40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes In The Old Testament: Episode 45

Episode Date: April 14, 2016

After a positive episode of reconciliation last week everything falls apart. Rape, vengeance, trickery and murder are everywhere. What can we learn from those who take justice into their own hands? Have a listen.

welcome to episode number 45 of 40 minutes in the old testament i am daniel emery price i am joined by chad bird and we have brandon hansen back brandon is back the move to new york is complete he's like he's like a pastor now he's gonna he better have like like wiser things to say yeah he's been he's been storing up wisdom for the last few weeks while he's been gone so he's probably gonna dominate this program i know yes i'm like the silent bob of pastors sometimes just like sit there and with a smile on my face uh huh

I'm hearing you then dropping that gold nugget every once in a while that's right I'm waiting for it no pressure I'll be waiting all show where is it where is it well where are we at

in this story that Brandon's going to be dropping this gold nugget in so we are we're in Genesis chapter 34 we wrapped up the story of Jacob's reconciliation with Esau last time, that story was a little bit unique when you look at the Old Testament as a whole, because it was, it was overall a positive story. You have two brothers who have been on the outs for two decades and they

actually get back together. They, they hug each other. They, they weep on each other. They're, they're happy. They're reconciled. reconcile there's forgiveness i mean as far as the old testament goes you can't get much better than that and we're gonna we're gonna fall right back into the regular regular kind of stories today with chapter 34 because uh let's see we have uh we have rape we have murder we have deceit we have pillage we have looting and we have uh strife within families all squeezed into one chapter yeah some of that real old testament low anthropology real old testament low anthropology yeah humanity at its worst right on so that's where we are so we uh we actually skip quite a

few years between the end of chapter 33 and the beginning of chapter 34 we're not told how many years. But when Jacob comes back from his exile, he has most of his children. Most of his children are born, all except for Benjamin, who's the youngest son. But they're all young. The oldest one, Reuben, he's probably in his early teens at the most. So some time has passed because in this chapter, his daughter, at least the only daughter that we're told about so far, Dinah, she's old enough to go out on her own and uh she's the one who is uh is seized by the ruler of a city and is raped and then her brothers are older as well because they are able to take up swords and to exact vengeance for for the crime committed against her so several years have passed

before we actually get to the beginning of this chapter so uh what what happened was Jacob and his family, they settled close to this place called Shechem. And we're told at the beginning of the chapter that Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she had born to Jacob, went out to visit the daughters of the land. Now, it is significant, I think, as we go through this chapter, to keep in mind whose daughter Dinah is. I don't think it's simply a coincidence that that is mentioned at the beginning of the chapter. Dinah is not the daughter of Rachel. She's the daughter of Leah. And the reason that's significant is for two reasons.

One is it will be her full brothers, Levi and Simeon, who avenge her. It's not a half-brother. It's two full brothers who avenge her. And it also is significant because, as we'll see as the story unfolds, Jacob is amazingly, amazingly passive and silent throughout this whole story. Now, one wonders how this all would have went down if the chapter had begun by saying, now Dinah, the daughter of Rachel, whom she had born to Jacob, went out to visit the daughters of the land. So you can't I at least I can't help but wonder if part of the reason for the way Jacob acts is because this is the daughter of his unloved wife. And because of that, he ends up being relatively passive and lets his sons do do what needs to be done. So that's the way it starts out. We'll just kind of go over the story and then come back and talk about talk about some particulars.

