Don’t mess with my sister

Genesis 34

A conflict with a surrounding culture has come up. The land that Jacob and his family were living in were occupied by a group called the Canaanites.  They were living her for some time now as Jacob’s little girl, Dinah, must have been in her teenage years. Jacob was close to an ungodly city and there soon were going to be consequences. This reminds me somewhat of the story of Lot. He pitched his tent close to Sodom and eventually lived in the city and became a member of the city. This story is a little different though. Shechem who was son of Hamor, a prince in the land. He saw Dinah and desired after her. This was way more intense than any, “hey she is pretty.” type of a thing. He actually took her and slept with her. During this time for an ungodly city, and an unmarried girl was “fair play” and since he was the son of a prince, I am sure he thought he could have anyone and anything he ever wanted. This was not looked at as bad thing for the people of Canaan, but it is sure looked down on by God who has a perfect plan for a man and a woman. This man wanted to marry Dinah. This goes back to God’s command of not marrying to any of the Canaanite people. Isaac did not, Jacob did not, Esau did. Hamor started to not only suggest the marriage between his son and daughter but also the intermarriage of all of Jacob’s sons and the Canaanite women. 

Revenge:

Simeon and Reuben, the older sons of Jacob decided to get revenge on the people of Shechem. They deceived the prince and his son by saying that if all the males become like us then we will allow this marriage with our sister. The men of the city did  and were resting and healing from what Reuben and Simeon asked, and the two brothers went throughout the city and killed every male. They not only took the livestock but all the possessions of that city. Revenge is never good. Yeah they had a right to be angry because of their mistreated little sister and yeah they needed to stand their ground and obey God by not marrying the Canaanite women but they never sought the Lord in this matter. They took it upon themselves and killed people. Jacob heard what happened and asked, “What have you done?” “You have brought trouble to me and my household” Leviticus 19:18 tells us not to seek revenge. Romans 12:19 tells us not to take revenge but allow God to take care of it in his way. Simeon and Levi sinned in their anger. The world tells us not to let people bring down our name, we feel like we need to be puffed up and proud and arrogant. But when we are mistreated we should say, “God you will take care of this in your own time.” When people are in sin, they seem do wonder why it is bad? Hamor did not understand why Jacob could not let his people marry his. When we are in sin we compromise little by little on the truths of God. We start allowing certain things to happen when we know they are wrong. We start saying, “I don’t understand why this is a problem.” Have you ever been there with something you know is not right. We are called not to compromise on the little things because then we will not compromise on the big things.