time · preposition + noun, common both genders singular construct
travail
לִדְתָּ֑הּlid.Tah
H3205
to bear young · verb, qal infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
twins
תְאוֹמִ֖יםte.'o.Mim
H8380
a twin (in plural only) · noun, common masculine plural absolute
womb
בְּבִטְנָֽהּbe.vit.Nah
H990
the belly · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Genesis 25:24 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 38:24–end
Here is, I. Judah's rigour against Tamar, when he heard she was an adulteress. She was, in the eye of the law, Shelah's wife, and therefore her being with child by another was looked upon as an injury and reproach to Judah's family: Bring her forth therefore, says Judah, the master of the family, and let her be burnt; not burnt to death, but burnt in the cheek or forehead, stigmatized for a harlot. This seems probable, Gen 38:24. Note, it is a common thing for men to be severe against those very sins in others in which yet they allow themselves; and so, in judging others, they condemn themselves, Rom 2:1; Rom 14:22. If he designed that she should be burnt to death, perhaps, under pretence of…
Bring her forth, and let her be burnt--In patriarchal times fathers seem to have possessed the power of life and death over the members of their families. The crime of adultery was anciently punished in many places by burning (Lev 21:9; Jdg 15:6; Jer 29:22). This chapter contains details, which probably would never have obtained a place in the inspired record, had it not been to exhibit the full links of the chain that connects the genealogy of the Saviour with Abraham; and in the disreputable character of the ancestry who figure in this passage, we have a remarkable proof that "He made himself of no reputation" [Phi 2:7].
Next: Genesis Chapter 39
Adam Clarke on Genesis 38:26
She hath been more righteous than I - It is probable that Tamar was influenced by no other motive than that which was common to all the Israelitish women, the desire to have children who might be heirs of the promise made to Abraham, etc. And as Judah had obliged her to continue in her widowhood under the promise of giving her his son Shelah when he should be of age, consequently his refusing or delaying to accomplish this promise was a breach of truth, and an injury done to Tamar.
John Gill on Genesis 38:27
And it came to pass in the time of her travail,.... When her time to bring forth was come, and her pains were on her, and her midwife with her:
that, behold, twins were in her womb; which the midwife could discover before the birth of either.
The Church Fathers
What is one to say of Tamar, who brought to birth the twins Zerah and Perez? Their separation at the moment of birth was like a wall that divides the two peoples, and the hand tied with the scarlet ribbon already then speckled the conscience of the Jews with the passion of Christ.
Observe in this, I ask you, a mystery and a prediction of what is to come. You see, after the midwife bound the scarlet thread around his hand to make Zerah recognizable, then "he drew his hand back, and his brother came out." He yielded precedence to his brother, it is saying, and the one thought last came out first, and the one thought first emerged after him. "The midwife said, 'What a breach you have made for yourself!' He was called Perez." The name, in fact, means "breach" or "division," as you might say. "After him came his brother with the mark on his right hand; he was given the name Zerah," which means "sunrise."It was not idly or to no purpose that these things happened; rather, it was a type of things to come, revealing the events themselves. You see, what happened was not according to natural processes. I mean, how would it have been possible, after his hand was bound with crimson, for him to draw back again and give way to the one after him, unless there were some divine power arranging this in advance? It was also prefiguring, as if in a kind of shadow, the fact that right from the outset Zerah, which means sunrise (he is, after all, a type of the church), began to peer ahead; as he moved gradually forward and then retired, the legal observance denoted by Perez made its entrance. After that had held precedence for a long time, the former one—I mean Zerah, who had retired—came forward, and the whole Judaic way of life in turn yielded place to the church.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Pharez — Breach, the elder of the twin sons of Judah (Gen. 38:29). From him the royal line of David sprang (Ruth 4:18-22). “The chief of all the captains of the host” was of the children of Perez (1 Chr.…
Tamar — Palm. (1.) A place mentioned by Ezekiel (47:19; 48:28), on the southeastern border of Palestine. Some suppose this was “Tadmor” (q.v.). (2.) The daughter-in-law of Judah, to whose eldest son, Er, she…
Twins · Pharez and Zerah — Pharez and Zerah
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Calvin on Genesis 38:27–end
Behold twins were in her womb. Although both Judah obtained pardon for his error, and Tamar for her wicked contrivance; yet the Lord, in order to humble them, caused a prodigy to take place in the birth. Something similar had before happened in the case of Jacob and Esau, but for a different reason: as we know that prodigies sometimes portend good, sometimes evil. Here, however, there is no doubt that the twins, in their very birth, bring with them marks of their parents' infamy. For it was both profitable to themselves that the memory of their shame should be renewed, and it served as a public example, that such a crime should be branded with eternal disgrace. There is an ambiguity in the m…
But when Thamar, after waiting a long time, saw that Shelah had grown up and yet was not given to her as a husband, she determined to procure children from Judah himself, who had become a widower in the meantime; and his going to Timnath to the sheep-shearing afforded her a good opportunity. The time mentioned ("the days multiplied," i.e., a long time passed by) refers not to the statement which follows, that Judah's wife died, but rather to the leading thought of the verse, viz., Judah's going to the sheep-shearing. ויּנּחם: he comforted himself, i.e., he ceased to mourn. Timnath is not the border town of Dan and Judah between Beth-shemesh and Ekron in the plain (Jos 15:10; Jos 19:43), but…
Judah’s line continued because of Tamar. The twins replaced Judah’s two slain sons (38:7, 10); their birth was similar to the birth of Jacob and Esau (25:21-26) in that the “red” one was born first, but the other son pushed past him in later life. Jacob’s gaining the right to rule over his older brother (27:29) seemed to be relived in Judah’s line. The line was carried on through Perez and not through the elder son Shelah, whom he had gone to such lengths to protect (38:11; see 1 Chr 4:21), nor through the elder twin Zerah (see Ruth 4:13-22; Matt 1:3).
Rashi on Genesis 38:9
ושחת ארצה AND HE DESTROYED ONTO THE GROUND — He 'threshed inside and winnowed outside' (Genesis Rabbah 85:5).
