Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in Yahweh’s sight. So Yahweh killed him.
Parallel Translations
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Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in Yahweh’s sight. So Yahweh killed him.
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And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him.
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And Er, Judah's first-born, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him.
Cross-references (6)
Passages linked to Genesis 38:7 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Chronicles 2:3 The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, and Shelah; which three were born to him of Shua’s daughter the Canaanitess. Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in Yahweh’s sight; and he killed him.
- Genesis 46:12 The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah; but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.
- Numbers 26:19 The sons of Judah: Er and Onan. Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan.
- Genesis 13:13 Now the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners against Yahweh.
- Genesis 19:13 for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown so great before Yahweh that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it.”
- Psalms 55:23 But you, God, will bring them down into the pit of destruction. Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days, but I will trust in you.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 7. And the Lord slew him. We know that…
7. And the Lord slew him. We know that long life is reckoned among the gifts of God; and justly: for since it is by no means a despicable honor that we are created after the image of God, the longer any one lives in the world, and daily experiences God’s care over him, it is certain that he is the more bountifully dealt with by the Lord. Even amidst the many miseries with which life is filled, this divine goodness still shines forth, that God invites us to himself, and exercises us in the knowledge of himself; while at the same time he adorns us with such dignity, that he subjects to our authority whatever is in the world. Wherefore it is no wonder that God, as an act of kindness, prolongs the life of man. Whence it follows, that when the wicked are taken away by a premature death, a punishment for their wickedness is inflicted upon them: for it is as if the Lord should pronounce judgment from heaven, that they are unworthy to be sustained by the earth, unworthy to enjoy the common light of heaven. Let us therefore learn, as long as God keeps us in the world, to meditate on his benefits, to the end that every one may the more cheerfully endeavor to give praise to God for the life received from him. And although, at the present day also, sudden death is to be reckoned among the scourges of God; since that doctrine is always true,
“Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days,” (Psalm 55:23;)
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yet God executed this judgment more fully under the law, when the knowledge of a future life was comparatively obscure; for now, since the resurrection is clearly manifested to us in Christ, it is not right that death should be so greatly dreaded. And this difference between us and the ancient people of God is elsewhere noted. Nevertheless, it can never be laid down as a general rule, that they who had a long life were thereby proved to be pleasing and acceptable to the Lord, whereas God has sometimes lengthened the life of reprobates, in aggravation of their punishment. We know that Cain survived his brother Abel many centuries. But as God does not always, and to all persons, cause his temporal benefits manifestly to flow in a perpetual and equable course; so neither, on the other hand, does he always execute temporal punishments by the same rule. It is enough that, as far as the present life is concerned, certain examples of punishments and rewards are set before us. Moreover, as the miseries of the present life, which spring from the corruption of nature, do not extinguish the first and special grace of God; so, on the other hand, death, which is in itself the curse of God, is so far from doing any injury, that it tends, by a supernatural remedy, to the salvation of the elect. Especially now, from the time that the first-fruits of the resurrection in Christ have been offered, the condition of those who are quickly taken out of life is in no way deteriorated; because Christ himself is gain both for life and death. But the vengeance of God was so clear and remarkable in the death of Er, that the earth might plainly appear to have been purged as from its filthiness.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 38:7 And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in…
Gen 38:7 And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him.
Ver. 7. Wicked in the sight of the Lord.] A Sodomite, say the Hebrews; but this is hard to say. {a} As an evildoer, he was soon cut off. {Psa 37:9} God would not have such to be his son Christ’s progenitor. Too wicked he was to live: you may know him to be the son of a Canaanitess. Partus sequitur ventrem.
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{a} In Heb., videtur esse allusio seu inversio nominis. ער erat רע: q.d., Er erat vigil perversus.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Wicked in the sight of the Lord, i.e. notoriously…
Wicked in the sight of the Lord, i.e. notoriously wicked. Compare Gen 10:9; 13:13.
The Lord slew him, in some extraordinary and remarkable manner, as Gen 38:10.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And Judah said unto Onan,.... Some time after his…
And Judah said unto Onan,.... Some time after his brother's death:
go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her; Moses here uses a word not common for marriage, but which was peculiar to the marrying of a brother's wife according to a law given in his time: it appears to have been a custom before, and which the patriarch might be directed to by the Lord, in such a case when a brother died, and left no issue, for the sake of multiplication of seed, according to the divine promise, and which in the time of Moses passed into a law, see Deu 25:5,
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and raise up seed unto thy brother; that might bear his name, and enjoy his inheritance. For this law or custom was partly political, to continue the paternal inheritance in the family, and partly typical, to direct to Christ the firstborn among many brethren, Rom 8:29, who in all things was to have the preeminence, Col 1:18; and this was not taken from the Canaanites, among whom Judah now was, but from the ancient patriarchs, which they had no doubt from divine revelation, and was taught in the school of Shem, and handed down from father to son; for as to this being a law among the Egyptians in later times, and which continued to the days of Zeno Augustus (q), it is most likely they took it from the Jews.
