Today we continue on with our look at Esau's family.
"Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau, Basemath bore Reuel, Oholibamah bore Jeush, Jalam and Korah. These were the sons of Esau, who were born to him in Canaan." (Genesis 38:4-5) Esau had five sons compared to Jacob's twelve. We will learn he has daughters too but Biblical genealogies follow only the male lines so we know pretty much nothing about the daughters.
"Esau took his wives and sons and daughters and all the members of his household, as well as his livestock and all his other animals and all the goods he had acquired in Canaan, and moved to a land some distance from his brother Jacob. Their possessions were too great for them to remain together; the land where they were staying could not support them both because of their livestock. So Esau (that is, Edom) settled in the hill country of Seir." (Genesis 36:6-8) It appears as if the two brothers are able to get along with each other on their late father's estate; they simply have so many flocks and herds that there isn't enough grazing land for them all. Esau, the elder brother, is the one who moves. I think maybe Jacob has begun to take over the duties of the one who owns the birthright, but if so there doesn't seem to be any ill will between him and his brother.
"This is the account of the family line of Esau the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir. These are the names of Esau's sons: Eliphaz, the son of Esau's wife Adah, and Reuel, the son of Esau's wife Basemath. The sons of Eliphaz: Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam and Kenez. Esau's son Eliphaz also had a concubine named Timna, who bore him Amalek. These were grandsons of Esau's wife Adah." (Genesis 36:9-12) One of these grandsons is the father of the Amalekites, a tribe that will become bitter enemies of Israel.
"The sons of Esau's son Reuel: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah and Mizzah. These were grandsons of Esau's wife Basemath." (Genesis 36:13)
"The sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon, whom she bore to Esau: Jeush, Jalam and Korah." (Genesis 36:14) We don't know who Anah and Zibeon were but they must have been very prominent men of Canaan since the author of Genesis takes the time to provide this information about the genealogy of a woman who is not in the bloodline of the Messiah.
The Lord promised Jacob that kings will be among his descendants. (Genesis 35:11) God's own Son, the King of kings, will be born of the descendants of Jacob's son Judah. The Lord made no promises to Esau about kings or covenants, but He still blessed Esau with many chieftains among his descendants. "These were the chiefs among Esau's descendants: The sons of Eliphaz the firstborn of Esau: Chiefs Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz, Korah, Gatam and Amalek. These were the chiefs descended from Eliphaz in Edom; they were grandsons of Adah. The sons of Esau's son Reuel: Chiefs Nahath, Zerah, Shammah and Mizzah. These were the chiefs descended from Reuel in in Edom; they were grandsons of Esau's wife Basemath. The sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah: Chiefs Jeush, Jalam and Korah. These were the chiefs descended from Esau's wife Oholibamah daughter of Anah. These were the sons of Esau (that is, Edom) and these were their chiefs." (Genesis 36:15-19)
The Edomites are not going to be good friends to the Israelites later on, though they are closely connected to them by blood. When the children of Israel make their exodus from Egypt, the Edomites will refuse to let them pass through their territory. The Edomites will later rebel and fight against the kings of Israel. Herod the Great, who will order all the baby boys of Bethlehem killed when he hears that the Promised One is born in Israel, was a descendant of the Edomites. The Lord will tell Israel not to wipe out the descendants of Esau because the two nations are brothers through their ancestors Jacob and Esau, but the Edomites will have no such qualms about wiping out people of Israel. The Edomites, like their forefather Esau, will not be very spiritually minded toward the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their ears will not be open to His instructions and they will not want to get along with the descendants of Esau's brother Jacob.
Tomorrow we will conclude Chapter 36 with a look at the tribes with which Esau's sons and grandsons intermarried, then we will see a list of rulers who were in the land during that time. The author of Genesis provides us with these lists because they will become important later on when the Lord rescues the nation of Israel from Egypt and commands them to begin taking over the promised land.
After we finish Chapter 36 our focus will be back on Jacob and his family. When we rejoin them in Chapter 37 they are going to be as dysfunctional as ever. Jacob will show so much favoritism to his eldest son by Rachel that ten of the brothers are going to hatch a plan to get this brother out of their lives for good. But it's all part of God's plan and I'm very excited to begin studying soon the life of Jacob's son Joseph who will be sold into slavery by his brothers but who, by God's design, will rise to power in Egypt and be in the perfect position to save the lives of all the tribes of Israel.
Friday, February 14, 2020
Thursday, February 13, 2020
In The Beginning. Dy 136, Esau's Family, Part One
When we left off last time, Isaac had gone on to be with the Lord and his sons Esau and Jacob took care of his funeral and burial together. Before continuing on with the study of Jacob's life, the author of Genesis tells us about the large family of Esau. Genealogies can seem a bit dry to us if they are not our own, but the Bible includes this record of Esau's family for at least two reasons. One, when the nation of Israel later comes out of Egypt to take over the promised land, they will be forbidden to drive out any of the descendants of Esau. This genealogy list will help them to know who his descendants are. Second, this genealogy proves that God kept His word that He would make Esau fruitful and prosperous even though he is not the one who inherited the birthright and the covenant blessing that the Lord swore to Abraham..
"This is the account of the family line of Esau (that is, Edom)." (Genesis 36:1) The tribe of Esau and the region they inhabited was known as Edom. We sometimes find the Bible using the names of Esau and Edom interchangeably.
"Esau took his wives from the women of Canaan: Adah daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Oholibamah daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon the Hitite---also Basemath daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth." (Genesis 36:2-3) There are some discrepancies between the names of Esau's wives here in Genesis 36 and the names of his wives in Genesis 26 and Genesis 28. In the earlier chapters of Genesis we were told that he married two Canaanite women: Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. When he realized how much it displeased his parents that he married pagan women, he tried to placate them by taking a third wife who was Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael and the sister of Nebaioth.
Scholars have several theories regarding why we find these discrepancies. One is that the women went by more than one name or changed their names. It's not uncommon for Bible characters to undergo a name change. The Lord Himself changed Abram's name to Abraham, Sarai's name to Sarah, and Jacob's name to Israel. If Esau's Canaanite wives converted to the God of Abraham they may have taken on a new name to reflect their new identities. It was also common in those times to be called more than one name if you were living very closely with people of another language and culture. The nearby tribe who spoke a different language might call you something other than what the people of your hometown called you. It was also common for cities, water wells, rivers and streams to be called by more than one name. Each tribe might have their own name for different places. We've already found Jacob changing the name of Luz to Bethel, but that doesn't mean the tribes in the area didn't keep on calling it Luz. In the Bible we are usually going to find it referred to as Bethel by the descendants of Jacob, but the Canaanite people likely didn't know or care why Jacob called the place "House Of God" and I'd be willing to bet many of them stuck with the name of Luz.
Another theory is that Esau married more than just the three wives we've previously been told about. This is especially likely if some of them were not fertile. If some of his wives did not produce children we would not expect to find these wives listed in the family tree. For example, if the Judith mentioned in Genesis 26 never had children, that explains why she isn't mentioned here in Genesis 36 as a wife of Esau who bore him children.
Another theory is that early translators of this section of our chapter were working with a very fragmentary portion where part of the words were missing in verses 2-3. In Genesis 36 we are told that Basemath was the daughter of Ishmael but earlier in Genesis we were told that Basemath was a Hittite woman and that the name of Ishmael's daughter was Mahalath. If portions of the sentences found in verses 2 and 3 were missing, the translators would have had to make their best educated guess as to how the pieces were connected. This might have ended up in Basemath being connected with the wrong father.
We really have no clear answer, scholars have debated this for centuries, and we won't come to any satisfactory answer for it in our study today. I think the main thing to keep in mind is that this discrepancy doesn't alter anything whatsoever about the foundations of our faith. If someone transposed a name or two of Esau's wives, or if he had more than just three wives, or if his wives went by more than one name, it makes no difference in the gospel message that saves our souls. It changes nothing about who God is and it changes nothing about the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think we can regard it as an interesting puzzle but in no way do I feel it constitutes a "falsehood" in the Bible. If a mistake was made with these women's names it was unintentional and it makes no difference in the long run.
We don't need to worry that the Bible contains errors, for whenever there is an unclear word in the original language or wherever a portion is missing in the original text, it always appears to be non-essential small words or small group of words or a discrepancy in the name of a person or place. We've already seen some examples of why a person might be called by something different or why a place might be called different names by different tribes. Some Bibles print in italics the words the translators had to guess at, and usually those are connecting words such as "a, an, the, and, but" and so on. None of these missing fragments do any harm to the doctrine of the Bible and none of them alter the gospel message in any way. In fact, the New Testament was written in Greek (the language most of the developed world was using at the time) and the books of the New Testament were widely distributed even in their early years while most of the developed world was under the rule of the Roman Empire and when a person could safely and easily travel throughout the empire. Because the books of the New Testament were hand-copied and distributed over and over, translators really didn't have too many fragments to deal with. If a portion of one of the copies of the Apostle Paul's letters was missing, for example, a translator could compare it to another copy that was in better shape. There were no printing presses back then, and a copyist had to do all the work by hand, but still the written accounts of the gospel and the letters of the various apostles were well known and were being circulated.
