Sunday Night, August 11, 2019 PM

by Jacob, which captured his attention and his preparations for quite some time.

Even in the context of his fear about meeting with Esau was when he wrestled with Christ in the night and received his new name,

Israel, and the limp that changed his walk. But he is now met with Esau, and we saw that though the promise was that the older would serve the younger, it appears at this point from all external evidences that Jacob the younger is serving the older.

After all, he's the one giving a massive amount of tribute to Esau, calling him his

Lord, having his whole family bowed down before Esau as their new master.

And Esau, for his part, tries to set the agenda.

He wants to refuse the gift that Jacob offers him, but Jacob insists and has his way.

Esau wants to travel together as a group, him and his 400 armed men, along with Jacob and his family and his flocks and herds, traveling together down to Seir, down to the land of Edom, where Esau had begun to carve out a kingdom for himself, and so he wants that to happen, but Jacob defers from that, demurs and says, no, we're going to do something else.

And Esau wants to leave some men behind to help out, maybe help guard the flocks, maybe make sure

Jacob ends up in Seir, and Jacob refuses that as well.

So in all three things that Esau wants to have happen, Jacob actually refuses to comply in a very nice way, and so it is that they part ways.

And Jacob has no intention of going down to Seir, he has no intention of living under the authority of his brother.

In fact, he stops at Sukkoth, which is a place he named after the fact that he built a bunch of barns there.

He built and established an area for him to rest for a while. He built shelters for his animals and for his family, and they just stopped for a little bit there in the future tribal lands of the tribe of Gad.

So there they are, resting in the future promised land. But they have not yet crossed the river, which was the focus of the actual promised land.

The fact that, was it the half -tribe of Manasseh, Reuben, and Gad proposed that they would stay on the east side of the river, the

Transjordanian tribes they're called, when they went to conquer the promised land. That was kind of a new thing, but they did stay on the east side of the

Jordan, and all sorts of particulars about that. But the classic view of the promised land was that they would cross the river into the promised land and go over onto the west side of that river.

And that's what we're going to find Jacob doing here in verses 18 through 20. So he leaves

Succoth, he's been there for a little while, but now, now, verse 18, Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan Aram and camped before the city.

He bought the piece of land where he pitched, where he had pitched his tent from the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, for 100 pieces of money.

Then he erected there an altar and called it El Elohi Israel. So it is specifically said that Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan.

That was a very important note that Jacob, that Israel, as he is now called,

Israel has entered the promised land. Now again, Moses is writing this, Moses is writing this.

And then he, through the Levites are disseminating this, these writings, these holy scriptures to the

Israelites as they are camped on the east side of the Jordan, as they are the second generation of Israelites.

The first generation almost completely has died off by now. And they're all ready to enter into the promised land and go claim what

God had given them. So they're about ready to go in, but they're not there yet. Now they're hearing a story about how their father

Israel, their patriarch Israel, when they hear this, he entered the land of Canaan safely.

What does that do for these original hearers of this, of this holy scripture, of this story?

That's got to be exciting. Look, Israel, our patriarch, our father, he entered the land safely.

He entered the land of Canaan and he did so at Shechem. And there's a couple of things about this.

It is significant that Jacob enters the land at Shechem.

It is this very same place that Abraham entered the land of Canaan.

So back in Genesis chapter 12, we are reminded about Abraham entering the land.

And so, so what we have here in verse six of Genesis 12,

Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem to the oak of Moreh.

Now the Canaanite was then in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said to your descendants, so the Lord is appearing to Abram at Shechem.

Here Abram has come into the land and he decides to stop at Shechem and there the Lord meets with him and talks to him.

He says to your descendants, I will give this land. So he built an altar there to the

Lord who had appeared to him. This is so significant for the Israelites. It's so significant to the story that just as Abraham entered the land and came to Shechem and there

God affirmed his promise to give him this land at, and he's told him that at Shechem and there

Abram built an altar to the Lord. So also his grandson, Jacob, his name has been changed to Israel.

He enters the land. He comes back to the land from his relatives way out east.

And so he comes back to the land at Shechem and there he builds an altar.

He comes safely there. So it's a very significant connection that is being made there. And the place of Shechem is a reminder to these

Israelites in Moses' day, yes, this is the place where our forefathers entered.

This is the place where God promised to give us this land. So it's all very significant that Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem and he came safely.

That was the promise. That was the promise to Jacob that he would enter safely.

So in chapter 28 of Genesis, verses 18 through 22,

Jacob was on the run from Esau. Remember that he had to leave because Esau was going to murder him.

