FBT Daily Devotional: Genesis 34

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Transcript

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There we go.

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All righty. Good evening, everyone, and welcome this evening. We are going to be uh let me start my timer. We are going to be covering Genesis chapter 34 this evening. Right. And I want to start this evening by asking you a couple of questions just to give you some things to think about. My first question is if someone you love deeply were harmed the way Dina was harmed, what would justice look like to you? Next question: Why do you think people sometimes become more concerned with defending their reputation than caring for the person who was actually hurt? And I've got one more question for you. Have you ever seen a situation where everyone argued about what happened, but no one actually listened to the person who was hurt? Now you all know I like to break the chapter down just to make sure we got some background knowledge here. So I'm going to start by saying that Genesis 34 is one of the most emotionally complex and morally difficult chapters in scriptures. Right? It contains sexual violence, political negotiation, revenge, and family dishonor. The chapter is not written to endorse anyone's behavior, but rather it reveals the brokenness of human responses when God is not consulted. And I want to repeat that. It reveals the brokenness of human responses when God is not consulted. Okay, so I'm going to break it down into four pieces, but I wanted to let you know that the name Dina is pronounced Dina in the Hebrew, but in the English we might pronounce it as Dinah, but I prefer Dinah. So here's the first part. Dina, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, goes out to see the women of the land. Now, on the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that, right? But the text does show us something, but you got to look for it a little bit. So Dina leaves the covenant household environment, right? She enters the Canaanite cultural space. Therefore, she is unprotected. And in their particular culture, in this ancient world, that could mean vulnerability, right? So the story begins with curiosity and exposure to a foreign culture. Next piece there is Shechem's sin. Shechem is the son of Hamor, who's the ruler of the land. Right? He sees Dinah, he takes her, and he sexually assaults her. Right? Immediately afterward, the text says that Shechem's soul was drawn to her. It says he spoke tenderly to her. Who does that? He wanted to marry her. Now, to me, this is a little bit disturbing. There's a bit of a disturbing contrast here because now you've got desire mixed with violence, right? But this also reflects a very human reality in that sometimes people confuse possession with love. Right? The next part is the negotiation. When Jacob's sons hear about what happened, they are outraged, as anyone would be, right? But notice something surprising. Jacob remains silent. Instead of immediate justice, there are marriage negotiations that begin to take place. So Haymor and his son Shechem, who's done the deed, begin to propose this intermarriage between the two groups. They propose this shared land, they propose shared wealth, they propose economic integration. So, in other words, they turn this violation into some sort of political alliance. Dina herself is almost asking from the negotiations. Finally, we've got Simeon and Levi's revenge. Dina's brothers respond to this violation with deception. They propose that the men of Shechem become circumcised and join their covenant community. But their plans are insincere. They plan three days after the circumcision, or they did it three days after the circumcision, when the men were weak. They decide Simeon and Levi do to go ahead and attack these gentlemen. They kill every male in the city, they rescue Dina, and then the other brothers come in and plunder the city. That's not justice, y'all, that's mass revenge. Finally, we get to Jacob's response to all of this. He rebukes Simeon and Levi, but notice why he does that. He doesn't say, y'all, that's jacked what you did. What he says is, you have made me odious or unpleasant, deserving of hatred to the inhabitants of the land. So his concern is political survival, not moral clarity. Now he does condemn their violence a few chapters down when we get to Genesis 49. Now I want to talk very quickly about three honor violations that occur in this story, right? The chapter escalates through these violations, and each one intensifies the situation. So the first violation that we have is Dina's personal violation. And I'm not going to go back over that. We know what happens. But this is the initial offense. The text calls it a disgraceful thing in Israel. It's something that is morally outrageous, right? That has happened. The second violation is the family's honor violation, right? When Dina's brothers hear about it, the text says that the men were grieved and very angry. Why? Because Shechem had done this terrible thing. In that culture, Dina's violation also meant that the entire family's honor had been violated. In other words, an attack on one member is seen as an attack on the entire household. And then finally, you've got the covenant