uh the the basic the basic uh thrust of the story happens happens right away in these opening verses because when when donna goes out uh to visit the daughters of the land one of the uh one of the royalty there a guy named shechem who was a a prince no doubt a spoiled prince one who was used to getting his way he uh he sees her got three hebrew verbs here he sees her he takes her and he he sees her he takes her actually four verbs sees her takes her has sex with her and humiliates her now most of your english translations say that he uh he lay with her by force actually get two hebrew words there he uh he slept with her and he humiliated her so he he raped her and then you have this strange this strange description of

his reaction afterward it says he was deeply attracted to dinah the daughter of jacob and he loved the girl and he spoke tenderly to her now if if you were just to read that verse completely out of context you didn't know what it was about you might think this was all positive because many of the verbs there are used in positive ways but you really have here a kind of a sociopath first of all he rapes the girl and then he claims that he loves her and he speaks tenderly to her and that he's his soul is clinging to her it's really it's really a deeply disturbing despicable scene that you that you have transpiring here now as the story goes on shechem talks to his father he says uh get me this young girl for a wife

so what happens after that is that shechem and his dad who is the uh the the the ruler of the city or the city-state. They go to Jacob and to his sons to try and work out some kind of marriage deal with them. So Jacob hears what happens. His sons are out in the field with the livestock, and Jacob kept silent, it says, until they came in. In fact, if you look through this chapter, Jacob doesn't say a word until the very close of it. Chapter 30, which is the next to last verse, is the only time that Jacob speaks. So Hamor, who's the ruler of the city-state, and his son, who is the rapist, they go out to talk to Jacob and to his sons. and when the brothers of dinah hear what's happened they are filled with rage

but instead of acting on their rage i guess you could say that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree because they practice a bit of deceit themselves haymore comes to them and he says that his son wants to marry Jacob's daughter. There's no mention of the rape, no mention of the seizing, no mention of the humiliation. He just says, my son wants to marry your daughter. And he says, you can intermarry with us. So give your daughters to us and we'll give our daughters to you. And we can live together and the land's going to be open before you can trade you can acquire property so every they make it they make it seem as if this is nothing more than sort of a a business deal uh uh you know uh uh it'll benefit me it'll benefit

you we can all be happy with the outcome of this and shechem the uh the son the prince says adds to it he says i tell you what ask me whatever bridal payment you want and i'll give it to you no questions asked whatever you want i want this girl for my wife then it's not jacob but it's jacob's sons who speak it says that they answered shechem and his father hamor with deceit and here's what they said they said we can't do this give our sister to one who is uncircumcised because that would be a disgrace to us so they say we really we have one condition all we ask there's no bridal payment there's there's nothing else all we ask is that you become like us and that every male among you be circumcised

and if you'll do that then we'll give our daughters to you and you can give our daughters to us and we'll all live happily as as one people this is the weirdest sneakiest plan ever it is extremely sneaky and uh and very uh ironically fitting don't you think it is yeah because the uh uh the rape happened and now the brothers say uh i tell you what uh why don't you wound the end of your penis the very one this is of course implied the very one that you used to rape our sister and then we'll see what happens it's very sinister so that's what they end up doing amazingly i understand like here's the thing that's weird about this okay if there's like a girl i mean if you're crazy which got this guy seems like he's crazy yeah

he's nuts yeah so whatever so like he like he's all about this girl or maybe even if you weren't crazy maybe i don't know whatever you're all about this girl and i don't know just assume like maybe if you're not a sociopath or something but and like that's the deal and he's like all right well the people have went to war over girls and stuff i mean i guess i can understand that like maybe you'd be like all right if that's what i gotta do how about like all the other dudes though hey guys we're all doing this i mean if i i know if i was there i'd be like hold up hold up wait wait wait wait wait this guy didn't even have that many daughters bro like i'm not doing this yeah Yeah. Well, I think part of the answer to that is in the conversation that Haymore and Sheckham have with the men of the city.

