“They Say That Pride is Mother of the Vices”

Genesis 34:8-31

 

We continue this week with an extremely disturbing story. We began the story last week where Shechem, the son of Hamor, used his exalted position to see, take and rape one of the daughters of a migrant family that had recently moved into the area and bought new property. 

 

Today’s Scripture unfolds the story and describes the aftermath of the event. Last week we read how Jacob and her brothers responded. Jacob chose to remain silent, which was reprehensible. Dinah’s brothers on the other hand became angry. Which is an understandable response. However, the brothers choose to act on their anger by imitating the ways of their fathers. In other words, they imitate the snake. 

 

The snake tends to rear its ugly head whenever the chosen ones by God take matters into their own hands. The results will be the opposite of Israel’s purpose to the nations. 

 

They will bring a curse upon the nations that brings death, rather than bring a blessing to the nations as God requested. 

 

Although this is a tragic story, there is value in it because it points out things that are true about the role that God’s people have played, do play and will continue to play in this world. Solomon was correct when he said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” 

We left the story last week with the sons of Jacob coming in from the field having heard about what had happened to their sister Dinah. We aren’t told how they heard, but they were grieved and hot with anger. 

 

In today’s Scripture, notice who starts the conversation. It is Hamor, the father of Shechem, the perpetrator, who speaks to Jacob and his sons. He pleads for his son, Shechem, stating his son has his heart set on Dinah and could they give her to him as his wife. No apologies. One gets the sense that whatever his son wants, his son gets. Hamor does suggest, “Let’s intermarry, we can take your daughters and you can take our daughters. You can settle down in the land, trade and acquire property.” 

 

Before the brothers can respond, Shechem chimes in.

“Let me find favor in your eyes,” 

Favor? 

Again, no apology, only 

“I will give you whatever you ask.”

 

Money is no problem for this guy, he is used to buying whatever he wants. 

 

“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 young woman as my wife.”

 

The narrator lets us know that because their sister had been defiled the brothers responded deceitfully.

Up to this point in Genesis we have not had a lot of direct vocabulary of deception. People have been just doing it. 

So far the only time the word “deception” has occurred is when Jacob, of all people, accused Laban of deceiving him when he switched Leah for Rachel. 

 

Now, the sons of Jacob speak deceptively to Shechem and Hamor. They have obviously been talking amongst themselves on their way back from the field and have a plan. 

 

They begin with basically they were not able to do such a thing. They had certain rituals that had to be adhered to and one of them was that their daughters could not be given to a man with a foreskin. That would be a disgrace. 

 

Mmmm, however, verse 15-17,  

“We will enter into an agreement with you on one condition only: that you become like us by circumcising all your males. Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves. We’ll settle among you and become one people with you. But if you will not agree to be circumcised, we’ll take our sister and go.”

Take it or leave it. 

 

Okay, we know this is a deceptive speech because the narrator told us. So what’s going on? 

 

First, it is true that they did have a cultural difference, the practice of circumcision. That was respectable. There are cultural taboos that matter. 

Yet, the brothers add a little twist with using circumcision as a condition for the Hivites to become like them, rather than Jacob and his family becoming like the Hivites. 

 

To understand this little twist we need to remember the history of circumcision. It was God’s sign of His covenant with Abraham. God required this sign of covenant, because of what Abraham and Sarah did to Hagar. So circumcision is true for their family, however, the brother’s twist on this is more like; We are the chosen ones, and in order for you to be like us - you have to give up who you are and become like us and circumcision is the way it is done. Which is, not exactly the way God had planned for the many to become one. 

 

So the brothers say, “If you get circumcised, we can do this.” 

Verse 18, 

“Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem.”

Really? Think about it. Basically, it wasn’t going to cost them one red cent, just a bit of pain and Shechem gets what he wants? 

 

We next read that Shechem had more honor of all his father’s family and he lost no time in doing what they said, because he was delighted in Jacob’s daughter. 

Love is blind? 

 

Yet, not so fast. Next they have to convince all of the men of their city. Watch how they present the proposition. It’s all about lust, wealth and power. Their spiel begins with verse 21, 

1. These men are friendly toward us
2. If we let them live in our land they will trade with us
3. There is plenty of room for all of us
4. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours.
5. Oh yeah, there is one thing, the men will agree to live with us as one people under one condition - that our males be circumcised - as they themselves are. 
6. Think about it - then their livestock, their property, and all their other animals become ours?

Their speech worked, verse 24,

“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.”

 

This hyperlinks us straight back to the flood. 

The generation of the flood created the theme and here we are again, this is how bad it gets when humans are left to their own nature and devices. 

