Perez

Biblical Account

The account of Perez's birth appears in Genesis 38. Judah's firstborn son, Er, married Tamar and died, and the second son, Onan, also died. Judah did not give his youngest son, Shelah, to Tamar. Tamar then disguised herself, met Judah by the roadside, and conceived a child by him. When Tamar produced the signet, the bracelets, and the staff she had received from Judah, he acknowledged, "She hath been more righteous than I" (Genesis 38:26).

Tamar gave birth to twins. When one child put out his hand first, the midwife tied a scarlet thread on it, but the child drew his hand back, and the other child came out first. The midwife said, "How hast thou broken forth?" and so this child was named Perez (Genesis 38:27–30). The Hebrew Peretz means "breaking forth" or "breach." The child with the scarlet thread on his hand was Zerah.

Perez's name subsequently appears in genealogies and lists:

• Genesis 46:12: He is recorded as a son of Judah when Jacob's household went down to Egypt, and his sons Hezron and Hamul are mentioned with him.
• Numbers 26:20–21: The "family of the Pharzites" (the clan of Perez) appears within the tribe of Judah.
• Ruth 4:12, 18–22: The elders of Bethlehem bless Boaz, saying, "let thy house be like the house of Pharez." A genealogy running from Perez to David follows.
• 1 Chronicles 2:4–5; 27:3: He appears in the genealogy of Judah's descendants, and Jashobeam, a military commander in David's time, is described as a descendant of Perez.
• Nehemiah 11:4–6: After the return from exile, the descendants of Perez living in Jerusalem are recorded as numbering 468.

Significance Within Scripture

Perez was the ancestor of the leading clan of the tribe of Judah, and the royal house of David descended from this line. In the New Testament, Matthew 1:3 states, "And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar," placing him in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. His name also appears in the genealogy in Luke 3:33.

Interpretation and Points of Discussion

• Four women appear in Matthew's genealogy: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah (Bathsheba). Many interpreters read this as a sign of grace, showing that God embraced even flawed people and Gentiles within the history of salvation. Scholars differ, however, in explaining why Matthew included these women.
• The account of the younger brother coming out ahead of the elder is often read alongside the pattern in Genesis in which God reverses the order of the firstborn, as with Jacob and Esau and with Ephraim and Manasseh.
• Some have noted that listing Hezron and Hamul among those who went down to Egypt in Genesis 46 makes the chronology tight. Various explanations have been proposed, including the view that the list includes descendants born later.
• Some sermons associate the scarlet thread with Perez and connect it with Rahab's scarlet cord (Joshua 2). This is a later symbolic reading that the text does not state directly. Moreover, the child on whose hand the thread was tied was Zerah, not Perez.
• The place name Perez-uzzah in 2 Samuel 6:8 uses the same Hebrew word but is unrelated to the person Perez.

In the Korean Church

Sermons or study materials devoted specifically to Perez are rare. He is mainly mentioned in connection with the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38, the genealogy in Ruth 4, and the genealogy in Matthew 1, a passage frequently preached around Christmas.