This chapter focuses on Judah, one of Jacob’s sons by Leah. Judah is the tribe of the bloodline of Jesus. It was important for Jesus to come from a pure bloodline, but as you will see, though the blood may be pure, not everyone in Jesus’s family tree is spotless.
Judah left his brothers and married the daughter of a Canaanite man. They had three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. Er married Tamar, but he was a wicked man, so God put him to death. As was the custom, Onan married his brother’s widow, but he refused to have children with her, so God put him to death also. At this point, Judah was afraid that if his third son married Tamar, as was expected, Judah would lose him too, so he told her to remain a widow for a while.
After the death of Judah’s wife, Tamar, tired of being a widow, tricked her father-in-law into sleeping with her, and she became pregnant. One can only imagine the drama this must have created. When Judah found out his daughter-in-law was pregnant, he wanted her burned to death, but that was before he found out he was the father of her unborn child, which turned out to be twins named Perez and Zerah. Zerah tried to be born first, but Perez made way and became the first born. Jesus comes from the line of Perez.
Perfect bloodline, imperfect people. No one is truly righteous except Jesus himself, and God has always used flawed people to carry out his purposes. He would have to since we are all flawed. Why are we all flawed? We live in this world, and the prince of this world is Satan. None of us could escape without the sacrifice of Jesus to cover our sins. Without Jesus, we would belong to Satan. There are only two choices, my friend, and we can only serve one master.