It is interesting, isn't it, that the software engineers at OpenAI decided to program a mediating buffer of wokeness and censorship into ChatGPT, instead of not doing that and reminding users that the results of any query will necessarily reflect content filtered from the open web and clearnet, which is bound to return results that are wild and wooly if not totally crazy.
In fact, I think AI will (if it hasn't already) create a very corrosive effect on our culture when people begin to believe that the information they are receiving is being produced by a sentient, fair, nonpartisan, and even virtuous being.
These are really thought provoking connections. I’ve been reflecting on them for some time now. Reading Deuteronomy 25:11-12 as a symbolic presentation of levirate marriage and Genesis 38 in connection with that, I have been especially drawn to the image of Tamar taking Judah’s staff. Tamar taking Judah’s staff is her taking hold of his genitals. Note in verse 23 that Judah does not want the supposed theft of his staff to be discovered publicly, “lest we be shamed.” It is a response that encourages an understanding of the staff as a token of his nakedness. Deut 25:10 resonates strongly with Judah’s concern here. The consequence of the refusal to provide Levirate marriage was to suffer a symbolic uncovering of nakedness (the loosening of the shoe from the foot) and a public shaming, “His name shall be called… The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.” This is exactly the kind of public exposure and shame that Judah fears. Judah provides a note of expiation which is significant in this regard. He says “I sent this kid.” He speaks more than he knows. He is guilt free of the debt he has promised her. The narrative has already noted that Tamar conceived by Judah. He has fulfilled the Levirate duty and so is not under the penalty as it is described in Deut 25:10.
We should appreciate the veiled request that Tamar was making then in v. 17,18. The pledge which she requests of him is not just that she will give him a child, but a child which will inherit in his house and with all the seals of his authority, a prince (the goat itself being a symbol frequently associated with the kingship).
I can see a number of practical insights to be gleaned from Deut 25:11-12 in relation to Levirate marriage. Taking or seizing the genitals of your husband’s assailant, is understood symbolically as forcing levirate marriage upon an unwilling brother. Interestingly the verses just before these, allow for a man not to act as a levir, albeit not without shame. This law then helps to reinforce the point that a widow ought not force a man into a levirate marriage, or at least not without consequence. You note that in the Biblical narrative this is played out symbolically when Tamar’s “firstborn” has a scarlet thread tied around his hand, and the “cutting off” historically occurs when Zarah’s descendant Achan is stoned. The consequence of forcing an unwilling participant into a levirate marriage then is a kind of cutting off of the strength (hand) of the woman. I can see this both as a natural consequence and one which a judge would want to keep in mind as he sought to impose a ruling.
I think the essential point of this law, in relation to levirate marriage, may be to secure the right/authority of the levir-brother above the might of the woman. His authority is not to be superseded in being forced into the levirate marriage, nor when he is within the marriage. As the law against muzzling the ox permits the levir to enjoy the fruits of his labor, this law confirms the privileges and authority of a father and husband on the levir. Where the woman’s might is wielded against it, it must be cut off. She shall not seize his staff.
I start to see connections from here to Eve taking the forbidden fruit, to her declaration “I have gotten a man from the Lord,” to Abraham’s refusal to take even a shoelatchet. The connections are more remote, but maybe in that regard help to point towards something more fundamental. But my response is already too long and I want to make a comment on the significance of Judah dwelling in Chezib and other significant features.
This sequence follows on the heels of Judah casting Joseph into the pit and deceiving his father. This episode carries on with what might be understood as consequences for Judah’s actions, especially demonstrating, in a number of ways, how his judgement is impaired. This is both a natural consequence of his actions and a judgment from God. Taking the stranger to be one’s wife is an act of folly according to the book of Proverbs. When Judah takes a Canaanite woman to be his wife we should see that he is not seeing things clearly. It is a prominent and recurrent theme in the book of Proverbs but for brevity and to highlight a particularly resonant theme I’ll refer specifically to Prov 23:27 “For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.” Just after we see Judah cast Joseph into the pit, we are witnessing Judah on a descent into the pit. We’re witnessing a kind of retributive justice. Judah is being deprived of the discretion and judgement that would keep him from the strange woman. He is being left to his own lust, his own desires, his own judgement to go down into death.
