Read: Genesis 34, 37, and 38 Introduction
Antithesis
God’s creation at first was good, very good. Yet, somehow, not all was well, for there also existed evil. The Bible tells us (Rev. 12: 7-9) of a rebellion among God’s angels. These spirits became God’s enemies, and the leader of these demons is called “Satan”. In the Bible he is often portrayed as a monster, a beast, a dragon, or a serpent (see Rev. 12: 13 – 17)
God had made human beings in His image, and He placed them in his wonderful garden. Yet, after a while they listened to Satan and ignored the warning words of God. This one event, called “the Fall” triggered a whole chain reaction whereby all areas of the created world showed serious signs of brokenness and corruption.
After a while this corruption among the humans became so bad that God sent a destructive flood. He wanted to make a new beginning with a remnant that was acceptable to Him. So, he made a new creation, and he chose Noah and his family to repopulate the “new” earth. Yet, soon afterward evil began to spread again like a cancer into God’s new creation.
Nevertheless, God kept His promise, and He did not abandon His creation. He had promised to raise a “dragon slayer” to fight the powers of darkness and to restore God’s Kingdom in His creation. So, after He spread the rebellious people across the face of the earth, He made a new beginning with Abram. Abraham received a life-long training program to know and trust God. He had to wait for many years to see the beginning of God’s promises fulfilled. Yet, in the end he was willing even to sacrifice his beloved son to return him to God, who had given him as joy in his parents’ old age. Even though Abraham made mistakes and at times failed to trust in God, yet he was shaped by God to be a model for us as a man of trust and obedience. And one day the Son of Abraham would slay the dragon and become a blessing to all nations on the earth!
Yet, a serious conflict had been growing. Abraham’s children (the blessed seed of the woman) were dwelling among the children of Canaan (the cursed seed of the serpent). Also, Abraham’s children did not follow in their father’s steps. Isaac had been a disappointment, while Jacob was far from a godly man. And in this lesson we will see (in three scenes) that Jacob’s sons got even worse!
Sex and slaughter at Shechem
Jacob is foolish to camp within the sight of a Canaanite city! (33:18) After some time Jacob’s daughter Dinah decides to hang out with the girls of town. And it does not take long for the young men to notice her. So, the chief’s son, Shechem, takes her and has sex with her- a common practice among the sex- driven, godless Canaanites. He asks his father to propose to Dinah’s father that the girl become his wife. Yet, the girl’s brothers are enraged; in their view Shechem has done a dishonorable thing!
So, when Shechem’s father approaches Jacob to offer him peace, prosperity, and family relationships, his sons take the lead in the negotiations. They argue that (only) circumcision would stand in the way of such a union. Their trick works. Shechem’s men convince the town’s people that free trade with the
wealthy neighbors would be to their benefit, and circumcision would be a price worth paying for it. Behind all of this is of course Shechem’s love (or lust) and the risk of the chief to lose face. So, when all the town’s men lie in pain to recuperate from their self-inflicted wounds, Jacob’s sons enter their houses and kill them there. To Jacob’s sons it must have looked like a smart move, but it did nothing to honor their God. The sign of His covenant was abused to kill and rob; a penalty that obviously did not fit the crime.
Jacob complains to his sons about the risks involved and the loss of his popularity among the Canaanites. Yet, God’s concern is to keep the seed of Abraham apart from the children of Canaan. So, everybody seems to have his own priorities and rationale, yet God uses the sins of Jacob’s sons to secure separation. Ultimately, all those lives could have been spared if Jacob had not camped in the sight of the sinful city!
Death to the dreamer!
Jacob came from a family with strong parental favoritism: He had been Mom’s favorite, while his older brother was Dad’s boy. Jacob always favored Rachel over Leah, even when she could not give him sons (while Leah did). Now Rachel has died, Jacob’s favoritism continues for her sons. We often see that when people get or demand positive discrimination (special status or favors), it often results in negative discrimination (harassment or demands). With Joseph we find the same: the more his father spoils him, the more his brothers hate him! Joseph also lacks social skills; rather than downplaying his special status, he likes to show them off. God, however, has a special plan for him, and this is revealed to him in dreams. This should have given Joseph quiet comfort in times of hardship, but instead he brags about it to his brothers.