It took a fair amount of time to deal with our subject today and we will need to take tomorrow's session to look at the remainder of Esau's family tree, but I was not going to gloss over the fact that Esau's wives are called something different here than they were earlier. Some of the commentaries I consulted completely skipped over any discussion of verses 2 and 3, I suppose because they didn't want to deal with them, which is understandable. But if you'd noticed their names were different, and if I didn't try to provide and explanation for that, I wouldn't be doing a very thorough or honest job with this Bible study. We don't have to be afraid of puzzling over things or asking questions. When we do have to delve deeply into something that confuses us, we usually come away with a better understanding of how the world worked in the Bible days. And even when we don't find a clear answer to our question, we still find that the puzzle doesn't alter anything regarding the Lord's plan of salvation for us. It doesn't change the gospel message at all. Because of that, our faith need not weaken when we are faced with things we don't quite understand.
"This is the account of the family line of Esau (that is, Edom)." (Genesis 36:1) The tribe of Esau and the region they inhabited was known as Edom. We sometimes find the Bible using the names of Esau and Edom interchangeably.
"Esau took his wives from the women of Canaan: Adah daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Oholibamah daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon the Hitite---also Basemath daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth." (Genesis 36:2-3) There are some discrepancies between the names of Esau's wives here in Genesis 36 and the names of his wives in Genesis 26 and Genesis 28. In the earlier chapters of Genesis we were told that he married two Canaanite women: Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. When he realized how much it displeased his parents that he married pagan women, he tried to placate them by taking a third wife who was Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael and the sister of Nebaioth.
Scholars have several theories regarding why we find these discrepancies. One is that the women went by more than one name or changed their names. It's not uncommon for Bible characters to undergo a name change. The Lord Himself changed Abram's name to Abraham, Sarai's name to Sarah, and Jacob's name to Israel. If Esau's Canaanite wives converted to the God of Abraham they may have taken on a new name to reflect their new identities. It was also common in those times to be called more than one name if you were living very closely with people of another language and culture. The nearby tribe who spoke a different language might call you something other than what the people of your hometown called you. It was also common for cities, water wells, rivers and streams to be called by more than one name. Each tribe might have their own name for different places. We've already found Jacob changing the name of Luz to Bethel, but that doesn't mean the tribes in the area didn't keep on calling it Luz. In the Bible we are usually going to find it referred to as Bethel by the descendants of Jacob, but the Canaanite people likely didn't know or care why Jacob called the place "House Of God" and I'd be willing to bet many of them stuck with the name of Luz.
Another theory is that Esau married more than just the three wives we've previously been told about. This is especially likely if some of them were not fertile. If some of his wives did not produce children we would not expect to find these wives listed in the family tree. For example, if the Judith mentioned in Genesis 26 never had children, that explains why she isn't mentioned here in Genesis 36 as a wife of Esau who bore him children.
Another theory is that early translators of this section of our chapter were working with a very fragmentary portion where part of the words were missing in verses 2-3. In Genesis 36 we are told that Basemath was the daughter of Ishmael but earlier in Genesis we were told that Basemath was a Hittite woman and that the name of Ishmael's daughter was Mahalath. If portions of the sentences found in verses 2 and 3 were missing, the translators would have had to make their best educated guess as to how the pieces were connected. This might have ended up in Basemath being connected with the wrong father.
We really have no clear answer, scholars have debated this for centuries, and we won't come to any satisfactory answer for it in our study today. I think the main thing to keep in mind is that this discrepancy doesn't alter anything whatsoever about the foundations of our faith. If someone transposed a name or two of Esau's wives, or if he had more than just three wives, or if his wives went by more than one name, it makes no difference in the gospel message that saves our souls. It changes nothing about who God is and it changes nothing about the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think we can regard it as an interesting puzzle but in no way do I feel it constitutes a "falsehood" in the Bible. If a mistake was made with these women's names it was unintentional and it makes no difference in the long run.
We don't need to worry that the Bible contains errors, for whenever there is an unclear word in the original language or wherever a portion is missing in the original text, it always appears to be non-essential small words or small group of words or a discrepancy in the name of a person or place. We've already seen some examples of why a person might be called by something different or why a place might be called different names by different tribes. Some Bibles print in italics the words the translators had to guess at, and usually those are connecting words such as "a, an, the, and, but" and so on. None of these missing fragments do any harm to the doctrine of the Bible and none of them alter the gospel message in any way. In fact, the New Testament was written in Greek (the language most of the developed world was using at the time) and the books of the New Testament were widely distributed even in their early years while most of the developed world was under the rule of the Roman Empire and when a person could safely and easily travel throughout the empire. Because the books of the New Testament were hand-copied and distributed over and over, translators really didn't have too many fragments to deal with. If a portion of one of the copies of the Apostle Paul's letters was missing, for example, a translator could compare it to another copy that was in better shape. There were no printing presses back then, and a copyist had to do all the work by hand, but still the written accounts of the gospel and the letters of the various apostles were well known and were being circulated.
It took a fair amount of time to deal with our subject today and we will need to take tomorrow's session to look at the remainder of Esau's family tree, but I was not going to gloss over the fact that Esau's wives are called something different here than they were earlier. Some of the commentaries I consulted completely skipped over any discussion of verses 2 and 3, I suppose because they didn't want to deal with them, which is understandable. But if you'd noticed their names were different, and if I didn't try to provide and explanation for that, I wouldn't be doing a very thorough or honest job with this Bible study. We don't have to be afraid of puzzling over things or asking questions. When we do have to delve deeply into something that confuses us, we usually come away with a better understanding of how the world worked in the Bible days. And even when we don't find a clear answer to our question, we still find that the puzzle doesn't alter anything regarding the Lord's plan of salvation for us. It doesn't change the gospel message at all. Because of that, our faith need not weaken when we are faced with things we don't quite understand.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
In The Beginning. Day 135, Two Deaths And A Family Scandal
In yesterday's passage the Lord met with Jacob at Bethel and refreshed his spirit. Jacob needed some refreshing to recover from the things he's been through and to face the things he's going to endure in today's study. The Lord reminded Jacob that He's still with him and that his new name is still Israel. From this point on we will see the names Jacob and Israel used interchangeably for this man, although he will be called Jacob more often than he's called Israel. Later on in the Bible we will see the names Israel and Jacob used interchangeably for the nation that comes from the descendants of this man, but the nation will be referred to as Israel far more often than as Jacob.
We ended Monday's study on a spiritual high note. Jacob was being obedient to the Lord and getting back on track and as a result his relationship has grown with the Lord. Tragedies now follow Jacob's time of communion with God. Difficult times are not necessarily an indication that we are living outside of the will of God and have done something wrong. Jacob suffered hard times in Shechem because he wasn't supposed to be there, but now he's doing exactly what the Lord is telling him to do and he's still going to experience three difficult circumstances in today's passage. The truth is, as long as we live in a fallen world, we are going to experience difficult circumstances even when we are doing our best to live in submission to the Lord. People around us are still going to do wicked things that affect us. Natural disasters are going to occur. Illness and death are still going to be a part of life. I don't think anything that happens to Jacob in today's study is a punishment upon him but just the result of living in a world where things go wrong and where people do sinful things.
"Then they moved on from Bethel. While they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty." (Genesis 35:16) We had not been told that Rachel is expecting another child. Previously there was a lot of competition between her and her sister Leah around the subject of childbearing, but no mention is made that the two women are still vying for the "mother of the most children" award. I like to think it's because the two of them have made peace with each other.
"And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, 'Don't despair, for you have another son.' As she breathed her last---for she was dying---she named her son Ben Oni. But his father named him Benjamin." (Genesis 35:17-18) We don't know how old Rachel is at death. She's young enough to still bear children but in those days people remained fertile for far longer than they do today. I tend to think she was still relatively young by the standards of those days, for her older sister Leah will outlive her by quite a few years.
The midwife wants Rachel to know that the Lord answered her prayer for another son. I'm sure Rachel is pleased but she's grieved that she will not live to see him grow up. In her sadness at the knowledge that her life is slipping away she names him "son of my sorrow". As soon as Rachel breathes her last, Jacob changes his son's name to Benjamin which means "son of my right hand". This is a wise and beautiful thing Jacob does. He refuses to allow his child to be saddled with a name that will forever remind his son that his birth caused the death of his mother.
"So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). Over her tomb Jacob set up a pillar, and to this day that pillar marks Rachel's tomb." (Genesis 35:19-20) The Bible doesn't say a single word about Jacob's grief. It must have been soul-crushing for him to lose the person who has always meant the most to him, but we are not told anything about what had to be an intense season of mourning. The Lord has graciously shielded Jacob from prying eyes while he deals with his loss. The Lord reveals to us the tenderness of His own heart by pulling down a curtain of privacy over Jacob's grief.
After burying Rachel just outside of Bethlehem, the family continues moving on toward Isaac's homestead. At their next campsite a bizarre and scandalous thing happens. "Israel moved on again and pitched his tent beyond Migdal Eder. While Israel was living in that region, Reuben went in and slept with his father's concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard of it." (Genesis 35:21-22a) We might find ourselves wondering whether we read verse 22 correctly but yes, Jacob's eldest son sleeps with one of Jacob's wives who is, in a sense, a stepmother to Reuben. We don't know how much older Bilhah is than Reuben but she's old enough to be his mother. She was already Rachel's maid before either Leah (Reuben's mother) or Rachel married Jacob and this means she was already a grown woman before Reuben was ever born. While it's possible she was still a very attractive woman and Reuben might have felt lustful toward her, it's far more likely that his actions constitute a power play. According to many of the commentaries I consulted about this passage in the Bible, in those days when a man slept with a wife of his father he was making the assertion that he was equal to his father. Like a politician who announces his candidacy for a particular office, Reuben is saying that he's running for the position as head of the family. Such a thing shows that he harbors disrespect for his father and feels he can do a better job of running the family than his father. He wants to take over the headship of the family.
