Matthew included her. We should too.

Not all stories are told aloud, some are hushed, and told in whispers. Often, these stories are of the Biblical women. 
Tamar’s story is one of them, perhaps because it challenges the assumed Biblical values the character must have. Still, New Testament tells her tale, and should we, especially when it comes to historical perspectives on women in the Scripture.  

When he traces the genealogy of Jesus, he includes exactly four women before Mary.
Not Sarah.
Not Rebekah.
Not Rachel or Leah.

He chooses Tamar.

Why?
Because without her courage, her agency, and her audacity to claim justice in an impossible situation, the Messianic line would have died in the shadows of Judah’s house.

This is her story—and why Matthew refuses to write Jesus’ lineage without her.

Genesis 38 interrupts Joseph’s story and makes one wonder where is the Scripture taking us with this story. Judah marries and has three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah.
Tamar marries Er.
Er dies—“wicked in the sight of the Lord.”

According to the custom of levirate marriage, the next brother, Onan, is responsible for giving Tamar a child to continue his brother’s line.
Onan refuses, using Tamar but denying her pregnancy. Because he wants the inheritance for himself, which is clearly exploitation of women.

So Onan dies too.

Judah panics.
Two sons dead.
One woman in common.
He decides Tamar must be the problem.

So, Tamar is sent to her father’s house, where she cannot remarry, have her own children or even move forward. Then, quietly, he never sends for her again.

Tamar is written out.
Forgotten.
Suspended in injustice.

Except she refuses to stay erased.

Tamar finds out that Judah is traveling to Timnah. She removes her widow’s clothes, veils herself and then positions herself beside the road where Judah will pass.

When Judah sees her, he believes she is a prostitute and propositions her. In return, Tamar demands Judah’s seal, cord, and staff, and they sleep together.
She conceives.

Three months later, when her pregnancy is discovered, Judah orders her to be burned alive.

But Tamar steps forward and holds up the proof:

“The man who owns these is the father of this child.”

Judah looks onto his own seal, his own staff, his own cord, and says the words that splits Genesis open:

“She is more righteous than I.”

This is not righteousness in terms of sexual behavior.
It is righteousness in terms of justice.
She acted faithfully.
He did not.

Tamar then gives birth to twins, Perez and Zerah, with Perez carrying on Messianic line.

Her courage kept the promise alive.

And her story reveals her humility and strength, and not submission.

Matthew chooses Tamar for reasons that should shake us awake.

Tamar exposes the failure of powerful men. Tamar reveals Judah’s negligence and hypocrisy by holding up the evidence.

Tamar acts with agency in a world that gave her none. She refused to remain erased, refused to let injustice speak the final word over her life, refused to let the covenant line die under male failure.

Tamar embodies God’s commitment to the marginalized. God does not preserve the Messianic lineage through kings or priests here. God preserves it through a woman society dismissed, abandoned, and condemned.

Tamar’s courage allowed Jesus to come from Judah’s line. In a very real sense, she saved the story Joseph’s brothers tried to destroy.

Matthew wants us to see that Jesus’ story begins in scandal and then redemption and forgiveness. Tamar is not included despite the scandal. She is included because of what she reveals:

Grace moves through the margins.
Redemption grows in unexpected soil.
And God is not ashamed of the stories we are ashamed of.

The truth is, Tamar confronts us with questions we rarely ask:

• What happens when a woman’s survival depends on her own creative resistance?
• What righteousness looks like when the system itself is unjust?
• What faithfulness means when those with power fail in their responsibility?

Tamar is not passive.
She is not obedient in the way we sanitize biblical womanhood.
She is fierce and strategic.
She knows the law better than Judah.
She holds God’s promises more faithfully than the patriarchs.

And Matthew looks at her courage and says,
“Write her name down. Don’t you dare forget her.”

In a Bible that often centers men, God ensures this woman’s story remains unburied.
Her name sits in Jesus’ genealogy like a burning torch, illuminating the truth, God does not build salvation stories out of perfect people. God builds them out of the overlooked, the mistreated, the courageous, the ones who had to fight to be heard.

Tamar tells us “Your story matters—even the parts they tried to hide.”

And when Matthew begins the New Testament by writing her name, he is telling us, “The Messiah comes through women who refused to disappear.”

Tamar’s story is no different than Photine’s in Beyond the Well. Tamar is also a woman overcoming oppression in the system that never sees or hears her. She is the example of empowerment through adversity, faith and perseverance, and personal growth through faith.