Reading: Genesis 32-34, Psalm 10
Our story opens today with the Jacob’s return to his home country, and he is understandably nervous about it. If you recall the circumstances of his departure (Genesis 28) you will remember that he was in large part fleeing the murderous wrath of his brother, Esau. Jacob had done things to deserve this, and really had done nothing to repair the damaged relationship. So the story opens with Jacob pleading with God to save him from Esau, and invoking God’s own promise for his protection. He then sends a series of gifts to his brother as he approaches in order to placate him.
But we don’t get the results of Jacob’s prayer or plan immediately. First we have a strange little interlude in which Jacob, camping alone on one side of the river, gets in a wrestling match with an unknown man. The man and Jacob wrestle all night, and in the morning Jacob insists on being blessed by the man before he will let him go. He does so, and it becomes clear that this man is God, making a point about his interactions with Jacob. God wrestles Jacob to a stalemate. Now, if the reader has been paying attention, they will not reach the conclusion that God couldn’t dominate Jacob, but that he chose not to. This is the God who created everything, pushed the reset button in the flood, made Abraham and Sarah have a child in their old age, and much more. God has already been established as sovereign, and the humans as subject (a less than comfortable arrangement for our modern minds, but that is a story for later). Even in this story it is clear who has all the power: God disjoints Jacob with a touch to his thigh. So why does God bother wrestling all night with Jacob? I believe he reveals his purpose in changing Jacob’s name. Israel, one who struggles with God and man, will be his name. Jacob’s name had defined him very well up to this point. But God is saying to him: Jacob, you are not who you think you are, how you define yourself is at an end, and this struggle with God and man will now define you.
Jacob, properly flabbergasted at all this, limps along on his disjointed hip to meet his brother. The meeting with Esau is both a relief and an anticlimax. Jacob was worried about a confrontation with Esau, but the far more meaningful confrontation has just taken place. His prayer has been answered and Esau is on very friendly terms. Esau and Jacob will coexist peacefully in the land where their parents and grandparents lived, though Jacob moves himself some distance away rather than living right next to his brother. We are once again at a point in the story where peace and a good life are possible for God’s chosen broken instruments. Jacob (Israel) is at peace with his brother, he is fabulously wealthy, favored by God, and in the land of his fathers.
But let’s remember, Israel will struggle with God… and man. We now get the horrifying (on many levels) story of Dinah and the Hivite prince Shechem. The story isn’t complex: Dinah goes out socializing. Shechem rapes her. His father Hamor asks Jacob to use this unfortunate situation to their advantage by marrying her off to Shechem, and suggests Jacob’s sons marry Hivite women. Her brothers, understandably unimpressed by this, pretend to entertain the idea but insist all the men of the Hivite city must be circumcised if they are to intermarry with the sons of Israel. That the Hivites actually do this says two things: Shechem was quite convincing, and the Hivites really, really wanted the family of Israel as allies. Remember that Jacob came to the land fantastically wealthy. Adding all that wealth to their city must have appealed to the Hivite leadership. So they need all the guys to be circumcised- it’s not the strangest ritual we’ve heard of (it really likely was not. Ancient Canaanites had some really off the charts religious practices.) So they do it. And then two of the sons of Israel, Simeon and Levi, go and kill all the men in the city, plunder all the wealth and livestock, and capture all the women and children.
So. Dinah gets raped. Which is horrible.
Hamor uses this for political advantage. Which is horrible.
The sons of Israel use God’s sign of his covenant with them as a tactic to disable the men of the Hivite city. Which is horrible.
Simeon and Levi slaughter the whole town and take everything from it. Which is horrible.
And their father’s response? You dolts, no one will trust us now! Which is horrible.
No mention of justice for Dinah, proper reverence for the sign of God’s covenant, or the immoral taking of human life. Nope. In a mirror image of Hamor, he is concerned with the politics of the situation. We have a problem.
Jacob has been given a new name, and he will be defined by it. His family will not be a people at peace with the world as it exists in any time or place. God has said they are not like anyone else, though sometimes it will be hard to tell. From this point on, the people of Israel will struggle with God and man.