We don't know what has brought Reuben to a place where he feels his actions are appropriate. Perhaps he was disappointed by how Jacob handled the rape of Dinah in Shechem. Jacob didn't take charge but allowed his sons to handle the matter---and they handled it tragically. It could be that his resentment toward his father has accumulated over time, maybe because he feels his mother Leah got a bad deal by not being loved by Jacob the way Rachel was loved. Or perhaps he's just a rebellious young man who thinks, since he is the eldest and expects to be the heir, he should go ahead and start taking over the reins of the family. Jacob hears about his son's treachery but does nothing about it at this time. However, Reuben's actions will later have the opposite effect than he intended. He has disqualified himself as the heir. So we see that none the three oldest sons of Jacob which he had with his first and chief wife Leah are going to receive the birthright and the blessing of the covenant that the Lord swore to Abraham. Reuben has disqualified himself with his rebelliousness and his sexual immorality. Simeon and Levi disqualified themselves by being cold-blooded murderers.
The author of Genesis stops the narrative at this point to provide us with a list of Jacob's sons in their birth order. "Jacob had twelve sons: The sons of Leah: Reuben the firstborn of Jacob, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun. The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Rachel's servant Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali. The sons of Leah's servant Zilpah: Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Paddan Aram." (Genesis 35:22b-26) Paddan Aram, also called Harran, is not literally where Benjamin was born but apparently Benjamin was conceived while Jacob was still in that region. All these children were born while Jacob was away from the homestead of his father Isaac.
Jacob has twelve sons and so far it's looking like they're all going to turn into a bunch of hoodlums. Their attitudes and their rivalry are going to become far worse before they take a turn for the better.
"Jacob came home to his father Isaac in Mamre, near Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed. Isaac lived a hundred and eighty years. Then he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him." (Genesis 35:27-29) The Bible doesn't tell us how much time Jacob got to spend with his father. When last we saw Isaac, he had lost his eyesight and he was lying in bed thinking he was going to die soon, but here he is still alive at least twenty years later. We are not provided any information about Jacob and Isaac's time together. We are not told anything about Jacob's mother Rebekah and many Bible scholars believe she died during the years Jacob was gone. I believe they are correct because her name is not mentioned in the Old Testament again except to say she and Isaac are buried together in the cave at Machpelah. Also, her death during Jacob's absence would explain why she never sent a message to him that Esau was no longer angry. She had promised to let Jacob know when it was safe to return, but he never heard from her. If Rebekah were still alive at Jacob's return I would expect her to be mentioned at the family reunion here at the end of our passage but we find only Isaac mentioned.
Most often in the Bible, Jacob's name is given before Esau's since he inherited the birthright and the blessings of the covenant. But at Isaac's burial we find Esau mentioned first. As the firstborn and as the son who remained closest to home as an adult, it's fitting that Esau would have taken the main role in making the funeral arrangements for Isaac. The Canaanite culture around them, not knowing anything about Abrahamic covenants or special blessings, would have expected the eldest son to take charge of the burial. Isaac has lived and worked among the people of this region for many years and I am sure he was well-respected by them just as his father was. His funeral would have been attended by neighbors from miles around and these mourners would have expected to see Esau presiding over the service with Jacob lending his support and help. It warms my heart to see these two brothers working together and at peace with each other. Jacob has truly come home now.
We ended Monday's study on a spiritual high note. Jacob was being obedient to the Lord and getting back on track and as a result his relationship has grown with the Lord. Tragedies now follow Jacob's time of communion with God. Difficult times are not necessarily an indication that we are living outside of the will of God and have done something wrong. Jacob suffered hard times in Shechem because he wasn't supposed to be there, but now he's doing exactly what the Lord is telling him to do and he's still going to experience three difficult circumstances in today's passage. The truth is, as long as we live in a fallen world, we are going to experience difficult circumstances even when we are doing our best to live in submission to the Lord. People around us are still going to do wicked things that affect us. Natural disasters are going to occur. Illness and death are still going to be a part of life. I don't think anything that happens to Jacob in today's study is a punishment upon him but just the result of living in a world where things go wrong and where people do sinful things.
"Then they moved on from Bethel. While they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty." (Genesis 35:16) We had not been told that Rachel is expecting another child. Previously there was a lot of competition between her and her sister Leah around the subject of childbearing, but no mention is made that the two women are still vying for the "mother of the most children" award. I like to think it's because the two of them have made peace with each other.
"And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, 'Don't despair, for you have another son.' As she breathed her last---for she was dying---she named her son Ben Oni. But his father named him Benjamin." (Genesis 35:17-18) We don't know how old Rachel is at death. She's young enough to still bear children but in those days people remained fertile for far longer than they do today. I tend to think she was still relatively young by the standards of those days, for her older sister Leah will outlive her by quite a few years.
The midwife wants Rachel to know that the Lord answered her prayer for another son. I'm sure Rachel is pleased but she's grieved that she will not live to see him grow up. In her sadness at the knowledge that her life is slipping away she names him "son of my sorrow". As soon as Rachel breathes her last, Jacob changes his son's name to Benjamin which means "son of my right hand". This is a wise and beautiful thing Jacob does. He refuses to allow his child to be saddled with a name that will forever remind his son that his birth caused the death of his mother.
"So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). Over her tomb Jacob set up a pillar, and to this day that pillar marks Rachel's tomb." (Genesis 35:19-20) The Bible doesn't say a single word about Jacob's grief. It must have been soul-crushing for him to lose the person who has always meant the most to him, but we are not told anything about what had to be an intense season of mourning. The Lord has graciously shielded Jacob from prying eyes while he deals with his loss. The Lord reveals to us the tenderness of His own heart by pulling down a curtain of privacy over Jacob's grief.
After burying Rachel just outside of Bethlehem, the family continues moving on toward Isaac's homestead. At their next campsite a bizarre and scandalous thing happens. "Israel moved on again and pitched his tent beyond Migdal Eder. While Israel was living in that region, Reuben went in and slept with his father's concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard of it." (Genesis 35:21-22a) We might find ourselves wondering whether we read verse 22 correctly but yes, Jacob's eldest son sleeps with one of Jacob's wives who is, in a sense, a stepmother to Reuben. We don't know how much older Bilhah is than Reuben but she's old enough to be his mother. She was already Rachel's maid before either Leah (Reuben's mother) or Rachel married Jacob and this means she was already a grown woman before Reuben was ever born. While it's possible she was still a very attractive woman and Reuben might have felt lustful toward her, it's far more likely that his actions constitute a power play. According to many of the commentaries I consulted about this passage in the Bible, in those days when a man slept with a wife of his father he was making the assertion that he was equal to his father. Like a politician who announces his candidacy for a particular office, Reuben is saying that he's running for the position as head of the family. Such a thing shows that he harbors disrespect for his father and feels he can do a better job of running the family than his father. He wants to take over the headship of the family.
We don't know what has brought Reuben to a place where he feels his actions are appropriate. Perhaps he was disappointed by how Jacob handled the rape of Dinah in Shechem. Jacob didn't take charge but allowed his sons to handle the matter---and they handled it tragically. It could be that his resentment toward his father has accumulated over time, maybe because he feels his mother Leah got a bad deal by not being loved by Jacob the way Rachel was loved. Or perhaps he's just a rebellious young man who thinks, since he is the eldest and expects to be the heir, he should go ahead and start taking over the reins of the family. Jacob hears about his son's treachery but does nothing about it at this time. However, Reuben's actions will later have the opposite effect than he intended. He has disqualified himself as the heir. So we see that none the three oldest sons of Jacob which he had with his first and chief wife Leah are going to receive the birthright and the blessing of the covenant that the Lord swore to Abraham. Reuben has disqualified himself with his rebelliousness and his sexual immorality. Simeon and Levi disqualified themselves by being cold-blooded murderers.
The author of Genesis stops the narrative at this point to provide us with a list of Jacob's sons in their birth order. "Jacob had twelve sons: The sons of Leah: Reuben the firstborn of Jacob, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun. The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Rachel's servant Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali. The sons of Leah's servant Zilpah: Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Paddan Aram." (Genesis 35:22b-26) Paddan Aram, also called Harran, is not literally where Benjamin was born but apparently Benjamin was conceived while Jacob was still in that region. All these children were born while Jacob was away from the homestead of his father Isaac.
Jacob has twelve sons and so far it's looking like they're all going to turn into a bunch of hoodlums. Their attitudes and their rivalry are going to become far worse before they take a turn for the better.
"Jacob came home to his father Isaac in Mamre, near Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed. Isaac lived a hundred and eighty years. Then he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him." (Genesis 35:27-29) The Bible doesn't tell us how much time Jacob got to spend with his father. When last we saw Isaac, he had lost his eyesight and he was lying in bed thinking he was going to die soon, but here he is still alive at least twenty years later. We are not provided any information about Jacob and Isaac's time together. We are not told anything about Jacob's mother Rebekah and many Bible scholars believe she died during the years Jacob was gone. I believe they are correct because her name is not mentioned in the Old Testament again except to say she and Isaac are buried together in the cave at Machpelah. Also, her death during Jacob's absence would explain why she never sent a message to him that Esau was no longer angry. She had promised to let Jacob know when it was safe to return, but he never heard from her. If Rebekah were still alive at Jacob's return I would expect her to be mentioned at the family reunion here at the end of our passage but we find only Isaac mentioned.
