Matthew Henry on Genesis 38:1-11
Here is, 1. Judah's foolish friendship with a Canaanite-man. He went down from his brethren, and withdrew for a time from their society and his father's family, and got to be intimately acquainted with one Hirah, an Adullamite, Gen 38:1. It is computed that he was now not much above fifteen or sixteen years of age, an easy prey to the tempter. Note, When young people that have been well educated begin to change their company, they will soon change their manners, and lose their good education. Those that go down from their brethren, that despise and forsake the society of the seed of Israel, and pick up Canaanites for their companions, are going down the hill apace. It is of great consequence…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 38:2
And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite--Like Esau [Gen 26:34], this son of Jacob, casting off the restraints of religion, married into a Canaanite family; and it is not surprising that the family which sprang from such an unsuitable connection should be infamous for bold and unblushing wickedness.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 38:7
Er - was wicked in the sight of the Lord - What this wickedness consisted in we are not told; but the phrase sight of the Lord being added, proves that it was some very great evil. It is worthy of remark that the Hebrew word used to express Er's wickedness is his own name, the letters reversed. Er ער wicked, רע ra. As if the inspired writer had said, "Er was altogether wicked, a completely abandoned character."
John Gill on Genesis 38:7
And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord,.... That is, exceedingly wicked, as this phrase signifies, Genesis 13:13, was guilty of some very heinous sin, but what is not mentioned; according to the Targum of Jonathan and Jarchi, it was the same with his brother Onan's, Genesis 38:9, which it is suggested he committed, lest his wife should prove with child, and lose her beauty; but if it had been the same with his, it would have been expressed as well as his. An Arabic writer (p) says, that he cohabited with his wife not according to the course of nature, but in the "sodomitical" way:
and the Lord slew him; by his immediate hand, striking him dead at once, as Ananias and…
