Onan

So the next son, Er, was married to her, and Er died.

So Onan married her, and Onan died.

So now she was just a widow, and she went back to her father's home.

She heard that Judah was coming to town, so she had a prophecy that her descendant would be the Messiah and would come from... a descendant of Judah.

And Judah saw there the daughter of a man from Canaan, and her name was Aliath, the daughter of Shua.

And he took her and came to her, and Aliath bare unto Judah Er, Onan, and Shiloh, three sons.

And Levi and Issachar went to the land of the east, and they took unto themselves for wives the daughters of Jobab, the son of Yaktan, the son of Eber.

And Jobab, the son of Yaktan, had two daughters.

And in those days Judah went to the house of Shem and took Tamar, the daughter of Elam, the son of Shem, for a wife for his firstborn heir.

And heir came to his wife Tamar, and she became his wife, and when he came to her he outwardly destroyed his seed, and his work was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord slew him.

And it was after the death of heir Judah's firstborn that Judah said unto Onan, Go to thy brother's wife and marry her as the next of kin, and raise up seed to thy brother.

And Onan took Tamar for a wife, and he came to her, and Onan also did like unto the work of his brother, and his work was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him also.

Judah had five sons, but his family history included serious sin and tragedy.

Verse three tells us, "The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, and Shelah.

These three Bathshua the Canaanite bore to him.

Now Er, Judah's firstborn, was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death." Then in verse four, the genealogy mentions Tamar.

She became pregnant and gave birth to a son, whose name was Er.

She conceived again, gave birth to a son, and named him Onan.

She gave birth to still another son, so there's three sons in this story, named him Shelah.

It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him.

But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the Lord's sight, so the Lord put him to death.

So here we have Tamar as a widow, Judah as the father-in-law, and the son that has been put to death for wickedness.

Okay? Then Judah said to Onan, "Sleep with your brother's wife.

Fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother." But Onan knew that the child would not be his, so whenever he slept with his brother's wife, he refused to impregnate her.

That the meaning of the word may be fully understood, I will quote two verses from Genesis chapter 38 verses 8 and 9.

And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.

And Onan knew that the seed should not be his and it came to pass when he went in unto his brother's wife that he spilled it on the ground lest that he should give seed to his brother it must not be supposed that onan used his hand to facilitate an omission but that he simply withdrew his penis and allowed the semen to be lost on the ground to prevent conception Onanism is practiced more at the present day by married males than may at first be imagined.

It is the commonest of all means used as a preventative of conception.

The majority of so-called society women are wives of men who practice onanism.

Bare a son.

She called his name Onan.

Now, what happens with these guys? And then what happens with her, okay? Yet again, she conceived a bare son and called his name Shelah.

Now, You're going to see this principle that the Sadducees laid out in Matthew 22.

You're cut off.

Out, you're gone.

And so Judah said to Onan, go in unto thy brother's wife.

Okay, we're seeing this principle in Deuteronomy 25, which is much later.