In the midst of the elongated Biblical narrative of Joseph the reader is confronted with chapter 38 - an interpolation often overlooked, yet brimming with meaning and import. There one learns the sordid secrets of Judah’s family life, barely a chapter after he had sold his younger brother Joseph into slavery. Beset by guilt, Judah has settled his family in Adullam, thinking he might begin a new chapter and perhaps acquire a new identity and a more noble reputation.

But the Biblical narrative, ever conscious of historical precedence as well as just rewards and punishments, plays out an astonishing mise-en-scene that first involves the immediate family but later affects Jewish history. Marrying a woman of the region - named Bas Shua - Judah becomes the father of three sons. Unfortunately, he is not Fred MacMurray. His first son, Er, marries Tamar, but is sentenced to death by the Almighty on account of his evil actions. The second son, Onan, is told to fulfill his leviratic duties by siring children with the widow Tamar. Onan proves immature in that department, and the unhappy Tamar is now told by her father-in-law to wait for the third son, Shelah, to grow up and fulfill his fraternal responsibilities.

Tamar has seen enough and senses, as Shelah passes the age of eligibility, that Judah may have reneged on his promise. Covering herself with a veil, she appropriates a place on the road where her father-in-law would pass by. He does, and noting her garb, mistakes her for a harlot. After some inimitable Biblical bargaining, they consort. Tamar craftily obtains a tangible pledge from Judah - his signet, his wrap, his staff. And his potential child. Three months later Judah is informed of Tamar’s harlotry. Enraged, he threatens her life, but receives the surprise of his own when she sends him a package of the implicating vestments. Judah, recognizing his own guilt (in withholding his third son from Tamar) as well as the true identity of his consort, repents and forthrightly confesses his paternity.