Most often in the Bible, Jacob's name is given before Esau's since he inherited the birthright and the blessings of the covenant. But at Isaac's burial we find Esau mentioned first. As the firstborn and as the son who remained closest to home as an adult, it's fitting that Esau would have taken the main role in making the funeral arrangements for Isaac. The Canaanite culture around them, not knowing anything about Abrahamic covenants or special blessings, would have expected the eldest son to take charge of the burial. Isaac has lived and worked among the people of this region for many years and I am sure he was well-respected by them just as his father was. His funeral would have been attended by neighbors from miles around and these mourners would have expected to see Esau presiding over the service with Jacob lending his support and help. It warms my heart to see these two brothers working together and at peace with each other. Jacob has truly come home now.
Monday, February 10, 2020
In The Beginning. Day 134, Jacob Obeys God
Jacob's sons Simeon and Levi have just slaughtered every man in the Canaanite city of Shechem and their ten brothers have come along behind them to plunder everything of value in the houses and in the fields and barns. They did these things as a disproportionate response to what happened to their sister there. What happened to her was terrible, but she is alive and back with her family, yet they have killed every grown man of the city as an act of vengeance. Jacob is terrified that the tribes of Canaan will unite and come to wipe his family out.
The Lord orders him back to Bethel. Jacob should have headed that way in the first place when the Lord told him in Harran that it was time to leave the house of his father-in-law and return to his own people. Bethel is on the way home and it is where Jacob made a promise to the Lord after he fled his parents' home in fear of Esau. He promised the Lord that if He would keep him safe on his journey, provide food and clothing for him, and bring him back safely to Isaac's house, he would make the Lord his God. (Genesis 28:20-21) Yet for some reason Jacob didn't head in this direction once he became free of his dishonest father-in-law but settled in Shechem instead. This proved to be a disaster for his family and for the people of that city. Now he's panic stricken and doesn't know where to turn. The Lord speaks to him with clear directions and Jacob obeys Him.
"Then God said to Jacob, 'Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.'" (Genesis 35:1) Jacob had promised to return to Bethel if the Lord protected him and brought him safely back, saying he would build an altar there to God. (Genesis 28:22) If he had kept his promise he wouldn't be in his current predicament and he knows it now, so he hurries to do what the Lord has said.
"So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, 'Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.' So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. Then they set out, and the terror of God fell on all the towns all around them so that no one pursued them." (Genesis 35:2-5)
Where did these idols come from? Well, for one thing, we know Rachel has her father's household idols in her possession because she stole them when the family left Harran. The Bible told us that as Jacob became wealthy he acquired male and female servants. Whether this means he bought slaves or whether these people are paid servants, they are from regions where they had not heard of the living God before coming into Jacob's household. They have brought their pagan beliefs with them and Jacob has allowed them to practice idolatry while under his roof. Other idols came into the home when his sons stole everything of value the now-dead men of Shechem had owned. Jacob knows he can't keep compromising on his faith. By not taking a firm stand against idolatry and by not setting a good example for his family, they've ended up in perilous circumstances. He cleanses the household by removing every idol from it. He also takes all the earrings and we can assume this is because they were either shaped like figures of pagan gods or because they had symbols or markings on them that symbolized those gods. He buries these dead and useless items in a hole at Shechem and takes his family and moves on. The Lord provides protection for them along the way, causing a dreadful fear to fall upon anyone who is tempted to harm them.
"Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. There be built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed Himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother." (Genesis 35:6-7) As we learned earlier in Genesis, the original name for this area was Luz but Jacob named it Bethel (House Of God) after the Lord spoke to him there. At that time Jacob didn't really know the Lord. He still doesn't know Him perhaps as well as he should, and he doesn't know Him as well as he will later on as he goes through life learning about Him and forming a relationship with Him, but we can tell Jacob already feels much closer to Him than he once did because he renames the place "The God Of The House Of God". He didn't know this God the first time he came to Bethel and he considered it a place where God was present. He didn't know then that God could and would be with him everywhere he went. He knows it now so he adds to the name he gave this area. "The God" at Bethel is his God. This God has been with him in Harran (also called Paddan Aram). This God has been with him in Shechem. This God is going to be with him wherever he goes.
The family suffers a loss while at Bethel. Rebekah's nurse, the woman who would have been her nanny when she was a child and who probably helped care for Rebekah's own son, falls ill and dies at Bethel. "Now Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died and was buried under the oak outside Bethel. So it was named Allon Bakuth." (Genesis 35:8) This means "oak of weeping". Rebekah has lost a woman who was a second mother to her. The family takes some time to grieve this woman before continuing on their way.
"After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him. God said to him, 'Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel. So He named him Israel." (Genesis 35:9-10) The Lord already renamed Jacob earlier in Genesis, but sometimes we need to be reminded who we are, don't we? Jacob may think he and his family messed up too horribly in Shechem for the Lord to keep calling him Israel. He feels like he fell back into being Jacob and he's afraid he always will be Jacob. On the one hand we may find ourselves wondering why the Lord is so good to Jacob in the midst of all his faults and failures, but on the other hand we should be falling to our knees and thanking a God of such mercy. He's been good to us in spite of our faults and failures. When we mess up He doesn't disown us but instead reminds us who we are. He reminds us that our behavior of late doesn't match up with our position as the children of the living God, and this encourages us and strengthens us to do better. If He didn't remind us who we are I think we'd fall into discouragement and give up. We'd decide we were never going to grow into our new name or live up to it. Jacob has been wondering whether God still intends to make him into someone new and better or whether He's going to leave him just like he is. He receives the assurance he needs that the God he considers his God is still going to keep His promises.
"And God said to him, 'I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants. The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.' Then God went up from him at the place where He had talked with him." (Genesis 35:11-13) God reveals one of His names to Jacob: God Almighty which in Hebrew is El-Shaddai. This is an ancient name whose origins are difficult to translate but it is generally believed to mean things like "the mighty One", "the overpowering One/the overcoming One", or "the all-sufficient One".
We can be certain there is a reason why the Lord shares one of His names with Jacob at this point in time. While He is reminding Jacob that He is still making him into a new man, and while He is promising to bring about great things for Jacob's descendants, the Lord uses one of His names to assure Jacob that He has the power to back up His statements. The actions of Jacob and his sons, who are all mere humans, are not capable of derailing God's redemptive plans for mankind. He is able to overpower/overcome their mistakes and failures so that nothing they do can throw His plans off course. In addition, the all-sufficient One who sustains Himself, who needs no one's help, who needs no source of power outside Himself, who holds all things in creation together, is more than able to fulfill the promises He's made. He doesn't need Jacob's help to bring about His glorious plans for the nation of Israel and His glorious plans for the human race that will be fulfilled by the Redeemer. Since He doesn't need Jacob's help, He is not hindered by Jacob's failures either. Jacob can trust anything the Lord tells him. What the Lord says He will do, He will do.
"Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it. Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel." (Genesis 35:14-15) The Lord keeps reminding Jacob who he is now and Jacob keeps reminding himself who God is. This is the place where the one and only God met with him. It is here that the Lord refreshed his soul, so he pours out a drink offering on the stone pillar. It is here that the Spirit of God encouraged and strengthened him, so he pours out oil which in the Scriptures usually represents the Holy Spirit although at times oil symbolizes healing. These acts of Jacob show us that he received what he needed from the Lord at Bethel.
It is good that he received this refreshment and healing at Bethel. It will fortify him in the days ahead when he endures some very personal and heartbreaking losses.
Sunday, February 9, 2020
In The Beginning. Day 133, Jacob's Sons Avenge Their Sister
Shechem, Dinah's attacker, wants to marry her. His father Hamor has come to speak to Jacob about arranging the marriage and he has presented the idea very attractively. He's a ruler in the area and is very wealthy and influential. Jacob is quite wealthy himself and could also become an influential official if he allies his family with Hamor's. Shechem was wrong to force himself sexually on Dinah but in his culture it seems things like that can be smoothed over with a marriage proposal and by fanning large sums of money around.
Jacob has not taken the lead role in sorting this mess out but has left it up to his sons to handle the negotiations. This is a grave mistake. His sons are being led by their emotions right now and not by reason, so they pretend to negotiate with Hamor while plotting revenge. Hamor has suggested not only that they give Dinah to his son in marriage but also that the entire family would intermarry with his people, making one very large and prosperous clan. The sons of Jacob pretend to consider Hamor's proposal. "Because their sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob's sons replied deceitfully as they spoke to Shechem and to his father Hamor. They said to them, "We can't do such a thing; we can't give our sister to a man who is not circumcised. That would be a disgrace to us. We will enter into an agreement with you on one condition only: that you become like us by circumcising all your males. Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves. We'll settle among you and become one people with you. But if you will not agree to be circumcised, we'll take our sister and go." (Genesis 34:13-17) I think Jacob's sons can tell that the men of the city are very much motivated by greed. They intend to use these men's greed against them. Jacob's sons threaten to leave the area and take their money with them instead of joining their family with the citizens of Shechem.
