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Re: Can anyone tell me more about the name Tamar? n/t
I don't know about other meanings, but I do know the stories of both Tamars in the Bible. The one that was the daughter-in-law of Judah was married to his son, who died without leaving an heir. I think maybe then she was married to another of his sons, who also died without leaving an heir. (It was lawful that should a man die without an heir, his brother should take his wife and beget a child that would symbolically be the dead man's child, so his lineage wouldn't die out.) So then Judah told her to wait around for his other son to grow up and he'd give her to him, but then it never happened. So she disguised herself as a prostitute, had sex with Judah himself, and bore twins by him. Which apparently was the righteous thing to have done, because when Judah found out he said, "She has been more righteous than I" or something like that. The other Tamar, the daughter of David, was lusted after by her half brother, who pretended to be sick and requested she come make him some food and then raped her. David didn't choose to do something about this, and a couple of years later another of Tamar's brothers killed the rapist half-brother, which caused all sorts of family and political strife but I can't remember the details precisely. Anyway, that's what I know about this name.
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