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Sunday Night, August 18, 2019 PM Michael Dirrim Pastor
Where he got a taste of his own medicine and was swindled by Laban. For many years, he did marry Laban's daughters, Rachel and Leah, and by the blessing of God, he had many sons and one daughter. He then ended up with most of Laban's flock, despite Laban's attempts to cheat him, and so they split ways.
They made a treaty that neither one would come against the other, and so Jacob burned his bridges behind him and went forward with the threat of Esau looming on the horizon. Esau, who had 400 armed men, and God met with Jacob.
Actually, God and the person of Christ assaulted Jacob and wrestled him down to the ground, gave him a new name, Israel, and in this way, Israel prevailed. He certainly did prevail against Esau. As Esau arrived, he had sent to Esau hundreds of animals as a peace offering, you could call it a tribute, you could even call it a restitution for what he stole from Esau.
Esau was trying to get Jacob to come with him down to Seir, to the land of Edom, but Jacob refused politely and went his own way. He camped at Succoth where he stayed for a little while in the future tribal lands of Gad.
Then he finally crossed the Jordan and he came into the land of Canaan proper at the town of Shechem. Shechem is the same place where Abraham came into the land and where Abraham first made an altar to the Lord and so also does Jacob.
As we talked about, when Abraham came into the land, the theme was blessing. He came into the land at Shechem, built an altar to the Lord God, and the theme was blessing, blessing to all the families of the earth through the descendants of Abraham.
When Jacob, or in other words, when Israel re-enters the land at Shechem, he builds an altar, but the theme this time is not blessing, it's judgment. And the theme is judgment very clearly in chapter 34 as the name Dinah is repeated over and over and over again.
For her name is the same meaning as the name Dan, which means the Lord judges. And how the Lord judges the Canaanites will be seen here in this story. Now, I'm going to go ahead and read verses 1 through 7 and we looked at that last time and I'll try to review that succinctly and then we'll move on beginning in verse 8.
Now Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she had born to Jacob, went out to visit the daughters of the land. When Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force.
He was deeply attracted to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her. So Shechem spoke to his father Hamor saying, get me this young girl for a wife. Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah, his daughter, but his sons were with his livestock in the field.
So Jacob kept silent until they came in. Then Hamor, the father of Shechem, went out to Jacob to speak with him. Now the sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it and the men were grieved and they were very angry because he had done a disgraceful thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter for such a thing ought not to be done.
So it's important that we recognize a couple of points before we proceed in the story. One we've already noticed was the theme of Israel entering the land. Remember that Moses is writing this and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he is writing this and his original audience is the children of Israel who are encamped on the eastern side of the Jordan River.
They too will soon be entering the land of Canaan. They too will soon be interacting with the Canaanite tribes. The nature of that interaction needs to be defined. And so they're listening to this and they have been tasked with judgment.
They are to be the instrument of God's judgment in the land of Canaan after 430 years of God patiently forbearing with the idolatry of the Canaanite tribes despite the adequate witness of the gospel that has been there.
And so, as we know from the situation that has already happened in the wilderness, from the mixed multitude among the Israelites saying, let's go back to Egypt where it was better, to the building of the golden calf that was a god straight out of Egypt.
They just grabbed an image out of Egypt and just remade it there in the wilderness. To them intermixing with the women of the Midianites and worshiping false gods there. The perennial problem of Israel is their refusal to keep themselves separate from the Canaanites, from the pagans, to worship God and God alone.
They were far too willing to throw away the true worship of the one true God for intermingling with these other tribes, these other nations, and falling into idolatry and immorality. That's the perennial problem.
And this is the problem that is on display here in Genesis 34. And we know that this is not a problem that has been instigated by the Israelites. Israel has arrived. They didn't ask for this situation.
The situation has been literally forced upon them that now they have to consider an alliance with the Hivites because of the evil actions of Shechem, the prince of the city of the son of Hamor. So, these are the things that we need to recognize.
So, we see that Jacob, for his part, seems incredibly passive after working so diligently to protect his family from the aggression of Laban. Working so diligently to protect his family from the threats of Esau.
Now that he's entered into the land, he seems entirely passive. And Dinah goes out by herself and she is captured and she is raped by Shechem. Jacob is just letting the situation come to him. The news comes to him.
