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, v. 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 to young people to choose proper associates; for these they
will imitate, study to recommend themselves to, and, by their opinion
of them, value themselves: an error in this choice is often fatal. 2.
His foolish marriage with a Canaanite-woman, a match made, not by his
father, who, it should seem, was not consulted, but by his new friend
Hirah, v. 2. Many have been drawn into marriages scandalous and
pernicious to themselves and their families by keeping bad company, and
growing familiar with bad people: one wicked league entangles men in
another. Let young people be admonished by this to take their good
parents for their best friends, and to be advised by them, and not by
flatterers, who wheedle them, to make a prey of them. 3. His children
by this Canaanite, and his disposal of them. Three sons he had by her,
Er, Onan, and Shelah. It is probable that she embraced the worship of
the God of Israel, at least in profession, but, for aught that appears,
there was little of the fear of God in the family. Judah married too
young, and very rashly; he also married his sons too young, when they
had neither wit nor grace to govern themselves, and the consequences
were very bad. (1.) His first-born, Er, was notoriously wicked; he was
so in the sight of the Lord, that is, in defiance of God and his law;
or, if perhaps he was not wicked in the sight of the world, he was so
in the sight of God, to whom all men's wickedness is open; and what
came of it? Why, God cut him off presently (v. 7): The Lord slew him.
Note, Sometimes God makes quick work with sinners, and takes them away
in his wrath, when they are but just setting out in a wicked course of
life. (2.) The next son, Onan, was, according to the ancient usage,
married to the widow, to preserve the name of his deceased brother that
died childless. Though God had taken away his life for his wickedness,
yet they were solicitous to preserve his memory; and their
disappointment therein, through Onan's sin, was a further punishment of
his wickedness. The custom of marrying the brother's widow was
afterwards made one of the laws of Moses, Deut. xxv. 5. Onan, though he
consented to marry the widow, yet, to the great abuse of his own body,
of the wife that he had married, and of the memory of his brother that
was gone, he refused to raise up seed unto his brother, as he was in
duty bound. This was so much the worse because the Messiah was to
descend from Judah, and, had he not been guilty of this wickedness, he
might have had the honour of being one of his ancestors. Note, Those
sins that dishonour the body and defile it are very displeasing to God
and evidences of vile affections. (3.) Shelah, the third son, was
reserved for the widow (v. 11), yet with a design that he should not
marry so young as his brothers had done, lest he die also. Some think
that Judah never intended to marry Shelah to Tamar, but unjustly
suspected her to have been the death of her two former husbands
(whereas it was their own wickedness that slew them), and then sent her
to her father's house, with a charge to remain a widow. If so, it was
an inexcusable piece of prevarication that he was guilty of. However,
Tamar acquiesced for the present, and waited the issue.