It must be borne in mind that we are dealing with the age which produced the thrilling story of Joseph and his brothers, and Potiphar's wife, and the contrast with his chastity represented in the profligacy of Judah. Indications have been left in Gen. xxxv. at the end of verse 22 of the suppression of a story of Reuben and Bilhah, and no doubt there were other suppressions. How very bad the story of Reuben was we may judge, as Bernstein points out, by the severity of his condemnation by Jacob (Gen. xlix.) and by the shocking things about Judah (Gen. xxxviii.) allowed to remain in the text. In the latter chapter Bernstein finds the same personages,--David, Bathsheba, Solomon,--acting in a similar drama to that presented in the Samuel fragments, and under their disguises may perhaps be discovered some of the details suppressed in the Davidic records. Bernstein says: "In Genesis xxxviii. Judah, the fourth son of the patriarch, is shown in a light which is to lay bare the stain of his existence. Judah went to Adullam, where lived his friend 'Chirah.' He married a Canaanite, the daughter of Shuah. [8] His eldest son was called Er. He (Er) was displeasing in the eyes of Jahveh, therefore Jahveh slew him. His second son was called Onan: he died in consequence of his sexual sins. The third son's name was Shelah, and, as it is mysteriously stated after his name, 'he was at Chezib when his mother bare him.' Chezib is certainly the name of a place, and the addition may therefore signify that the mother had named the boy Shelah because the father happened to be in Chezib at the time, absent from home. Chezib has, however, a second meaning.... Chezib means 'deception, lie,' and is used by the prophet Micah in this sense (i. 4). Now as Shelah, in our narrative, serves to deceive Tamar's hopes, held out by Judah, the allusion to Chezib is appropriate. However this may be, Judah's sons are all represented as despicable. Even Judah himself fell into bad ways and was trapped into the snares laid by his daughter-in-law Tamar, who played the prostitute. Thus only did Judah found a generation, from which King David is said to descend, from a son of Judah called Paretz, meaning 'breaking through,' in which manner he is supposed to have behaved towards his brother at his birth.