Blessed, Genesis 34-35 - Life of Jacob

The Life of Jacob E-Mail Bible Study

Blessed - Genesis 34-35

An exposition by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

This week's lesson relates some pretty ugly things that happened in Jacob's family, as well as a time of rededication and blessing.

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Christ Powered Life (Rom 5-8)

Jacob has met two adversaries on this journey, his father-in-law Laban and his brother Esau, and God has protected him from both. After living for a time in Succoth, near the spot where he had wrestled with God and met Esau, Jacob moves the family to Shechem, a town lying between Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim. They camp within sight of the city, and purchase a piece of land on which Jacob pitches his tent and then sets up an altar, which he names "El Elohe Israel" -- which means "God, the God of Israel" or "mighty is the God of Israel."

The Rape of Dinah (34:1-31)

Being so close to the city, it was natural for Jacob's children, now teenagers, to develop friends in town, and go into town when they had finished their chores. Dinah would often visit her friends in town, and more and more she caught the eye of Shechem, the son of Hamor, leader of the town. One day, he followed his lusts, took her, and raped her. He loved her, and was eager to marry her, and told his father, "Get me this girl as my wife."

Word traveled fast. It's sad to see Jacob's reaction.

"When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with his livestock; so he kept quiet about it until they came home" (34:5)

Jacob kept quiet about it, meaning he didn't rush to find and help his daughter Dinah or to confront the young man or his father. He waited until his sons came home. Jacob did nothing.

As soon as they heard the news, the boys rush home "filled with grief and fury." Leaving Dinah at Shechem's house (34:17, 26), Hamor, with Shechem and his other sons, come out to Jacob's tent to seek terms for marriage between Shechem and Dinah, asking Jacob to name whatever he wants for a bride price. We read no answer from Jacob, only from his sons.

"We can't give our sister to a man who is not circumcised," they say, and they insist that all the men of Shechem be circumcised. Hamor and Shechem, as the leading family, convince the other men to consent. But where is Jacob's voice in this? Silent.

Three days after the circumcision, when all the men are sore, Simeon and Levi, two of Dinah's full brothers, attack the town surreptitiously, kill all the men, and retrieve their sister. Then the other brothers come and loot the houses and carry off the women and children as slaves.

Only now does Jacob speak. He rebukes Simeon and Levi because they have "brought trouble on me by making me a stench to the Canaanites and Perizites," thus threatening the safety of the family. "We are few in number, and if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed" (34:30).

The boys respond bitterly, "Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?"

Jacob seems more concerned with peace than honor. "The appeaser and the avengers," observes Derek Kidner, "mutually exasperated, and swayed respectively by fear and fury, were perhaps equidistant from true justice. They exemplify two perennial but sterile reactions to evil" (Genesis, Tyndale OT Commentaries [IVP, 1967], p. 174).

But let's look at the situation from another perspective for a moment. Let's say Jacob's family had reached an agreement with the people of Shechem, and began to intermarry. How long do you think Jacob's descendants would have retained their unique understanding of God? Not long. Centuries later through Moses, God gave these commands to the Israelites:

"And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same" (Exodus 34:16).

"Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD'S anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you" (Deuteronomy 7:3-4).

But after the Israelites conquered the land under Joshua, there was continual intermarriage with the Canaanites, the people of the land. Chief among the offenders was King Solomon.

"King Solomon loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter -- Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, 'You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.' Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done. On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods" (1 Kings 11:1-8).

This was never a racial issue, but a religious one. The Jews were separatist and exclusivist because God intended them to be. If there had not been a continual emphasis on Israel's uniqueness and separateness (holiness), the faith God was trying to teach them would have dissipated rapidly through syncretism (the combination of different religions and religious practices).

It took many generations for God to teach his people. He began through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then through Moses and Joshua, through Samuel and David, through the prophets. How long does it take to infuse an entire nation with a radical conviction about the One True God (monotheism), in such sharp contrast with the degraded polytheism of their neighbors? But God was preparing his people so he might reveal Christ to them and redeem them "when the time had fully come" (Galatians 4:4).

We read the same command in the New Testament:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? (2 Cor. 6:14)

"A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord" (1 Cor. 7:39).

Jacob seems too willing to compromise, and his sons acted out of anger. But which, in this case, accomplished God's will for Jacob's family? His hot-headed sons. What if Jacob had just stood up and said, "No!" on behalf of his family? I wonder.