He's got to run. And so on his way out, he has nothing and he encounters the

Lord at Bethel. And there

God encountered him and affirmed the promises to Jacob. Verse 18, so Jacob rose early in the morning and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top.

He called the name of that place Bethel, however, previously the name of the city had been Luz. Then Jacob made a vow saying, if God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take and will give me food to eat and garments to wear and I return to my father's house in safety, then the

Lord will be my God. This stone which I have set up as a pillar will be

God's house and of all that you give me I will surely give a tenth to you. Now, I don't have any particular connection, but I wonder if what

Jacob gave to Esau was a tenth of all of his flocks because he said when he's talking about the gift,

I see your faces, I see the face of God. Was he giving all of this to Esau as reparations, but also as a gift in the name of the

Lord? But the point is that he comes safely back to the land, just as he said, if I come back safely, if I come back safely to the land, you are my

God. You have proven yourself, you have taken care of me, and I will worship you. And look what he does.

He erects an altar there. He erects an altar there and names it El Elohi Israel, meaning

God, the God of Israel. Now who's Israel? He's Israel. Jacob, that's his name. That's his name.

His name was changed to Israel and he is saying, God, this true God who has revealed himself, he is the

God of Israel. And that's what he named this altar. So he is actually making good on what he said when he was on the run and leaving.

He's coming back to that moment now and making this altar.

So I think it is significant that for Moses' audience that God brings

Israel safely into the land as a confirmation of God's promises to Abraham there at the place where he had first said it at Shechem, and it is a foretaste of Israel's entrance into the land themselves.

Now when Jacob says, he makes that altar there, and he says, God, the

God of Israel, he is making a distinction. He's making a separation between who he worships and what other people worship.

And that distinction, that separation is going to be put to the test in the very next chapter.

In the very next story, will Israel remain distinct? Will this people remain worshippers of the one true

God or will they be swallowed up by the events and the people groups of Canaan?

And that's the great question in the next chapter. So let's go ahead and look at chapter 34.

There's a few observations I want to make before I start reading the story. The entrance of Abraham to the land.

What would you consider to be the key word there in Genesis 12 when

Abraham, when

Abram comes to this land of Canaan, comes to this promised land?

What's the key word there in Genesis 12? What do you think?

What does it look like? Offspring?

So this is going to be, right. Now blessing is going to be a key word for Abram's entrance into the land.

Okay. He comes bearing news really, he comes bearing news about the

God who called him out of the land of Ur. How did you come to here? He's a great man. He's got a lot of wealth, he's got a lot of influence.

His entrance would be noticed. Why are you here? Because God called me out of the land of Ur and I have come and to what degree he goes into the details.

But still he comes and his witness is ratified by the witness of Melchizedek there in the city of Salem.

Both of them know the same God. Both of them build altars to this one true God. They're both worshipers and they're both witnesses of the truth.

Now Abram comes into the land and it says that he, his offspring, his seed would be a blessing to all the families of the earth.

He comes in as a blessing, right? And Abraham is a blessing there in that land.

What he does to bring witness about the one true God is a blessing. The fact that he travels the length and the width of the land making altars to the one true

God, that's a blessing, showing everybody who the true God is. It's a blessing that he was able to form an alliance and take soldiers to go rescue those who had been captured from Sodom, Gomorrah, Abba, and Zeboim by Chedder Laramore and the

Northern Alliance who came in and just took all those people out and were taking them away as slaves. But Abraham was a blessing and he delivered all those people, right?

So I mean Abraham was a real blessing in that area and at that time.

He was able to make good alliances and give a witness of the strength of who the

Lord is. Now, Israel is coming in.

Now I want you to think of what Israel's task was entering the land.

Now Moses is writing the book of Genesis, okay? He's been instructing the children of Israel, the tribes of Israel.

They've been coming through the wilderness and now they're encamped over here on the eastern shores of the

River Jordan and they want to go across. But what's the key word for them entering the land?

To possess the land, right? And what would it take for them to possess the land? War. Right, they were coming as judgment, right?

God told Abraham, your descendants will possess this land but not for 430 years because the iniquity of the

Amorites is not yet complete. He told Abraham that his descendants would become enslaved by another nation but they would return and that they would conquer the land bringing

God's judgment upon these Canaanite tribes because he said the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete.

So the idea is the Israelites know that when

Abraham came into the land it was a blessing. It really was. But they have to recognize that when they go into the land now, 430 years later, when they go into the land, they are the instrument of God to bring judgment.

He has been long -suffering for almost 11 generations. He has been long -suffering with these tribes despite all of the witnesses that they received from all of the altars that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob erected, from all of the witnesses, whatever

Melchizedek was able to do as the priest of God Most High, as King of Salem, that they had this gospel witness.

They had the truthful witness for all this time but they have rejected it and now the time of judgment has come.

That's what happens when Israel comes into the land and that's why God tells them a variety of points.

For instance, Jericho. When they went into Jericho, they were to kill everyone in Jericho and burn everything in Jericho, no spoils of war.

And the reason why God told them to do that, he said, all of these things have been put under the ban, which means he says, all of these things are set aside for my purpose and my purpose is judgment.

And God's good timing, God's good way, it was time for judgment. After a very long time of long suffering and patience, and Israel was his instrument to bring judgment.

So here's a story in Genesis 34 where the key word is judgment.

That's not completely obvious to us. But if you've been, have you been peeking ahead, chapter 34, been looking in there?

Okay. So who's the key figure in chapter 34? What's the name that's on everybody's lips in chapter 34?

Dinah. And what does

Dinah's name mean? It's the same meaning as the name

Dan. Judgment. So when

Israel enters the land, when Abraham enters the land at Shechem, key word is blessing. When Israel enters the land at Shechem, the key word is judgment.

And this is a signal to the tribes of Israel. When they go in, when they go in, they're going to have to go in as the instrument of judgment.

And the way that God arranges these things will be instructive to them. A second observation to make before you get into the chapter is the perennial problem of Israel.

What were they always getting in trouble for when they invaded the land under Joshua and then tried to possess the land in the days of the judges?

What was their problem over and over again? I hear idol worship, right?

Now where in the world did they get these false idols to worship with? Where did they find them?

There was intermarriage, there was intermingling, there wasn't the burning of the idols as there was supposed to have been, there wasn't the eradication of the false worshipers of the false gods as they should have.

And instead of being that instrument of judgment in a thorough fashion, they made several compromises recorded, there's a few recorded in Joshua, but they were recorded in depth in the book of Judges about how

Israel intermingled with the Canaanite tribes against the express instructions of God.

And this ended up with them taking on these idols of the foreigners and worshiping false gods and all sorts of problems emerged because of that.

So now here in Genesis 34 we have a story. Remember, Israel has entered the land and the key word is judgment.

But here's the problem, Israel as a household, and by extension the nation, gets into a pickle here in chapter 34 where the threat is that they would become totally intermingled with the

Hivites, with Hamor, Shechem, and all those who, his son named Shechem, he lived in the city of Shechem, but they're called the

Hivites. Here's the possibility that they would become completely intermingled with the Hivites. And this is not a situation they asked for.

They didn't go looking for it, but here it is. What can you do? Try to make the best of it.

Look at the advantages that might be there. This was a situation where they could easily make a hundred excuses to go ahead and intermingle and thoroughly join in with the

Hivites. What will they do? So those are a couple of observations before we get into the text.

I'll leave the other ones till later. Okay, so Genesis 34, one through seven. 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. 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.

This is going to have a lot of practical application to Moses' first audience. They're going to go into the land, they're going to be interacting with these

Canaanite tribes and what happens when you have these kinds of interactions. I think it's striking to think after such arduous efforts on the part of Jacob to protect his family from both

Laban at the first and Esau at the last, of how thoughtful, how detailed, how multi -layered he was in providing security for his family when it came to Laban and when it came to Esau, that now that he comes into the land, we now have a story where his daughter goes out unprotected and is raped by the prince of Shechem.

Now if you remember the story of Israel, how God protected them from Pharaoh in Egypt and all the efforts that they made to flee from Egypt and how they saw the

Lord have victory over Pharaoh through the parting and then the closing of the

Red Sea, how they had to fight with the Amalekites in the desert, in the wilderness, how they had to face off with several different kings as they traveled through the wilderness, and they were always at war and on edge, and even their encampments, the way that they had the tabernacle in the center, the

Levites ringing the tabernacle, and then the way in which they had the tribes camped around the tabernacle and who was in charge of what in terms of military.

They were a traveling military encampment and of course the

Lord was at the center and the Lord won their battles for them. So part of this is when they finally get into the land, don't let your guard down.

You've been taking all these efforts to live in military encampment style out in the wilderness, but when you get into the land, when you finally arrive in the land, don't let your guard down.

That's going to be a very quick application being made here by the

Levites when they're reading this to the tribes. There's a warning here about letting our guard down after a victory or two.

Listen, we are the church militant, we're not going to be the church at rest until we rest. There's something to be said, you can let your guard down when you're in heaven.

We can let our guard down after we get raised from the dead. We are the church militant now, we're not the church at rest right now.

Now let's look at the crime that occurred and determine the nature of it. Dinah went to see the daughters of the

Hivites and tragically learned in what kind of culture they lived. Undoubtedly, the daughters of the

Hivites lived in a kind of terror and Dinah found out that firsthand.

Dinah was not looking for a man, but a man saw her. There's a lot of emphasis on who is looking for what.

So he kidnaps her and then rapes her. According to Exodus 21 .16, the kidnapping deserves the death penalty.

And the second, Dinah is not betrothed or engaged according to Jewish law, it means he must marry her, but that only applies within Israel, whether or not you're within the covenant community.

But the part in the scriptures in the Old Testament is, because this happened in the town, because this happened in the town,

Shechem and Daneli would have cried out and it was up to the town to intervene and save her from the criminal.

But this happened in the town. The fact that the town does not intervene shows you what kind of town

Shechem was. Now, let's keep in mind, when a town goes in this direction, and this kind of criminal activity, this kind of sexual immorality goes on and nobody interferes, what kind of a town do we have?

Sodom. Sodom and Gomorrah, that's what kind of town we have. It's the same kind of town in not only

Genesis 19, but also the same kind of town in Judges 19.

It was Gibeah. Gibeah did the same thing that the men of Sodom did, and in that case they destroyed a young woman.

When a town will not intervene and save someone who is in this kind of distress, great judgment always falls.

It always does. Sodom and Gomorrah was wiped out, fire and brimstone. Gibeah, all the other tribes of Israel came against the

Gibeah knights and the tribe of Benjamin who was trying to protect them, and they went to war and killed all the tribe of Benjamin for the sake of 600 men.

So great judgment falls upon the towns that do this kind of thing, and they were obviously complicit with Shechem, probably because he was the prince of the town.

So because of his position, he can do whatever he wants. So the town of Shechem is under judgment according to biblical standard, biblical example.

This whole place deserves to go up in flames. The hospitality of the town is being put to the test.

This is not exactly on the same scale as Genesis 19 or Judges 19, but it's in the same class as those crimes.

The fact that she was going out to see the daughters of the land, she should have been able to do that safely. The fact that she was not able to do that safely shows you what kind of town this is, and it is now under judgment.

Now Shechem, for his side of things, sounds a lot like Samson. He says the same thing that Samson says in Judges 14 too.

He says to his father, I like that girl, go get her for me. So it's just kind of what

Shechem is saying. But even though he's infatuated with Dinah, he has no idea,

I don't think, what her name means. It's a warning, judgment. So word comes to Jacob about his daughter, and he kind of just lets the situation come to him.

The news comes to him, Hamor, Shechem's father, comes to him. His sons come to him from out of the field.

Even the agreement that they propose, Jacob just kind of lets happen. There's a great deal of passivity about Jacob in this story.

But Hamor comes to negotiate with Jacob. See Jacob had bought some land from him, so he knows him. He knows

Jacob, and he knows what's happened, and he knows that he needs to do something to try to make it okay.

So he comes to Jacob to negotiate and says, okay, let's see if we can make this work, and my son

Shechem can marry your daughter Dinah and make this okay on the other side of the event.

But he ends up negotiating with Jacob's very angry sons, where his sons come in from the field, and they don't want to negotiate with this guy at all.

And they're very, very angry. Their anger is manifesting because a disgraceful act was done in Israel.

Notice that we see that at the end of verse 7, they were very angry because he had done a disgraceful thing in Israel.

They are already thinking of themselves as a nation. They are a nation, and something has happened within Israel that needs to be taken care of.

And so we have a nation of the Israelites versus the Hivites at this point, and we need to read everything that follows in light of that interaction.

We're running out of time, but something to look ahead on is the way in which

Hamor tries to frame what happened. When Hamor tries to talk about what happened,

I want you to try to look through and see is Hamor appealing to facts, or is he appealing to feelings?

Is he trying to justify what happened through facts, or is he trying to justify what happened through feelings?

And then I want you to consider a little bit about how he's trying to make the pitch and make it attractive for the

Israelites to join in with the Hivites. And then, and even a little bit further on, think about in what ways is he trying to take what happened and cover it over.

He knows it's shameful. He knows it's wrong because he's trying to cover it over in such a way to make it look better, way better than actually what happened.

What happened was sinful and wrong and wicked. And so in what ways is he trying to do that?

So we'll be looking at those things coming up. Okay, well, let's close and be dismissed by thinking of the doxology.