You’re no doubt aware of the many echoes of death throughout this chapter and so I will forgo highlighting them. It is enough for now to recall how the narrative is situated in an air of death. Chezib contributes to the characterization of this narrative setting and connects it to the previous episodes. Judah is descending into the pit of death, and land lyings. In some respects it is a land built out of his own deception. He has obscured his own vision and judgement and is standing on unsure ground. There is something rotten underlying these births which should typically be an occasion for rejoicing. I think the location Chezib is only noted at the end because not only does it cast a shadow on all the brothers’ births from such a culminating position, but especially marks out Shelah as the point at which the deception will occur. We should have this in mind when Judah tells Tamar to wait until Shelah is grown. The narrator gives us every reason to believe that Judah is lying to Tamar and helps set the stage for her restorative deception.
Tamar is a complex figure. As a strange woman she is like a pit and her name Tamar, palm tree, brings up the connotation of judgement. We see the reality of judgement see play out before her as God puts Judah’s wicked sons to death. And so we see judgment being brought upon Judah in proxy as his sons are put to death. I think we should be aware of the dramatic irony that is playing out. As Judah gives his sons to the strange woman, he is in effect casting them into the pit. His commandment to Onan should be especially ironic, after he acted to blot out his own brother's name in the previous episode. Onan spilling his seed on the ground, is another image that brings me back to Joseph, cast into the pit. So Judah and his house, like Joseph, are cast into the pit and Tamar, as both the pit and palm tree, is the one who brings the moment of judgement upon them. As judge however she will act to restore the house of Judah after it has been brought low, like the tree that brings forth sweet fruit out of the low desert place.
Her work as judge can be seen in parallel to what Joseph will do for Judah and his whole father’s house. When he tells her to live as a widow in her father’s house, he is in effect casting her out and condemning her to live out her days in mourning, much as Joseph was cast out of his father’s house and spent his days mourning after him. The narrative makes clear Judah’s motivation in casting her out derives from his worry that that judgement, death, will come upon his son also. He recognizes that she is one who brings judgment and so casts her out. It should be noted that Joseph, on that fateful day, was sent out to bring a report (37:13). And his brothers know he is one who brings evil report (37:2). In casting away judgement, however, they cast away their own lives. And judgement will need to be restored to them. She, like Joseph, will veil herself before Judah’s eyes. The veiling is an important reason why she is able to conceive by Judah. Of course, Judah would not approach her if he knew who she was, but also we might assume that he would die, like his sons, were she not veiled. Her veil, like veils elsewhere in the bible, keeps judgement from spilling out. Furthermore, the divestment of the vestments of his authority is a kind of inverse parallel to the act of veiling. He must make himself naked before judgement. Just as he and his brothers will, when they bow before the veiled Joseph and suffer themselves to be his prisoners and servants as he listens privily to them. This kind of veiled judgement offers a space and a time to be tried and bring forth the fruits of repentance. Judah and his brothers will be tried in a manner similar to the way in which he is tried here with the death of his two sons. They are tried on two occasions, leaving Simeon in prison and then again by the death of Benjamin. Notably, it is Judah who offers himself in place of Benjamin. Just as he acts here, albeit unwittingly, in place of his son, Shelah. He brings forth fruit fit for repentance. That is something of what we should see in the account of Tamar giving birth. The hand that reaches out but then pulled back. It is a movement of repentance. So judgement is returned to him and his house through the means of a veiled and foreign perspective.
“Shua” , the name which is used to refer to Judah’s wife, is significant and frames the first half of this movement and narrative episode. It is related to the verb shuah to sink, to be bowed down or humbled, and the noun shiha meaning pit. It might also be related to the noun shua’ meaning, “a cry”. We can see how this plays out in the first half of the episode with its themes of death and the pit as Judah is brought low. And which comes to an end as the narrator says, “after a long time… when Judah had finished his mourning.” After he has finished his cry comes the redemptive act as Tamar veils herself and seeks to restore her and his house. She restores his vision and judgement as he recognizes the tokens of his authority, he is returned to a knowledge of himself and pronounces her more righteous he. I actually find the use of Shelah’s name here and throughout the episode as reminiscent of the word selah in the Psalms. The whole narrative kind of acting as a prayer for deliverance and restoration is closed with him saying “Shelah.” The narrator also gives some indication of his repentance by noting a movement away from sin. The birth of Perez and Zerah is the perfect image and crowning of the fruits of his repentance.