This makes his brothers really mad and therefore they want to get rid of their bratty brother. The guys that made no qualms about murdering the men in Shechem’s town now agree to kill their own brother. So they despise their old father’s love for Joseph, and they then cheat him with pretending the boy was mauled by wild animals! Two of the men, however, appear to be more righteous than their brothers. Reuben and Judah do not want to see the boy killed. Yet, if we would think here are some worthy sons of Abraham, we make a grave mistake. Reuben had committed incest by having sex with his father’s concubine (35: 22), while Judah’s sins will be addressed in the next account.
Again we see how Jacob messes things up; he is the first cause of the sibling rivalry that sends Joseph into slavery. His beloved son is taken to Egypt, so that the whole family might be saved. Not only so, while Abraham’s seed is getting mixed up with Canaan, God is already preparing a way out. Abraham’s offspring will have to get quarantined for preservation as well as procreation. Only in this way can the coming of Abraham’s true Son be secured. He will be the One who will go to Egypt to set His children free! God is in control, and He is able to “hit straight with a crooked stick!” He uses the sinful hatred of the brothers to save their families and to secure their children entry into the Promised Land!
So, as Joseph has disappeared, the focus must return to Judah.
Judah & Sons: in the melting pot of Canaan
Judah leaves the family, and he marries a Canaanite woman! It seems that the antithesis (the
separation between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent) has all but disappeared.
Abraham’s great-grandson lives like a Canaanite, and his oldest son is so wicked that the Lord decides to
take his life. This leaves his wife, Tamar, without husband and without child. It was a sacred obligation
for a man to help the widow of his deceased older brother getting a child if she had none (Deut. 25: 5, 6),
but Judah’s second son (Onan) refuses to do this for pure selfish reasons. So, God takes him too. Judah
blames Tamar for the death of his sons, so he effectively denies her the right of receiving offspring.
After some years, Judah’s Canaanite wife also dies.
Judah seems quite comfortable in Canaanite culture. So, when he goes for the annual party of sheep shearing, he has no qualms about sleeping with a prostitute. Apparently Tamar expected this, for she is the woman he approaches for sex. It is her trick to get Judah to give her what he owed: offspring in her husband’s name. It’s an intriguing story with a comical plot but a sad implication: Even the one who appeared to be more righteous than his brothers had become like the seed of Canaan! This sets the stage that should keep Israel humble for all times. It was not the righteousness of their ancestors that made God respond to them in favor! It is true grace: undeserved, amazing love from God, who remembers his promises to Adam and to Abraham!
Meanwhile, there is also an early glimmer of hope in the darkness. Judah does confess his sins to Tamar. Only when we realize the darkness of life without God can we clearly see his way of life. Only if we humble ourselves before God in deep awareness of our shortcomings in the sight of His holiness, are we equipped by His Spirit to appreciate his amazing grace! If God could use such sinners as ancestors of the Messiah, he can also change the worst sinners today, adopting them as His own children!
Food for Thought
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1 Who is the “woman, who had given birth to a male child” (Rev. 12)?
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2 Explain the sentence, “We often see that when people get or demand positive discrimination (special status or favors), others give them negative discrimination (harassment or demands).”
- 3 Read Deuteronomy 25: 5-10 to understand the sin of Onan. This law of protection is called the “Levirate law”.
- 4 Where did we see this pattern before, that in times of greatest darkness, God always provides a glimmer of hope.
- 5 Some Chinese Christians feel that it is bad if we have pictures or images of dragons or other monsters on our clothes or in the house; these things belong to the devil. In Genesis 1 we have seen that the Bible, in line with ancient mythology, uses the ocean as picture of chaos, death, and evil. Would it be bad to have a painting of ocean scenery on the wall in our house?
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