(q) Justinian. Cod l. 5. tit. 6. leg. 8.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain And Er was wicked in the sight of the…
And Er was wicked in the sight of the Lord - That is, in defiance of God and his law. And what came of it? Why God cut him off presently, The Lord slew him. The next brother Onan was, according to the ancient usage, married to the widow, to preserve the name of his deceased brother that died childless. This custom of marrying the brother's widow was afterward 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 he had married, and the memory of his brother that was gone, he refused to raise up seed unto his brother. Those sins that dishonour the body are very displeasing to God, and the evidence of vile actions. Observe, the thing which he did displeased the Lord - And it is to be feared, thousands, especially of single persons, by this very thing, still displeased the Lord, and destroy their own souls.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 7. Er-was wicked in the sight of the…
Verse 7. Er-was wicked in the sight of the Lord] What this wickedness consisted in we are not told; but the phrase sight of the Lord being added, proves that it was some very great evil. It is worthy of remark that the Hebrew word used to express Er's wickedness is his own name, the letters reversed. Er ער wicked, רע ra. As if the inspired writer had said, "Er was altogether wicked, a completely abandoned character."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Gen 38:7-8. Er was wicked in the sight of…
Gen 38:7-8. Er was wicked in the sight of the Lord — That is, in defiance of God, and his law. And the Lord slew him — Cut him off by an untimely death, before he had any children by Tamar. As long life among the Jews was generally reckoned a blessing from God; so an untimely death was accounted a punishment. The next brother, Onan, was, according to the ancient usage, married to the widow, to preserve the name of his deceased brother that died childless. This custom of marrying the brother’s widow was afterward made one of the laws of Moses, Deu 25:5. Onan, though he consented to marry the widow, yet, to the great abuse of his own body, and of the wife he had married, and to the dishonour of the memory of his brother that was gone, refused to raise up seed unto his brother. And this story seems to be recorded by the Holy Ghost purposely to condemn, not only his malignant and envious disposition with respect to his deceased brother, but also and especially that vile pollution of his body of which he was guilty. For, observe, The thing which he did displeased the Lord, and brought upon him the Lord’s vengeance. And it is to be feared that thousands, especially of single persons, still displease the Lord in a similar way, and destroy their own bodies and souls. All such sins, at the same time that they dishonour the body, evidence the power of vile affections, and are not only condemned in the Scriptures, but by the light of nature, and were held even by the heathen moralists to be peculiarly criminal, and by the Jewish doctors to be a degree of murder. See Universal History.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Wicked; without shame or remorse, sinning against nature, in…
Wicked; without shame or remorse, sinning against nature, in order, if we may believe the Jews, that the beauty of his wife might not be impaired by having children. Onan was actuated by envy. (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 7. Er… was wicked — In what particular forms…
7. Er… was wicked — In what particular forms he showed his wickedness we are not told; but being the son of a Canaanitish woman, he probably imbibed, in his earliest years, the spirit of Canaanitish idolatry and vice, which was ever an abomination to Jehovah.
The Lord slew him — Some sudden or fearful death that was recognised as a judgment stroke.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain And Er, Judah"s firstborn, was wicked in the sight…
And Er, Judah"s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord. The connection between Er"s name (re) and Er"s character (r) is noticeable. The special form which his wickedness assumed is not stated; but the accompanying phrase suggests that, as in the case of the Sodomites, (Gen_13:13 Gen_19:5) it was some unnatural abomination. And the Lord slew him literally, caused him to die; not necessarily by direct visitation; perhaps simply by allowing him to reap the fruits of his youthful indulgence in premature and childless death, which yet was so rapid and so evidently entailed by his evil courses as immediately to suggest the punitive hand of God.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 38:7-10 In this story, the Lord is mentioned as…
38:7-10 In this story, the Lord is mentioned as the sovereign judge who took the lives of Judah’s evil sons.
38:7 That Er was a wicked man is not surprising, since his mother was a Canaanite and his father a wayward Israelite.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.