Tanach · Rishonim on Tanach · Ibn Ezra · Torah

Ibn Ezra on Genesis 38:9/אבן עזרא על בראשית ל״ח:ט׳

אכי לא לו יהיה הזרע. לא יקרא בשמו כטעם "והיה הבכור אשר תלד" (דברים כה ו):

1THAT THE SEED WOULD NOT BE HIS. The seed would not be called by his name,¹⁶ as we find in And it shall be, that the first-born that she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother that is dead (Deut. 25:6).

בושחת ארצה. היה משחית זרע הקרי ושופך לחוץ בארץ, ואתמה מבן תמים המזרחי שפי' ושחת ארצה, שעשה לה שלא כדרך הנשים בעבור שלא תהר, והנה שחת הארץ שלה כי עליו היא יושבת בארץ, וזה פי' שגעון, וחלילה חלילה להתגאל זרע הקדש בטנוף הטנוף:

2THAT HE SPILLED IT ON THE GROUND. He destroyed¹⁷ (and he destroyed) artzah (to the ground). I.E. interprets this to mean he destroyed his semen by pouring it on the ground. the seed of his semen by pouring it outside of the vagina, on the ground. I am shocked by Ben Tamim Ha-Mizrachi¹⁸ who interpreted ve-shichet artzah (that he spilled it on the ground) to mean that Onan had unnatural intercourse with Tamar so that she would not conceive.¹⁹ Onan thus shichet artzah (corrupted her ground),²⁰, he dealt corruptly with her ground. i.e., the place upon which she sits on the ground.²¹ This interpretation is sheer madness.²² means toward the ground. If there was a mappik in the heh it would mean her ground. But there is no such mappik in the heh (Krinsky). Heaven forbid that the holy seed become defiled with such filth.

גנתן זרע. כמו השלם:

3GIVE SEED. Neton (give) is here conjugated according to the paradigm of a regular verb.²³ is nun, tav, nun. In the infinitive the first and last nuns are usually dropped; i.e., the infinitive of this root is tet, as in Gen. 4:12. However, in neton the nuns are present. Hence in this case the root nun, tav, nun is conjugated as a shelamim, a regular verb.