Daily Devotions
Genesis
"Let, I pray, Your merciful kindness be for my comfort, According to Your word to Your servant." Psalm 119:76
Text: Text: Genesis 34:1-31
FAMILY CONFLICT
Jacob had virtually lost control of his children! As news of what Simeon and Levi did reached him , he remonstrated with them.
“Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi,
‘You have troubled me by making me obnoxious
among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites,
and the Perizzites; and since I am few in number,
they will gather themselves together against me and kill me.
I shall be destroyed, my household and I.'”
GENESIS 34:30
There seemed to be more of a feeling of despair than anger in these words! How should we understand Jacob’s word to Simeon and Levi?
1. Gripped by a powerful sense of fear
Jacob had battled fear much of his life. He had feared Esau’s anger and had fled his father’s house. In fear, he fled Laban’s home. Even when he made his way home to Canaan, he struggled with his fear of Esau. Fear seemed to have been his greatest enemy. Once again, fear gnawed at his very soul! (Note the frequent use of the first person singular pronoun)!
In Jacob’s reasoning, and he was not wrong, he feared reprisal from other ethnic groups that existed in the land! What Simeon and Levi did was virtually unprecedented! What if the local inhabitants felt so outraged that they banded themselves together and attacked him? How would he be able to defend himself successfully if the Canaanites and the Perizzites combined forces? Surely, he and his whole household would lose their lives!
2. The Absence of the Mention of God
Where was the Lord in Jacob’s speech? Where indeed was the Lord in Jacob’s life when he was settling down in Canaan! If ever Jacob needed God, it was that very moment! The Lord had met with him the night before his meeting with Esau. God had seemed so real then! Where was the Lord in Jacob’s life now?
OPEN DEFIANCE!
Simeon and Levi were unperturbed when their father tried to lecture them! They felt that they were justified in their actions. They retorted and defied Jacob to find them guilty! Their sister had been violated. In their primitive understanding of justice, they had taken the law into their hands!
“But they said, ‘Should he treat our sister like a harlot?'”
GENESIS 34:31
Once again, Jacob was reduced to silence! He had no answers to give to his sons!