 

This is all about nations becoming one by using human plans, not God’s plan. Like before, it is going to bring curse and death instead of a unified family of Adam, and of humanity. 

 

As a future note, the stories we read throughout the Bible that repeat this gender imbalance are the ones that will evoke the flood narrative. Where God provided a sign of the bow in the sky as His covenant to never flood the Earth again. 

Here are the flood narrative connections. 

 

We have - 

* Shechem who was described as the high and one lifted up. 

* Dinah, whose name means “judgement”, spelled with the same Hebrew letters as what God said he was going to do with the generation of the flood when He says, “My Spirit won’t contend with humanity.” 

All through this story we have been wondering where God is. 

Well, in the flood, the outcry of the oppressed people rose up and the flood was His just response. 

 

In the story of Hagar, her cry rose up to God and God’s response was to offer compassion, generosity and rescue, and circumcision was God’s just response. 

 

In this case, who was the first to hear of the outrage? Jacob. What does he do? Nothing. He leaves a gap for the brothers to hear and what do they do? Unleash a flood of violence. 

 

There’s the twist. The sons of Jacob are going to use circumcision, a sign of the covenant with God, as a first step to violence to wound them. Rather than circumcision being a sign of the future family it was being used as a weapon. We now have a nightmare version of the previous stories. The brothers are put in the position of God, but they choose a perverted use of violence. Where God used violence to bring justice, the brothers do not seek justice, they seek revenge. We are left with a story of violence, without God’s mercy and with no remnant.  

 

Three days later, while all of the men were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, the brothers of Dinah, also Leah’s children, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city. Hamor’s and Shechem’s statement that the sons of Jacob “were friendly,” had just flipped. They managed to murder every male. Specifically, Hamor and Shechem. They took their sister Dinah from the house of Shechem and they went out. It doesn’t stop there. Not only did the sons of Jacob seek revenge, they went one step further. They go over the slain bodies and start plundering, pulling off necklaces and rings and they looted the city where their sister had been defiled. 

 

It didn't stop there, they seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields. 

They didn’t stop there, they managed to carry off all their wealth and all their women and children, absolutely everything. They get rich off their deception. Just like their grandfather. 

Then, after all of this, finally, Jacob says something to Simeon and Levi, 

 

“Now look at what you’ve done! You have brought trouble upon me. You are making me stink amongst the people of this land, the Canaanites and Perizzites. And look at us, we only have a few people. If these nations strike out against us, we are toast!” (Marilee’s translation)

 

The son’s response? 

“Man, should he just treat our sister like a prostitute?”

 

The end of the story. How disappointing. 

 

We can see that Jacob hasn’t changed much. He is more concerned with self-preservation and completely self-focused. The brothers on the other hand, their rationale for all they have just done was that their sister had been mistreated and raped. Now don’t get me wrong, what happened to Dinah should not go unpunished. However, I’m not sure what Simeon and Levi did was an adequate response. 

 

One guy does something wrong and 

every man in the city gets killed, 

all of their stuff gets plundered and 

their wives and children turn into slaves? 

 

Simeon and Levi may think they are justified but actually it’s more like greed. Greed and power. Pride.

 

Check in time. 

 

God’s chosen people are not called to be perfect. They will always make poor choices, they will always make mistakes. God knows this and from the beginning He has been working with them, in spite of their failures. 

Each time humans have gotten themselves into major difficulties, God has administered justice combined with mercy and the result has always produced a remnant. That recipe tells us that God is in the picture. 

 

Today’s story reminds us that when God is not in the picture we are left with a curse that leads to death. 

 

No justice, no mercy and no remnant. 

 

When Abraham messed up and God called him to the carpet, Abraham’s response was to fall to his knees and repent. God still administered negative consequences for his failures but Abraham’s repentance demonstrated God could still work with him. 

When the sons of Jacob act just like the Canaanites and you can’t tell the Israelite from the Canaanite, even though there was talk of unifying the nations in the blessing of Abraham, it becomes distorted and wrong. 

 

When we read a story in Scripture and we see where it fits in the melody, we are given the tools to see what the narrator is trying to tell us. Today’s story, with its analogies to the flood, helps us to see how this is a nightmare version of everything. The narrator wanted to take us there before Jacob goes back into the land. Which is where we are going next. 

 

The primary theme of all that has just happened comes down to “pride.” Circumcision became a sense of pride for the Jewish people and Paul addressed it in his letter to the Galatians. Unfortunately pride has been the downfall for many good people. 

Whenever we begin to think more highly of ourselves or more lowly of ourselves than we should expect trouble to begin. 

 

We are called by God to remember we are chosen, and then to remember what we are chosen for, 

to bless the nations. 

 

Let’s pray.