THAMAR (err. Tämär «palm tree»). — Name of three women and one locality in the Old Testament.
1. Wife of HER, firstborn of JUDAH (q.v.), son of Jacob (Gen 38:6). After her husband’s death, she passed by the law of levirate marriage to ONAN (q.v.); when he too died for his sin, and fearing for the lives of his other sons, she was forced by her superstitious father-in-law to remain secluded. Through deceit she induced her father-in-law JUDAH himself to unite with her, by whom she had the two sons Phares and Zara. The woman’s right prevailed (cf. Ruth 4:12) to give legal offspring to her first husband; in Phares the direct line of the Judaean-Davidic genealogy was preserved (Mt 1:3).
2. Daughter of DAVID by his wife Maacah (though she is said to be of ABSALOM; cf. 2 Sam 13:1 with 3:3), of great beauty, who unwillingly took part in a tragic episode in the royal family: violated by her half-brother AMNON (son of Ahinoam; ibid. 3:2) (ibid. 13:1 ff.), she took refuge with ABSALOM, who two years later avenged her by killing his half-brother Amnon at a banquet (ibid. 13:2-29).
3. Daughter of ABSALOM, likewise celebrated for her beauty (ibid. 2:27).
4. A locality mentioned in Ezek 47:19 (and to be restored also in V. 18) and 48:28 in the ideal description of the eastern borders of Palestine (further in the Hebrew of 1 Kgs 9:18, kethibh), which is identified with a region near Kadesh in the present-day ‘Arabah, probably with Assonthamar of Gen 14:7, near the southern tip of the Dead Sea.