“And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.”
But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. The deliberate frustration of the levirate obligation — Onan's decision to prevent conception — is the violation that the narrative condemns. The selfishness of Onan is not primarily sexual but covenantal: he takes the benefits of the arrangement (access to Tamar) without fulfilling its obligations (raising offspring for Er). The application: taking the benefits of a covenant relationship without fulfilling its obligations is the form of faithlessness the narrative names and judges.
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