May the mumbling commence!
Jacob’s sons had made the men of Shechem
vulnerable. Now what would they do? Would they be good to their word? Read from Peterson’s The Message:
Three
days
after the circumcision, while
all the men were
still very sore, two
of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each with his sword in hand, walked into the city as if they
owned the place and murdered every man there. They also killed Hamor and his
son Shechem, rescued Dinah from Shechem’s house, and left. When the rest of Jacob’s
sons came on the scene of slaughter, they looted the entire city in retaliation for
Dinah’s rape. Flocks, herds, donkeys, belongings
– everything, whether in the city or the fields – they took. And then
they took all the
wives and children captive and ransacked their homes for anything valuable.
Jacob
said to Simeon and Levi, “You’ve made my name
stink to high heaven among the people
here, these Canaanites
and Perizzites. If they decided to gang up
on us and attack, as few as we are we wouldn’t stand a chance; they’d wipe me and my people
right off the map.”
They
said, “Nobody is going to treat our sister like a whore and
get by with it.” (Genesis 34:25-31)
Now read the same passage from the NIV translation:
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.
Then Jacob said to Simeon and
Levi, "You have brought trouble on me by
making me a stench 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."
But they replied,
"Should he have treated our sister like
a prostitute?" (Genesis
34:25-31)
They had done everything that Jacob’s sons had asked of
them. Dinah was in the home of
Shechem. They were relaxed and
unsuspecting. And they were still in
pain.
That’s when Simeon and Levi descended upon the
city. They killed all the men – not just
Shechem, who had raped their sister.
Just a bit of overkill! Peterson
relates it as murder and slaughter. And
that’s exactly what it was.
No one is to treat our sister as a whore! That’s how Peterson coins it. Though it’s raw with emotion, those words are
true to the blind rage that the brothers went into.
It’s a troubling passage. It’s a key to understanding the laws in the Old
Testament that speak of an eye for an eye.
Those laws were meant to keep this kind of wide scale retribution in
check.
It’s no wonder that Jacob feared the retaliation of the
people upon his family. But more
troubling still is that it did not cross Jacob’s mind to be fearful of what the
Lord might do because His holy name had been defiled. This heinous act did much more than soil the
name of Jacob!
Enough mumbling for now…
Peace Out
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