Today’s Bible Translation

Bible translation used in today’s episode: Ch. 36-37 WEB, Ch. 38-39 Darby

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Thoughts

Chapter 36 was mostly genealogy. Chapter 37 was mostly about Joseph, one of the sons of Jacob. Remember Jacob? The one whose very name means deceiver? The manipulator? Right. Joseph was his son. So chapter 37 told what a great little brother Joseph was, and how his brothers loved him so. 

Right. Maybe not. Joseph was a piece of work, wasn’t he? So his brothers sold him into slavery. 

I’m going to skip chapter 38 for just a moment, to say that chapter 39 tells how Joseph became the overseer of the Pharaoh’s household. And then Pharaoh’s wife framed him because he wouldn’t have sex with her.

You have probably heard about Joseph many times. I know that I have heard numerous sermons about him.

But I have not heard many…perhaps no…sermons based on chapter 38. So I want to take a moment to talk about it.

The chapter starts by telling us about an episode in the life of Judah, one of Joseph’s older brothers. He was the one who came up with the idea to sell Joseph instead of kill him. 

It seems that Judah fell for the daughter of a Canaanite man and had three sons by her. And you heard the story, so I don’t have to retell it. But it ends with Judah having twin sons by his daughter-in-law. One of the sons was Zerah, and the other was Perez, or as the Darby translation rendered the name, Pherez.

Now, there is very little in this chapter that one would say would be good role modeling, right? There was disobedience to God’s law on several levels, wasn’t there. God did not want his people to marry Canaanites. When a married brother died, it was expected that one of the brothers would have a child by the widow, so as to raise the child in the name of the dead brother, and Onan rebelled against that. Judah promised to Tamar that when his youngest son was old enough, he would give him to her to marry, but Judah broke his word. And then Tamar tricked Judah into an incestuous tryst with her so that she would finally be able to have a child.

I mean, there’s enough there to write a whole soap opera about! Some sordid events, right?

So why is this chapter even in the Bible? I have a theory. Remember Perez, one of the twins that resulted from the incestuous event between Judah and Tamar? I neglected to tell you that he is in the genealogical line of Jesus! That’s right. 

Again we see that when God chose to be born into the world, He did not look for the “perfect” family. God brought grace to the world through His son, Jesus, while showing grace to a bloodline that few would have expected the Messiah to come from. 

Time and time again we read of how God uses deeply flawed men and women. He decided that He would use human beings to be part of His plan for redeeming the world. That’s pretty cool. But He hasn’t stopped using humans, because his plan is not finished yet. Not every prophecy has been fulfilled yet. 

And so, beloved, just in case you might think that because of the life you have lived, God would never use you, I want you to remember Genesis 38. No matter what your life used to be like, if you have given your life to Jesus, and if you have asked Him to forgive your sins, God wants to use you. And He will use you, if you let Him.