought against, as we will see.
This is an interesting story of a woman's status. Being a widow was not good. Widows and orphans are elsewhere named as two needy groups. To understand the story so far, we need to understand the law/custom of levirate marriage given in Deuteronomy 24. The law may be based on a custom, or be a specific expediency. Probably the former as it is found elsewhere in tribal societies. It requires that a dead man's widow, should he die childless, be able to have his child fathered by the next of kin, her brother-in-law (levir is Latin for brother-in-law). She would then have a child to look after her in old age. As the child would be deemed the child of the dead brother, he would be heir. That should benefit both the biological father and the legal (dead) father. It is an example of the family being more important than individuals within it. We may today take a dim view of women being passed down rather than being free to redesign their lives with new desired relationships, but women in tribal society were handed tough choices.
Tamar considered the levirate marriage/relationship as her right. She would be a wife and not a widow, she would be productive, a mother, and not a liability. In doing so, she was honouring a Hebrew custom which put the family first. The story declares both Er and Onan to be wicked. This intermarriage had produced two evil sons. It is the daughter-in-law's role to put things right. (We are not told if she is Hebrew or Canaanite: it is not deemed significant enough to be declared).
She planned a trick of her own. She dressed up as a harlot to tempt Judah by the roadside. Being veiled, her identity could be concealed. Judah readily obliged and impregnated her. She had the child she was entitled to. All she had to do is prove that it was Judah's. This was no easy task, and the penalty of her failure was death, for dishonouring the family. She therefore had taken from Judah proofs of his identity. There is a tense scene when Tamar is condemned by Judah for dishonouring the family and can declare and prove that the child was his, so she was actually honouring the family that Judah's sons had dishonoured. This is breathtaking brinkmanship, and breathtaking double standards from Judah. His tumble in the hay was OK, her tumble in the hay was worthy of death. In the end, Judah has to admit defeat. "You are more right than me, since I did not give you to my son Shelah", he said. So legitimate twins are born, Perez and Zerah. Zerah means 'red', much like Esau: his hand came out first, and was given a scarlet cord; but it went back in and his brother came out first. The story of their birth resembles the birth of Esau and Jacob; clearly the birth of twins was a common legend theme. The twins were not significant tribal names. This story was not associated with tribal aetiology. The main purpose of the story was to clarify family control of marriage as illustrated by the levirate. This was part of a strong public move towards genealogy and family survival. It is the flipside of the condemnation of intermarriage: as intermarriage divided and weakened Judaism, so family solidarity strengthened it. Judah was saved from the consequences of intermarriage by a doughty maid who reset the tribe on track. Tamar produced Judah's true heir Perez.
Interesting to note the difference between a sacred prostitute and a common harlot. Judah, before having sex with what he thought was a sacred/cultic prostitute, negotiated a price, a sheep, and left with her a token of his identity (in modern terms, a credit card or passport) as security for its delivery. He then tried to deliver the sheep, but failed to find her. He felt justified because he had tried hard to meet his obligation. Tamar was not condemned for acting as a sacred prostitute. On the other hand, the thought of Tamar acting as a common harlot was enough to land her with the death penalty.
That this is a Judah story is significant for the Genesis writer. Before the exile, Judah was the main Israelite population left. Judah was taken into exile, and Judah was the core of the returning population. This story complains of intermarriage, and states that the legitimacy of the line was dependent on a determined and feisty woman. Matthew's Gospel will pick this up again in due course in his genealogy of Joseph (sic!) and Jesus.
Joseph and Potiphar's wife.
Joseph had been sold into slavery in Egypt and came to the house of Potiphar. He rose to the position of trusted slave, a major domo. His master's wife kept asking him for sex, which he stoutly refused, the narrator indicating that adultery is wicked. One day she grabbed him and he ran out with his modesty but without his cloak, and the woman accused him of attempted rape. So he was thrown into prison where he again rose to an entrusted position.
The foreign woman was held up in biblical books as something to be feared, sexually forward and ready to entrap unwary men. Slaves had no voice and no appeal. Joseph therefore appears in this story as vulnerable. Later, of course, he is summoned to sort out a national emergency, and holds power when his brothers come asking for help, but this is later. This story is an object lesson in sexual temptation and a folk condemnation of adultery.
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