Hamor comes to him. His sons come in from the field to him. He's just letting the whole thing come to him. It doesn't seem that he's very active. Later on, the plan, the details of just how the Hivites and the Israelites will interact is established not by Jacob but by his sons.
He lets that come to him. He's just not active at all. And I bring this up just as an acknowledgement that the cardinal sin of men usually is passivity. Whether it's Adam passively letting the serpent deceive Eve instead of twisting the head off the snake as he was instructed to in keeping the garden, or it's Adam being totally absent from the conflict that was obviously going on between Esau, Cain, and Abel.
Cain's face was visibly strained and fallen. Everybody knew that Cain had some sort of problem, but Adam is totally absent from the whole thing. And we see this again and again, and Jacob here is passive.
So, in the passivity of the father, the sons take things into their own hands. This is not going to be the last time that we're going to have a situation where a father's daughter is raped and then he doesn't do anything about it, and so the sons take it into their own hands.
What's the next story? David. David does not act. He does not act in the name of justice. He does not act for the behalf of Tamar. He is passive. He doesn't do anything about it, and so it falls into the hands of Absalom, who takes matters into his own hand when justice is not done.
So, it's an observation that happened more than once in the stories of Scripture. Okay, so I want us to look at verses 8 through 12, and I wanted to, which I said last week, we needed to pay attention to the way that Hamor frames what happened.
What happened was an evil act. It happened within Hamor's city. Apparently, he's in charge. All the city elders listen to Hamor. He's the guy with the most influence. What happened happened in his city.
It was a wicked act. It was a crime against, it was a crime not only against the people in his city, but especially against Dinah and especially against her family. It's a horrendous sin against God. It happened under his watch.
He's the one in charge, but his son did it. His son did it, and instead of him pressing for righteous judgment in the situation, rather than leading the city to establish a clear avenue to do justice, how does Hamor frame the act?
Does he talk about facts, or does he talk about feelings? He talks about feelings. This is a very old way of talking about sin, that instead of dealing with facts, the feelings are stressed. The feelings somehow are a justification for the act.
Notice, but Hamor spoke with them, verse 8. He's talking with very angry Israelites, Israel's sons. He's talking with them. They're very angry with him and his son, but Hamor spoke with him saying, the soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter.
Please give her to him in marriage. You see, the feelings justify the action. He doesn't say, he doesn't say, what my son did is worthy of death. We are going to take care of it. Would you like to come to the execution?
He says, my son's feelings are this way. Therefore, let's ratify what has already happened with some kind of post-mortem righteous appearance. We're going to cover up the crime with a righteous blanket, and we're going to say it's all good.
I don't know why, but this just reminds me of every time there's a church split, and then the people who leave are called a church plant later on. That just happens all the time. So he says, verse 9, enter Mary with us.
Hamor is trying to spin it, not only in terms of how we ratify the situation with my son and make it look legitimate and righteous, but he wants this, he doesn't want them just to accept that, but he wants a thorough going ratification of what has happened by saying this, verse 9, enter Mary with us, give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves.
Thus you shall live with us, and the land shall be opened before you. Live and trade in it, and acquire property in it. Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, if I find favor in your sight, then I will give whatever you say to me.
Ask me ever so much bridal payment and gift, and I will give according as you say to me, but give me the girl in marriage. Okay, notice how Hamor, when he's inviting, the Hivites are saying to the Israelites, let's join, let's become one.
And in the invitation, you see what Hamor is actually saying to the Israelites, he's saying, do things our way. He even says it, he says, we will give our daughters to you, you can take our daughters.
He took their daughter, you can take ours. So he's saying, basically, let's take this, what has happened, and let's build an entire society on it, upon this one thing that happened. Now let's make it, let's legitimize it.
And Hamor in this, in his, you know, this wicked, terrible thing has happened to Dinah, and Hamor is a quintessential pagan. Let's make it all one. Let's make it all one. You know, we have the potential here to be split off into two.
There's the potential, you're angry, you're against us, we don't want to be against you. The way to resolve this, instead of you being upset and angry, and you basically pointing the finger at us and saying, we've done wrong, and putting yourselves in the right, instead of this senseless and pointless argument and debate, where conflict is the only alternative, why don't we just make it all one?
