Legends of the Jews, Volume 2 — Chap. 1-05 – Joseph

In his mourning Jacob put sackcloth upon his loins, and therein be became a model for the kings and princes in Israel, for David, Ahab, Joram, and Mordecai did likewise when a great misfortune befell the nation.

[73] JUDAH AND HIS SONS

When the sons of Jacob saw how inconsolable their father was, they went to Judah, and said to him, "This great misfortune is thy fault."

Judah replied: "It was I that asked you, What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood?

and now you say the sin lies at my door."

The brethren continued to argue: "But it was thou that didst say, Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and we followed thy advice.

Hadst thou said, Let us restore him to his father, we had heeded these words of thine as well."

The brethren hereupon deprived Judah of his dignity, for hitherto he had been their king, and they also excluded him from their fellowship, and he had to seek his fortune alone.

[74] Through the mediation of his chief shepherd Hirah, he became acquainted with the Canaanitish king of Adullam, Barsan by name.

Though he was well aware of the corruption of the generations of Canaan, he permitted passion to get the better of him, and took a Canaanite to wife.

The Adullamite king gave a banquet in his honor, at which his daughter Bath-shua poured the wine, and intoxicated by wine and passion Judah took her and married her.

[75] Judah's action may be compared to that of the lion who passes a carrion and eats of it, though a cur preceding him on the way had refused to touch it.

Even Esau came in time to acknowledge that the daughters of Canaan were wicked, and the lion Judah must needs take one of them to wife.

[76] The holy spirit cried out against Judah when he married the Canaanite woman of Adullam, saying, "The glory of Israel went down in Adullam."

[77] The first-born son of Judah from this marriage was named Er, "the childless," a suitable name for him that died without begetting any issue.

[78] At Judah's desire, Er married Tamar, a daughter of Aram, the son of Shem, but because she was not a Canaanitish woman, his mother used artifices against her, and he did not know her, and an angel of the Lord killed him on the third day after his wedding.

Then Judah gave Tamar to his second son Onan, the marriage taking place before the week of the wedding festivities for Er had elapsed.

A whole year Onan lived with Tamar without knowing her, and when, finally, Judah uttered threats against him on that account, he did, indeed, have intercourse with her, but, giving heed to the injunctions of his mother, he took care not to beget any children with her.

[79] He, too, died on account of his iniquity, and his name Onan "mourning," was well chosen, for very soon was his father called upon to mourn for him.

[80] Now Judah conceived the plan of marrying Tamar to his youngest son Shelah, but his wife would not permit it.

She hated Tamar because she was not of the daughters of Canaan like herself, and while Judah was away from home, Bath-shua chose a wife for her son Shelah from the daughters of Canaan.

Judah was very angry at Bath-shua for what she had done, and also God poured out His wrath upon her, for on account of her wickedness she had to die,[81] and her death happened a year after that of her two sons.

Now that Bath-shua was dead, Judah might have carried out his wish and married Tamar to his youngest son.

But he waited for Shelah to grow up, because he feared for his life, seeing that Tamar had brought death to two husbands before him.

So she remained a widow in her father's house for two years.

Endowed with the gift of prophecy, Tamar knew that she was appointed to be the ancestress of David and of the Messiah, and she determined to venture upon an extreme measure in order to make sure of fulfilling her destiny.

[82] Accordingly, when the holy spirit revealed to her that Judah was going up to Timnah,[83] she put off from her the garments of her widowhood, and sat in the gate of Abraham's tent, and there she encountered Judah.

[84] All the time she lived in the house of her father-in-law, he had never seen her face, for in her virtue and chastity she had always kept it covered, and now when Judah met her, he did not recognize her.

It was as a reward for her modesty that God made her to become the mother of the royal line of David, and the ancestress of Isaiah, and his father Amoz as well, both of whom were prophets and of royal blood.

