Advent series: Tamar, a Mother of Jesus Christ

 (As published in Clarion)

Tamar: When God Breaks Through the Darkness

“… Judah the father of Perez… by Tamar” (Matthew 1:3a)

 Matthew opens the Gospel not with angels or shepherds but with a genealogy—a long, deliberate chain of names stretching from Abraham to Jesus Christ. It is not a sterile list. It is a doorway into the drama of redemption. Every name carries a story, a wound, a promise. And among the fathers, Matthew includes five mothers. The first is Tamar.

Her story is anything but tidy. It is tangled with grief, injustice, sin, and a shocking twist of providence. Yet it is precisely through this darkness that God presses his promise forward. Genesis 38 records the story.

 Judah’s Descent into the Shadows

Tamar’s story begins with Judah—the man whose name means “I will praise the Lord.” Yet the first thing we see him do is walk away from the place where the Lord was praised. He leaves Hebron, the home of the patriarchs, the heart of the covenant family. He steps out of the circle of promise and into the world of Canaan.

The move looks harmless. Spiritually, it is catastrophic.

Judah settles among the Canaanites. He befriends a man named Hirah, marries a Canaanite woman, and raises three sons in a culture steeped in idolatry. Outwardly, everything prospers—flocks, household, reputation. But beneath the surface, rot spreads.

Judah finds a wife for his firstborn, Er—a Canaanite woman named Tamar. Soon after the marriage, Er is struck down by the Lord for deep wickedness. Tamar becomes a widow.

According to ancient custom, later codified in Mosaic law, the next brother was to marry the widow to raise up offspring for the deceased. Judah instructs Onan to fulfil this duty. Onan takes Tamar, but refuses to give her a child. He uses her body while denying her justice. The  Lord judges him, and he too dies.

Only Shelah remains, but he is young. Judah promises Tamar that Shelah will be hers when he grows up. But fear grips him. He blames Tamar for the deaths of his sons. He sends her back to her father’s house—a humiliating exile, a life in limbo. Because she belongs to Judah’s household, she cannot marry anyone else. Her future is locked behind Judah’s broken promise.

Years pass. Shelah grows up. Judah’s wife dies. Judah’s line—the line through which God promised a King—shrivels. The royal tribe is collapsing. The branch looks dead.

But God is not finished.

 Tamar’s Desperate Resolve

Tamar eventually sees the truth: Judah will never give her to Shelah. She has been wronged, abandoned, forgotten. Yet she knows her covenant rights. She had been chosen to bear the heir of Judah’s firstborn. The continuation of Judah’s line rests on her.

Then she hears the news: Judah is going to Timnah for sheep‑shearing—a season known for feasting, drinking, and ritualized sexual indulgence. Tamar knows Judah. She knows his weaknesses. She knows this is the moment.

She removes her widow’s garments. She veils herself as a cult prostitute and waits along the road.

This is not rebellion. It is not lust. It is a desperate act of justice, a fierce determination—however dimly she understood it—to preserve the line through which God promised a King.

Judah sees her. Lust blinds him. He does not recognize her. They agree on a price—a young goat. Tamar asks for a pledge until payment arrives: his seal, the cord from which it hangs, and his staff.

His identity. His authority. His power.

Judah hands them over. In doing so, he symbolically hands over the very markers of who he is. He sinks fully into the Canaanite world he has embraced.

Tamar returns home, resumes her widow’s garments, and soon knows she is pregnant.

Judah later sends Hirah with the goat, but the woman cannot be found. Embarrassed, Judah lets the matter drop. He thinks the incident is buried.

But God is about to expose everything.

 The Moment of Reckoning

Three months later, Judah receives the report: “Your daughter‑in‑law Tamar is guilty of prostitution. She is pregnant.”

The hypocrisy is staggering. The man who slept with a prostitute now burns with self‑righteous fury.

“Bring her out,” he commands, “and burn her.”

Tamar is dragged out to die. But she carries the evidence—Judah’s seal, cord, and staff. She sends them to him with a single message: “I am pregnant by the man who owns these.”

Silence. Judah’s face drains of colour. His sin, his hypocrisy, his injustice—all exposed.

“She is more righteous than I,” he confesses, “since I would not give her to my son Shelah.”

The Canaanite woman has shown more covenant faithfulness than the covenant man.

And in that moment, something remarkable happens: Tamar becomes the instrument through which God pulls Judah back from the darkness he embraced. She reaches down to where he has fallen, and through her courageous act, the  Lord restores him to the place he was meant to stand. Judah’s house—collapsing under sin—is rebuilt by grace. Tamar, foreshadowing what Christ would do!

Later, in Egypt, when Joseph’s brothers stand before the prime minister of the land, it is Judah who steps forward as the leader he was always meant to be. The man who once descended into Canaanite darkness now offers himself as a substitute for Benjamin. Grace has done its work. Judah, foreshadowing what Christ would do! 

Perez: The Breakthrough of God

Tamar gives birth to twins. During the delivery, one child thrusts out a hand, and the midwife ties a scarlet thread around his wrist. But he draws back, and his brother bursts out first.

“So this is how you have broken out!” she cries.