A Call to Rededication (35:1-15)

But God doesn't let Jacob get away with his passivity. "Go up to Bethel," he says to Jacob, "and settle there, and build an altar there to God..." (35:1).

Jacob takes this with all seriousness as a call to holiness and separation, and so he commands his household and other servants to purify themselves.

"Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you," he tells them (35:2a). Who would have foreign gods in Jacob's household? His beloved wife, Rachel, for one. She had stolen her father's household gods when they had fled from Haran years ago (31:19). She had needed the comfort of the old ways for the journey ahead, and had clung to the false gods of her family. Jacob's clan now included dozens of wives and children captured from Shechem, and all of them had grown up believing in idols and amulets. Apparently some of the Shechemite women and children wore earrings and other jewelry which had religious symbols or connotations. When they left Shechem to go to the house of God (Beth-el), Jacob was determined that they make a clean break with idolatry, and trust in the true God. "So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem" (35:4).

I can hear echoes of Jacob's call to repentance in Joshua's challenge centuries later to the people of Israel:

"Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.... Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD" (Joshua 24:14-15).

Washing Bodies and Clothes

"Purify yourselves and change your clothes," Jacob commanded his household (35:2b). What do washing and putting on clean clothes have to do with spiritual preparation? To Jacob's family it meant that their father's God demanded cleanness and their best. Before the covenant was ratified on Mount Sinai, the LORD instructed Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes and be ready by the third day ... (Exodus 19:10-11). Throughout the book of Leviticus bathing and washing one's clothes were ways one cleansed oneself from impurity and uncleanness.

Their old ways wouldn't do. They must cleanse themselves and come before the LORD in holiness. I can almost hear someone remark, We cannot cleanse ourselves, only God can cleanse us. We are saved by the grace of God, not by works. But repentance is a requirement of salvation, isn't it? When Peter's listeners were cut to the heart on the day of Pentecost and asked what they should do, he told them, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:37-38). Man's part is repentance and washing (baptism); God's part is sending his Blessing, and that is the true grace.

The current generation of Busters and younger Baby Boomers favor a come-as-you-are approach to church, a reaction against the external Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothing of their parents. The younger people are emphasizing an important value: "It doesn't matter how we dress," they'll tell you. "God doesn't look on the outside, he looks on the heart." True. But we are never to come before God with a sloppiness of spirit, a kind of pride of casualness which says, I don't get dressed up for anybody. There is a connection between the outward and the inward. The older people understand and emphasize another important truth: We don't just dress to impress the people at church, we dress to honor God himself. There can be a true desire to come to God, bringing our best as an offering to him. Having said that, I don't mean to impose a worship dress code upon anyone. I just want us to connect the outward way we come before God with our inward preparation of spirit. Perhaps that's a modern-day application of the command to "purify yourselves and change your clothes" (35:2).

God Appears at Bethel (35:9-15)

Jacob calls his household to prepare themselves spiritually, first. "Then come," he says, "let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone" (35:3). And so when they got to Bethel. Jacob built the altar, no doubt with the assistance of his sons, and called the place "El Bethel," which means "God of Bethel," in honor of God who appeared to him there.

And God appeared again to him and blessed him there, though not necessarily at the altar dedication ceremony (35:9). He confirmed to him the name of Israel which Jacob had first received at Peniel (32:28). And he also spoke again to him the Blessing of Abraham (35:11-12):

I am God Almighty;
Be fruitful and increase in number.
A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your body.
The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.

God identifies himself this time as God Almighty, El Shaddai, a title God uses first when he revealed himself to Abraham (17:1), and repeats here, and in 43:14; 48:3; and 49:25. We really aren't sure what the name means. Scholars have proposed etymological links with different words meaning (1) "to be sufficient," (2) "to destroy, overpower," and (3) "steppe," but these are only speculation.

Next, we see a command to "be fruitful and multiply," reminiscent of God's first command to Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:28). The promises of a great people and the land are part of the blessing that Jacob's father and grandfather had received before him.

Four Heartaches

This chapter records three deaths, and the fall of Jacob's firstborn.

1. Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, dies near Bethel (35:8). This short mention tells us several things. First, Jacob had gone to his father Isaac's home soon after Jacob had returned from Haran. (35:27 does not necessarily occur immediately prior to Isaac's death.) That explains Deborah living with Jacob's family in Bethel. And while the account mentions Deborah's death, it does not record Rebekah's. Jacob's mother Rebekah must have died during the twenty years Jacob was in exile in Haran. He had missed being with his mother at her death.

2. Rachel, Jacob's beloved wife, dies in childbirth as the family is traveling south (35:16-20), perhaps on their way to visit Jacob's father Isaac in Hebron. Rachel is Jacob's first love, and now she dies bearing for Jacob her second son. As she dies, she names the boy Ben-Oni ("son of my trouble"), but Jacob renames him Benjamin ("son of my right hand"). Benjamin is the last child of his favorite wife, and after Joseph is kidnapped, Jacob's "life is closely bound up with the boy's life" (44:30).

3. Reuben, the firstborn son, is found sleeping with Jacob's concubine Bilhah (35:22), clouding the firstborn's claim to be eventual leader of the clan. This was more than youthful passion, it was a direct insult to his father. We don't read what action Jacob took, if any, but Jacob's disappointment is clear in the prophecy he gives over Reuben just before Jacob's death:

"Reuben, you are my firstborn,
my might, the first sign of my strength,
excelling in honor, excelling in power.
Turbulent as the waters, you will no longer excel,
for you went up onto your father's bed,
onto my couch and defiled it" (49:3-4).

4. Isaac, Jacob's father, dies at the family home in Hebron at the ripe old age of 180. "He breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years" (35:29). Isaac's death marks the end of an era. Certainly Isaac was a blessed man, to see God's promise of descendents begin to blossom, with 12 grandsons as well as a number of granddaughters. Esau and Jacob together bury him, perhaps the last time they met.

Concluding Thoughts

As I look at this passage, two elements stand out to me. First, Jacob's calling his family to repentance and rededication. Jacob has just "blown it" in handling his daughter's rape, yet he doesn't quit, but calls his family with him to prepare for a new place with God. God may be calling you, too, to come to Him at Bethel. How do you need do to prepare for this? What areas of repentance is He speaking to your heart? What false gods do you need to bury as you move to the new place God is calling you?

The second thing that stands out to me is the sense of intimacy surrounding God's appearance to Jacob. The language used to describe this appearance seems startling in its directness: "God appeared to him again and blessed him" (35:9). After the appearance, the Bible records, "Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him" (35:13). What a privilege to have God talk with you, to have him speak with you in particular!

This is a privilege accorded few in the Old Testament. But we who are part of the New Covenant are all intended to be recipients of this awesome audience with God.

We have an access to God which is amazing. "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" (Hebrews 4:16).

We have also been called to an intimate relationship with God. Jesus had told his disciples, "It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:7). Under the Old Covenant, the anointing of the Spirit came upon just a handful -- the Patriarchs, Moses, Saul, David, the prophets. But on the Day of Pentecost, Peter declared, "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people... Exalted to the right hand of God, [Jesus] has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear" (Acts 2:17, 33).

Through the Holy Spirit, God communicates to us directly, if we will hear. "When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears ..." (John 16:13). The Spirit leads us, and something within us cries, "Abba, Father ... while the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children" (Romans 8:14-16). Through the Spirit "we have the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16).

Have you ever had God talk to you directly? Because his Spirit is in you, and you are his child, I believe he wants to do that. I've found it takes desire. Ask him: "Lord, I want to hear your voice. Please speak to me so that I can hear you."

Then spend time with him often, daily. Walk with him on a walk and tell him your thoughts. Sing to him, pray to him, listen for him. I've found that God will often guide my thoughts if I seek him. But very occasionally he will speak to me heart with such clarity that I know it is he. His words are usually short and to the point, but are so nourishing and helpful. They are like tent-pegs in the ground which anchor my tent on a windy day.

I know the phrase, "I'd rather have a verse than a voice." And, yes, God's word sometimes speaks very powerfully to us. But as he spoke to Jacob, I believe that God Almighty, El Shaddai, wants to speak to you, too. I want both a verse and a voice!

I love the words which follow God's message to Jacob: "Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him" (35:13). Oh, to have him talk to you and me!

Jacob responded this time as he had responded before, by setting up a memorial stone to the LORD, sanctifying it with a drink offering and anointing oil. To Jacob's children the pillar meant, "God sometimes speaks to our father." To Jacob, it reminded him of the precious time when God had spoken to him, and blessed him. Bless us, too, Lord Jesus!