[85] Judah passed Tamar by without paying any attention to her, and she raised her eyes heavenward, and said, "O Lord of the world, shall I go forth empty from the house of this pious man?"

Then God sent the angel that is appointed over the passion of love, and he compelled Judah to turn back.

[86] With prophetic caution, Tamar demanded that, as a pledge for the reward he promised her, he leave with her his signet, his mantle, and his staff, the symbols of royalty, judgeship, and Messiahship, the three distinctions of the descendants of Tamar from her union with Judah.

When Judah sent her the promised reward, a kid of the goats, by the hand of his friend, in order to receive the pledges from her hand, Tamar could not be found, and he feared to make further search for her, lest he be put to shame.

But Tamar, who soon discerned that she was with child, felt very happy and proud, for she knew that she would be the mother of kings and redeemers.

[87] When her state became known, she was forcibly dragged before the court, in which Isaac, Jacob, and Judah sat as judges.

Judah, being the youngest of the judges and the least considerable in dignity, was the first to give a decision, for thus it is prescribed in criminal cases, that the prominent judges overawe not the lesser and influence their decisions unduly.

It was the opinion of Judah that the woman was liable to the penalty of death by burning, for she was the daughter of the high priest Shem, and death by fire is the punishment ordained by the law for a high priest's daughter that leads an unchaste life.

[88] The preparations for her execution were begun.

In vain Tamar searched for the three pledges she had received from Judah, she could not find them, and almost she lost hope that she would be able to wring a confession from her father-in-law.

She raised her eyes to God, and prayed: "I supplicate Thy grace, O God, Thou who givest ear to the cry of the distressed in the hour of his need, answer me, that I may be spared to bring forth the three holy children, who will be ready to suffer death by fire, for the sake of the glory of Thy Name."

And God granted her petition, and sent the angel Michael down to succor her.

He put the pledges in a place in which Tamar could not fail to see them, and she took them, and threw them before the feet of the judges, with the words: "By the man whose these are am I with child, but though I perish in the flames, I will not betray him.

I hope in the Lord of the world, that He will turn the heart of the man, so that he will make confession thereof."

Then Judah rose up, and said: "With your permission, my brethren, and ye men of my father's house, I make it known that with what measure a man metes, it shall be measured unto him, be it for good or for evil, but happy the man that acknowledgeth his sins.

Because I took the coat of Joseph, and colored it with the blood of a kid, and then laid it at the feet of my father, saying, Know now whether it be thy son's coat or not, therefore must I now confess, before the court, unto whom belongeth this signet, this mantle, and this staff.

But it is better that I be put to shame in this world than I should be put to shame in the other world, before the face of my pious father.

It is better that I should perish in a fire that can be extinguished than I should be cast into hell fire, which devoureth other fires.

Now, then, I acknowledge that Tamar is innocent.

By me is she with child, not because she indulged in illicit passion, but because I held back her marriage with my son Shelah."

Then a heavenly voice was heard to say: "Ye are both innocent!

It was the will of God that it should happen!"

[89] The open confession of Judah induced his oldest brother Reuben to make public acknowledgment of the sin he had committed against his father, for he had kept it a secret until then.

[90] Tamar gave birth to twin sons, Perez and Zerah, both resembling their father in bravery and piety.

[91] She called the first Perez, "mighty," because she said, "Thou didst show thyself of great power, and it is meet and proper that thou shouldst be strong, for thou art destined to possess the kingdom."

[92] The second son was called Zerah, because he appeared from out of the womb before his brother, but he was forced back again to make way for Perez.

[93] These two, Perez and Zerah.

were sent out as spies by Joshua, and the line that Rahab bound in the window of her house as a token to the army of the Israelites, she received from Zerah.

It was the scarlet thread that the midwife had bound upon his hand, to mark him as the child that appeared first and withdrew.

[94] THE WIVES OF THE SONS OF JACOB

Judah was the first of the sons of Jacob to enter wedlock.

