Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 38:2

And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name [was] Shuah; and he took her, and went in unto her.

2. Shua ] Note that “Shua,” like Hirah in Gen 38:1, is the name of a man. See Gen 38:12. Bath-Shua, i.e. “the daughter of Shua,” is all the description given of Judah’s wife.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

He married her against the counsel and example of his parents. But when Judah had committed so great a crime as the selling of his brother, and God had forsaken him, no wonder he adds one sin to another.

Shuah was the name, not of the daughter, but of her father, Gen 38:12.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

2. And Judah saw there a daughter ofa certain CanaaniteLike Esau [Ge26:34], this son of Jacob, casting off the restraints ofreligion, married into a Canaanite family; and it is not surprisingthat the family which sprang from such an unsuitable connectionshould be infamous for bold and unblushing wickedness.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite,…. Onkelos and Jonathan, and so Jarchi and Ben Gersom, interpret it a “merchant”, to take off the disgrace of his falling in love with, and marrying a Canaanitish woman, which was forbidden by his ancestors Abraham and Isaac, and which his father avoided:

whose name [was] Shuah; not the name of the woman he married, but the name of her father, as appears from Ge 38:12; and who very probably was a man of note in the country:

and he took her; to be his wife, with her and her father’s consent, not by force:

and went in unto her; cohabited with her as his wife.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

2. And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite. I am not satisfied with the interpretation which some give of “merchant” to the word Canaanite. For Moses charges Judah with perverse lust, because he took a wife out of that nation with which the children of Abraham were divinely commanded to be at perpetual strife. For neither he nor his other brethren were ignorant that they sojourned in the land of Canaan, under the stipulation, that afterwards their enemies were to be cut off and destroyed, in order that they might possess the promised dominion over it. Moses, therefore, justly regards it as a fault, that Judah should entangle himself in a forbidden alliance; and the Lord, at length, cursed the offspring thus accruing to Judah, that the prince and head of the tribe of Judah might not be born, nor Christ himself descend, from this connection. This also ought to be numbered among the exercises of Jacob’s patience, that a wicked grandson was born to him through Judah, of whose sin he was not ignorant. Moses says, that the youth was cut off by the vengeance of God. The same thing is not said of others whom a sudden death has swept away in the flower of their age. I doubt not, therefore, that the wickedness, of which death was the immediate punishment, was extraordinary, and known to all men. And although this trial was in itself severe to the holy patriarch; yet nothing tormented his mind more than the thought, that he could scarcely hope for the promise of God to be so ratified that the inheritance of grace should remain in the possession of wicked and abandoned men. It is true that a large family of children is regarded as a source of human happiness. But this was the peculiar condition of the holy patriarch, that, though God had promised him an elect and blessed seed, he now sees an accursed progeny increase and shoot forth together with his offspring, which might destroy the expected grace. It is said, that Er was wicked in the sight of the Lord, (Gen 38:7.) Notwithstanding, his iniquity was not hidden from men. Moses, however, means that he was not merely infected with common vices, but rather was so addicted to crimes, that he was intolerable in the sight of God.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(2) Canaanite.This is rendered in the Targum merchant, and so the Authorised Version translates Canaanite in Pro. 31:24. In favour of this view is the fact, that the marriage of Simeon with a Canaanitish woman is regarded as an act so exceptional, as to be worth recording (Gen. 46:10). But we may well doubt whether, at so early an age, the terms Canaanite and merchant had become synonymous. Shuah was the name of the womans father, as appears plainly in the Hebrew. (See also Gen. 38:12.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

2. A certain Canaanite This marriage with a Canaanitish woman was a source of many evils, and, to save his chosen people front complete affiliation with the heathen, and ruin from that cause, Jehovah brought them into Egypt, where years of bondage would prevent further contamination from them .

Shuah The father of Judah’s wife . See Gen 38:12.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Gen 38:2 And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name [was] Shuah; and he took her, and went in unto her.

Ver. 2. And Judah saw there, &c. ] He saw, took, went in, all in haste: Patre inconsulto, forte etiam invite; his father neither willing nor witting. Hence, for a punishment, was so little mercy showed to his sons. These hasty headlong matches seldom succeed well. It is not amiss to marry, but good to be wary. Young men are blamed of folly for following “the sight of their eyes” and “lust of their hearts.” Ecc 11:10 Sed Leo cassibus irretitus dicet, Si praescivissem.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)