On Judah’s “burning desire” in Genesis 38:24

(The above rendering—with new footnote—comes from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation. Before accounting for this rendering, I will analyze the plain sense of the two one-word Hebrew clauses in question.)

Many interpreters have taken Judah’s call for burning at face value, as evidence of his magisterial authority, either as a communal official (Bachya ben Asher: “All the onlookers accepted Judah’s verdict without argument, which shows that he was the local judge”) or as a patriarch (Ramban: “In terms of the plain sense, it could be that it was their legal practice—as is customary today in some Iberian jurisdictions—that a wife who commits adultery is given over to her husband, and he passes judgment on whether she dies or lives as he wishes”). Likewise, in our own day, Nahum Sarna infers: “By virtue of his status as head of the family, Judah here exercises his power of life and death” (ad loc.; so too J. H. Hertz).

However, if we take the norms of ancient Near Eastern law as a given (which then would go without saying in the biblical text), we arrive at a different interpretation. Three careful contemporary scholars have demonstrated that in the eyes of the ancient Israelite audience, Judah would have lacked the legal power to carry out a summary execution (Timothy Willis, Elders of the City [2001], p. 219; Raymond Westbrook, “Adultery in Ancient Law,” Revue Biblique 97 [1990], pp. 546, 572; Carolyn Pressler, View of Women . . . in . . . Family Laws [1993], pp. 34–35). No one legitimately had that kind of authority, not even the king.

Rather, the text’s audience would have expected due process—a hearing in which Judah would claim to be the injured party who is seeking redress for the defendant’s purported adultery. In that light, the audience would have reliably understood that when Judah employs an imperative to “bring her out,” he is assuming the role of plaintiff: calling for a trial.

Therefore, the audience would also have understood Judah’s call for burning to be merely expressing what he publicly contends ought to be the ultimate result. (He employs a modal intransitive verb—a niphal stem with a jussive inflection, as is typical for a result clause.) He is defending his wounded honor by engaging in initial posturing.

As for the translation, the NJPS “and let her be burned” nurtures the false notion that male leaders of Israelite households had the power to execute a female household member summarily. The revised rendering avoids creating that misimpression.