צדקה ממני, יותר ממני שאמרתי לשרפה כי אינה חייבת שריפה כי ממני מעוברת. וארז"ל בשלשה מקומות הופיע רוח הקודש בבית דינו של שם דכתיב ממני, יצאה בת קול ואמרה ממני יצאו הדברים, בבית דינו של שמואל ובבית דינו של שלמה, וראיתי בתשובת לגאון וששאלתם מהו ממני יצאו כבושים לא כך אנו גורסים בישיבה בית דינו של שם דכתיב ויכר יהודה ויאמר צדקה ממני, מנא ידע, דלמא כי היכי דאפקרה נפשה לגביה הכי נמי אפקרה נפשה לגבי אחריני, יצאת בת קול ואמרה ממך יצאו, כבושים, וליהודה אמרה, והלין נינהו דקא כביש ודחיק חד לחבריה. ואיכא דגרסין יצאו כובשין, ופירש דלבתר דאסהיד עליה דמיניה ניהו בשריה במלכות שבט יהודה, דכובשים את הארץ דכתיב ונכבשה הארץ לפניכם. צדקה ממני; she is more righteous than I, for I had declared her guilty of being burned to death while she was innocent, seeing she is pregnant from me and has not acted like a harlot. Our sages in Makkot 23 as well as in Bereshit Rabbah 85,12 say that there are basically three locations where the Holy Spirit,רוח הקודש , was manifest [was needed to confirm a verdict. Ed.] One was the court of Shem, son of Noach. This is based on the word ממני in our verse not meaning “than me, Yehudah,” but “from Me, G’d.” [although Shem himself was no longer alive at the time Tamar’s trial came up, his grandson Ever, probably in conjunction with others maintained the court he had founded, which was administering the seven Noachide (universal laws for all of mankind) laws at the time. Ed.] The sages understand that when the verdict was passed on Tamar a heavenly voice was heard saying that Tamar’s pregnancy by Yehudah had been decreed by G.d, “from Me.” The second such instance was in the court conducted by the prophet Samuel. They base this on Samuel I 12,5 ויאמר עד, G’d confirming that the prophet had dealt fairly with the whole people during his being the supreme authority, before a King was appointed. Without this confirmation we only had his word for it. The third example was the court of King Solomon, during the famous trial of two women claiming a live baby as her own and the dead one as belonging to her adversary. (Kings I 3,27.) A heavenly voice confirmed Solomon’s verdict [which from a purely halachic point of view was quite unsubstantiated. Ed.] The words היא אמו, “she is his mother,” then were not said by Solomon but by G’d. G’d’s confirmation of Tamat’s innocence was needed as people could have argued that while it was true that she had slept with Yehudah, who was to say that other men had not also slept with her and that she was actually pregnant by someone else? The Talmud concludes by citing the heavenly voice as saying ממך יצאו כבושים, “secrets unknown to others are revealed by Me.” [according to Rashi on Makkot 23 the fact that in due course Tamar’s and Yehudah’s son became the forerunner of the Davidic dynasty proved that the seed she had carried was that of Yehudah, both Tamar and Yehudah being of Royal descent, -Tamar as the daughter of Malki Tzedek King of Shalem, and Yehudah by dint of the destiny predicted for him by his father on his deathbed.] There is a variant reading which says that as a result of Yehudah’s admission, G’d decided to appoint him as the founder of the future Davidic dynasties, and that the line ונכבשה הארץ לפניכם, “the land will become conquered before you,” in Numbers 32,29 is addressed to the leading tribe, Yehudah. This is based on the wordכבושים in the Talmud being read as ממך יצאו כובשים, “that conquerors will emerge from your loins.”
כי על כן, שלא נתתיה לשלה בני עשתה זה, וכן, בעבור זה עשה ה' (שמות י"ג ט') שעשה ה', והדומים לו. כי על כן לא נתתיה, as if the Torah had written כי על כן שלא נתתיה, “because I did not give her, etc., she has done this, i.e. pretended to be a harlot, because I did not give her to my son Shelah.” We find a similar construction in Exodus 13,8 בעבור זה עשה ה' לי, “on account of this (that I observe the commandment mentioned) G’d has done this for me” (taken me out of Egypt).”
ולא יסף עוד לדעתה, ולא שכב עמה עוד כיון שהפעם הזאת שכב עמה שלא בידיעה ובדרך ביזיון כי חשב שהיא קדשה ואין כבוד לאדם חשוב שישכב עם קדשה, לפיכך לא יסף עוד לדעתה. ומצאנו בתרגום שתי נוסחאות, יש נוסחא ולא פסק עוד מלדעתה, ויש נוסחא ולא אוסיף עוד. וכל הדברים האלה היות זרע יהודה הנשאר בזה הדרך, והיות דוד מרות המואביה, ושלמה מבת שבע, הכל היתה סבה מאת האל לפי שמלכות נתנה האל לדוד ולזרעו עד עולם כדי שלא יתגאו מלכות יהודה על ישראל, ויזכרו צור חצבו ממנו ויהיו שפלי רוח וינהיגו המלכות בענוה ובתם לבב: ולא יסף עוד לדעתה, he did not sleep with her again seeing that even this time the act had been unintentional and in a manner not appropriate to her status. It is demeaning for a socially highly placed individual to sleep with a harlot. For Yehudah to have done so again would have been demeaning for him [as she would always be aware that the first time he had done this was in order to merely gratify a biological urge. Ed.] In the Targum we find two different versions regarding the meaning of the words ולא יסף עוד לדעתה. The second version is that Yehudah never stopped sleeping with Tamar, i.e. he treated her as his wife in every respect from then on. The reason why the Torah told us about all these details and how the seed of Yehudah became mingled with that of Ruth the Moabite, as well as how King Solomon was the son of Bat Sheva whose marriage to David did not exactly come about in a normal manner, is to show that the hand of G’d had been at work in all of these situations. G’d’s design had been that the Kingdom of Israel should be David’s on a hereditary basis forever [whenever there would be independent kings, not appointed by conquerors of the Jewish people. Ed.] The somewhat flawed lineage in Jewish kings is G’d’s device to prevent such kings from becoming proud of their pure ancestry, and considering themselves ”ancestrally“ superior to their peers. [perhaps the advice of the Shulchan Aruch that when appointing public officials of high rank one should select someone with a “skeleton in his closet,” a קופת שרצים, is based on the flaws in the ancestry of the Davidic dynasty. Ed.]