violation, right? The story's beginning to shift a little bit. Now, this took me by surprise, didn't see it coming, but the brothers introduce circumcision. Now we know circumcision is the sign of God's covenant with Abraham, but they use it deceptively. They turn something sacred into some sort of trap, right? So this becomes the third level of violation. This is not just personal honor, it's not just family honor, but it's covenant dishonor. So let's talk for a minute about why these brothers react so violently. Let's try to get into their worldview for a second. So in their minds, three things were violated: it's their sister, their family, and their covenant identity. So by the time this deception happens, their anger is explosive, right? This doesn't justify their response, but it does explain where they were mentally, right? Their psychological escalation, if you will. So let me tell you a little bit about the deception. If you go to verse 13, this is chapter 34 of Genesis, it says, the sons of Jacob concocted a devious plan. Because of the rape of their sister Dina, they answered Shechem and Hamor deceitfully, saying, Our culture will not allow us to consent to our sister Dina marrying someone who is uncircumcised, for that would be a disgrace to us. We would only approve of the marriage on one condition. You must circumcise among as we are. Allow our daughters to marry your sons and your sons to marry our daughters, and we'll live among you and become one people. But if you refuse to be circumcised, then we will take our sister and be gone. The word deceitful or deceitfully is key, right? These folks are pretending it's a sham, right? The brothers say we cannot give our sister to a man who is uncircumcised, right? Then they propose a condition. They say every male in the city has got to be circumcised more shaming. They present this as if they're willing to accept the marriage and unite their communities. Folks, all of that is insincere. The actual plan, I've already talked about it a little bit, but their plan is revealed a few verses later. It says, three days after the men were circumcised, once again, when they were weak and in pain, two of the brothers attacked, right? Simeon and Levi. They go into the city, they kill every male, they rescue Dina, and then the other brothers come along afterwards and plunder the uh city. So they use this requirement of circumcision as a trap. My question would be: Did you stop to think what God was gonna think about that? You humbout it's such a major violation to your culture, to your family. I get it, to your sister, but was what you did a violation to God? I mean, so like, why does all this matter so much? Again, circumcision was not just a random practice, it was the sign of the covenant that God gave to Abraham earlier in Genesis. So the brothers used a sacred covenant symbol as a weapon of revenge. I don't know about you, but that would bother me just a little bit. So we got a little irony going on in the story. That's right, two wrongs do not make a right. So Shechem dishonors Dina at the very beginning, but in trying to defend their honor, Simeon and Levi dishonor the covenant itself. I would love to hear what God says or said about that. They weaponize circumcision, if you will. This is something sacred. They use it to commit this violence. Right now, later in the book of Genesis, it's chapter 49, Jacob does condemn their violence. Okay, pop you a little late, but okay, better late than never. So, right, we can think about some of these things that we can connect with as being deeply human. So, when honor then becomes more important than righteousness, people will justify terrible things in the name of justice. Just saying. So, I don't know if you all can see the picture that I wanted put up, but if you didn't, it's fine. It was just a chair, empty chair in a room, big room, nothing but the chair, light kind of coming in through the window. That's what I wanted you to kind of focus on. So let me leave you with this as I wrap it up, right? So throughout the entire story, everybody speaks, right? Shechem has got something to say. His father Haymore has something to say, Father Jacob has something to say, the brothers have something to say. Everybody has a voice except the person whose life was actually violated. Mm-hmm. The chair represents Dina. And I just want to ask a couple of questions as we get ready for the breakout rooms. Number one, have you noticed that the person whose life was most affected in this story never says a single word? At least the Bible doesn't record it in this chapter. She doesn't say a single word. And you can only imagine what was going on on the inside. Question number two. While everybody else argued about honor, revenge, and reputation, who was asking Dina what she needed? And maybe they were, maybe it's just not recorded. Last question: if Dina were sitting in this chair right now, what might she want the people in this story to understand? Sometimes the loudest part of a story is the voice that was never heard. And I'll close by just saying it's too bad that she didn't have a beyond community. Therefore, she could have been in part of a community that would have been cultivating faith beyond her trauma and developing leaders with intentionality. I'm finished.