This narrative should also prepare us to understand why Jacob trusts Judah with Benjamin and why the birthright does not pass from him. Judah brings forth fruit fit for repentance in some sense. We should see, I think, in Judah’s three sons being passed over, something of his three elder brothers who are passed over. The pattern also of the sons being passed over but restoration returning to and through the father is also something that becomes more particularly realized in David. The security of the Davidic dynasty and likewise the staff in Judah, comes as a promise through repentance. The House of David may wax and wane, but it will always be restored, for the sake of the father and their example of repentance.
My thoughts return to one more point in regard to Deut 25:11-12. This law may be the grounds out of which Jesus offers his radical alternative to covetousness, "If thy right hand offend the, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." It was profitable that Judah's sons should be cast off. It was profitable that Joseph should be cast off, "though ye meant it for evil, God meant it for good." And "Scandals are bound to occur, but woe to the man through whom they come!" Christ is the hand cast off, the stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, that precedes us into death and hell and is become the foundation stone against which the gates of hell cannot prevail, the hand of our salvation to rescue our whole body from sin.
No doubt more than you asked, but its been a pleasure reflecting on this story and the connections you've laid out.
I'm thrilled at the prospect of a Reactionary Humanism series! I majored in cognitive science at Berkeley and the majority of courses exploring the philosophy of mind were...depressing ("Aristotle...teleology...silly anthropomorphizing ancients"). The intellectual and spiritual turmoil that environment created sent me on a search for, among other things, an alternative philosophical frame that I knew existed before I had the words to describe it. Long story short, I ended up finding what I was looking for in the Christian postliberal universe. Excited to hear more of your thoughts, Susannah.
Great photos too
With regard to ChatGPT—
It is interesting, isn't it, that the software engineers at OpenAI decided to program a mediating buffer of wokeness and censorship into ChatGPT, instead of not doing that and reminding users that the results of any query will necessarily reflect content filtered from the open web and clearnet, which is bound to return results that are wild and wooly if not totally crazy.
In fact, I think AI will (if it hasn't already) create a very corrosive effect on our culture when people begin to believe that the information they are receiving is being produced by a sentient, fair, nonpartisan, and even virtuous being.
These are really thought provoking connections. I’ve been reflecting on them for some time now. Reading Deuteronomy 25:11-12 as a symbolic presentation of levirate marriage and Genesis 38 in connection with that, I have been especially drawn to the image of Tamar taking Judah’s staff. Tamar taking Judah’s staff is her taking hold of his genitals. Note in verse 23 that Judah does not want the supposed theft of his staff to be discovered publicly, “lest we be shamed.” It is a response that encourages an understanding of the staff as a token of his nakedness. Deut 25:10 resonates strongly with Judah’s concern here. The consequence of the refusal to provide Levirate marriage was to suffer a symbolic uncovering of nakedness (the loosening of the shoe from the foot) and a public shaming, “His name shall be called… The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.” This is exactly the kind of public exposure and shame that Judah fears. Judah provides a note of expiation which is significant in this regard. He says “I sent this kid.” He speaks more than he knows. He is guilt free of the debt he has promised her. The narrative has already noted that Tamar conceived by Judah. He has fulfilled the Levirate duty and so is not under the penalty as it is described in Deut 25:10.
We should appreciate the veiled request that Tamar was making then in v. 17,18. The pledge which she requests of him is not just that she will give him a child, but a child which will inherit in his house and with all the seals of his authority, a prince (the goat itself being a symbol frequently associated with the kingship).
