Fear No Fear

(All scripture from Lexham English Bible, Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software)

Laban has been dealt with. Freedom from servitude obtained. Jacob’s coming home free and clear. . . Except that whole Esau thing. Jacob stole his brother’s blessing, manipulated Esau into selling his birthright, and escaped into the night because Esau was going to kill him. The deal Jacob had with his mother, Rebekah, was that she would send for him when Esau had cooled off. She never sent for him. Twenty years now and still no word. Jacob can only assume that Esau still wants his blood. It was the shadowed storm clouds he was riding into. What was the first thing Jacob saw when he came into the land? Angels. It says the angels of God met him. He was so blown away by how many there were and that he saw them, that he named the place Two Camps (Mahanaim): camp of angels and camp of Jacob. This MUST have been encouraging and a reminder of God’s promise to always be with Jacob.

The first thing Jacob does is send messengers to where hia brother Esau lived (Seir in the country of Edom). He announced in very humble language that Jacob was back in town and he hoped Esau would receive him with a smile (please don’t kill me). Jacob didn’t have to do this. He could have snuck in. But Jacob had changed a lot in the time away and was reliant on God in a way he wasn’t in his youth. He was humbling himself to the man whose rightful place he’d usurped as a middle aged man (bought a birthright in his 30s-40s, stole a blessing in his 70s, and now returning at 97). The messengers returned. Esau had heard. Okay. Esau was coming to meet Jacob. Smiles all around. And he was coming with four hundred presumed armed men. Frozen smiles all around.

Jacob forgot the promises. He forgot the angels. He panicked. He divided everything he had into two groups figuring that if Esau destroyed the one, the time that took would enable the other group to escape. Jacob was operating from the assumption he was going to die.

But then he got perspective. He took a breath. And he prayed with language that reminded himself of the promises and the words of God. He asked for deliverance and ended with the reminder (standing on it) of the promise God made to prosper Jacob and give him many descendants. Then he went to bed.

Next morning, he picked some gifts for Esau from his possessions. Jacob knew how to gift. Get this: “two hundred female goats, twenty male goats, two hundred ewes, twenty rams, thirty milk camels with their young, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys, and ten male donkeys” (Genesis 32:14-15). That’s some gift. That is a LOT of wealth. We have to ask ourselves whether or not this vast amount is close to the birthright Jacob stole those years ago. Was he returning what Esau would have claimed? It doesn’t say it, but most commentators ask that question too.

He gave them to his servants in separate groups – four groups minimum and nine groups maximum – and gave them instructions. When they reached to Esau, tell Esau they are gifts to him from Jacob and Jacob is coming behind us. The plan? Appease Esau so by the time he reached Jacob, maybe he would accept Jacob. He sent them off and spent the night there.

“I have seen God face to face and my life was spared.” (Genesis 32:30)

In the night he woke up, separated his family into women and their children, and sent them across the nearby river (the Jabbok, a tributary of the Jordan, halfway between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee), and stayed there alone. A man appears and they ‘wrestled’. Hosea 12:4 says “He struggled with the angel and prevailed; he pleaded for his mercy“. The rest of that section clearly states this was Yahweh (the pre-incarnate Jesus), but some scholars believe based on language it was an angel, maybe an archangel. I think it was Jesus, myself. Either way, they show there was physical struggle and spiritual inner-man struggle. This was an all fronts assault at 97 years old. The word ‘wrestle’ in Hebrew is a play on words with ‘Jacob’, meaning heel-grabber. It’s Jacob having to physically face his past actions. The man touched Jacob’s hip and dislocated it. Jacob still didn’t give up. He obviously recognised the not-human nature of the man and would not let go until he blessed Jacob. The man asked ‘What is your name?’ Jacob admitted his past actions, his past nature: deceitful heel-grabber. The man said that he would now be named ‘Israel’ which meant someone who struggles with God or someone who lets God prevail. The man went. Jacob named the place ‘face of God’ and then crossed the river.

Esau was there.

Jacob met up with his wives and children. He arranged them in groups. The maidservants first. Then Leah. And finally Rachel. Then Jacob went in front of them and faced Esau. He bowed seven times on his way to his brother – the opposite picture to the blessing he had stolen. Esau ran to him and didn’t attack him. Esau embraced him. They were reunited in heart as well as physically.