It's quintessential pagan. Paganism is about oneness, making everything one, where there's no distinctions. And this is a real threat. This is a very real threat for the Israelites. Here, at the very beginning, just as soon as Jacob is given the name Israel, just as soon as we read a passage where Israel's being talked about as a nation, verse 7, a disgraceful thing had been done in Israel, for the very first time we're talking about Israel as a nation.
At the very, very beginning, there's the threat of intermingling with the pagans, of being lost into this mess of idolatry. And Hamor's invitation is very appealing. Why fight when we can gain advantage?
We're, you know, look, we're not going to restrict you from living in the land. You look at all the, look at all the bounty you can have. There is wealth to be had. There's land to be owned. After all, this is the land God promised, right?
So why not go ahead? Maybe this is the way that God has ordained that we get some land. There's opportunity for them. There's security. We can dwell together. They'll be stronger for it. And then Jacob's sons can get daughters and they can marry.
So Hamor's willing to pay whatever to make it work, to make it right. And Israel's going to have a lot of the same situations. When Israel enters the land, what are the instructions about Jericho? All right, God put everything in Jericho under the ban.
It is all, he said, it's all committed to him for destruction. And then who disobeyed the orders? Achan disobeyed the orders. He saw some spoils of war. I'll take some of that. No, it was all under the ban.
The whole idea is that God wanted his people to be separate, an unstained instrument of judgment. So now think about Moses' first audience and they're thinking about the situation. It's like, man, what a horrible situation.
And the pressure is there. It's not Israel's fault that they're in this situation. Not really. It was the actions of the Hivites. But look at all the bonus and all the benefits that are there. If we just join, the temptation is very, very strong.
All right. So what are the responses of Jacob's sons? Verse 13, but Jacob's sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor with deceit. Now, why would they lie to him? Say what now? You've seen it modeled.
What else? They want revenge. They lie to Hamor because they are at war with Hamor. The Egyptian midwives lied to Pharaoh about the birth of the infant boys because they were at war with Pharaoh. He was trying to kill them and they went to war with him.
Therefore, they lied to him and God blessed him for it. Why did Rahab lie to her fellow citizens of Jericho? Because she had already joined with the Israelites and she was at war with the people of Jericho.
And she's in the genealogy of Christ and notable for doing what she did. Okay. So we only lie to those that we're at war with, right? Corrie ten Boom hides the Jews, right? Lies to the Nazis. Is she righteous or unrighteous in that?
Righteous. Why does she get to? Because she's at war with them. Now, children, are you at war with your parents? No. Honor your father and mother. So don't lie to your parents. You're not at war with your parents.
If you lie to anybody, you have the declaration of war. That's an act of war when you lie to someone. So it is not to be used and used with false justification. Okay. So here, Jacob's sons are at war with Shechem and Hamor.
And they answer with deceit because he had defiled Dinah, their sister. And they said to them, we cannot do this thing to give our sister to one who was uncircumcised for that would be a disgrace to us.
That's fairly convincing. I think probably Jacob's over there nodding. That makes sense. Only on this condition will we consent to you if you will become like us in that every male of you be circumcised, then we will give our daughters to you and we will take your daughters for ourselves and we will live with you and become one people.
But if you will not listen to us to be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and go. I mean, so Hamor said, you know, whatever you want us to do, we'll do. Right? More than one person has regretted saying that.
And so verse 18, now their words seem reasonable. Yeah. It seems reasonable to Hamor and to Shechem. Now, so Jacob's sons lay their groundwork. Well, if Hamor consents, they're going to have the revenge.
If he does not consent, they're going to get Dinah and take her away with them. And they've got to, you know, the Israelites are in no condition right now to take out the Hivites. The Hivites are too strong.
So only if they agree will this work out. And now that this proposal seemed good to Hamor demonstrates his custom of rectifying the action after the fact, you know, whatever it takes to make it legitimate and come out on top.
Okay. So now verse 18, now their words seem reasonable, seemed good to Hamor and Shechem's son. The young man did not delay to do the thing because he was delighted with Jacob's daughter. Now, from the very beginning, verse three, he was deeply attracted.