I can see a number of practical insights to be gleaned from Deut 25:11-12 in relation to Levirate marriage. Taking or seizing the genitals of your husband’s assailant, is understood symbolically as forcing levirate marriage upon an unwilling brother. Interestingly the verses just before these, allow for a man not to act as a levir, albeit not without shame. This law then helps to reinforce the point that a widow ought not force a man into a levirate marriage, or at least not without consequence. You note that in the Biblical narrative this is played out symbolically when Tamar’s “firstborn” has a scarlet thread tied around his hand, and the “cutting off” historically occurs when Zarah’s descendant Achan is stoned. The consequence of forcing an unwilling participant into a levirate marriage then is a kind of cutting off of the strength (hand) of the woman. I can see this both as a natural consequence and one which a judge would want to keep in mind as he sought to impose a ruling.
I think the essential point of this law, in relation to levirate marriage, may be to secure the right/authority of the levir-brother above the might of the woman. His authority is not to be superseded in being forced into the levirate marriage, nor when he is within the marriage. As the law against muzzling the ox permits the levir to enjoy the fruits of his labor, this law confirms the privileges and authority of a father and husband on the levir. Where the woman’s might is wielded against it, it must be cut off. She shall not seize his staff.
I start to see connections from here to Eve taking the forbidden fruit, to her declaration “I have gotten a man from the Lord,” to Abraham’s refusal to take even a shoelatchet. The connections are more remote, but maybe in that regard help to point towards something more fundamental. But my response is already too long and I want to make a comment on the significance of Judah dwelling in Chezib and other significant features.
This sequence follows on the heels of Judah casting Joseph into the pit and deceiving his father. This episode carries on with what might be understood as consequences for Judah’s actions, especially demonstrating, in a number of ways, how his judgement is impaired. This is both a natural consequence of his actions and a judgment from God. Taking the stranger to be one’s wife is an act of folly according to the book of Proverbs. When Judah takes a Canaanite woman to be his wife we should see that he is not seeing things clearly. It is a prominent and recurrent theme in the book of Proverbs but for brevity and to highlight a particularly resonant theme I’ll refer specifically to Prov 23:27 “For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.” Just after we see Judah cast Joseph into the pit, we are witnessing Judah on a descent into the pit. We’re witnessing a kind of retributive justice. Judah is being deprived of the discretion and judgement that would keep him from the strange woman. He is being left to his own lust, his own desires, his own judgement to go down into death.
You’re no doubt aware of the many echoes of death throughout this chapter and so I will forgo highlighting them. It is enough for now to recall how the narrative is situated in an air of death. Chezib contributes to the characterization of this narrative setting and connects it to the previous episodes. Judah is descending into the pit of death, and land lyings. In some respects it is a land built out of his own deception. He has obscured his own vision and judgement and is standing on unsure ground. There is something rotten underlying these births which should typically be an occasion for rejoicing. I think the location Chezib is only noted at the end because not only does it cast a shadow on all the brothers’ births from such a culminating position, but especially marks out Shelah as the point at which the deception will occur. We should have this in mind when Judah tells Tamar to wait until Shelah is grown. The narrator gives us every reason to believe that Judah is lying to Tamar and helps set the stage for her restorative deception.
Tamar is a complex figure. As a strange woman she is like a pit and her name Tamar, palm tree, brings up the connotation of judgement. We see the reality of judgement see play out before her as God puts Judah’s wicked sons to death. And so we see judgment being brought upon Judah in proxy as his sons are put to death. I think we should be aware of the dramatic irony that is playing out. As Judah gives his sons to the strange woman, he is in effect casting them into the pit. His commandment to Onan should be especially ironic, after he acted to blot out his own brother's name in the previous episode. Onan spilling his seed on the ground, is another image that brings me back to Joseph, cast into the pit. So Judah and his house, like Joseph, are cast into the pit and Tamar, as both the pit and palm tree, is the one who brings the moment of judgement upon them. As judge however she will act to restore the house of Judah after it has been brought low, like the tree that brings forth sweet fruit out of the low desert place.
