Tamar - Her Life And Times

Tamar - Her Life And Times

PROSTITUTION

As abhorrent as it seems to us, prostitution was actually an expression of worship in the ancient Near East. Pagan peoples often believed that fertility gods granted blessings to those who practiced cultic prostitution. The sacrifices and the payments for the use of a cult prostitute brought huge amounts of money into the coffers of the god or goddess being worshiped. The sexual intercourse itself symbolized the hoped-for fertility and abundance of the harvest.

Judah, a widower who had only recently “recovered from his grief ” (Genesis 38:12), traveled to Timnah during sheep shearing time to watch his own sheep being sheared of their wool. It may be that when he saw Tamar, he took her for a shrine prostitute and had intercourse with her to ensure a good crop of wool. That hardly justifies Judah’s act, but it may shed light on his motives.

Shrine prostitutes usually kept themselves heavily veiled before and during the act of intercourse, an attempt to create the illusion that the participant was actually engaging in the sexual act with the goddess herself. This practice worked in Tamar’s favor, giving her the perfect disguise so that her father-in-law would never recognize her.

Prostitution was the imagery used often by the biblical prophets to describe Israel’s waywardness, their proneness to follow false gods. They saw God as the husband of Israel, her keeper and her true love. Whenever the Israelites turned from the true God to false gods, they “prostituted” themselves. It is a strong picture, but an accurate one, of turning away from the God who truly loved them and was willing to care for them and watch over them, if only they would remain true to him.

Tamar’s story takes us by surprise, repulses us. We recoil from the sordid details of prostitution and find little to inspire us. Yet stories like Tamar’s are what make the Bible so believable. Who would ever invent such a thing, then record it not only in the historical narrative but also in the lineage of the Messiah? Only the God of eternal surprises. The God who takes the unfit, the desperate, and the profane, and uses them to his eternal and holy purposes.