In Genesis 17 the Lord gave to Abraham what is called "the covenant of circumcision". All the males of Abraham's line were to undergo this procedure as a permanent reminder in the flesh that they are separate from pagan heathens and that they belong to the Lord. It was a sign to the males of the line of Abraham that the Lord would keep this promise made to Abraham: "I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God." (Genesis 17:6-8) The Lord gave this covenant only to the descendants of Abraham and no other peoples are required to perform the sign of the covenant. In the New Testament, when Gentiles start believing in and being saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Jewish leaders of the Christian church do not require them to undergo circumcision. It's not a practice that makes a person more "saved"; it's a practice that reminds the Jewish males of the covenant the Lord made with their father Abraham and it's a reminder that the Lord will never abandon the nation of Israel.
Jacob and all of his sons have undergone circumcision, and now his sons present this one physical thing as the only difference between them and the pagan men of the Canaanite city in which they currently reside. Nothing could be further from the truth, but the Canaanites don't understand the difference between themselves and the descendants of Abraham. The Canaanites don't serve Abraham's God and couldn't care less about Him. They have no covenant with the living God and the rituals involved in serving the living God mean nothing to them. If they even believe the God of Abraham exists I'm sure they think He is only one of many gods. To these Canaanites, being circumcised presents a temporary and minor inconvenience. It means nothing to them spiritually and it seems like a small price to pay to join themselves with a large and wealthy family. This blending is expected to make them one of the most powerful and well-to-do cities in the region and it will offer them an extra measure of security against any enemies they may have. Warlike tribes in the area would think twice about attacking a city with the resources this one will have once they all band together.
Jacob's sons are requesting the Canaanite men to undergo circumcision as a way of weakening them for attack, but Hamor and his son Shechem suspect nothing. "Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem. So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city to speak to the men of their city. 'These men are friendly toward us,' they said. 'Let them live in our land and trade in it; the land has plenty of room for them. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours. But the men will agree to live with us as one people only on the condition that our males be circumcised, as they themselves are. Won't their livestock, their property and all their other animals become ours? So let us agree to their terms, and they will settle among us.'" (Genesis 34:18-23) The men are willing to agree to these unusual terms because of their greed. Jacob's sons have said to them, "You all are a bunch of uncircumcised heathens. We can't let our sister or our daughters marry into your families unless you undergo this ritual. But if you do undergo it, we'll consider you to be just like us and we won't have any objections to intermarriage." At no point do any of Jacob's sons invite the Canaanites to turn to and serve the living God. They are not trying to convert them. Circumcision in the flesh doesn't convert anyone; it's an outward sign of what should be in a man's heart---a love for the Lord. Who knows, maybe if Jacob's sons had tried to convert the men of the city, some of them might actually have turned to the Lord. A great revival might have broken out. But no one talks to them about the Lord and they agree to be circumcised because to them it's no big deal in the scheme of things. They intend to keep on living the way they've always lived and they intend to keep on serving idols. "All the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male in the city was circumcised." (Genesis 34:24)
"Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male. They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took Dinah from Shechem's house and left. The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where their sister had been defiled. They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields. They carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses." (Genesis 34:25-29) Pain and swelling from surgical wounds are usually at their worst on about the third day. That's when the discomfort tends to reach its peak, so all the men of the city of Shechem are lying in bed at home. They are not at their businesses or working in the fields. They are too uncomfortable to do anything but lie still waiting for their wounds to heal. That's why the sons of Jacob choose the third day as the day to carry out their murderous plot. They know it's going to be as easy to pick all these men off as it would be to shoot fish in a barrel, as the saying goes. None will escape because none will be anywhere other than at home. Just think about how cold-blooded and premeditated the attack is! The sons of Jacob have had three days to reconsider. They've had three days to cool off and back down from their plans of revenge. But they haven't wavered an inch. Simeon and Levi, the full brothers of Dinah through the union of Leah and Jacob, systematically go through every house in the city killing the men one by one. The other ten brothers come along behind them looting and pillaging.
I don't believe Jacob knew about his sons' plot. We can tell by what he says later upon hearing the news, but I still find it disturbing that he had been willing to go along with allowing his family to intermarry with the heathen Canaanites. When his sons proposed their deceitful plan to Hamor, Jacob didn't know it was a lie but he didn't speak out against the agreement his sons appeared to be making with Hamor and the men of the city. Jacob knows it's not the Lord's will for the descendants of Abraham to intermarry with idolaters. Abraham made certain to obtain a wife for his son Isaac from among his believing relatives. Isaac made certain to obtain a wife for Jacob from among his relatives who believed in the one true God (although the father of Rachel and Leah also practiced some other forms of religion as evidenced by the presence of small idols in his house). Why would Jacob find the idea of intermarriage acceptable? We don't know, unless he is still struggling against the carnal side of his nature and is motivated by ambition. The Canaanites might be godless but they are wealthy. Or it could be that, grieved by what has happened to his daughter and grieved by the fact that it could have been prevented, he feels trapped into making the best of a bad situation.
When Jacob's sons come home with all the women, children, livestock, and belongings of the men of Shechem, Jacob is appalled to hear what they've done. He's not horrified by the loss of life as much as he is afraid that he and his family will be wiped out. "Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, 'You have brought trouble on me by making me obnoxious to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land. We are few in number, and if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.'" (Genesis 34:30) The actions of his sons are far out of proportion to what happened to their family. Dinah should never have been sexually violated, but no one from the city of Shechem killed anyone who belonged to Jacob. I can understand if Jacob doesn't really care that a bad thing has happened to the man who raped his daughter. Any loving father might not feel pity upon hearing that the person who hurt his daughter is dead. I can also understand Jacob having a callous and suspicious attitude toward all the men of the city after what happened to Dinah there. But a number of men have lost their lives---men who had nothing to do with the attack on Dinah. Jacob doesn't seem as disturbed by that as he should be. I can't decide if Jacob is just very unfeeling about this or if he's speaking in a panic. He's scared his entire family might be killed now if the tribes of Canaan band together to avenge the men who have been slaughtered. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his mind is preoccupied with the safety of those he loves. The slaughter of the men of Shechem is already a done deal; there's nothing Jacob can do to change it. All he can do now is make sure nothing bad happens to anyone else.
When Jacob scolds and accuses his sons they are unrepentant. They do not think they reacted disproportionately. Their pride has been hurt that any man would dare to touch their sister. They have been dishonored. In their opinion, the wholesale slaughter of every man in the city was an appropriate response. "But they replied, 'Should they have treated our sister like a prostitute?'" (Genesis 34:31)
The family is going to have to leave the area immediately. The Lord will tell Jacob to get out of this city where He never intended him to settle in the first place. Jaocb's eldest son Reuben will do something later on that disqualifies him from being Jacob's chief heir and the one through whose descendants the Messiah will come, which would have put either Simeon or Levi in the running as the forefather of the Redeemer except they have disqualified themselves by being heartless killers. Their younger brother Judah, the son of Leah and Jacob, will be the one from whose descendants the Lord Jesus will come. The line of Judah will become the royal line of Israel, and it is into this tribe Jesus of Nazareth will be born. Despite all their mistakes, the Lord doesn't abandon Jacob or his twelve sons. The Lord doesn't abandon His plan to bring a Redeemer from their family. Thanks be to the God who is able to weave even our mistakes into the tapestry of our lives and make something beautiful from them! I've made a lot of mistakes, haven't you? But the Lord still called me to salvation through His Son. The Lord still wanted to make something out of me, just as He still wanted to make something out of the sons of Jacob. The family tree of the Lord Jesus Christ contains a lot of very shady characters, as we have seen, and we will see a lot more shady characters as we continue on through the Bible. But the Lord was willing to be born into a family of imperfect people. The Lord was willing to die for imperfect humans so He could make something better out of us than we could ever have been without Him. He's not ashamed of His family tree and He's not ashamed of us either, for through faith in Him we are considered "not guilty" of all our crimes against a holy God. Faith in the Lord is what makes us the family of God, and Jesus isn't ashamed of anyone in his family, which is why the Bible assures us "Jesus is not ashamed" to call us His brothers and sisters. (Hebrews 2:11)
Jacob has not taken the lead role in sorting this mess out but has left it up to his sons to handle the negotiations. This is a grave mistake. His sons are being led by their emotions right now and not by reason, so they pretend to negotiate with Hamor while plotting revenge. Hamor has suggested not only that they give Dinah to his son in marriage but also that the entire family would intermarry with his people, making one very large and prosperous clan. The sons of Jacob pretend to consider Hamor's proposal. "Because their sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob's sons replied deceitfully as they spoke to Shechem and to his father Hamor. They said to them, "We can't do such a thing; we can't give our sister to a man who is not circumcised. That would be a disgrace to us. We will enter into an agreement with you on one condition only: that you become like us by circumcising all your males. Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves. We'll settle among you and become one people with you. But if you will not agree to be circumcised, we'll take our sister and go." (Genesis 34:13-17) I think Jacob's sons can tell that the men of the city are very much motivated by greed. They intend to use these men's greed against them. Jacob's sons threaten to leave the area and take their money with them instead of joining their family with the citizens of Shechem.