He is named Perez—“the one who breaks through.”

What a name. What a moment. What a God.

Through Perez, God breaks through Judah’s wickedness. He breaks through Tamar’s suffering. He breaks through Satan’s schemes. He breaks through human sin, human failure, human darkness. He breaks through to carry forward the promise of a Saviour.

Perez becomes the ancestor of David. David becomes the ancestor of Christ. Christ becomes the Saviour of the world.

Judah’s line should have died. Tamar should have been forgotten. The promise should have collapsed.

But God is faithful. He keeps his word. He moves history forward even when his people stumble. He breaks through the darkness with sovereign grace.

And he does it through Tamar—the wronged woman, the courageous seeker of justice, the unexpected instrument of redemption, the mother of the Messiah.

George van Popta © 2026

Unless You Become…

 

Unless You Become…

 John Andersen is a surgeon. A capable fellow, still young for his profession. He goes quietly about his work and is an agreeable man.

This is his story.

He was brought up in a Christian home. His father and mother were simple people, socially as well as financially, but through many sacrifices—and with the help of a scholarship—they managed to pay for his education. His years at secondary school and the first years at university presented no difficulties. Thanks to his keen intellect, he was an excellent catechism student, and in his third year at university, when he was twenty, he made public profession of his faith. But after a while he began to absent himself from church, and within a few years he had become a thoroughly respectable prodigal son. After his marriage he moved to another town, and I lost track of him.

To my surprise, however, I saw him again in church about six months ago. I made enquiries and learned that he had been appointed surgeon at the nearby hospital.

That one visit to church was not his last. From time to time I noticed him among the congregation on Sundays. Then one day I happened to meet him in the street, and I told him how glad I was that he had found his way back to church.

He did not say much about it, only, "Yes, I have changed. I'm glad of it myself."

That, then, is his story.

But there is another story, and I did not hear it until one evening when he came to see me.

We spoke about his work at the hospital, and I enjoyed the precision with which he told his stories, together with the touch of humour that made his seriousness so engaging.

The evening wore on into the night, and at length he became confidential. "The most remarkable case I ever encountered," he said, "was a child. Though that's not really the right way to put it—a remarkable case. It was an ordinary appendicitis."

He fell silent for a moment and gazed thoughtfully ahead.

"I've been meaning to tell you about it, sooner or later."

Then I heard the story of little Wim.

Everything had been made ready in the operating theatre. The doctors, dressed in white, and the nurses stood alert at their posts, all with sterile gauze masks over their mouths. The lamp overhead cast its fierce, pitiless light.

No wonder little Wim was rather frightened when they wheeled him in. He looked around with anxious eyes at all the light and all those white-clad figures. After all, he was only seven years old and completely alone. He had already understood that Father and Mother would not be allowed to come with him.

Still, he was a courageous little fellow, and he asked Andersen, "What are you going to do to me?"

"We're just going to take that pain out of your tummy," Andersen replied kindly.

"But I don't have any pain now."

"No, but if we don't do anything about it, the pain will come back tomorrow, and then you'll become very ill."

This seemed to give him pause. His thin little face grew serious, and his eyes looked intently at the tall man standing over him.

"How are you going to take the pain away, Doctor?"

"You're simply going to go to sleep, Wim. And when you wake up, everything will be over, and you'll soon be well again."

Wim was not entirely reassured.

"But I'm not sleepy at all."

"You will be. I'm going to make you sleep. You won't feel a thing."

Meanwhile an unusual stillness had settled over the operating theatre. Everything was ready, and everyone stood waiting.

"Am I really going to sleep, Doctor?"

"Yes, Wim. Really."

"But then I have to pray first," said Wim.

Before anyone realised what he was about to do, he had slipped off the trolley. He knelt on the floor and folded his little hands on the edge of it.

The theatre fell completely silent.

Andersen, the two assistants, the nurses—not one of them moved.

All eyes were fixed on that small figure in the middle of the room.

Then a child's voice rang out, clear and pure: 

Now I lay me down to sleep,
Pray thee Lord my soul to keep.
Father, I do trust in thee
Wilt thou now abide with me.

Make me free from guilt and spot.
     And my sins remember not
     Should I die before I wake, 
     Pray thee Lord my soul to take.
                                                    Amen

 That was Andersen's story.

"You may think it strange," he said, "or sentimental. But for me it was a turning point. I could not get it out of my mind, because I knew that child was right—and I was wrong.

"There came an evening when I too knelt beside my bed. I was deeply troubled and confused, and there was much in my life that was not as it should have been. But that is another story. That evening I knelt before God and asked exactly the same thing:

 Make me free from guilt and spot.
     And my sins remember not.

Suddenly Andersen rose to his feet, like a man afraid he had allowed someone to look too deeply into his soul. He gave me a slightly guarded glance as he buttoned his jacket.

But at the door he turned and said, "There's a verse somewhere about becoming like a little child, isn't there?"

