A Daily Genesis

Genesis 34:18-31

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[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 34:18-19 . .Their words pleased Hamor and Hamor's son Shechem. And the youth lost no time in doing the thing, for he wanted Jacob's daughter. Now he was the most respected in his father's house.[/B]

Shechem took the lead and set the example for the rest of the men in his village. He apparently had quite a bit of influence, and people looked up to him.

[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†. [/COLOR]Gen 34:20-24 . . So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the public place of their town and spoke to their fellow townsmen, saying: These people are our friends; let them settle in the land and move about in it, for the land is large enough for them; we will take their daughters to ourselves as wives and give our daughters to them.

. . . But only on this condition will the men agree with us to dwell among us and be as one kindred: that all our males become circumcised as they are circumcised. Their cattle and substance and all their beasts will be ours, if we only agree to their terms, so that they will settle among us. All who went out of the gate of his town heeded Hamor and his son Shechem, and all males, all those who went out of the gate of his town, were circumcised[/B]

Hamor convinced the men of his village that they would prosper by submitting to the surgery. His village apparently operated on the commune principle: What you have is mine, and what I have is yours. So everyone would benefit from assimilating Jacob's family because they would become co-owners of his possessions; which, when he departed Laban, was a goodly amount of livestock and slaves. The arrangement was appealing: it made good business sense, and would have been very lucrative for Hamor's village if only Jacob's sons had been honest about it.

[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 34:25-26 . . On the third day, when they were in pain, Simeon and Levi, two of Jacob's sons, brothers of Dinah, took each his sword, came upon the city unopposed, and slew all the males. They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword, took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went away.[/B]

The boys did all that without Jacob's knowledge. Exactly what effect the massacre of her boyfriend and his dad had upon Dinah is not said. Family rivalries, like the old hillbilly rivalries of the Hatfields and the McCoys, are bitter and driven solely by the code of the vendetta. There's no justice in rivalries; only pay-back.

Oh, The Martins and the Coys,
They were reckless mountain boys,
And they scarred the mountains up with shot and shell.
There was uncles, brothers, cousins,
Why; they bumped them off by dozens,
Just how many bit the dust is hard to tell.
-- Gene Autry --

[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 34:27 . .The other sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the town, because their sister had been defiled.[/B]

Only two of the brothers did the killing, but apparently all who were old enough participated in the pillaging. I tell you, some of the patriarchs were brutal men; and it was from them that the nation of Israel sprang. Later, they will sell their own kid brother Joseph into slavery simply because they envied his favorite-son status with their dad.

[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 34:28-29 . .They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys, all that was inside the town and outside; all their wealth, all their children, and their wives, all that was in the houses, they took as captives and booty.[/B]

What they did was what conquerors legitimately do in war. But Jacob wasn't at war with Hamor's clan. Those boys were nothing in the world but murderers, kidnappers, thugs, and thieves. To think Messiah came from that blood line is beyond belief!
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[COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 34:30-31 . . Jacob said to Simeon and Levi: You have brought trouble on me, making me odious among the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites; my men are few in number, so that if they unite against me and attack me, I and my house will be destroyed. But they answered: Should our sister be treated like a whore?
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Dinah's brothers were rash and hot headed; placing their own rage above and beyond their family's safety, and their father Jacob's honor. That is the self-centered attitude of criminals; which is exactly what they were. Without God's providence, surely all of Canaan would have banded together and justly hanged every last male in Jacob's camp so that the nation of Israel would have ended right then and there. There would have been no holocaust and no crucifixion, and the Palestinians today would have a country to call their own. It's almost impossible to comprehend how those boys could have ever descended from the world's most respected religious figure the world has ever known: Abraham ben Terah

Many years later, Yhvh's people came to the brink of annihilation again because of the pride of just one lone Jew in the book of Ruth. Boy! I tell you: God has really had His hands full keeping those people from destroying themselves. Truth be told: if it weren't for God's promise to Abraham, the Jews would have been gone as a people long ago.

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