In Genesis 17 the Lord gave to Abraham what is called "the covenant of circumcision". All the males of Abraham's line were to undergo this procedure as a permanent reminder in the flesh that they are separate from pagan heathens and that they belong to the Lord. It was a sign to the males of the line of Abraham that the Lord would keep this promise made to Abraham: "I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God." (Genesis 17:6-8) The Lord gave this covenant only to the descendants of Abraham and no other peoples are required to perform the sign of the covenant. In the New Testament, when Gentiles start believing in and being saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Jewish leaders of the Christian church do not require them to undergo circumcision. It's not a practice that makes a person more "saved"; it's a practice that reminds the Jewish males of the covenant the Lord made with their father Abraham and it's a reminder that the Lord will never abandon the nation of Israel.
Jacob and all of his sons have undergone circumcision, and now his sons present this one physical thing as the only difference between them and the pagan men of the Canaanite city in which they currently reside. Nothing could be further from the truth, but the Canaanites don't understand the difference between themselves and the descendants of Abraham. The Canaanites don't serve Abraham's God and couldn't care less about Him. They have no covenant with the living God and the rituals involved in serving the living God mean nothing to them. If they even believe the God of Abraham exists I'm sure they think He is only one of many gods. To these Canaanites, being circumcised presents a temporary and minor inconvenience. It means nothing to them spiritually and it seems like a small price to pay to join themselves with a large and wealthy family. This blending is expected to make them one of the most powerful and well-to-do cities in the region and it will offer them an extra measure of security against any enemies they may have. Warlike tribes in the area would think twice about attacking a city with the resources this one will have once they all band together.
Jacob's sons are requesting the Canaanite men to undergo circumcision as a way of weakening them for attack, but Hamor and his son Shechem suspect nothing. "Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem. So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city to speak to the men of their city. 'These men are friendly toward us,' they said. 'Let them live in our land and trade in it; the land has plenty of room for them. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours. But the men will agree to live with us as one people only on the condition that our males be circumcised, as they themselves are. Won't their livestock, their property and all their other animals become ours? So let us agree to their terms, and they will settle among us.'" (Genesis 34:18-23) The men are willing to agree to these unusual terms because of their greed. Jacob's sons have said to them, "You all are a bunch of uncircumcised heathens. We can't let our sister or our daughters marry into your families unless you undergo this ritual. But if you do undergo it, we'll consider you to be just like us and we won't have any objections to intermarriage." At no point do any of Jacob's sons invite the Canaanites to turn to and serve the living God. They are not trying to convert them. Circumcision in the flesh doesn't convert anyone; it's an outward sign of what should be in a man's heart---a love for the Lord. Who knows, maybe if Jacob's sons had tried to convert the men of the city, some of them might actually have turned to the Lord. A great revival might have broken out. But no one talks to them about the Lord and they agree to be circumcised because to them it's no big deal in the scheme of things. They intend to keep on living the way they've always lived and they intend to keep on serving idols. "All the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male in the city was circumcised." (Genesis 34:24)
"Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male. They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took Dinah from Shechem's house and left. The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where their sister had been defiled. They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields. They carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses." (Genesis 34:25-29) Pain and swelling from surgical wounds are usually at their worst on about the third day. That's when the discomfort tends to reach its peak, so all the men of the city of Shechem are lying in bed at home. They are not at their businesses or working in the fields. They are too uncomfortable to do anything but lie still waiting for their wounds to heal. That's why the sons of Jacob choose the third day as the day to carry out their murderous plot. They know it's going to be as easy to pick all these men off as it would be to shoot fish in a barrel, as the saying goes. None will escape because none will be anywhere other than at home. Just think about how cold-blooded and premeditated the attack is! The sons of Jacob have had three days to reconsider. They've had three days to cool off and back down from their plans of revenge. But they haven't wavered an inch. Simeon and Levi, the full brothers of Dinah through the union of Leah and Jacob, systematically go through every house in the city killing the men one by one. The other ten brothers come along behind them looting and pillaging.
I don't believe Jacob knew about his sons' plot. We can tell by what he says later upon hearing the news, but I still find it disturbing that he had been willing to go along with allowing his family to intermarry with the heathen Canaanites. When his sons proposed their deceitful plan to Hamor, Jacob didn't know it was a lie but he didn't speak out against the agreement his sons appeared to be making with Hamor and the men of the city. Jacob knows it's not the Lord's will for the descendants of Abraham to intermarry with idolaters. Abraham made certain to obtain a wife for his son Isaac from among his believing relatives. Isaac made certain to obtain a wife for Jacob from among his relatives who believed in the one true God (although the father of Rachel and Leah also practiced some other forms of religion as evidenced by the presence of small idols in his house). Why would Jacob find the idea of intermarriage acceptable? We don't know, unless he is still struggling against the carnal side of his nature and is motivated by ambition. The Canaanites might be godless but they are wealthy. Or it could be that, grieved by what has happened to his daughter and grieved by the fact that it could have been prevented, he feels trapped into making the best of a bad situation.
When Jacob's sons come home with all the women, children, livestock, and belongings of the men of Shechem, Jacob is appalled to hear what they've done. He's not horrified by the loss of life as much as he is afraid that he and his family will be wiped out. "Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, 'You have brought trouble on me by making me obnoxious to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land. We are few in number, and if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.'" (Genesis 34:30) The actions of his sons are far out of proportion to what happened to their family. Dinah should never have been sexually violated, but no one from the city of Shechem killed anyone who belonged to Jacob. I can understand if Jacob doesn't really care that a bad thing has happened to the man who raped his daughter. Any loving father might not feel pity upon hearing that the person who hurt his daughter is dead. I can also understand Jacob having a callous and suspicious attitude toward all the men of the city after what happened to Dinah there. But a number of men have lost their lives---men who had nothing to do with the attack on Dinah. Jacob doesn't seem as disturbed by that as he should be. I can't decide if Jacob is just very unfeeling about this or if he's speaking in a panic. He's scared his entire family might be killed now if the tribes of Canaan band together to avenge the men who have been slaughtered. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his mind is preoccupied with the safety of those he loves. The slaughter of the men of Shechem is already a done deal; there's nothing Jacob can do to change it. All he can do now is make sure nothing bad happens to anyone else.
When Jacob scolds and accuses his sons they are unrepentant. They do not think they reacted disproportionately. Their pride has been hurt that any man would dare to touch their sister. They have been dishonored. In their opinion, the wholesale slaughter of every man in the city was an appropriate response. "But they replied, 'Should they have treated our sister like a prostitute?'" (Genesis 34:31)
The family is going to have to leave the area immediately. The Lord will tell Jacob to get out of this city where He never intended him to settle in the first place. Jaocb's eldest son Reuben will do something later on that disqualifies him from being Jacob's chief heir and the one through whose descendants the Messiah will come, which would have put either Simeon or Levi in the running as the forefather of the Redeemer except they have disqualified themselves by being heartless killers. Their younger brother Judah, the son of Leah and Jacob, will be the one from whose descendants the Lord Jesus will come. The line of Judah will become the royal line of Israel, and it is into this tribe Jesus of Nazareth will be born. Despite all their mistakes, the Lord doesn't abandon Jacob or his twelve sons. The Lord doesn't abandon His plan to bring a Redeemer from their family. Thanks be to the God who is able to weave even our mistakes into the tapestry of our lives and make something beautiful from them! I've made a lot of mistakes, haven't you? But the Lord still called me to salvation through His Son. The Lord still wanted to make something out of me, just as He still wanted to make something out of the sons of Jacob. The family tree of the Lord Jesus Christ contains a lot of very shady characters, as we have seen, and we will see a lot more shady characters as we continue on through the Bible. But the Lord was willing to be born into a family of imperfect people. The Lord was willing to die for imperfect humans so He could make something better out of us than we could ever have been without Him. He's not ashamed of His family tree and He's not ashamed of us either, for through faith in Him we are considered "not guilty" of all our crimes against a holy God. Faith in the Lord is what makes us the family of God, and Jesus isn't ashamed of anyone in his family, which is why the Bible assures us "Jesus is not ashamed" to call us His brothers and sisters. (Hebrews 2:11)
Saturday, February 8, 2020
In The Beginning. Day 132, The Father Of Dinah's Rapist Presents Jacob With A Choice
In yesterday's passage we read the sad story of the sexual assault that a young man perpetrated upon Jacob's daughter Dinah. When word comes to Jacob that she has been so horribly violated, he doesn't take immediate action but waits for his sons to come in from their work in the fields. While he awaits their return, the father of the young man is on his way to see Jacob.
"Then Shechem's father Hamor went out to talk with Jacob. Meanwhile, Jacob's sons had come in from the fields as soon as they heard what had happened. They were shocked and furious, because Shechem had done an outrageous thing in Israel by sleeping with Jacob's daughter---a thing that should not be done." (Genesis 34:6-7) A more accurate way to translate verse 7 is that "Shechem had done an outrageous thing against Israel"---Israel meaning the new name of Jacob, not the nation of Israel. Jacob (Israel) and his family have been living and working among the people of the city peacefully. They've done no harm to anyone and expected no harm to be done to any of them. Jacob believed his daughter was safe when she went out to visit her female friends. Should he have made certain she was always provided with an escort? Maybe, but I think the hospitality the people had shown him had lulled him into a sense of complacency. He is a wealthy and well-known man in the area and owns property there. I think he expected the people of the city to treat him as one of their own. I think he thought they would consider him and his family untouchable. Most of the people probably did respect him too much to do him any harm, but an impetuous and spoiled young man was the bad apple in the barrel.
