Whose it about

DEVOTION

GENESIS

WHOSE IT ABOUT

Gen 34:25-31

25 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. 26 They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took Dinah from Shechem's house and left. 27 The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where their sister had been defiled. 28 They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields. 29 They carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses. 30 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." 31 But they replied, "Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?"

NIV

Although Jacob is not pleased with his two sons because of their actions, he is not concerned so much about what they did to those people as he is about what might happen to himself as a result. Simeon and Levi surely enacted revenge upon Shechem and Hamor for their disrespectful actions toward their sister. We have already seen God making it a point that we should leave room for his wrath by not taking revenge upon those who do us harm. Yet it seems this was appropriate actions as it was recorded without commentary from God. Perhaps God instructed them, or inspired them to do such a thing without giving us those details. We may never know if this is the case or they acted strictly in the flesh. Nevertheless what Hamor and Shechem thought would happen to them, adding all of Jacob wealth to them, turned out the exact opposite. After Simeon and Levi did what they did, the rest of the brothers plundered the city. Everything which belonged to Hamor now was all theirs. There should be a lesson in that for us. Greed will bring disaster upon the greedy. We also see Jacob once again thinking only about Jacob. Perhaps that is why he is referred to by his former name rather than his new name Israel. We will have to see if this plays out throughout the rest of his life. Whenever he acts in the manner of his former self does God use his former name? Jacob should have agreed with his sons, because Dinah was his daughter and she was defiled. But his greatest concern was his small numbers and that other peoples of the land would retaliate against him. Has he not learned to trust God yet? If Simeon and Levi acted without the consent of Jacob, then he is innocent of their actions and he should be able to go to the Lord and ask forgiveness for his sons, and seek the protection of the Lord from any actions by the peoples of the land. But Jacob was only thinking about Jacob. That is what he does best. It seems his sons had a greater respect for their sister then Jacob did for his daughter. They acted to defend her honor, although they were very deceitful in the way they went about it. Jacob doesn’t even care about how his sons acted deceitfully, but only what the result might be to him. Again, we learn life is not always about us. We are not the center of the universe. The world does not revolve around us. Not everything is about us. It is easy to become introspective, thinking how everything will affect our lives. Our whole society is structured toward making us think about how we can get more. Every ad, every commercial is about what we can do to improve our life. Self-centered is the way of the world, but God tells us to not think more highly of ourselves then we should. God instructs us to put others before ourselves. Jacob has yet to learn that lesson, have we?