Genèse 38:26

And Jehuda, acknowledged and said, Tamar is innocent; she is with child by me. And the Bath kol fell from heaven, and said, From before Me was this thing done, and let both be delivered from judgment. And Jehuda said, Because I gave her not to Shela my son, hath this happened to me. But he added not to know her again.

SHE IS RIGHTEOUS FROM ME. “She is righteous in her words. From me is she with child. Our Rabbis expounded that a bath kol (a Divine voice) came forth and said the word mimeni, i.e., ‘From Me and from My authority did these events unfold.’” This is Rashi’s language.
The correct interpretation is that it is similar to the verses: Men more righteous and better than he; And he [Saul] said to David, Thou art more righteous than I; for thou hast rendered unto me good, whereas I have rendered unto thee evil. Here too the meaning is: “She is more righteous than I, for she acted righteously and I am the one who sinned against her by not giving her my son Shelah.” The purport of the statement is that Shelah was the brother-in-law, [hence he was the first designated to marry her], and if he did not wish to take her as his wife, his father is next in line to act as the redeemer, as I have explained above when I discussed the law of marrying a childless brother’s widow.

AND HE KNEW HER AGAIN NO MORE (‘v’lo yasaph’). After having established progeny for his children, he did not wish to be with her again even though this was dependent upon his wish as she was not forbidden to him, being, in fact, considered as his wife, as is the law when the widow of a childless man has relations with a relative. This is the reason for the explanation given by a certain Sage, who explains the verse as saying, “And he did not cease to know her,” since here the expression used is, v’lo yasaph, and elsewhere it is written, A great voice ‘v’lo yasaph’. [with a kamatz], meaning “and it did not cease,” or “it did not diminish in strength,” unlike the human voice which decreases and eventually stops completely. Here also the identical expression, v’lo yasaph [with a patach], means “and he did not cease.”

צדקה ממני, more righteous than I. He referred to her accusation (words) as compared to his accusation (words) against her. “I had commanded her to remain in her father’s house until Shelah would grow up. She complied with the terms of our understanding. However, I did not keep my part of the bargain I had struck with her.” כי ..לא נתתיה לשלה בני, the construction here is similar to Job 32,2: על צדקו נפשו מאלוקים, “because he thought himself more righteous than G’d.” Another similar construction occurs in Samuel I 24,18 with King Sha-ul who admitted to David that he had been wrong in persecuting him with the words: צדיק אתה ממני, “you are more righteous than I.”...

ולא יסף, he did not continue to sleep with Tamar. If you were to interpret the words ולא יסף as “he did not stop sleeping with her,” the wording should have been: ולא יסף עוד מלדעתה.

צדקה ממני, even though she approached me under false pretences, misrepresenting herself, she still acted more righteously than I did. I did not see her at all when I sent her the goat. [I was too embarrassed to be seen, Ed.] Her deceit was practised for a noble cause. and appears to have been approved by G’d, seeing she meant to maintain the seed of her deceased husband, whereas I was merely wanting to gratify my libido. Immediately she had done what she meant to do she resumed living as a widow as I had told her to do. My seeking her out to let her have the goat I had promised her was meant only to ensure that my good image would be preserved. This in itself is not a worthy cause. Our sages have used this occurrence as the basis for their saying that “a sin committed for noble cause is better than a good deed when same is not performed as such but as something self-serving.” (Nazir 23).

צדקה ממני; she is more righteous than I, for I had declared her guilty of being burned to death while she was innocent, seeing she is pregnant from me and has not acted like a harlot. Our sages in Makkot 23 as well as in Bereshit Rabbah 85,12 say that there are basically three locations where the Holy Spirit,רוח הקודש , was manifest [was needed to confirm a verdict. Ed.] One was the court of Shem, son of Noach. This is based on the word ממני in our verse not meaning “than me, Yehudah,” but “from Me, G’d.” [although Shem himself was no longer alive at the time Tamar’s trial came up, his grandson Ever, probably in conjunction with others maintained the court he had founded, which was administering the seven Noachide (universal laws for all of mankind) laws at the time. Ed.] The sages understand that when the verdict was passed on Tamar a heavenly voice was heard saying that Tamar’s pregnancy by Yehudah had been decreed by G.d, “from Me.” The second such instance was in the court conducted by the prophet Samuel. They base this on Samuel I 12,5 ויאמר עד, G’d confirming that the prophet had dealt fairly with the whole people during his being the supreme authority, before a King was appointed. Without this confirmation we only had his word for it. The third example was the court of King Solomon, during the famous trial of two women claiming a live baby as her own and the dead one as belonging to her adversary. (Kings I 3,27.) A heavenly voice confirmed Solomon’s verdict [which from a purely halachic point of view was quite unsubstantiated. Ed.] The words היא אמו, “she is his mother,” then were not said by Solomon but by G’d. G’d’s confirmation of Tamat’s innocence was needed as people could have argued that while it was true that she had slept with Yehudah, who was to say that other men had not also slept with her and that she was actually pregnant by someone else? The Talmud concludes by citing the heavenly voice as saying ממך יצאו כבושים, “secrets unknown to others are revealed by Me.” [according to Rashi on Makkot 23 the fact that in due course Tamar’s and Yehudah’s son became the forerunner of the Davidic dynasty proved that the seed she had carried was that of Yehudah, both Tamar and Yehudah being of Royal descent, -Tamar as the daughter of Malki Tzedek King of Shalem, and Yehudah by dint of the destiny predicted for him by his father on his deathbed.] There is a variant reading which says that as a result of Yehudah’s admission, G’d decided to appoint him as the founder of the future Davidic dynasties, and that the line ונכבשה הארץ לפניכם, “the land will become conquered before you,” in Numbers 32,29 is addressed to the leading tribe, Yehudah. This is based on the wordכבושים in the Talmud being read as ממך יצאו כובשים, “that conquerors will emerge from your loins.”

ויאמר צדקה ממני, he (Yehudah) said: “she is more righteous than I am. ”G–d’s methods when sitting in judgment cannot be compared to the way a human judge deals with offenders. When a human judge tries a case, and the accused party admits his guilt, the judge proceeds to carry out the penalty for the offence in question, having proven that he did not act arbitrarily. In other words, if the offence carries the death penalty, it is carried out forthwith. According to Proverbs 28,13, this is not G–d’s way of dealing with the guilty party Solomon describes it as: ומודה ועוזב ירוחם, “if he confesses and abandons sin, he will experience mercy.” As soon as Yehudah’s brother Reuven heard about how he had publicly acknowledged being the father of Tamar’s unborn children, he himself acknowledged his guilt in defiling his father’ couch. (Yaakov’s words in Genesis 49,4) This is also what Eliphas said to Job (Job 15,18) אשר חכמים יגידו ולא כחדו מאבותם, “that which the wise men have transmitted from their fathers and have not withheld it.” The wise men that Job referred to are none other than Yehudah and Reuven. This is why the descendants of those two sons of Yaakov were the only ones whose territory was never invaded by aliens [prior to the building of Solomon’s Temple? Ed.] (compare Moses’ blessing in Deuteronomy 33, 6-7)