I just noticed this this morning when I was looking through this. When Haymore and Sheckham go to the civic center, if you will, to the gate of the city where all the city business is decided, they they basically relay the conversation that they had with jacob and with his and with his brothers but they add they add this very significant detail this is in verse 23 so they're saying you know all we gotta do is be circumcised so we can intermarry blah blah blah but then they say in verse 23 will not their livestock and their property and all their animals be ours only let us consent to them and they will live with us i think that is what they're really pushing to clinch the deal here with the men of the city i mean it still seems really

crazy to me that they would agree to this yeah they'll be like hey man you should do this you there might be some sheep in it for you i'd be like no you're gonna get rich yeah well we do know that jacob was a he had lots of flocks and herds so they were uh they were arguing on the basis of these guys pocketbooks and you have to assume that there's a certain element of like these guys are in charge and they're just maybe they're not even as much like they might be telling you nicely that this is what's going to happen right i mean i don't know what i don't know what the power system is here but it seems like these two guys probably are running stuff right and so yeah yeah they're not a king with totalitarian powers but uh they certainly are

royalty right and not someone you want to be on the bad side of right yeah so it's kind of like you know when a superior puts forward something as a suggestion but you really know it's a command right the the boss says uh what do you think about us doing this or that and you're like yeah that sounds great yeah you know it's supposed to happen yeah because they're the ones with the the authority and the influence well that's what happens uh all the men of the city they agree every male is circumcised uh either that day or at least uh at least the next day so so far according to the perspective of the people of shechem everything is is going according to plan and it's at this point that jacob's uh two sons simeon and levi who were the full brothers

of dinah they are able now to fulfill really their goal all along it's the third day this came about on the third day when they were in pain that is of course men who were circumcised that Simeon and Levi took up a sword and they came on the city unawares and they killed every man now it's at this point in the story that something unexpected happens this is one of the beauties

the literary beauties of the scriptures that we sometimes miss because the Bible is of course full of stories And there is the gift of storytelling. And the Bible is, of course, very good at this storytelling. And one aspect of storytelling is to withhold information and then to surprise us with it later on. And that's what we have at this point in the story. Because it says that they killed all the males and they killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the edge of the sword.

and then all of a sudden we are told this detail and they took dinah from shechem's house and went forth now up to this point we had no idea that not only was dinah raped but she had been more or less kidnapped she had been held in shechem's house up until this point now when you're reading through this you assume okay dinah was right she went back home she told everyone what had happened she's there you know safe at home well she's not the whole time these marriage negotiations were going on the whole time this news of her rape had had come back to uh to jacob and to his family dinah was in shekin was in the king's house was in the prince's house unable to leave and her brothers go in not only to exact vengeance for her rape but to rescue her from

Shechem's house. It's a bit of a detail that is extremely significant and not disclosed until this point in the story. Now, as if things have not been bad enough, the rape, the deceit, now the slaughter, now we have the looting beginning because Simeon and Levi, they went and they killed all the guys but now the uh the brothers jacob's other sons they came upon the slain and they looted the city because they had defiled their sister and they take the flocks and the herds and their donkeys and everything that was in the city and they even capture and they uh they take the the little ones and the wives of the men who had been had been slaughtered This is a complete taking of the city and everything that belonged to the city is now the possession of Jacob's sons.

Now, all of this happens. Kind of wrap up the story. We'll go back and talk about some things. All of this happens. And as I said earlier, Jacob has not uttered a word. It's at this point in verse 30 that he finally speaks. and his speech i counted them up there are eight first person pronouns in this one verse me me i i me me over and over so he says to jacob and to levi you have made you have brought trouble on

me by making me odious among the inhabitants of the land among the canaanites and the perizzites and my men being few in number they will gather together against me and attack me and i shall be destroyed i and my household so jacob is living up to his reputation he's concerned about himself and he's concerned about himself and he's concerned about himself some more his brothers do get his sons do get the last word. They say, should he treat our sister as a harlot? There's a bit of ambiguity here because who is the he? Are they talking about Shechem or are they talking about their own father? We're not told. We're just given the question, should he treat our sister as a harlot? So this is the gospel of the Lord.

