Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Yesterday we ended with Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery, and he was subsequently

sold to a man named Potipher, who worked for the king of Egypt.

Joseph's brothers led

his father Jacob to believe he was dead, and Jacob was crushed. Today we have a brief

intermission from Joseph's story where we follow what's happening at that time in the life of

his half-brother Judah, Leah's fourth son. Judah finds a wife from among the Canaanites.

We've seen them a lot already. We'll continue

seeing them. They're the cursed descendants of Noah's son, Ham. They're not worshippers of God,

and they currently inhabit the land God promised to give to this family. Judah and his new wife have

three sons, and he eventually arranges a marriage between his oldest son Er and a woman named

Tamar. But Err was wicked, so God kills him because he's God and he knows hearts. God is both

just and merciful. In this instance, he leans into his justice. So if you're feeling any kind of

impulse to set yourself up as a judge over God because of this, I would just

encourage you to remember that he's the one who gets to make those kinds of decisions.

We've all committed treason against God and His kingdom, and we all deserve death.

So no matter what Err did or didn't do, he got what he deserved.

The rest of us are just living on mercy.

After Err's death, Judah gave Tamar his second son in marriage, because if she had neither a husband nor children, it was essentially a death

sentence for her in that day. There'd be no one to care for her or provide for her. It seems like

Judah was really trying to take care of Tamar. But son number two wasn't having it,

so he got sneaky about it to make sure he didn't get her pregnant. God's protection of Tamar

...