Hamor, the father of this young man, is a prominent person himself. The Bible told us in our passage yesterday that he is a ruler in the region. He comes out to Jacob's house to try to smooth things over by sharing what he thinks is welcome news. His son wants to marry Dinah. His son hasn't used Dinah and then cast her aside. He wants her for his wife and Hamor is here to help his son's wishes come true. He presents his case in a way that he thinks will seem advantageous to Jacob. "But Hamor said to them, 'My son Shechem has his heart set on your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. Intermarry with us; give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves. You can settle among us; the land is open to you. Live in it, trade in it, and acquire property in it." (Genesis 34:8-10) Have you ever heard someone speak words that sound like the smooth words of the devil himself? Right now I think Hamor is being a spokesperson for the devil, though he doesn't realize it. There's nothing Satan would love more than to entice Jacob to allow his family to intermarry with idolaters. He'd love to turn Jacob's family toward idols and away from the one and only living God.
As always, the devil disguises his true intentions. He presents this plan of Hamor's to Jacob in a very attractive light, trying to tempt him into thinking, "My daughter's honor has already been violated. She probably won't be able to make a good match now and she might even be expecting a child. The best thing to do is allow her to marry this young man who is a reckless heathen but who is also the son of a wealthy and influential man. Then she will be well-provided for at least. If we make this match we can always live at peace among these people. We will be joining our growing, wealthy family with another growing, wealthy family. We can keep adding to our flocks and herds and our land holdings. We can travel anywhere we please in this territory without fear because no one would dare lay a finger on anyone connected with me or with Hamor. Our family will be too powerful for anyone to even think of doing us wrong."
If Jacob had agreed to this request, it would have been his downfall and the downfall of his entire family. It would have changed the course of history. There would be no nation of Israel because Jacob's descendants would have blended with the heathen peoples around them and would have become just like them. They would have stopped believing in and following the one true God and would have been bowing their knees to gods who don't exist. In time, judgment would have fallen upon them for wickedness and idolatry just as it fell on the tribes of Canaan.
I believe this is one more Satanic plot to try to prevent the Messiah from coming. The Lord has said that the Messiah will come from the descendants of Abraham, through Abraham's son Isaac's family line. It has become evident that of the two sons of Isaac, Jacob is the one who has the blessing of God and from whose descendants the Redeemer will be born. There's nothing in heaven or on earth or in hell that could prevent the Lord from carrying out His plan to offer redemption to mankind, but Satan thought he might be able to lure Jacob and his family into so much sin that the Lord would abandon His intention to offer salvation to the human race through a descendant of this family.
Jacob and his family are not going to join themselves with the wicked people of Canaan, but Jacob's sons are not going to turn down Hamor's offer in a godly way. In their outrage and anger, they are going to resort to vigilante justice. Oh, if only Jacob had gone home to his family as the Lord instructed! His daughter wouldn't have been sexually assaulted in Isaac's hometown. But even after making the mistake of settling in a godless city, and even after having his daughter attacked, Jacob could have done more to prevent this situation from exploding like a powder keg. As the father and as the head of the family, it was his place to settle matters with Hamor. Jacob is not infirm in body or in mind and is perfectly capable of taking charge, but instead he lets his sons have the power that only he should wield. They may be grown men, but he is still their father and he is the father of the young woman who was violated. It's his place to make demands and it's his place to set terms that will restore honor and dignity to his family.
"Then Shechem's father Hamor went out to talk with Jacob. Meanwhile, Jacob's sons had come in from the fields as soon as they heard what had happened. They were shocked and furious, because Shechem had done an outrageous thing in Israel by sleeping with Jacob's daughter---a thing that should not be done." (Genesis 34:6-7) A more accurate way to translate verse 7 is that "Shechem had done an outrageous thing against Israel"---Israel meaning the new name of Jacob, not the nation of Israel. Jacob (Israel) and his family have been living and working among the people of the city peacefully. They've done no harm to anyone and expected no harm to be done to any of them. Jacob believed his daughter was safe when she went out to visit her female friends. Should he have made certain she was always provided with an escort? Maybe, but I think the hospitality the people had shown him had lulled him into a sense of complacency. He is a wealthy and well-known man in the area and owns property there. I think he expected the people of the city to treat him as one of their own. I think he thought they would consider him and his family untouchable. Most of the people probably did respect him too much to do him any harm, but an impetuous and spoiled young man was the bad apple in the barrel.
Hamor, the father of this young man, is a prominent person himself. The Bible told us in our passage yesterday that he is a ruler in the region. He comes out to Jacob's house to try to smooth things over by sharing what he thinks is welcome news. His son wants to marry Dinah. His son hasn't used Dinah and then cast her aside. He wants her for his wife and Hamor is here to help his son's wishes come true. He presents his case in a way that he thinks will seem advantageous to Jacob. "But Hamor said to them, 'My son Shechem has his heart set on your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. Intermarry with us; give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves. You can settle among us; the land is open to you. Live in it, trade in it, and acquire property in it." (Genesis 34:8-10) Have you ever heard someone speak words that sound like the smooth words of the devil himself? Right now I think Hamor is being a spokesperson for the devil, though he doesn't realize it. There's nothing Satan would love more than to entice Jacob to allow his family to intermarry with idolaters. He'd love to turn Jacob's family toward idols and away from the one and only living God.
As always, the devil disguises his true intentions. He presents this plan of Hamor's to Jacob in a very attractive light, trying to tempt him into thinking, "My daughter's honor has already been violated. She probably won't be able to make a good match now and she might even be expecting a child. The best thing to do is allow her to marry this young man who is a reckless heathen but who is also the son of a wealthy and influential man. Then she will be well-provided for at least. If we make this match we can always live at peace among these people. We will be joining our growing, wealthy family with another growing, wealthy family. We can keep adding to our flocks and herds and our land holdings. We can travel anywhere we please in this territory without fear because no one would dare lay a finger on anyone connected with me or with Hamor. Our family will be too powerful for anyone to even think of doing us wrong."
If Jacob had agreed to this request, it would have been his downfall and the downfall of his entire family. It would have changed the course of history. There would be no nation of Israel because Jacob's descendants would have blended with the heathen peoples around them and would have become just like them. They would have stopped believing in and following the one true God and would have been bowing their knees to gods who don't exist. In time, judgment would have fallen upon them for wickedness and idolatry just as it fell on the tribes of Canaan.
I believe this is one more Satanic plot to try to prevent the Messiah from coming. The Lord has said that the Messiah will come from the descendants of Abraham, through Abraham's son Isaac's family line. It has become evident that of the two sons of Isaac, Jacob is the one who has the blessing of God and from whose descendants the Redeemer will be born. There's nothing in heaven or on earth or in hell that could prevent the Lord from carrying out His plan to offer redemption to mankind, but Satan thought he might be able to lure Jacob and his family into so much sin that the Lord would abandon His intention to offer salvation to the human race through a descendant of this family.
Jacob and his family are not going to join themselves with the wicked people of Canaan, but Jacob's sons are not going to turn down Hamor's offer in a godly way. In their outrage and anger, they are going to resort to vigilante justice. Oh, if only Jacob had gone home to his family as the Lord instructed! His daughter wouldn't have been sexually assaulted in Isaac's hometown. But even after making the mistake of settling in a godless city, and even after having his daughter attacked, Jacob could have done more to prevent this situation from exploding like a powder keg. As the father and as the head of the family, it was his place to settle matters with Hamor. Jacob is not infirm in body or in mind and is perfectly capable of taking charge, but instead he lets his sons have the power that only he should wield. They may be grown men, but he is still their father and he is the father of the young woman who was violated. It's his place to make demands and it's his place to set terms that will restore honor and dignity to his family.
Friday, February 7, 2020
In The Beginning. Day 131, Bad Times In Shechem
Jacob has not yet gone home to his relatives as the Lord instructed him but has lodged in Shechem and has even bought a plot of land there. Choosing to live in this godless city is going to bring terrible trouble on Jacob and his family.
"Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women in the land." (Genesis 34:1) By this time Dinah is old enough to be considered a woman and is of marriageable age, as we will see shortly. Naturally she wants to make friends in this new location. She probably misses the friends she had in her old hometown and wants to get to know the other young ladies in Shechem. While Dinah lived on her grandfather's estate on the outskirts of Ur she likely never had to worry about visiting her friends without a protector along. She and her family assume she doesn't need a guardian to accompany her as she visits friends in Shechem. But Shechem isn't like the sophisticated (but sinful) city of Ur. Shechem is like an old west town that's rough and tough, a town where a person can have anything he wants if he's able to take it. A young man sees the attractive Dinah and wants her and decides to take her.
"When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and raped her." (Genesis 34:2) This young man is named after the city he inhabits. Or maybe the city was named for him since he is the son of a prominent man; the Bible doesn't say why this man and the city both have the same name. But he thinks that because of who he is he can do anything he pleases. As a woman, it pains me to know that sexual violence toward women has been happening ever since the beginning of man's sojourn on earth. Even here in 2020 it's not always safe for a woman to be out alone anywhere she pleases. It should be safe, and no woman ought to have to fear being assaulted, but we still have to be on the alert even in these modern times.