Yeah. That's great. Oh, yeah. Thanks be to the O Christ. There's a weird thing. Now, there's a, okay, so you have, like, a dual thing going on here where, like, part of you is, like, it's a pretty sweet plan, and those guys probably don't deserve what they get.

at the same time it sort of breaks that old testament eye for an eye thing where like uh god's probably not like in favor of you like killing everybody probably not you know yeah uh that's probably not that's not really eye for an eye you know oh just you kidnapped my sister everyone's dying it's like well everybody's dead yeah kill them all let god sort them out yeah so i mean that's pretty that's some pretty it's a pretty brutal stuff some pretty old testament boondock saints stuff going on yeah yeah you know this is uh this is gonna this this will come back this isn't the last that we hear of this uh this episode because this will come back to to bite simeon and levi much later on

Because when you get to the close of Genesis, which is not quite the last chapter, but chapter 49. Chapter 49 is the blessing that Jacob pronounces upon each of his sons before his death. And so Reuben is the firstborn. And Reuben gets canceled out of the blessing of the firstborn because he commits incest. He sleeps with one of the maidservants of Jacob. So one of Jacob's co-wives, Reuben, his son, sleeps with her. So he's canceled out. The first one is.

The second two in line are Simeon and Levi. And this is what Jacob says to them. He says, their swords are implements of violence. Let my soul not enter into their counsel. Let not my glory be united with their assembly. because in their anger, they slew men, and in their self-will, they lamed oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel. I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. So Jacob didn't forget this incident, and when it came time on his deathbed,

decades, decades later, he did not bestow upon them the blessing of the firstborn that he had withheld from reuben his his biological firstborn instead because of what they did here uh i'm assuming that those verses are alluding to to what they did to uh to shechem the blessing of the firstborn is is withheld from the second and the third born son as well which when you look at this at this story in the the broader light of the biblical narrative is is extremely interesting because because of what Levi and Simeon did here the the the blessing is is passed over them and the fourth in line to receive the blessing is Judah so on account of this this terrible story which is just filled with filled with sin and everywhere everywhere you look in this chapter

because of this the blessing that is passed over that ruben that passes over ruben that passes over simeon that passes over levi lands on judah and that blessing is that he will be the one who will carry forth the promise of the seed the messianic seed so that the messiah will born from his tribe and not the tribe of reuben and not the tribe of simeon and not the tribe of levi so in the broader biblical narrative this story is all about the the messianic line the line from which the messiah himself himself shall come it is a little bit weird to think about jacob being like well when it comes to blessings i like to keep these i have to I have to keep these things legit.

Of all people to be concerned about, making sure the right person receives the blessing. Yes, yes. I mean, I like to keep this on the up and up. I'm not going to bless somebody who's engaged in any shady behavior. That's not how these blessings work. Yeah. You need to have some semblance of purity if I'm going to bless you.

geez man come on i tell you jacob uh jacob is a character there is no uh there's no doubt about that you know i have a sister and i have a daughter uh so and even though i've not experienced uh what what these brothers experience with uh with the rape of their with the rape of their sister it's Part of me feels a great sympathy with their actions, because who would not be angry, indignant, and wanting to punish the perpetrators of a crime like this? And there's nothing wrong with feelings of anger over injustice and violence like this. I think where the brothers went wrong is what you alluded to earlier, is that they took matters into their own hands and they perpetrated violence against the whole city. It wasn't just the punishment that was inflicted upon Shechem, but every single male in the city was slain. Yeah, and I mean, it alludes to the fact that these guys got like, I mean, it sounds like these guys got wives and stuff, some of them.

