0222. THE APPALLING HARSHNESS OF HUMAN JUDGMENT.

THE APPALLING HARSHNESS OF HUMAN JUDGMENT.

Genesis 38.

Sometimes the Bible is charged with being an immoral book, because of chapters like Gen. 38. But what are the results of the reading of the Book? "By their fruits ye shall know them." This book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from it. If there were not records of this nature it would not be a true record of humanity. How does it speak of uncleanness? In such a way as to make us hate such deeds. Certainly there are things in the Bible not fit to read in public. There are many such passages in our medical books. Shall a woman be permitted to read in her secret chamber what she would tremble to hear at her domestic board? Most assuredly. The Bible is a mirror revealing the character and soul of man, and what an awful sight is given us here.

Some think this chapter to be chronologically right should follow chapter 33. At the time of Jacob’s journey into Egypt to meet his son Joseph, Pharez, the son of Judah, whose birth is narrated in this chapter, had two sons. Though Judah and his brother strenuously opposed the marriage of their sister Dinah with a Canaanite, he married one. He believed what was wrong for his sister to do was right for him. Judah might sin, and nothing to be thought of it, but directly the woman, who had been the partner of his sin, was detected, he cries, "Let her be burnt" (24 and 25).

Why is this chapter found in the Book of Genesis just at this juncture?

1. Without it, we could not have the human genealogy of Jesus.

2. By it we see that God’s choice of Judah as the Royal tribe, and as the ancestor of Jesus, was of grace and not of merit.

3. By it we see that the worth and worthiness of the Lord Jesus are derived, not from his ancestors.

4. By it we see demolished the proud boast of Jews: "We be not born of fornication" (Joh_8:41).

5. Judah’s marriage with a Canaanite and the horrid, sinful vices practised by Judah’s two sons reveal to us the danger Jacob and his family were in, in being merged and smirched through marriage, and inter-marriage and companionship with the inhabitants of Canaan, and the absolute need of the long sojourn in Egypt, amongst the then most exclusive people of the world.

Autor: James Smith