Adullamite

Adullamite designates an inhabitant of the city of Adullam in the Shephelah of Judah. The term appears three times in Genesis 38, each time referring to Hirah, a Canaanite man of Adullam who was a friend of Judah during the period before the family's descent into Egypt. Through this friendship, Judah came into contact with Shua the Canaanite, whose daughter he married, and it was through Hirah that Judah sent the payment of a young goat to the woman he had mistaken for a prostitute — who proved to be his daughter-in-law Tamar.

Hirah the Adullamite plays a supporting but narratively significant role in the episode of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38, which interrupts the Joseph narrative and explores the matrilineal continuity of the Judahite line. The term itself is purely a gentile designation indicating membership in the community of Adullam.