Esau asked what the deal was with the herds and tried to not accept them, but Jacob insisted. Esau asked about the women and kids,and finally got introduced to his extended family. Esau suggested they head back to Seir together, but Jacob pointed out he had to go really slow because of the herd and children. Esau offered to leave Jacob bodyguards, but Jacob said he had no need of them. He had lots of servants and God watched over him. So Esau went back to Seir. Interestingly, there is no record that Jacob ever went there. He might have. Later it says the two brothers split apart because the land couldn’t support both of them, so they must have at some point. But right here Jacob went to Shechem, built a house, and built shelters for his animals. Jacob did that by buying a parcel of land from the man in charge of the area (Hamor).

Remember Jacob’s daughter Dinah by his wife Leah? At this point she is about 14-16 years old. She decides she wants to meet women/girls her age and so when her brothers are in the fields with the flocks, she goes into town to meet the daughters of the land. Somehow, she runs across Shechem the son of Hamor and the one the town was named after. The prince liked her. A LOT. So he had sex with her. They were not married and it was mixing bloodline, so she was defiled. The original language doesn’t say it was rape or consensual. It could have been either. But it defiled her either way – sin is sin regardless of your motivation.

Shechem didn’t release her. He decided his passion was more than flesh in the moment. He wanted her as a wife. He told his father to arrange it and tagged along. When Jacob heard he wasn’t happy, but didn’t tell his boys – maybe he recognised their natures? And started negotiations. It’s not clear if he was willing to talk marriage or if he was talking about them giving her back. In any case, her brothers came home and were VERY upset. In their eyes she had been essentially raped AND this marriage talk was treating her like a prostitute you lay with and then paid for. They were not having any of it. So all the brothers hatched a scheme.

They said that they couldn’t intermarry unless Dinah’s husband was circumcised. Shechem immediately agreed and it states he lost no time in getting it done. He was serious about this and about her. His father had to be convinced, but he saw the financial gain. Jacob was loaded. If the men of the town got circumcised, they could intermarry with Jacob’s family and between betrothal gifts and in-law privileges, Jacob’s vast wealth would come under their control. He was sold and he sold the men of the town on it – with his son also persuading them. So they all got circumcised.

Three days later, when they were in a LOT of recovery pain, Simeon and Levi came to the town and killed Shechem and Hamor and every other male in the entire city. They found Dinah in Shechem’s house and removed her (saving her if she was raped and maybe irritating her if it had been consensual). Were they behind the plot? Were they the only ones hepped up? Nope. Because it says the rest of the brothers found the bodies (except Joseph who was maybe too young to participate. The other possibility is this is out of order and Joseph was already gone.). That says to me they were coming to do the same, it was just that Simeon and Levi were so angry and so determined for revenge they insisted on being the ones to do it (we’ll revisit their mindset when Jacob talks to the family on his deathbed, so put a mental bookmark here). The brothers didn’t get mad. Didn’t act disappointed. All eleven brothers then looted the town. Took all the valuables. Took the women and the children as slaves (they could NOT have had nice relationships with them considering what they did to their fathers and husbands). They basically laid waste to the city.

Jacob was not thrilled. You’d think he would have seen it coming and said something, but he didn’t. He did lecture them and pointed out that regardless of his wealth and number of servants, the inhabitants of the land outnumbered them. When they heard of what the boys had done, his name would lose all his reputation. They could ally together, descend upon the family, and wipe them all out. The brothers didn’t care. They hadn’t considered consequences before their actions and didn’t care now. They just shrugged, pointed out they had gotten Dinah back, and said ‘What? She’s not a whore and they can’t treat her like one’. Their actions did not match the crime. This was overkill. Eleven wrongs don’t make a single wrong right. God is a JUST God (Deuteronomy 32:4). This action? It was not His will.

Summary

Key Players: Jacob, Esau, Shechem, Dinah, Simeon, Levi

Key Themes: Reconciliation, Unchecked Passion, Revenge

Key Verse(s): Genesis 32:3-5, 20, 28-30; 33:4, 10-11, 18-20; 34:1-2, 14-17, 25-27, 31