Verse eight, the soul of my son longs for your daughter. Verse 19, he was delighted with Jacob's daughter. Time and time again, we see that Shechem is driven by his feelings, driven by his attractions.
And he is the prince of his city. He and his father are leading the entire culture to make decisions and go down directions based on someone's proclivities, based on someone's attractions and feelings.
Right? This is a very old thing. We see it today everywhere. We see it today everywhere. And with the justification of feelings, all sorts of unrighteous, heinous, evil things are called legitimate and good.
Now, in middle verse 19, now he was more respected than all the household of his father. So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city saying, these men are friendly with us.
Therefore, let us let them live in the land and trade in it. For behold, the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters in marriage and give our daughters to them. Only on this condition will the men consent to live with us.
Become one people that every male among us be circumcised as they are circumcised. Now, why in the world would the men of the city even, all right, yeah, we respect you Shechem, but hey, what's the motivation?
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. So all who went out of the gate, went out of, went out of the gate of the city, listened to Hamor and his son Shechem and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of the city.
So we see that the men of the city, for the sake of economic gain, were willing to go along with this entire scheme. Now he comes to the gate of the city because that's where the, these kinds of transactions occur when they come to the elders of the city.
Okay. But there's another reason why this is being highlighted for us. This is the very place of the city where Shechem should be on trial. The gate of the city is where the elders of a city would be sitting in judgment over any criminal acts that happened within their city.
This happened within their city and nobody did anything about it. Nobody came to dine as aid and nobody went after Shechem afterwards. And here in the gate of the city where they're supposed to be passing judgment for the sake of justice, rather, they take a humongous bribe.
So here's what we're going to do. So we see the complicity of all who were in the city. They all agree to this. They all were complicit in what happened to Dinah. That means they're all going to be under judgment.
They're all under judgment. So now they all agree to the idea and all the men of the city are now debilitated and defenseless. The truth of the matter is everybody who agreed to this signed their own death warrant.
They all purposefully weakened themselves. And everybody who was, all the men of the city who should be protecting their family and acting in virtuous ways to defend their city against sin, wickedness, and crime, they have all debilitated themselves.
And at the same time, all identify themselves as complicit in the wickedness, readying themselves for judgment, readying themselves for disaster. So verses 25 and following. Now it came about on the third day when they were in pain that two of Jacob's sons, just two, Simon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, each took his sword and came upon the city unawares and killed every male.
They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the edge of the sword and took Dinah from Shechem's house and went forth. Jacob's sons came upon the slain and looted the city because they had defiled their sister.
They took their flocks and their herds and their donkeys and that which was in the city and that which was in the field. And they captured and looted all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives, even all that was in the houses.
Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, 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'll be destroyed.
I am my household. But they said, should he treat our sister as a harlot? We need to remember that Simeon and Levi are full brothers to Dinah. Jacob's got four wives, Rachel, Leah, and then the two handmaidens.
But Simeon and Levi and Dinah are all fully related. They're not half sister, half brother. And that's one reason why they act. I think Reuben stays at home because he's the firstborn and he's kind of, you know, legally the same as Jacob in some sense.
So he stays home and maybe he was running smoke screen for his dad. But Simeon and Levi go. And we know Simeon's always for something bloody, as we see later with his treatment of Joseph. But Simeon and Levi by themselves go.
And they fall upon the whole city unawares. Now they kill Hamor and Shechem, and that seems to be pretty obvious. But why did they, you know, why the whole, why all the males of the whole city? As we already said, all of them were guilty, all of them were complicit.
And they loot the whole town. They take the women and children. They absorb them into Israel. This happened on more than one occasion in the history of Israel. Whether they became wives or servants, we don't know.
But certainly the nation of Israel just grew through the act of judgment. And we're going to see in the next passage that as they absorbed the Hivites, they also absorbed a bunch of idols with it. And so there's instructions just after this, get rid of all those idols you just grabbed.
And so they're going to have to get rid of that and purify their ranks. But what about Jacob's response? What about Jacob's response? He shows a kind of battle weariness, doesn't he? He just dealt with Laban and Esau.
Here's another fight. He doesn't want the fight. He doesn't want the fight. He doesn't want to get into another difficult position. The reason why he was especially concerned about Esau is like, I'm outnumbered.