yeah yeah these were married so now they they made widows yeah and uh and orphans you know the that's not good no it's not uh so it's uh it's a uh it's it's a sad story uh really from really from beginning to end now what do you think about uh the deception of the brothers using circumcision as a means to gain the upper hand over these over these men it's like me like poisoning communion and being like all right here's the thing i'd love for everybody i'd love for everyone to be able to be welcome so uh i'm gonna need you guys to all commune first all right no problem yeah let me let me baptize you first then you can be part of our for our family and then end up holding them under the water until they these baptism last 10 minutes yeah so it's

really uh it's really using a gift of god which is what circumcision is or using the word of god which is what commands circumcision as a affront for something else it's i guess you could say that it's using using a gift of god or using the word of god in order to punish someone else and uh in that way it's it's it's doubly deceitful because not only do they lie but they use uh they use this this blessed gift of god circumcision in order to as a means by which to seek vengeance against someone who has who has wronged them so all sorts of uh all sorts of bad stuff going on here yeah you had to wonder if those guys ever came across any other dudes that they were like that they legitimately were like no seriously you should

be circumcised they're like yeah no i heard about that no you know you're trying to convert some people you know get some proselytites and you're like well here's the deal you know you can worship our god a little circumcision it's not a big deal it's like oh no no i already heard about your guys's yeah i've heard about the circumcision move yeah yeah we we know what happens on the heels of your of your circumcising so we're uh we're waiting here for brandon to uh to jump in here with his with his nuggets of wisdom that he has been reserving for these last these last six weeks or so i know how to stay silent before my betters i've got a i've got a weird parallel thought um i don't know how much of a parallel it is but it just reminds me of relations five

you've got these guys one guy who comes in does something awful uh something that all of the the little nation of israel right now says should not be done in israel and they come to them and they go yeah but what do we got to do to make this right i don't know if they even understand that it's wrong it seems like it's they don't have any they're like yeah we can get married now what do we but what do we got to do um and when you look at verses like two through four here i'll just read it. Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you have fallen

from grace. And it's interesting to look at this entire city goes and gets circumcised, almost you know i'm not maybe not even intentionally but almost in a way that this is going to cover up and make things right and we're going to we're going to be able to live together but there's still the the sin there circumcision isn't an atonement for sin keeping the law doesn't keeping the law in one part doesn't make up for breaking it in the whole And so if you're going to be justified by even just something as a one part of the law, then you have to keep the whole law. You're under a curse. You're severed from that. Any, any righteousness. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a, that's, I think there's a great parallel. Uh, and certainly the, certainly the people that shuck them, they're, they're misusing circumcision for their own relief, for their own benefit. uh as often happens with as often happens with the law such as the people in galatians were doing they're they're attempting to cover their sin with it with that which which is no covering is uh is an incapable of uh providing the kind of forgiveness and atonement that is that is truly needed so they're the people of shechem are are accepting circumcision but uh just i guess you could say like some people uh uh some people accept at least outwardly a semblance of religion

only to better themselves that's really what's happening here with the people of shechem they agree to circumcision they agree to this really sacred sacred uh religious act but only in order to profit themselves it's not really to receive any kind of covenant community it's not really to receive the blessings of god but it's only in order to get more cows and donkeys and and oxen in sheep to make themselves uh to rich and hey they might get uh get some some more wives to boot so it becomes nothing more than self a self-serving kind of use of uh the old testament sacrament yeah it's like it's like that couple that comes in and like wants to baptize needs to baptize their baby they haven't been to church and like ever and uh and they're like gotta get

this baby baptized because like grandma's gonna straight cut us out of the will if we don't yeah right that's a real thing like that happens that happens yeah yeah we're we're in danger of losing our inheritance if we don't baptize little johnny here so yeah let's just go ahead and do it yeah like grandma grandma won't have it because grandma's like old school and we don't get this baby baptized we will we are out yeah and uh what do you think of uh what do you think of jacob's reaction throughout this uh thought this whole story i think that's worthy of uh reflecting on a little bit more because he seems uh to be unconcerned about his daughter at least if we judge his uh his silence to be communicative that by not saying anything and by not doing anything

