Note 3 — Chapter VI · Solomon in the Hexateuch.

“In Genesis xxxviii. Judah, the fourth son of the patriarch, is shown in a light which is to lay bare the stain of his existence. Judah went to Adullam, where lived his friend ‘Chirah.’ He married a Canaanite, the daughter of Shuah.3 His eldest son was called Er. He (Er) was displeasing in the eyes of Jahveh, therefore Jahveh slew him. His second son was called Onan: he died in consequence of his sexual sins. The third son’s name was Shelah, and, as it is mysteriously stated after his name, ‘he was at Chezib when his mother bare him.’ Chezib is certainly the name of a place, and the addition may therefore signify that the mother had named the boy Shelah because the father happened to be in Chezib at the time, absent from home. Chezib has, however, a second meaning.... Chezib means ‘deception, lie,’ and is used by the prophet Micah in this sense (i. 4). Now as Shelah, in our narrative, serves to deceive Tamar’s hopes, held out by Judah, the allusion to Chezib is appropriate. However this may be, Judah’s sons are all represented as despicable. Even Judah himself fell into bad ways and was trapped into the snares laid by his daughter-in-law Tamar, who played the prostitute. Thus only did Judah found a generation, from which King David is said to descend, from a son of Judah called Paretz, meaning ‘breaking through,’ in which manner he is supposed to have behaved towards his brother at his birth.