Intermarriage: Why isn’t God Upset?

David A. Epstein

May 5, 2001

 

There were times when God was so angry about human actions that he destroyed cities or even the entire world. One needs to look no further than Sodom and Gomorrah to realize that he did not approve of homosexuality. The wickedness practiced by man during the time of Noah was the reason for the destruction of the world through diluvial means. 

 

On the other side of the fence, God did not punish man for other sexual practices that are taboo in our contemporary society: polygamy and incest. While we can’t infer that he approved of these practices, at the very least, if he in fact did not condone them, then he overlooked them or turned the other cheek. The same goes with intermarriage, at least in Genesis.

 

Two primary examples come to mind.  First, there’s Esau, the brother of Jacob. In Chapter 36, Esau took 3 wives who were Canaanites. One can easily speculate that he turned away from his own people because of the injustice he felt Jacob perpetrated against him, particularly the loss of his birthright and obtaining Isaac’s blessing. In that case, the ultimate type of rebellion would be to marry outside the tribe. Regardless of motive, his actions go unpunished.

 

Second, there’s Judah, the son of Jacob. In Chapter 38, Judah did the nasty with a Canaanite named Shua who conceived a child. It isn’t until verse 12 that we actually find out that Shua is Judah’s wife.

 

God does nothing in response to this intermarriage; but in subsequent verses, we discover that he becomes quite irate because of other actions, so much so that he kills people. Er, Judah’s first born, was killed by God because he deemed him to be wicked. In verses 8, Judah instructs his second son, Onan, to impregnate his first son’s wife (Tamar). In verses 9-10, Onan makes love to her, but spills his seed (semen) so as not to impregnate her. This really makes God very angry, for not only does he deem it favorable for a man to comfort his dead brother’s wife, but to “perform the duty of a husband’s brother” and father a child. As a result of Onan’s indiscretion, God kills him.

 

Interracial (or interethnic or mixed-religious) breeding also isn’t punishable by God. Come to think of it, neither is having a child out of wedlock. We remember that Abraham had Ishmael with Hagar (the Egyptian).

 

One naturally wonders if God actually helped to promote intermarriage. Did he permit intermingling of Jews with the Hittites, Hivites, and other Canaanites with the intention of bringing them unto each other? Or perhaps he merely watched with great awe as they performed the deeds themselves. We will never know because we aren’t privy to God’s point of view on this issue, not yet anyway (maybe in later stories in the Bible).

 

Regardless, I’ll hazard a guess. We’ve already established that a major theme of Genesis is the promulgation (or propagation) of the species. That’s why so many variants of sexual practices are permitted and encouraged. The reproductive fitness of a species is a dominant theme in the theory of evolution. Variation is another tenet of this theory, and what better way is there to promote cultural or ethnic diversity (re: variation) that to practice cross-cultural breeding? This isn’t necessarily a Social evolutionary perspective, but it could be a view compatible with it. If it were, then I would hope it leans towards the more uplifting aspects of that perspective rather than its pernicious attributes.