What did Jesus write in the sand, the day they brought a woman caught in adultery to him?
Did he write the names Judah and Tamar?
Was the woman a supposed widow, retching with morning sickness, or just beginning to “show?”
“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”.
Did they remember Judah’s words- “She is more righteous than I.”?
And what a story it is, sitting cozily in Genesis 34.
Again, it is an account told without commentary.
Women’s rights campaigners will not be happy. Dinah, the rape victim has no voice at all. Was she just at the wrong place at the wrong time? Did her “friends” set her up? Was she perhaps successfully wooed by the Hivite chief’s popular and persuasive son? What happened to her afterward? How did she feel about the carnage carried out on her behalf? What did she say to her former girlfriends, now captives and slaves to her family? We are given no hint.
And her Father, Jacob, now Israel. He doesn’t precisely step up to the plate to his only daughter’s defense. He dumps the responsibility on her brothers. After the fact, and in his death-bed curse, he castigates Simeon and Levi for their violence, but where was his leadership at the time. Why didn’t he at least say, “No”?
And then there is the be-smitten Shechem. Possession by rape, and then protestations of love. “Get me this woman for my wife.” “No bride-price is too high.”
And his pitch to the greedy towns folks- “Just be circumcised, and all that is theirs will be ours as we absorb them into our culture.” “Why not?” Religious significance – nope, a thought for the God of the Hebrews – nope, just profit motive.
And of course we have, the Knights-in-Tarnished Armor- Dinah’s brothers, proving for sure that the most effective lie is one strengthened by a healthy truth. But how dare they use the sign of their covenant with God to work an unholy scheme?
And then there is the outcome. The Hivite men lie dead. Their wives, children and all they have fall to the Hebrews- and in fact the two groups get merged, but not as the Hivites envisioned. Dinah is restored to the bosom of her family.
In the final act Jacob cleans out all the foreign idols, including, presumably, the new ones acquired at Shechem. He takes his family back to the House of God, and the true worship, and is given divine protection against attack as he moves his people out. . The covenant promises are renewed.
Should our sister be treated as a prostitute? Apparently not.
It does make the eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth of the Mosaic Law, seem most restrained and reasonable, in its meting out of just desserts, though.
Do I have a handle on this story? I’m looking for one. After all, all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable . . .
So what was Esau thinking when he went out with the men of his house- four hundred strong, to meet his twin? Was it score settling time, as Jacob feared? Were they mounted on fast raiding camels, Lawrence of Arabia style?
They meet, embrace, weep. Jacob eats humble pie, “My Lord, your servant,” “I see your face as the face of God.” His gift in sheep, and goats, camels, cattle, and donkeys, is over the top. Esau is gracious, only accepting the gift after Jacob insists, offering to lead the way, or provide escorts.
Still, the bottom line remains. Esau goes south to Seir, and Jacob heads north-east to Succoth.
Bloodshed is averted, but a real home-coming, doesn’t happen.
We are left wondering about the rights and wrongs of the relationship because the writer of Genesis limits himself to recording, he doesn’t offer commentary.
Years later two of the Old Testament prophets do weigh in on the issue.
Malachi:
I have loved you, says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” Is not Esau Jacob’s brother? says the Lord. Yet I have loved Jacob but I have hated Esau;(NIV)
Hosea:
The LORD has a charge to bring against Judah;
he will punish Jacob according to his ways
and repay him according to his deeds.
In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel;
as a man he struggled with God.
He struggled with the angel and overcame him;
he wept and begged for his favor.
He found him at Bethel
and talked with him there—
the LORD God Almighty,
the LORD is his name of renown!But you must return to your God;
maintain love and justice,
and wait for your God always. (NIV)
There are passages of scripture that remain obscure until we have walked through similar life experiences. Some, we shrink back from, because the price tag is high.
I’ve been thinking of Jacob, now renamed Israel, limping away from the ford of Jabbok with the light of the morning sun on his face.
Surely the night before was one of the darkest of his life. After twenty years of running and scheming he had run out of dodges. His past had caught up with him.
Finally, he sent everyone and everything else ahead, and spent the night alone at the Camp of God.
I think of David’s cry to God,
“Who have I in heaven, and what is there on earth to take pleasure in, other than you?”
So Jacob says, to the one he has wrestled with all night, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
It is only later, in the clear light of day, that he gulps and says somewhat shakily- I have seen the face of God and been delivered. Limping, but alive, and blessed.