he seems to just want to sweep this whole incident under the rug in fact i suspect that he uh he was duped by his own sons that he thought yeah you know this this is all right uh we can all be one happy big israelite uh high bite community here our two peoples becoming one and we won't have to worry about any kind of uh punishment for the rape of rape of my daughter yeah he does no he definitely doesn't seem like he's like he's apprised of the uh of the strategy here i mean he said he seems like he's surprised that this is how it went down yeah yeah he he's probably thinking to himself yeah that's a great idea that my son's had this is this is good yeah we can just take care of this whole situation make it go away and in the end it would better

it would better for uh for all of us i mean you would assume that only simeon and reuben knew right yeah judging by uh judging by their actions yeah they were the ones who devised the plan and then implemented the plan and the other brothers were like hey look there's a bunch of dead people let's go loot the city and take advantage of the situation now this is this is uh i think this is instructive too because in uh in last in the last episode we talked about jacob's wrestling with the angel and then his uh his reconciliation with his brother and now in some ways it seemed as if jacob was a changed man i mean he the the one incident in particular he had held back he'd put a buffer between himself and esau it used a human shield

of all his wives and sons and servants and flocks and herds, and he was going to be the last guy to meet Esau. But then after his encounter with God and the name changed, he actually walks ahead or limps ahead of everyone else, and he puts himself as the buffer between Esau and the rest of his family. So he actually acts self-sacrificially after his encounter with the angel, and then he's reconciled with his brother and so it seems as if jacob has turned over a new leaf he uh he's done the right thing he's acted selflessly and you get a whole new perspective on jacob and then you get to this story and he's right back to being the same old jacob And it's as if he's simultaneously a saint and a sinner.

It's as if he's just like one of us. We have these times where it seems like we're back on track and we're doing the right thing. And then we turn right around and we act selfishly. We act even despicably as sinners do. So we Jacob. We do what he does. we uh we act out of self-interest rather than the interest of of others so we do this back and forth this yo-yo this yo-yo of the christian life where one day we seem to be on track the next day

we're completely off completely off the rails again it's a good reminder that when you read these old testament stories you're not reading them as uh as prescriptive be like jacob no don't be like jacob please please don't be like jacob don't be like his sons uh don't be like the uh the patriarchs in general these are not these stories are not some kind of example for us by how we are to live instead they are exemplary of the grace of god despite the way that we live I think it's the same grace that covered Jacob with all of his warts and blemishes and self-serving deeds. That same grace covers us with all of our warts and blemishes and our self-serving deeds. That's a message that you hear trumpeted through all these stories.

And it's so obvious and yet so often missed in sermons and in Bible studies that what we have here in all these stories is the story of the God who loves us and saves us despite every effort that we make to live a life unworthy of that love and that grace just like Jacob did

I think that you learn in this story too that we really suck at justice big time we don't know what we're doing there's a reason that God says vengeance is mine I will repay because you're going to totally screw it up

if you decide that you're going to get vengeance. Yeah, it's a bad idea. Two different extremes. Jacob does nothing. His sons go and they take it out on an entire city. Yeah, that's a great way to put it, Brandon. Yeah, you have two extremes here. Do nothing or do way too much.

That's usually what happens when we deal with justice. Yeah. What do you know? Nobody gets it right. Shocking. Yeah, shocking. interesting that god's name is not mentioned once in this whole chapter it's as if he he steps back and watches and just shakes his head like oh my goodness there they go

again nobody gets it right not a single person that is uh that is a hot mess right there that's yeah yeah but uh but still interesting that that that's you know that's that's it that's israel and that's israel yeah that's the old testament church uh that is uh that's the same church that uh that we're a part of it's just one great continuum from old the new testament so what you see happening here with uh maybe not the explicit deeds but certainly the motivations and the manifestations of of hate and anger and injustice and lust and everything else they they're still they still take place today uh which is why the church claims the righteousness not her own but the righteousness of christ because she is clothed with with his goodness

and with his mercy and with his uh his holiness not with not with her own because she has none of our own. Amen. Well, guys, that's it. We are out of time. So, hey, if you enjoy this program or anything else we do at Christ Hold Fast, you can go over to ChristHoldFast.org and go to

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