Her work as judge can be seen in parallel to what Joseph will do for Judah and his whole father’s house. When he tells her to live as a widow in her father’s house, he is in effect casting her out and condemning her to live out her days in mourning, much as Joseph was cast out of his father’s house and spent his days mourning after him. The narrative makes clear Judah’s motivation in casting her out derives from his worry that that judgement, death, will come upon his son also. He recognizes that she is one who brings judgment and so casts her out. It should be noted that Joseph, on that fateful day, was sent out to bring a report (37:13). And his brothers know he is one who brings evil report (37:2). In casting away judgement, however, they cast away their own lives. And judgement will need to be restored to them. She, like Joseph, will veil herself before Judah’s eyes. The veiling is an important reason why she is able to conceive by Judah. Of course, Judah would not approach her if he knew who she was, but also we might assume that he would die, like his sons, were she not veiled. Her veil, like veils elsewhere in the bible, keeps judgement from spilling out. Furthermore, the divestment of the vestments of his authority is a kind of inverse parallel to the act of veiling. He must make himself naked before judgement. Just as he and his brothers will, when they bow before the veiled Joseph and suffer themselves to be his prisoners and servants as he listens privily to them. This kind of veiled judgement offers a space and a time to be tried and bring forth the fruits of repentance. Judah and his brothers will be tried in a manner similar to the way in which he is tried here with the death of his two sons. They are tried on two occasions, leaving Simeon in prison and then again by the death of Benjamin. Notably, it is Judah who offers himself in place of Benjamin. Just as he acts here, albeit unwittingly, in place of his son, Shelah. He brings forth fruit fit for repentance. That is something of what we should see in the account of Tamar giving birth. The hand that reaches out but then pulled back. It is a movement of repentance. So judgement is returned to him and his house through the means of a veiled and foreign perspective.
“Shua” , the name which is used to refer to Judah’s wife, is significant and frames the first half of this movement and narrative episode. It is related to the verb shuah to sink, to be bowed down or humbled, and the noun shiha meaning pit. It might also be related to the noun shua’ meaning, “a cry”. We can see how this plays out in the first half of the episode with its themes of death and the pit as Judah is brought low. And which comes to an end as the narrator says, “after a long time… when Judah had finished his mourning.” After he has finished his cry comes the redemptive act as Tamar veils herself and seeks to restore her and his house. She restores his vision and judgement as he recognizes the tokens of his authority, he is returned to a knowledge of himself and pronounces her more righteous he. I actually find the use of Shelah’s name here and throughout the episode as reminiscent of the word selah in the Psalms. The whole narrative kind of acting as a prayer for deliverance and restoration is closed with him saying “Shelah.” The narrator also gives some indication of his repentance by noting a movement away from sin. The birth of Perez and Zerah is the perfect image and crowning of the fruits of his repentance.
This narrative should also prepare us to understand why Jacob trusts Judah with Benjamin and why the birthright does not pass from him. Judah brings forth fruit fit for repentance in some sense. We should see, I think, in Judah’s three sons being passed over, something of his three elder brothers who are passed over. The pattern also of the sons being passed over but restoration returning to and through the father is also something that becomes more particularly realized in David. The security of the Davidic dynasty and likewise the staff in Judah, comes as a promise through repentance. The House of David may wax and wane, but it will always be restored, for the sake of the father and their example of repentance.
My thoughts return to one more point in regard to Deut 25:11-12. This law may be the grounds out of which Jesus offers his radical alternative to covetousness, "If thy right hand offend the, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." It was profitable that Judah's sons should be cast off. It was profitable that Joseph should be cast off, "though ye meant it for evil, God meant it for good." And "Scandals are bound to occur, but woe to the man through whom they come!" Christ is the hand cast off, the stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, that precedes us into death and hell and is become the foundation stone against which the gates of hell cannot prevail, the hand of our salvation to rescue our whole body from sin.
No doubt more than you asked, but its been a pleasure reflecting on this story and the connections you've laid out.
Fascinating thoughts! Thanks for sharing them.
I'm thrilled at the prospect of a Reactionary Humanism series! I majored in cognitive science at Berkeley and the majority of courses exploring the philosophy of mind were...depressing ("Aristotle...teleology...silly anthropomorphizing ancients"). The intellectual and spiritual turmoil that environment created sent me on a search for, among other things, an alternative philosophical frame that I knew existed before I had the words to describe it. Long story short, I ended up finding what I was looking for in the Christian postliberal universe. Excited to hear more of your thoughts, Susannah.