God said,
I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. . .
All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land.
I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (NIV)
The promise of God is iron clad, comprehensive, reaching down through generations, and out to all the peoples of the earth.
Jacob responded,
“If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s house,
then the LORD will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.” (NIV)
Jacob’s build has a limited scope, reaching only to his immediate dilemma – this journey, and limited concerns – food, clothes and a safe return. It also includes a payback.
You will be my God, I will establish this place as a house for you, and tithe ten percent.
God, in all his graciousness, accepts that first response.
As Robyn’s mother says,
“If an infant can take five consecutive steps alone, they’re walking.”
We are not party to what went on in Isaac’s mind between his blessing of Esau, (and Jacob in disguise) and the second blessing he gave to his younger son, before sending him off to seek a non-Canaanite wife.
We are not given any details as to what conversations he might have had with God in the interim.
His first two blessings focused on plenty, and power.
But something happened. The second blessing given to Jacob, and this time truly intended for him, was markedly different. The reference to God is up-graded from God to God Almighty. This time the blessings of Abraham are bequeathed.
“May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.” (NASB)
Jacob left home, fleeing a wrathful brother, but with a blessing of his true inheritance, obedient this time to both parents.
Esau, grasping something of the import, went out and added a daughter of Ishmael to his wives.
Looking at the story of Isaac, one is struck by his peaceable characteristics. No sign of rebellion, only trust and obedience, on the day his father announced he was going to offer him as a sacrifice. Deeply attached to his mother, and then deeply in love with his wife. No hint of second love interests or concubines.
Rather than create issues with the Philistines, Isaac moves and moves again, digging one well after another. He obeys God and does not go down to Egypt. He receives the promises.
What was he thinking then, when he called in his elder son , to bless him in words, diametrically opposed, to divine prophecy?
Rebekah had been given the word.
“Two nations are in your womb;
And two peoples will be separated from your body;
And one people shall be stronger than the other;
And the older shall serve the younger.”
And here is Isaac intoning to the supposed Esau,
“Be master of your brothers,
And may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
What was he thinking?
Out-stubborning God?
What was she thinking as she pushed Jacob out the door to bring her young goats, as she dressed him in his brother’s robes, arranged the goatskins on his arms, placed the savory dish in his hands, and sent him in to appropriate his brother’s blessing.
What went through her mind as she sent this son, back to Mesopotamia, fleeing for his life?
From the day she first capably watered ten camels, and followed Abraham’s servant, Rebekah showed herself to be decisive, quick-thinking, an organizer.
Now organizing God?
Shel Silverstein once wrote,
And some kind of help is the kind of help that helping’s all about,
and some kind of help is the kind of help we can all do without.
A hunter, and tough.
Jacob was a wuss, cooking lentil stuff.
One strutted. One connived. Forget sucking thumbs in utero. These two practiced kick-boxing in the womb and never grew out of it.
The apparent perfection of Genesis 24 unravels quickly in Genesis 25. This is the “chosen family.” Why so messy?
It’s not so hard to weigh in against the Gaston, of Beauty and the Beast but what’s to root for in Jacob?
Paul writes of the twins:
. . .though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call, Rebekah was told, “The elder will serve the younger.”As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So it depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy.–
She’s a rich girl, a darling of her nanny, maids in waiting a-plenty, but she’s off to the spring herself with a jar to fill. She’s not above rolling up her sleeves to water a camel train worth of dusty guzzlers. And she’s got the spunk to up and leave home, to choose a husband sight unseen, now, before second thoughts have a chance to intrude.
Worthy of a Munsch Princess, or what?
If I admire Rebecca, I really warm to Abraham’s elderly servitor even more.
He runs the whole household for Abraham and is his oldest servant. That’s a camp with three hundred home-raised fighters alone, so quite an establishment.
Loyal, and willing to swear. Practical – thinking ahead, “And what if the woman won’t come back with me?” Planning the logistics- Ten camels, gifts calculated to impress, a detail of men. Prayerful – trusting God’s leading.
I love his approach to getting guidance. He asks for a specific answer to a problem, and acts immediately when it comes.
He doesn’t abandon common sense in the process. And he’s canny enough to get in and get out.
So often we ask God for advice. Then we are tempted to dither, questioning if we’ve heard correctly, until we talk ourselves right out of action.
If you haven’t read Genesis 24 recently you should give it a re-run.
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