There's nothing, you know, he was so concerned about that. And now again, he's concerned about what's going to happen when the Canaanites and the Perizzites come after him for what happened there at Shechem.
He's worried about strategies, worried about numbers. The Simeon and Levi are worried about the justice that was supposed to be meted out and then didn't happen. They concern themselves with vengeance.
Now there's one thing for sure. As we think about the nation of Israel being taught by Moses, they were a numerous people. They were a numerous people. They had at least 600, north of 600 ,000 able-bodied men for the army being counted up, even the second generation in numbers.
They had a lot of guys, a lot of people for their battle. But the people they fought against were more numerous in Canaan. There were more people in Canaan than there were in Israel. Those in Canaan had better equipment, better weapons.
They had fortified cities. Some of them were giants. And Simeon and Levi, two guys, went in and took out Shechem. And what does that say to the Israelites being called to go attack those under God's judgment?
It doesn't matter about numbers. It doesn't matter about numbers. Is this what God would have them do? If it is so, then it will succeed. Don't be worried about the numbers. You see, Jacob was so worried about the numbers and the strength of the enemy that he was willing to be joined to the Hivites.
But Simeon and Levi were so full of hot rage. They didn't care about the numbers. They were going to go take care of business. And I think the lesson to the Israelites is this. Who cares about the numbers?
Who cares about the logistics? Go do what God has called you to do and be filled with the zeal of the Lord. And this would not actually be the last time, by the way, that Levi's sword dripped with the blood of those complicit in harlotry.
Exodus 32, 25 through 29, as Moses is trying to restore order among the chaos of the Israelites who have been worshiping the golden calf, told the Levites, and Moses is a Levite himself, draw your swords and they just start going around and execute judgment and holy zeal amongst the Israelites themselves.
So this is not the only time that we see Levi or Levi's descendants doing this. So it's a terrible story what happened to Dinah. And then we also see that God arranges things, I believe, to bring judgment against Shechem or Hamor and Shechem and that city and demonstrates a pattern for his people to be more concerned about his definition of holiness and righteousness and justice than logistics and numbers and whether or not we can pull this off.
That's going to be an important lesson for the Israelites as they're going to come up again and again against logistic impossibilities, things that, you know, we're not going to be able to do this, but rather to act in accordance with the Lord.
All right, any questions or thoughts before we close? Yes. This is a very instructive moment of here's what happens when Israelites and Canaanites get proximity and what happens? What's the outcome? And the outcome was that the Canaanites were judged and the Israelites purified themselves of the idols.
So this is the very next, I think, in the next two verses, even though Jacob was unwilling. So I think there's something there. I mean, in fact, Jacob refuses to name Reuben as to be to receive the blessing of the firstborn because Reuben committed adultery with his father's wife.
And also Simeon and Levi, he rejected. He did not give them the blessing of the firstborn because of this very act. He was still upset with it, with them about it at the very end of his life. And it was and he did give a double portion to Joseph, but it was Judah that he had the most good to say about the fourthborn.
Yes. Well, he didn't, yeah, he didn't object to his son's plan. They answered Hamor and Shechem deceitfully, but it sounded like they were making an agreement. Jacob says nothing, does nothing, and later on says, you know, what did you do?
You know, so obviously, so I think he'd been fine with that. I think he would have been fine with just letting it to stand and move on. He was in just utter passive mode. But the people of God can't be passive when they're right next to the enemy.
Yes. Yeah, that's the, yeah, become like us. Yeah, things will get a lot easier if you just become like us. Look, there is a battle weariness, I think, with believers, isn't there? We're in battle weariness a lot.
You know, one of the things being said, I think we've had about three apostasies this summer that of note, but one of the things that whoever the main songwriter for Hillsong was, he apostatized, he's rejected the faith.
Joshua Harris has left the faith, and both of those guys have said that they just feel so much at peace now. That's what happens when you let go of the truths of the gospel and just go with the flow. Yeah, everything's at peace now.
Like, there's no more fight. Just give in and let go and go on with the flow. And everything feels at peace. Total passivity. But that's the warm blanket of apostasy. Yeah. Yeah, because we got to bring queer treasure into the new Jerusalem, as they say at Revoice Conference.
All right. Well, let's go ahead and close by singing the doxology together.