Genesis 38:14

And she put the dress of her widowhood from her, and covered herself with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in the dividing of the road where all eyes see, upon the way of Timnath. For she knew that Shela was grown up, yet she had not been given to him to be his wife.

ותכס, she covered her head.

ותכס ראשה בצעיף, not the customary manner for a widow to wear her shawl.

ותתעלף, she covered her face so as not to be identified.

בפתח עינים, at the public square where the road forked off in two different directions. The word עינים is used to describe the fact that anyone standing or sitting there was in plain view of anyone traveling these roads. Commentators who translate the word עינים as the name of a town are wrong, as is clear from the words בעינים על הדרך in verse 21. If there had been a town there, the Torah would have had to write בעינים with the semi vowel sheva under the letter ב. We do not find such constructions as בעינים as in verse 21 when reference is made to other cities such as ביריחו, “at Jericho,” or בבית-אל, “at Bet-El,” or בירושלים, “at Jerusalem.”

בפתח עינים, at the beginning of two major roads. Such a highway is known as עינים, as we know from Genesis 16,7 על העין בדרך שור, “by the road leading to Shur.”

אשר על דרך תמנתה, so that Yehudah could not avoid meeting her when he would return from Timnatah.

כי ראתה כי גדל שלה, she thought that when Yehudah would see her without widow’s garments he would ask her why she had shed those garments. She would answer him that the time had come for Shelah to marry her. He himself had suggested that she live as a widow only until Shelah would grow up. In the meantime he had already matured.

ותכס בצעיף. She covered her face with the shawl in order for Yehudah not to be able to recognise her.

ותתעלף, she donned beautiful garments instead of widow’s garb in order to attract Yehudah.

ותשב בפתח עינים, at the crossroads. This was a very exposed location, visible to anyone traveling in that region.

כי ראתה כי גדל שלה, she did all this because she realised now that Yehudah had no intention of letting her be married to his son. She therefore planned to be impregnated by him (seed of his family) without his being aware of it.

בפתח עינים, this expression may be understood as we know from the Talmud, tractate Sotah folio,10, where Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmeni understands it as giving a reason for her apparently inappropriate behaviour, when Yehudah first asked her about her personal status; she said that she was not married, was a widow, that she was ritually pure, and quite unattached to any other man when she had married, and that even then she was not anyone’s daughter-in-law. [The marriage had not been consummated. Ed.]