 (Translation of "Zo Gij Niet Wordt..." De Weleerwaarde Heer, p. 59-62, M. E. Voila, Kok: Kampen)

Be Not Overly Wicked

Chapter 3

Be Not Overly Wicked

Ecclesiastes 7:17 

As for Sister Wanter's appearance, whatever was striking about her was not beautiful, and whatever was beautiful was not striking. Her eyes sat slightly out of level, and her mouth pulled a little to one side, as though two opposing forces had once fought a brief skirmish across her face. Her fair hair possessed neither curl nor wave, and its colour was a dull, whitish yellow, untouched by even the faintest trace of red.

Yet anyone who came to know her better made two discoveries. The first was that, at times—even at forty, and after all she had endured—she could look inexplicably young. Not often, to be sure. But now and then—was it a trick of the light, or did the light come from within?—she seemed almost a young girl again.

The second discovery lay in her eyes. In their depths dwelt a great kindness and a gentle humility, as though sorrow itself had refined rather than hardened her. How else could she have borne her cross?

But now it seemed she wished to cast that cross aside, for her voice sounded soft yet resolute when she said to me: “Now I want to be rid of him, Pastor.”

Wanter was a brute—a drunkard, a womaniser—and everyone wondered how his wife had endured him for so many years. He was violent in both word and deed. As a church, we had little direct dealings with him; he was not a member. Our contact was with his wife and children. Whenever Wanter was out of work or short of money, he sold whatever he could lay his hands on: the radio, the clock, even his wife's coat.

More than once, after one of his violent outbursts had ended in blows, I spoke with her about the possibility of at least a separation from bed and board. I urged her to think of the welfare of her body as well as her soul, and of the children, whose young minds were in danger of being poisoned by their father's example. But she would never consent. She would only shake her head and say, "I cannot do that, Pastor."

Whenever a little one was born, I visited her. Those, I think, were her best days. She lay quietly in bed, as though she had at last earned the right to be tired, and to let others care for her. It was also the only time I ever saw her smile. When I praised the child, or when she held it in her arms, that peculiar smile would appear—almost making her beautiful, and younger than she had ever seemed.

Beside the bed stood the cradle—her pride. And it was a cradle worth looking at: so neatly kept, with spotless curtains that she replaced each time a new birth drew near. Soon enough the baby would be moved to a little cot, and the cradle carried up to the attic, where it would stand beneath an old curtain until the next time. But as long as she lay in bed, the cradle remained beside her. With careful fingers she would adjust the luminescent tulle; or she would lift herself on one elbow to see whether the veil covered the baby’s tiny head properly. Then she would sink back into the pillow, contented and at peace.

But now she sat across from me, and there was something final in her words: “I want to be rid of him, Pastor.”

I could not draw much more from her in the conversation that followed. I asked what had happened, but her answers remained vague: “It cannot go on… I cannot keep it up any longer.”

And when I suggested that she had surely made her decision also for the sake of the children, she only nodded and said, “Yes, yes—for the children too.”

I suspected she was expecting another baby. She did not speak of it, and I did not raise the subject.

The next day her husband came to see me. He had no idea why his wife had suddenly wanted to leave him. He drank a glass of beer now and then, but otherwise was conscious of no wrongdoing, and he asked me to try to persuade her to change her mind. I could see he was confused. He had never expected that she would finally leave him. In him, disbelief and fear wrestled in a manner that was almost painful to witness. His feigned indifference, his selfishness, his hollow promises of improvement—everything about him bore the mark of what was base and ugly.

And indeed, that evening he sent his eldest daughter with the message that Mother wanted to see me. She was a sweet child of thirteen. I kept her talking for a moment.

She already knew: Mother was leaving Father.

Good thing too.

“And now,” I said, “you will surely be extra kind to your mother.”

She nodded vigorously.

“I’m going to help Mother with everything, and if she can pay for it, I may even take sewing lessons.” She leaned closer, confidentially: “It’s Father’s own fault. He shouldn’t have sold the cradle.”

A light went on in me.

“Is Mother so angry about that?”

“No, she only cried terribly, and then she said: now I can’t go on.”

Again I saw before me that beautiful cradle beside the mother’s bed, her brief happiness, her rare smile.

The cradle was sold, for beer money. Yes—but it had been far more than a cradle. It had been the symbol of the only happiness she still knew. In losing it, she lost her last refuge. Now there was nowhere left for her to retreat with the meagre remnants of her love and longing. For a brief time after each birth she had been untouchable, as though she had been enclosed in a garden whose gate was closed to all others.

Now even that sanctuary had been violated, and nothing remained to her but flight.

There is a limit to all things, even to the capacity to suffer.

I could picture her—after the discovery in the attic—sitting at the table with red, tear‑swollen eyes staring into emptiness, her fists pressed against her cheeks, her wispy hair falling over her forehead.

“I can’t go on.”

And so it was. She could not go on.

Translation of “Wees Niet al te Goddeloos—Prediker 7:17” by M. E. Voila, p. 13ff in De Weleerwaarde Heer.” (Kok: Kampen, 1961).

Two additional stanzas for Hy. 25 in the Book of Praise.

See, my true Servant Shall in Wisdom rise, – George vP by George vP

Song on Isaiah 42:10-13

Sing unto the LORD a new song SATB – George vP by George vP