Genesis 38:1

CHRONOLOGICAL QUESTION. — And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went down from his brethren, and went unto an Adollamite, called Ira. And Judah saw there the daughter of a Canaanite named Shua, and took her for a wife, and came to her, and conceived, and bare a son , etc. We want to know when these things could happen. For if it happened after Joseph had come down to Egypt, how in the space of twenty-two years; for after so long it was clear that they were able to go to Egypt with their father to see their brother; it could happen that all the sons of Judah of that time could marry? For when his firstborn son died, he married his daughter-in-law Tamar to another of his sons (Cf. Gen. 38:6-11). This second died, waited for the son third to grow. When he got older, he did not give her as his wife, fearing that he too would die. So it happened that she gave herself to her own father-in-law (Cf. Gen. 38:12-18). With all reason, therefore, the problem arises of knowing how so many things could happen in so few years. The explanation might be that, as is often the case, Scripture meant by way of recapitulation that all this began to happen some years before the sale of Joseph, because the text is written as follows: “It happened at that time.” Nevertheless, if Joseph was seventeen when he was sold, the question arises as to how many years Judah, Jacob's fourth son, could have, since his firstborn, Reuben, could have at most five or six more than his brother Joseph. But it is clear that Scripture says that Joseph was thirty years old when he became known to Pharaoh (Cf. Gen. 41:46). Now, if one thinks that he was sold at seventeen years of age, he would have spent thirteen years in Egypt unknown to Pharaoh. To these thirteen years we would have to add the seven of abundance, and thus we arrived at the twenty years. To these should be added the two years of famine, because Jacob went to Egypt with his children the second year of the famine. And so we are at twenty-two years old, during which Joseph was far from his father and his brothers. Well, it is difficult to know how in this interim of time all the things that were told about the woman, the children and the daughter-in-law of Judah could happen. Unless we think, well, it may have happened that Judah, when he was a teenager, fell in love with the woman he married before Joseph was sold into Egypt. [