38:15-19
Judah sees Tamar, but she has covered her face and he assumes she is a prostitute. It has to be said that men of the time are not very good at recognising women! It was probably a much more segregated society. There is a lot of sexual immorality these days when we have much more general mixing of the sexes. However, we see that in those days there seems to have been just as much. Judah then wants to spend some time with the “prostitute”! The payment for “services” she takes is a goat, but she also takes something as a pledge. Judah thinks this is so payment is guaranteed, but Tamar wants some means of proving to Judah who he had slept with. Judah seems to think nothing of sleeping with a prostitute, and Tamar seems to think nothing of sleeping with her father in order to become pregnant, which is her aim.
38:20-23
Rather than taking the goat directly, Judah got his friend Hireh to take it. It seems likely that this friendship was not leading Judah in a good direction. On his mission Hireh asks for the “cult prostitute”. Prostitution and idol worship went very closely together. So Hireh returns to Judah announcing that he has failed in his task. Judah thinks he has done his best to pay what he owed and just to let it be.
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