Även känd som: Shelah, Sala, Shelah, Salmon, Salma
PatriarkernaPatriarchc. 1850 BC
Shelah was the third son of Judah and his Canaanite wife, Bath-Shua. He was promised as a husband to Tamar after his two older brothers Er and Onan died, but Judah did not keep his promise. Shelah became the ancestor of a clan within the tribe of Judah, and his descendants are mentioned in several genealogies in the Old Testament.
11Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Live as a widow in your father's house until my son Shelah is grown up." For he thought, "He may die too, like his brothers." So Tamar went and settled in her father's house.
Tamar realized that Shelah had grown up without Judah fulfilling his promise to give him to her as a wife, which led her to take matters into her own hands.
14So she took off her widow's clothes, covered herself with a veil and wrapped herself up, and sat down at the entrance to Enaim, on the road to Timnah. For she saw that although Shelah was grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife.