A HORRIBLE CHAPTER

When I was leading churches I always encouraged new believers to start reading the New Testament.  I wanted them to meet Jesus as soon as possible and learn of Him and from Him.  Starting with the Old Testament raises so many questions for someone who is not yet grounded in their faith.  It's best to encounter the Old Testament along with a guide who can unpack many of the difficult passages.  

Genesis 34 is a difficult passage.  

Jacob and Rachel have arrived back in his original homeland.  We know that Jacob has twelve sons and one daughter, Dinah.  It is likely that at least some of them are young adults at this point.  The culture of that day was made up of family systems that lived together and supported one another.  [Keep in mind, these events took place 3700 years ago.]

Jacob had settled near Shechem in Canaan and purchased land from the sons of Hamor the Hivite.  

The chapter begins:

Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land.  When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and violated her.  His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob, and he loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her.  And Shechem said to his father Hamor, "Get me this girl as my wife."  [vs.1-4]

Jacob quickly hears that his daughter has been defiled.  When his sons came in from the fileds and heard what had happened they were filled with grief and fury.  

Hamor came to visit Jacob and asked him to allow Dinah to marry his son, Shechem.  He further suggested that their tribes intermarry.  Then Shechem said to Jacob and his sons,

Let me find favor in your eyes, and I will give you whatever you ask.  Make the price for the bride and the gift I am to bring as great as you like, and I'll pay whatever you ask me.  Only give me the girl as my wife.  [vs.11-12] 

They responded deceitfully that they couldn't intermarry unless the Hivite men submitted to circumcision.  

Shechem was so in love with Dinah that he lost no time in doing what they said.  Then, he and his father persuaded their fellow townsmen to do the same.  

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.  [v.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 fileds.  They carried off their wealth and all their women and children, taking as their plunder everything in their houses.  [vs.25-29]

Jacob was angry with Simeon and Levi and expressed his fear that they would now be a target for the Canaanites and Perizzites who lived in the land.  Shortly after this, God told Jacob to move to Bethel and settle there...

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It would be seventeen hundred years later that Jesus would teach a different way of responding.  

Anger always tempts us to take matters into our own hands.  Anger breeds violence.  Retribution elicits counter-retribution and the cycle repeats itself ad infinitum.  History proves this again and again.  

Jesus' teaching seeks to break this pattern before it takes root!  He assures us that God is always watching and has a way of evening the score without our action increasing tension and deepening rage.  

The Apostle Paul clarifies this for us:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil.  Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.  Do not take revenge my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written:  "It is mine to avenge;  I will repay," says the Lord.  On the contrary:

"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;  if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.  In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."  

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.  [Romans 12:17-21] 

This sounds like an unreasonable request - doesn't it?  

Someone does something terrible to me, and I'm supposed to be kind to them and leave it to God to settle the accounts?  

History - recent and ancient - provides examples of this practice:

• Corrie Ten Boom forgives the soldier who treated her (and her sister) so badly in the concentration camp.
• Jake DeShazzar goes back to Japan - where he had suffered violently as a prisoner - and brings the Gospel to the people as a missionary for Christ!
• Back in October of 2006, a gunman took Amish hostages and shot eight out of ten girls (aged 6–13), killing five, before committing suicide in the schoolhouse.  On the day of the shooting, a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls was heard warning some young relatives not to hate the killer, saying, "We must not think evil of this man."

We have choices!  We can perpetrate the evil and continue the violence, or we can entrust the matter to God, receive His comfort and set an example for our world.  

Ever-loving, always graceful God,

What You ask of us is hard!  It seems like vengeance is hard-wired into our nature.  

In the moment of crisis, so fill us with Your Holy Spirit that we will be enabled to make wise and godly choices.  Restrain our hands from violence!  Fill us - in the moment - with godly mercy!  

In confidence that You will never fail us...Amen.