Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 38:8
And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.
8. perform ] The first instance of the “levirate” (Lat. lvir, “brother-in-law”) law which made it obligatory for a surviving brother to marry the widow of his brother, if the latter should die childless. See Deu 25:5; Mat 22:24. The eldest son of a levirate marriage succeeded to the deceased’s name and inheritance.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Gen 38:8-10
Onan
The sin of Onan
I.
IT WAS PROMPTED BY A LOW MOTIVE. It was as selfish as it was vile. Onans design was to preserve the whole inheritance for his own house.
II. IT WAS AN ACT OF WILFUL DISOBEDIENCE TO GODS ORDINANCE. Ill deservings of others can be no excuse for our injustice, for our uncharitableness. That which Tamar required, Moses afterward, as from God, commanded–the succession of brothers into the barren bed. Some laws God spake to His Church long ere He wrote them: while the author is certainly known, the voice and the finger of God are worthy of equal respect.
III. IT WAS A DISHONOUR DONE TO HIS OWE BODY. Unchastity in general is a homicidal waste of the generative powers, a demoniac bestiality, an outrage to ancestors, to posterity, and to ones own life. It is a crime against the image of God, and a degradation below the animal. Onans offence, moreover, as committed in marriage, was a most unnatural wickedness, a grievous wrong, and a desecration of the body as the temple of God. It was a proof of the most defective development of what may be called the consciousness of personality, and of personal dignity.
IV. IT WAS AGGRAVATED BY HIS POSITION IN THE COVENANT FAMILY. The Messiah was to descend from the stock of Judah, and for aught he knew from himself. This very Tamar is counted in the genealogy of Christ Mat 1:3). Herein he did despite to the covenant promise. He rejected an honourable destiny. (T. H. Leale.)
Lessons
Vain parents take little knowledge of Gods judgments in the death of one child when they have others.
2. Special law for the marriage of the deceased brothers wife by the brother was given of God for special ends.
3. Seed was much desirable and is so in the Church of God; for which such laws were made (Gen 38:8).
4. Wicked creatures are selfish in duty, therefore unwilling to seek any good but their own.
5. Self-pollution, destruction of the seed of man, envy to brethren, are Onans horrid crimes (Gen 38:9).
6. Onans may be in the visible Church.
7. Such uncleanness is very grievous in Gods sight.
8. Exemplary death may be expected from God by such transgressors (Gen 38:10). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Onans sin
It must be borne in mind that the propagation of the family name formed one of the most sacred wishes of the Israelites; that excision was looked upon as the most awful indication of Divine wrath; and that polygamy itself was so long maintained, because it offers a greater guarantee of offspring. The Hebrews were not a strictly practical people; sentiment and indefinite aspirations had a large share in their religious views and social institutions: at an early period embracing and fostering the hope of a Messianic time, when all the nations of the earth would be united in love and the knowledge of God, they are eminently capable of prizing the permanent existence of their families. The agrarian character of the Mosaic constitution added power to this idea. Landed property was the foundation of the political edifice, and equality its main pillar. Each family was identified with a certain portion of the sacred soil; its extinction was, therefore, more strongly apprehended by the individual, and was injurious to the prosperity of the state, as the accumulation of wealth in the hands of individuals threatened to disturb the equality of the citizens. It is, therefore, impossible to misunderstand the spirit and tendency of the law concerning the marriage with the brothers widow; it was neither dictated by the desire of preventing the abandoned condition of the widow, or of counteracting some other fancied abuse; its purport is distinctly expressed to have been to procure a descendant to the brother (Gen 38:8); that the name of the deceased be preserved upon his inheritance, and that his name be not erased from among his brethren and from the gate of his town (Rth 4:10). It may suffice to add, in this place, that similar customs prevailed among the Indians, Persians, and some Italian tribes, and that they are still practised by the Tsherkessians and Tartars, the Gallas in Abyssinia, the Afghans, and other nations. It was in conformity with this law that Judah commanded his second son, Onan, to marry the childless widow of his elder brother. But Onan was not more virtuous than the family to which he belonged: unwilling to maintain his brothers name, he knew how to frustrate the hopes of Judah. God took away his life for that reckless wickedness. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
This, as also divers other things, was now instituted and observed amongst Gods people, and afterwards was expressed in a written law, Deu 25:5,6. See also Num 36:6,7; Rth 1:11; Mat 22:24.
