Genesis 33-36
Introduction
This lesson covers Jacob’s encounter with Esau, the incident with Dinah, and the deaths of Rachel and Isaac.
Gen. 33
Finally the big day comes when Jacob meets up with Esau, who is coming toward him with 400 men. His last effort at appeasement is to divide his people into three groups in a line: servants first, Lea and her children second, and Rachel and Joseph last, with Jacob himself at the front of the line. Notice that Jacob puts his least-valued people first, in case Esau attacks. We can assume that jealousy continued to grow in Jacob’s household because of his obvious favoritism. And we should learn the lesson that the first in line isn’t necessarily the most important, but the most expendable.
The resource Constable’s Notes has a great statement about faith: “Faith does not mean trusting God to work for us in spite of our irresponsibility; that is presumption. Faith means trusting God to work for us when we have acted responsibly, realizing that without His help we will fail.” Many Christians today think that faith is practically a means of controlling God and putting him under obligation to us, and if we don’t get what we want, it’s because we lacked enough faith. This leads to blaming the victim when it comes to healing or deliverance. Rather than such presumption, faith is trust in God to do what we cannot, after we’ve done what we were responsible for doing.
So on his way to meet Esau, Jacob stops 7 times to bow before him, not knowing what will happen. But to everyone’s great surprise, Esau gives Jacob a big hug and they both cry. Talk about an anticlimax to a story! But then, maybe all that preparation actually worked… or maybe this was God’s doing.
So after a big meet-and-greet, Esau returns home to Mt. Seir, while Jacob moves at a slower pace due to all the young people and animals, but to a place called Succoth. As NET note #34 explains, God wants him to go to the family homeland, and he still doesn’t know if Esau has genuinely forgiven him or is just luring him to let down his guard. Evntually he arrives in Canaan and camps near a city called Shechem.
Gen. 34
Do you remember that daughter of Leah named Dinah? She decides to try and make friends with the local women, but a Hivite man, named the same as the city for some reason, sees her and rapes her. Then he decides he’s in love with her and wants to marry her, and only then does he decide that things should be done properly according to custom. Selective morality is nothing new.
But when Jacob found out what had happened to Dinah, he waited till his sons came in from tending the livestock to decide what to do, if anything. Constable points out the contrast between Jacob’s passive non-reaction to Dinah’s rape with his later bitter lament over what he believes to be Joseph’s death. If actions speak louder than words, inaction shouts. Far too many Christians in positions of influence show no concern for sins or heresies commited by either their followers or their associates. They should not think that just because God delays his judgment, that it will never come, or that he approves of them and their ministries
.
Now Jacob and his sons were all together when Shechem and his father arrived to try and offer a large sum of money to appease them and still keep Dinah, but Jacob’s sons followed in their father’s footsteps by making up false pretenses for the deal: All the men of their city would have to be circumcised, and only then could the two groups of people intermarry.
Vs. 24 is where the true intentions of Jacob’s sons are made known: All the men of Shechem were in pain and unable to defend themselves when Dinah’s brothers went there and slaughtered them all. But neither the brothers nor Shechem had considered the consequences of their actions. In vs. 30 Jacob tells them that not only have they made his people a stench to the locals for breaking an agreement made in good faith, they have also just motivated the much larger forces of the area to attack them. Even so, the brothers justify their actions in defending the honor of their sister.
At least the brothers showed some indignation on behalf of their sister, but they should not have used such deception, and they should have warned everyone else so they’d have time to get to safety or muster an army. The great irony here is that Jacob’s main objection was to this deception, when they likely learned it from his examples.
As Constable points out, this is the likely reason Jacob will eventually skip over these two of his sons when giving his final blessing, which will go to Judah— the tribe from which David and then Jesus would come. Time and again we see how God works through and around his chosen people to keep his promises, in spite of all they do to thwart them. This holds true for us today as Christians; we should never take God’s blessings and mercies as tacit approval of our choices.
Gen. 35
Now God has to step in, so he tells Jacob to go immediately to Bethel. Curiously, many in his entourage had still been holding on to their idols, but now they have to give them up. As they travel, other towns along the way leave them alone because they know enough to fear God. Eventually they come to the place where Jacob had that vision of the stairway reaching to the sky, and it is there that Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, dies and is buried.
In vs. 10 we see God reinforcing Jacob’s name change to Israel and his promise to Abraham and Isaac, which again has to do with physical land and genetic descendants. In vs. 16 Rachel goes into labor before they reach what would become known as Bethlehem, and she gives birth to another leader of the tribes of Israel. But her labor is very difficult, and with her dying breath she names her son Ben-Oni meaning son of my suffering
. Jacob decides to name him Benjamin instead, meaning son of my right hand
. It’s from this point on that Jacob is, at least sometimes, called Israel in the text.
After this is when we begin to see the character of Israel’s sons: Reuben decides it’d be a great idea to sleep with his father’s concubine Bilhah. Per NET note #44, this was likely more than what we think: He was trying to establish leadership over the clan. But the text itself simply reports the incident, and that Jacob knew about it but again did nothing, then abruptly moves on to a genealogy.
What we’re seeing so far in all these accounts of multiple wives and concubines, is that to the ancients, sex was mostly about power and property. Women, being physically weaker in general, and vulnerable due to the bearing and weaning of children, had no real choice in the matter and seem to have just accepted their lot in life. But we must not accept the leap from there to the trite phrase, God’s natural order
, since God cannot be blamed for what human society decides is proper.
When Moses wrote at the end of ch. 2 that a man leaves his parents to join to his wife, and they become one flesh
, he was only talking about two people, not a man with a harem, and that rather than owning or possessing or controlling his wife the man joins to her. That is God’s natural order. And we’ve seen plenty of evidence so far why God’s way is better, though he makes many concessions and helps us through our unwise decisions.
At the end of ch. 35 we learn that Isaac was still alive when Jacob arrived home, but he finally died and both Jacob and Esau buried him. And this is the time Jacob has likely been dreading, since Esau had said long ago that he would kill him after Isaac died.
Gen. 36
Finally, in another anticlimax, Esau just moves away with all his people, and the rest of the chapter is his genealogy. Though many names are listed, we aren’t given their ages or lifespans. But two of the names— the Edomites and the Amalekites— will appear again in the recorded history of Israel. At last, by Esau’s leaving and Jacob’s staying, Jacob does indeed inherit their father’s estate.
We will end the lesson here, because ch. 37 begins the detailed account of Jacob’s son Joseph, whose life will turn out to be an amazing type and shadow of the coming Messiah. Though Judah son of Leah will inherit the promise, Joseph son of Rachel will foreshadow the ultimate salvation of his people. Again referencing Constable’s notes, Joseph will eventually get a double portion of his father’s inheritance, but it will be Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh who become tribal heads of Israel, completing the 12.