Observation: Chapter 37 ends with Joseph being sold into slavery by all his brothers, and resold in Egypt to Potiphar. Chapter 39 begins with Joseph being bought by Potiphar. In between is this story about Judah's life. In this chapter, Judah ... leaves his brothers, gets married, has three sons, has all the sons fully grow up, marries them off, two son's die, he doesn't give the widow Tamar to the third son when he finally becomes fully grown, Judah's wife dies, Judah moves again, Tamar tricks Judah and has twin sons, and the twins themselves have a strange birth regarding who is the first born.
Let's be clear: This is a timeline that encompasses at least 20 years. It effectively is the only history we will learn about Joseph's brothers and what they did during his entire time in Egypt, up until the famine hits and Jacob sends his sons to Egypt for food. This is it, one story about the strange nature of how Judah's line is established.
At this point, Judah is nothing special compared to his brothers. He's the fourth born of Leah's six sons. And the likely author of this - Moses - isn't from the tribe of Judah, he's from Levi. There is absolutely ZERO reason why, of all the people, activities, topics, and exploits that could be covered about the house of Jacob during the ~20 years between the "death" of Joseph and the famine, that Judah's family origin would possibly be the one and only item covered. This makes no sense at all.
Unless ...
Application: I recently wrote a narrative about the history of golf in Scotland. At one point, while discussing all the famous places and people, I suddenly interjected a paragraph about a course called Prestwick, and about a young child who grew up playing golf at that course. After the paragraph, I pointed out that this interlude was what we call 'foreshadowing'. Of course, this is because I knew historically what would come later ... Prestwick would invent The Open Championship, and that young boy was Young Tom Morris who would win The Open three times in a row at Prestwick and become the #1 golfer in the world. So I interrupted the flow of my narrative with what seemed to be an unrelated tale, because I knew what would happen later.
And here, in Genesis, God interrupts the narrative with a completely unrelated tale. Two chapters end then start with almost the exact same words, and in between is a seemingly meaningless - or at the very least, low-priority - story about Judah's lineage. This is because, 1,500 years later, Jesus will be born, from the lineage of Judah, and from the first-born twin Perez.
No one at no time in history prior to Jesus could possibly have known the significance of Judah's lineage compared to that of any other of Jacob's sons. Moses could not possibly have known this when he chose to write about this incident - and this incident alone - to summarize two decades of family activity. No one who organized the "scriptures" could have understood the significance of this. ONLY a person who actually knew the future ... who could think of a future that was millennia away as if it were historically significant ... would write chapter 38 of Genesis.
Again I say today, the proof of the bible's authenticity is unassailable. Such structure and content cannot be accidental. In fact, for humans it takes expertise and training to create such narrative. With God, this is just ... the plan all along, and that cannot be logically denied.
Prayer: Lord, once again today, as I look for ways to strengthen my faith, here it is smacking me right in the face. I know your word is good and true and perfect, and I love that you remind me of that, in ways my own educational history has taught me to recognize, understand, and appreciate. I love you so much, my Lord and my God. Thank you for loving me first. Amen.
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