Raise up seed to thy brother; beget a child which may have thy brothers name and inheritance, and may be reputed as his child. So it was with the first child, but the rest were reputed his own.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. Judah said unto Onan . . . marryher, and raise up seed to thy brotherThe first instance of acustom, which was afterwards incorporated among the laws of Moses,that when a husband died leaving a widow, his brother next of age wasto marry her, and the issue, if any, was to be served heir to thedeceased (compare De 25:5).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And Judah said unto Onan,…. Some time after his brother’s death:
go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her; Moses here uses a word not common for marriage, but which was peculiar to the marrying of a brother’s wife according to a law given in his time: it appears to have been a custom before, and which the patriarch might be directed to by the Lord, in such a case when a brother died, and left no issue, for the sake of multiplication of seed, according to the divine promise, and which in the time of Moses passed into a law, see De 25:5;
and raise up seed unto thy brother; that might bear his name, and enjoy his inheritance. For this law or custom was partly political, to continue the paternal inheritance in the family, and partly typical, to direct to Christ the firstborn among many brethren, Ro 8:29, who in all things was to have the preeminence, Col 1:18; and this was not taken from the Canaanites, among whom Judah now was, but from the ancient patriarchs, which they had no doubt from divine revelation, and was taught in the school of Shem, and handed down from father to son; for as to this being a law among the Egyptians in later times, and which continued to the days of Zeno Augustus q, it is most likely they took it from the Jews.
q Justinian. Cod l. 5. tit. 6. leg. 8.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
8. Go in unto thy brother’s wife. Although no law had hitherto been prescribed concerning brother’s marriages, that the surviving brother should raise up seed to one who was dead; it is, nevertheless, not wonderful that, by the mere instinct of nature, men should have been inclined to this course. For since each man is born for the preservation of the whole race, if any one dies without children, there seems to be here some defect of nature. It was deemed therefore an act of humanity to acquire some name for the dead, from which it might appear that they had lived. Now, the only reason why the children born to the surviving brother, should be reckoned to him who had died, was, that there might be no dry branch in the family; and in this manner they took away the reproach of barrenness. Besides, since the woman is given as a help to the man, when any woman married into a family, she was, in a certain sense, given up to the name of that family. According to this reasoning, Tamar was not altogether free, but was held under an obligation to the house of Judah, to procreate some seed. Now, though this does not proceed from any rule of piety, yet the Lord had impressed it upon the hearts of man as a duty of humanity; as he afterwards commanded it to the Jews in their polity. Hence we infer the malignity of Onan, who envied his brother this honor, and would not allow him, when dead, to obtain the title of father; and this redounds to the dishonor of the whole family. We see that many grant their own sons to their friends for adoption: it was, therefore, an outrageous act of barbarity to deny to his own brother what is given even to strangers. (139) Moreover he has not only shortened his brother concerning the right due to him, but he rather spilled seed on the ground than to raise a son in his brother’s name.
(139) A line or two is here omitted, as well as the comment on the tenth verse. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(8) Go in unto thy brothers wife.We learn from this that the law of the Levirate, by which the brother of the dead husband was required to marry the widow, was of far more ancient date than the law of Moses. Its object, first of all, was to prevent the extinction of any line of descent, a matter of great importance in those genealogical days; and, secondly, it was an obstacle to the accumulation of landed property in few hands, as the son first born after the Levirate marriage inherited the property of his deceased uncle, while the second son was the representative of the real father. A similar custom existed in parts of India, Persia, &c, and prevails now among the Mongols. The Mosaic Law did not institute, but regulated the custom, confining such marriages to cases where the deceased brother had died without children, and permitting the brother to refuse to marry the widow, under a penalty, nevertheless, of disgrace. Onan, by refusing to take Tamar, may have been actuated by the selfish motive of obtaining for himself the rights of primogeniture, which would otherwise have gone to his eldest son, as the heir of his uncle Er.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. Seed to thy brother Here is the first mention of levirate marriage . See our notes on Ruth, at the beginning of chapter 3 . “The custom,” says Keil, “is found in different forms among Indians, Persians, and other nations of Asia and Africa, and was not founded upon a divine command, but upon an ancient tradition, originating probably in Chaldea . It was not abolished, however, by the Mosaic law, (Deu 25:5,) but only so far restricted as not to allow it to interfere with the sanctity of marriage; and with this limitation it was enjoined as a duty of affection to build up the brother’s house, and to preserve his family and name . ”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Gen 38:8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.
Ver. 8. And Judah said unto Onan. ] At fourteen years of age likewise. For, from the birth of Judah to their going down to Egypt, were but forty-three years. And yet before that, Pharez had Hezron and Hamul, Gen 46:12 being married about the fourteenth year of his age; which was, doubtless, too soon. Childhood is counted and called the flower of age. 1Co 7:36 And so long the apostle would have marriage forborne. While the flower of the plant sprouteth, the seed is green, unfit to be sown. Either it comes not up, or soon withereth. Too early marriages is one cause of our too short lives. Pursuit of sexual pleasure is death’s best harbinger, saith one.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
raise up seed, &c. = a law before Sinai. See App-15. Compare Deu 25:5-9. Rth 4:10. Mat 22:24. An old and present Eastern law.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
am 2282, bc 1722, Lev 18:16, Num 36:8, Num 36:9, Deu 25:5-10, Rth 1:11, Rth 4:5-11, Mat 22:23-27
Reciprocal: Gen 19:31 – to come Deu 25:9 – So shall Mat 22:24 – Moses Mar 12:19 – If Luk 20:28 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
38:8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise {c} up seed to thy brother.
(c) This order was for the preservation of the stock, since the child begotten by the second brother would have the name and inheritance of the first: a practice which is abolished in the New Testament.