Dreaming of Brotherly... Love?

As we've walked through this latter half of Jacob's journey, the spotlight has been nudging its way toward his children, and in particular towards the youngest of them all: Joseph. He was born to Rachel in the fields of Paddan-aram at the end of Jacob's second seven-year shepherding contract with Laban; and at his birth, Rachel was delighted to finally have a child, but prayed in that moment to have another son (Genesis 30:24). It was Joseph's birth that spurred Jacob to request his freedom to move back to Canaan (Genesis 30:25), though their departure didn't take place until Joseph was six. It was as a six-year-old boy that he witnessed his dad Jacob's big argument with his grandpa Laban. It was also at age six that he and his mom were placed in the very back, specially protected, at the tense meeting with Uncle Esau (Genesis 33:2).

Joseph might've been eight when the family bought land outside the big city of Shechem, and that's the area where Joseph grew up for the next six years, give or take, until his sister Dinah, just a year older than Joseph, was taken, and then his bigger brothers Simeon and Levi went to rescue her (Genesis 34:1-26). Soon after that, Joseph's family moved away to Bethel and worshipped (Genesis 35:1-15). By this time, Joseph's mom Rachel was at last pregnant; but on the way, she died in the process of childbirth, leaving behind a new youngest son, Benjamin (Genesis 35:16-21). As if Joseph, taking after Rachel in her looks, weren't already cherished by his father, now they had a new special bond: the traumatic loss of Rachel.¹ In time, Jacob led the family to the vicinity of Hebron, where Joseph finally got to meet Grandpa Isaac (Genesis 35:27). And so we read that “Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings in the land of Canaan” (Genesis 37:1).

Now our story begins anew, and our first real glimpse of Joseph in his own right is him and some of his brothers working as a team to shepherd their family's big flocks. So here we've got a young, good-looking shepherd boy with a bunch of older brothers who look down on him, brothers to whom his father will later send him. Does that remind you of anybody else in the Bible? It should. That sounds like David. So that perks up our ears to be attentive to Joseph as a David prototype.² For now, though, he's cast as merely a young assistant to “the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah” (Genesis 37:2), now called not concubines but wives.³ It seems at first blush as though, being an assistant to the least-honored of his brethren, he's been cast in the lowliest role,⁴ but the way it's written in Hebrew could also be read as Joseph 'shepherding his brothers in the flock.'⁵ And that comes out when, after assisting his half-brothers, “Joseph brought their evil whisper to his father” (Genesis 37:2). Now, maybe he “exposed them in their deed,”⁶ mismanaging the flock, that “the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah are killing the best animals and eating them.”⁷ On the other hand, usually a 'whisper' like this means a slander, as when Israel's scouts will bring back a 'slander' in their report on the Promised Land (Numbers 13:32).⁸

Whether Joseph was bearing false witness or just honestly tattling on his half-brothers, it doesn't do wonders for their relationship. But now we're told that “Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because a son of old age was he to him” (Genesis 37:3). You'd think that means Jacob was especially old when Joseph was born, but remember that the gap between the eldest brother and Joseph is six years, and many of the brothers are just a year or two older than Joseph. Instead, this phrase points back to how Abraham awaited a son in his old age, a son to be born to the barren wife he loved (Genesis 21:2).⁹ Hence Joseph was especially loved and favored.

And so Israel “made him a tunic” (Genesis 37:3), like the special vestment worn later by Israel's high priests (Exodus 28:39). In fact, we never hear people in the Old Testament wearing one of these without being a priest or a member of the royal court or royal family. Not only that, this is a robe or tunic “of many colors,” made of bunches of colored patches arranged to form some kind of pattern; and it signified Joseph's elevation to a new status, the intended heir, thus yanking the birthright from Reuben and bestowing it on Joseph.¹⁰ You'd think that Jacob, more than anybody, would know the problems that result when parents play favorites. His other sons weren't idiots; they “saw that their father loved [Joseph] more than all his brothers” (Genesis 37:4). After all, this fancy garment hardly amounts to working clothes, suggesting that from here on out, Joseph gets to “live a protected life at home while his brothers are out in the fields” at their labors.¹¹ As a result, they all “hated him” (Genesis 37:4). Now he's not just resented by the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, but the six sons of the 'hated' wife Leah avenge their mother's dishonor by hating the son who opened Rachel's womb (cf. Genesis 29:31).¹²

Not only did they hate him, in fact, but “they were unable to speak to him in peace” (Genesis 37:4). They just couldn't bear to have polite relations with this favored little brother. And that makes for a big problem. If there is one thing Jacob learned through life's twists and turns, it's the challenge of keeping peace in a household. In choosing his heir-apparent for leadership of the clan as it's on the path to becoming a nation, he ought to have been looking out for who could best preserve their unity in a state of peace and wholeness. But Israel has now invoked his authority to single out the youngest of his eleven grown sons – as he himself had been youngest of two – whose election and privilege are already disruptive to his house's peace.¹³

These two provocations – tattling and wearing flashy clothes – would spell trouble enough. Now we read that “Joseph dreamed a dream” (Genesis 37:5). