January 14, 2025 - Genesis 34-36

Often noted is the honesty and transparency of the Bible when it reports on people and their actions.  One of the most despicable stories in all the Bible is that of the rape of Dinah who was the daughter of Jacob and Leah.  A Hivite named Shechem forced himself upon her, and he wanted to marry her.  Leah’s family rightly incensed, Shechem sought to make amends:  “Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, ‘Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you say to me I will give’” (34:11) as if the giving of money or lands could cover the sin.  The brothers were not buying it, and Simeon and Levi killed Hamor and his son Shechem and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house.  What nastiness!  The family then removed to Bethel where God gave Jacob the name “Israel,” and “God said to him, ‘I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply.  A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body.  The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you” (35:10-12).  In spite of all the nastiness, the promise stands!

O God of Bethel, by whose hand

thy people still are fed,

who through this weary pilgrimage

hast all our fathers led;

O spread thy covering wings around

till all our wanderings cease,

and at our Father’s loved abode

our souls arrive in peace.   --Philip Doddridge (1736)