Ver. 1. And it came to pass at that time.] Before the rape of Dinah, the sale of Joseph, and soon after their return from Mesopotamia. Judah went down from his brethren.] A green youth of thirteen or fourteen years of age, left his company, where he might have had better counsel. There is a special tie to perseverance in the communion of saints. They that “forsake the assembling of themselves together,” axe in a fair way for apostasy. (Hebrews 10:25) To a certain Adullamite.] There is a double danger of evil company. (1.) Infection of sin, -at least, defection from grace. (2.) Infliction of punishment. (Revelation 18:4)
Ver. 2. And Judah saw there, &c.] He saw, took, went in, all in haste: Patre inconsulto, forte etiam invite; his father neither willing nor witting. Hence, for a punishment, was so little mercy showed to his sons. These hasty headlong matches seldom succeed well. It is not amiss to marry, but good to be wary. Young men are blamed of folly for following “the sight of their eyes” and “lust of their hearts.” (Ecclesiastes 11:10) Sed Leo cassibus irretitus dicet, Si praescivissem.
Ver. 3. And she conceived, &c.] St Jerome tells us of a certain drunken nurse, that was got with child by her nursling, a boy of ten years old. This he relates as monstrous, and takes God to witness that he knew it to be so. Bruson., lib. iv. cap. 9.
Ver. 4. She called.] Shush named her two latter children; the one it is like by the licence, the other by the absence of her husband.
Ver. 5. He was at Chezib.] Called also Achzib. (Micah 1:14) It hath its name from lying.
Ver. 6. And Judah took a wife for Er.] When he was but fourteen years of age, as appears by the Chronicle, seven years after the selling of Joseph. And here it is well observed, that though Judah took a wife without his father’s consent, yet he will not have Er to do so. Musculus.
Ver. 7. Wicked in the sight of the Lord.] A Sodomite, say the Hebrews; but this is hard to say. As an evildoer, he was soon cut off. (Psalms 37:9) God would not have such to be his son Christ’s progenitor. Too wicked he was to live: you may know him to be the son of a Canaanitess. Partus sequitur ventrem. In Heb., videtur esse allusio seu inversio nominis. רע erat ער: q.d., Er erat vigil perversus.
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, (Genesis 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. (1 Corinthians 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.
Ver. 9. When he went in unto his brother’s wife.] God, for the respect he bears to his own institution of marriage, is pleased to bear with, cover, and not impute many frailties, follies, vanities, wickednesses that are found between man and wife. Howbeit, there is required of such a holy care and conscience, to preserve between themselves, by a conjugal chastity, the marriage bed undefiled; taking heed of an intemperate or intempestive use of it: which by divines, both ancient and modern, is deemed no better than plain adultery before God. Qui cum uxore sua, quasi eum aliena, concumbit, adulter est, saith that heathen. Onan’s sin here was self-pollution, aggravated much by his envy that moved him to it, expressed in these words, “lest he should give seed to his deceased brother.” And the more sinful was this sin of his in spilling his seed; because it should have served for the propagation of the Messiah; therefore the Lord slew him: as also, because he was not warned by his brother’s punishment. Intemperans in coniugio, uxoris suae adulter est. -Aug. In uxorem alienam omnis amor turpis est, in suam vero nimius. -Hieron. Seneca. Hebraei inquiunt perinde ut homicidam, reum esse qui temere semen profundit. -Mercer., in loc.
Ver. 10. Wherefore he slew him.] God oft punisheth the abuse of the marriage bed, either with untimely death—it was well said of one, that Venus provides not for those that are already born, but for those that shall be born—-or else with no children, misshapen children, idiots, or prodigiously wicked children, &c. Cavete let this consideration be as the angel standing with a drawn sword over Balaam’s shoulders. Cuffe’s Differ. of Ages, 106.
Ver. 11. Lest peradventure he die also, &c.] Judah lays the fault all on her, whereas it was in his sons. Sarah, on the other side, blamed herself only for barrenness. (Genesis 16:2) “Judge not, that ye be not judged”: but “if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged.” In judging of the cause of our crosses, we are oft as far out as she was, that laid the death of her child to the presence of the good prophet.