"His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob; he loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. And Shechem said to his father Hamor, 'Get me this girl as my wife.'" (Genesis 34:3-4) Shechem thinks he's fallen in love with the woman he's violated. I think maybe, now that he's done this deed, he feels possessive of her. He doesn't want any other man to ever have her and decides he must marry her to prevent that from happening. To him this possessive feeling is love. Due to his heathen, lawless background he doesn't know what real love is. Real love doesn't force itself on anyone. Real love doesn't physically attack and violate anyone. The Bible defines love like this: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
If Shechem really was in love with Dinah, he should have never laid a hand on her but should have courted her and had his father speak with her father about arranging a marriage. He's like the type of person who says, "It's better to ask forgiveness than to get permission." He goes ahead and takes what he wants and assumes Dinah's family will gladly and hastily arrange the marriage for a couple of reasons. One reason is that it will be difficult to find a husband for her now that she is no longer a virgin. In those times a man expected his wife to be a virgin unless she had been previously married and widowed. The other reason is that within a few weeks it might turn out that Dinah is pregnant. The family wouldn't want her to be an unwed mother. Shechem, the spoiled son of a high official who is used to getting what he wants, thinks there will be no problem in having his father arrange the marriage, especially now that Shechem has already slept with Dinah.
We don't know exactly what happened next. Perhaps poor Dinah went tearfully home and told her mother what had happened and then her mother brought the sad news to Jacob. Some scholars suggest that Shechem may have held Dinah hostage while his father attempted to arrange the marriage for him, so it may have been a messenger from Hamor's household who brought the shocking news to Jacob. "When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with his livestock; so he did nothing about it until they came home." (Genesis 34:5)
Why does Jacob sit still and do nothing until his sons come home from work? Is he in shock? Is he grief-stricken and unable to think clearly? Does he feel guilty for not making sure his daughter was kept safe wherever she went? We would expect a loving father to be outraged and to either appeal to the authorities or to take matters into his own hands. I'm trying to think what my own father would have done in a situation like this. I know he'd have been beside himself with rage and grief. I think he'd have gone to the young man's house to confront him and his father or else I think he'd have called the police to have the young man arrested.
I'll give you an example of my dad's outrage when something a lot less happened to me than what happened to Jacob's daughter. I started having boyfriends at the age of fourteen but I wasn't allowed to go out in cars with boys until I turned sixteen. The winter that I was sixteen I was unceremoniously and rudely invited to get out of a young man's car in my driveway because I refused to have sexual relations with him after the school Christmas dance. This young man couldn't have been more gentlemanly prior to the dance (coming to the door to meet my parents, holding the passenger door open for me to get into his car, making sure the hemline of my long formal dress was all the way inside the car before shutting the door, and so on). But when he dropped me back off he couldn't get me out of his car fast enough. He pulled up at the end of my driveway, not even near the steps to my house, and slammed the brakes on and waited angrily for me to get out. I had barely managed to get the car door closed behind me when he tried to peel loudly away, but we had a gravel driveway and some slushy snow was on the ground so he didn't make a very dramatic exit. His tires just kind of spun uselessly and wetly for a minute until he was able to pull slowly away. I slogged up the long driveway in the snow with much difficulty in my high heeled shoes. My mother had waited up for me but my father didn't hear about how I was treated until the next day and he angrily stated that if "that boy" ever called me again or showed up at our house again he was going to do some really bad things to him. I won't quote what my father actually said because in his anger he added some curse words to the threats he was making. He also threatened to call the young man's father and tell him how I'd been treated and the only reason he didn't is because I pleaded with embarrassed tears for him to let it go and leave this behind us. If my father was this angry over a young man who just verbally tried to coerce me into sexual relations with him, I can only imagine what my father might have done if this young man had physically tried to force himself on me. This is why it's hard to figure out why Jacob doesn't show any reaction at all.
It might have been better if Jacob had done something himself instead of waiting for his sons to get home. As an older man Jacob would have dealt more calmly with the situation than his sons will. Jacob's sons are are going to show all the outrage Jacob does not. They are young and tough and impulsive and strong. They are not going to stand for what has been done for their sister. They are going to avenge her and the troubles of Jacob are going to go from bad to worse.
"Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women in the land." (Genesis 34:1) By this time Dinah is old enough to be considered a woman and is of marriageable age, as we will see shortly. Naturally she wants to make friends in this new location. She probably misses the friends she had in her old hometown and wants to get to know the other young ladies in Shechem. While Dinah lived on her grandfather's estate on the outskirts of Ur she likely never had to worry about visiting her friends without a protector along. She and her family assume she doesn't need a guardian to accompany her as she visits friends in Shechem. But Shechem isn't like the sophisticated (but sinful) city of Ur. Shechem is like an old west town that's rough and tough, a town where a person can have anything he wants if he's able to take it. A young man sees the attractive Dinah and wants her and decides to take her.
"When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and raped her." (Genesis 34:2) This young man is named after the city he inhabits. Or maybe the city was named for him since he is the son of a prominent man; the Bible doesn't say why this man and the city both have the same name. But he thinks that because of who he is he can do anything he pleases. As a woman, it pains me to know that sexual violence toward women has been happening ever since the beginning of man's sojourn on earth. Even here in 2020 it's not always safe for a woman to be out alone anywhere she pleases. It should be safe, and no woman ought to have to fear being assaulted, but we still have to be on the alert even in these modern times.
"His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob; he loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. And Shechem said to his father Hamor, 'Get me this girl as my wife.'" (Genesis 34:3-4) Shechem thinks he's fallen in love with the woman he's violated. I think maybe, now that he's done this deed, he feels possessive of her. He doesn't want any other man to ever have her and decides he must marry her to prevent that from happening. To him this possessive feeling is love. Due to his heathen, lawless background he doesn't know what real love is. Real love doesn't force itself on anyone. Real love doesn't physically attack and violate anyone. The Bible defines love like this: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
If Shechem really was in love with Dinah, he should have never laid a hand on her but should have courted her and had his father speak with her father about arranging a marriage. He's like the type of person who says, "It's better to ask forgiveness than to get permission." He goes ahead and takes what he wants and assumes Dinah's family will gladly and hastily arrange the marriage for a couple of reasons. One reason is that it will be difficult to find a husband for her now that she is no longer a virgin. In those times a man expected his wife to be a virgin unless she had been previously married and widowed. The other reason is that within a few weeks it might turn out that Dinah is pregnant. The family wouldn't want her to be an unwed mother. Shechem, the spoiled son of a high official who is used to getting what he wants, thinks there will be no problem in having his father arrange the marriage, especially now that Shechem has already slept with Dinah.
We don't know exactly what happened next. Perhaps poor Dinah went tearfully home and told her mother what had happened and then her mother brought the sad news to Jacob. Some scholars suggest that Shechem may have held Dinah hostage while his father attempted to arrange the marriage for him, so it may have been a messenger from Hamor's household who brought the shocking news to Jacob. "When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with his livestock; so he did nothing about it until they came home." (Genesis 34:5)
Why does Jacob sit still and do nothing until his sons come home from work? Is he in shock? Is he grief-stricken and unable to think clearly? Does he feel guilty for not making sure his daughter was kept safe wherever she went? We would expect a loving father to be outraged and to either appeal to the authorities or to take matters into his own hands. I'm trying to think what my own father would have done in a situation like this. I know he'd have been beside himself with rage and grief. I think he'd have gone to the young man's house to confront him and his father or else I think he'd have called the police to have the young man arrested.
I'll give you an example of my dad's outrage when something a lot less happened to me than what happened to Jacob's daughter. I started having boyfriends at the age of fourteen but I wasn't allowed to go out in cars with boys until I turned sixteen. The winter that I was sixteen I was unceremoniously and rudely invited to get out of a young man's car in my driveway because I refused to have sexual relations with him after the school Christmas dance. This young man couldn't have been more gentlemanly prior to the dance (coming to the door to meet my parents, holding the passenger door open for me to get into his car, making sure the hemline of my long formal dress was all the way inside the car before shutting the door, and so on). But when he dropped me back off he couldn't get me out of his car fast enough. He pulled up at the end of my driveway, not even near the steps to my house, and slammed the brakes on and waited angrily for me to get out. I had barely managed to get the car door closed behind me when he tried to peel loudly away, but we had a gravel driveway and some slushy snow was on the ground so he didn't make a very dramatic exit. His tires just kind of spun uselessly and wetly for a minute until he was able to pull slowly away. I slogged up the long driveway in the snow with much difficulty in my high heeled shoes. My mother had waited up for me but my father didn't hear about how I was treated until the next day and he angrily stated that if "that boy" ever called me again or showed up at our house again he was going to do some really bad things to him. I won't quote what my father actually said because in his anger he added some curse words to the threats he was making. He also threatened to call the young man's father and tell him how I'd been treated and the only reason he didn't is because I pleaded with embarrassed tears for him to let it go and leave this behind us. If my father was this angry over a young man who just verbally tried to coerce me into sexual relations with him, I can only imagine what my father might have done if this young man had physically tried to force himself on me. This is why it's hard to figure out why Jacob doesn't show any reaction at all.
It might have been better if Jacob had done something himself instead of waiting for his sons to get home. As an older man Jacob would have dealt more calmly with the situation than his sons will. Jacob's sons are are going to show all the outrage Jacob does not. They are young and tough and impulsive and strong. They are not going to stand for what has been done for their sister. They are going to avenge her and the troubles of Jacob are going to go from bad to worse.
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