After the sale of Joseph to the Midianites, his brethren had said to Judah, "If conditions were as before, our father would provide wives for us now.

As it is, he is entirely absorbed by his grief for Joseph, and we must look about for wives ourselves.

Thou art our chief, and thou shouldst marry first."

Judah's marriage with Alit the daughter of the noble merchant Shua, which was consummated at Adullam, the residence of his friend Hirah, or, as he was called later, Hiram, king of Tyre, was not happy.

His two oldest sons died, and shortly thereafter his wife also.

It was Judah's punishment for having begun a good deed and left it unfinished, for "he who begins a good deed, and does not execute it to the end, brings down misfortune upon his own head."

Judah had rescued Joseph from death, but it was his suggestion to sell him into slavery.

Had he urged them to restore the lad to his father, his brethren would have obeyed his words.

He was lacking in constancy to persist until he had completed the work of Joseph's deliverance, which he had begun.

[95] In the same year, the year of Joseph's misfortune, all his other brethren married, too.

Reuben's wife was named Elyoram, the daughter of the Canaanite Uzzi of Timnah.

Simon married his sister Dinah first, and then a second wife.

When Simon and Levi massacred the men of Shechem, Dinah refused to leave the city and follow her brethren, saying, "Whither shall I carry my shame?"

But Simon swore he would marry her, as he did later, and when she died in Egypt, he took her body to the Holy Land and buried it there.

Dinah bore her brother a son,[96] and from her union with Shechem, the son of Hamor, sprang a daughter, Asenath by name, afterward the wife of Joseph.

When this daughter was born to Dinah, her brethren, the sons of Jacob, wanted to kill her, that the finger of men might not point at the fruit of sin in their father's house.

But Jacob took a piece of tin, inscribed the Holy Name upon it, and bound it about the neck of the girl, and he put her under a thornbush, and abandoned her there.

An angel carried the babe down to Egypt, where Potiphar adopted her as his child, for his wife was barren.

Years thereafter, when Joseph travelled through the land as viceroy, the maidens threw gifts at him, to make him turn his eyes in their direction and give them the opportunity of gazing upon his beauty.

Asenath possessed nothing that would do as a present, therefore she took off the amulet suspended from her neck, and gave it to him.

Thus Joseph became acquainted with her lineage, and he married her, seeing that she was not an Egyptian, but one connected with the house of Jacob through her mother.

[97] Beside the son of Dinah, Simon had another son, whose name was Saul, by Bunah, the damsel he had taken captive in the campaign against Shechem.

Levi and Issachar married two daughters of Jobab, the grandson of Eber;

the wife of the former was named Adinah, the wife of the latter, Aridah.

Dan's wife was Elflalet, a daughter of the Moabite Hamudan.

For a long time their marriage remained childless, finally they had a son, whom they called Hushim.

Gad and Naphtali married women from Haran, two sisters, daughters of Amoram, a grandson of Nahor.

Naphtali's wife, Merimit, was the older of the two, and the younger, the wife of Gad, was named Uzit.

Asher's first wife was Adon, the daughter of Ephlal, a grandson of Ishmael.

She died childless, and he married a second wife, Hadorah, a daughter of Abimael, the grandson of Shem.

She had been married before, her first husband having been Malchiel, also a grandson of Shem, and the issue of this first marriage was a daughter, Serah by name.

When Asher brought his wife to Canaan, the three year old orphan Serah came with them.

She was raised in the house of Jacob, and she walked in the way of pious children, and God gave her beauty, wisdom, and sagacity.

Zebulon's wife was Maroshah, the daughter of Molad, a grandson of Midian, the son of Abraham by Keturah.

For Benjamin, when he was but ten years old, Jacob took Mahlia to wife, the daughter of Aram, the grandson of Terah, and she bore him five sons.

At the age of eighteen he married a second wife, Arbat, the daughter of Zimran, a son of Abraham by Keturah, and by her also he had five sons.

[98]