כנעני, a merchant, as per Onkelos. The word appears in that sense both in Isaiah 23,8 כנעניה נכבדי ארץ, “as its merchants, the land’s nobles.” The word כנעני also occurs in this sense in Hoseah 12,8 כנען בידו מאזני מרמה, “a trader who uses false weights.” The word cannot refer to the local Canaanite inhabitants as the sons of Yaakov were very careful not to intermarry with these people.

והיה בכזיב, Yehudah was at that location and that is where the child was born.

כי לא לו יהיה הזרע, people in those days were extremely fussy about this point.

נתן זרע, the vowel kametz here is in fact a chataf kametz, as every word spelled plene, i.e. with the vowel cholem as the letter ו when it appears in construct form such as here has this vowel shortened to a chataf kametz. The result is that the stress will be on the last syllable, whereas the word following immediately afterwards will have its stress on the first syllable. In effect this makes the words נתן זרע in our verse as if they had been connected by the hyphen, makkif. Other examples of similar constructions are Psalms 145,8 ארך אפים וגדל חסד [where the word גדל is a shortened version of גדול with the ו as the vowel cholem. Ed.] Another example is found in Exodus 21,11 ואם שלש אלה לא יעשה לה, “if he will do none of these three things for her, etc.” Yet another such construction is found in Numbers 35,14 אבל את שלש הערים, “however the three cities, etc.”

גם אותו. According to our sages Er also died for this same type of sin, as he deliberately wasted his semen by ejaculating prematurely to prevent his wife from becoming pregnant. He wanted to preserve her physical beauty.

ותכס, she covered her head.

ותכס ראשה בצעיף, not the customary manner for a widow to wear her shawl.

ותתעלף, she covered her face so as not to be identified.

בפתח עינים, at the public square where the road forked off in two different directions. The word עינים is used to describe the fact that anyone standing or sitting there was in plain view of anyone traveling these roads. Commentators who translate the word עינים as the name of a town are wrong, as is clear from the words בעינים על הדרך in verse 21. If there had been a town there, the Torah would have had to write בעינים with the semi vowel sheva under the letter ב. We do not find such constructions as בעינים as in verse 21 when reference is made to other cities such as ביריחו, “at Jericho,” or בבית-אל, “at Bet-El,” or בירושלים, “at Jerusalem.”

כי כסתה פניה, only at this point, in accordance with our commentary on the word ותתעלף, (verse 14)

עד שלחך. The reason why we have the “weak” mode, i.e. the conjugation kal instead of the transitive conjugation hiphil, is to indicate that Yehudah would send a messenger to deliver the kid to Tamar. We find the use of the conjugation kal in connection with the sending of gifts especially, as for instance in 32,19 where Yaakov had instructed his messengers to Esau to describe the gift in such terms. (מנחה היא שלוחה) We find it again in verse 23 of our chapter where Yehudah says הנה שלחתי הגדי הזה, “here, I have sent this kid, etc.”

חותמך, your ring.

פתילך, your outer garment,

ומטך, and your staff. She asked for three items none of which were necessary as garments for Yehudah, but were merely decorative, lending Yehudah a better image among his peers.

הקדשה, the harlot; a woman who is always ready to have sexual relations with any male. The male equivalent of the term is found in Deuteronomy 23,18. where the Torah instructs the Jewish people not to tolerate this phenomenon, and in Kings I 14,24 where the presence of such male prostitutes is acknowledged with the words וגם קדש היה בארץ, a phenomenon which surfaced immediately after the death of King Solomon.

תקח לה, not literally “let her take it,” but “let her keep it.” Yehudah said that he would not make an additional effort to find her and to redeem his pledges.

פן נהיה לבוז, so we will not make ourselves laughing stocks by chasing after harlots.

זנתה תמר כלתך, if you were to ask why Yehudah would believe such accusations which would be hard to prove, the informant added that the signs of her pregnancy spoke for themselves as proof of the accusation being justified.

ותשרף, according to the plain meaning of the text this was the standard penalty for a widow of Tamar’s status who had engaged in illicit sex.

היא מוצאת, after she had taken out the pledges given to her by Yehudah and sent them to him via a messenger, she did not want to directly confront him, but said: ”I am pregnant for the man who owned these.”

צדקה ממני, more righteous than I. He referred to her accusation (words) as compared to his accusation (words) against her. “I had commanded her to remain in her father’s house until Shelah would grow up. She complied with the terms of our understanding. However, I did not keep my part of the bargain I had struck with her.” כי ..לא נתתיה לשלה בני, the construction here is similar to Job 32,2: על צדקו נפשו מאלוקים, “because he thought himself more righteous than G’d.” Another similar construction occurs in Samuel I 24,18 with King Sha-ul who admitted to David that he had been wrong in persecuting him with the words: צדיק אתה ממני, “you are more righteous than I.”...

ולא יסף, he did not continue to sleep with Tamar. If you were to interpret the words ולא יסף as “he did not stop sleeping with her,” the wording should have been: ולא יסף עוד מלדעתה.

זרח. On account of the woolen thread which was red in colour. The word זרח basically means red, such as the colour of the sun at the time it rises and when it sets. If it does not appear red during the day this is because of the excess amount of light during those hours making it impossible for us to notice the red colour behind all that light. We find confirmation of the redness of the sun in Kings II 3,22 when the Moabites were deceived by believing that the rising sun’s redness represented blood remaining from a violent battle and they thought they could then simply move over to the camp of the Israelites and pick up the spoils.