About three months later, Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has prostituted herself, and now she is pregnant.” “Bring her out!” Judah replied. “Let her be burned to death!”
24. And it came to pass about three months after. Tamar might sooner have exposed the crime; but she waited till she should be demanded for capital punishment; for then she would have stronger ground for expostulation. The reason why Judah subjects his daughter-in-law to a punishment so severe, was, that he deemed her guilty of adultery: for what the Lord afterwards confirmed by his...
Here is, I. Judah's rigour against Tamar, when he heard she was an adulteress. She was, in the eye of the law, Shelah's wife, and therefore her being with child by another was looked upon as an injury and reproach to Judah's family: Bring her forth therefore, says Judah, the master of the family, and let her be burnt; not burnt to death, but burnt...
Commenting on Genesis 38:24-30
When she was brought forth,.... From her father's house, not to the place of execution, or in order to be burnt, but to the court of judicature, in order to take tier trial: she sent to her father in law, saying, by the man whose these are, am I with child; she sent a messenger to him, and by him the signet, bracelets, and staff...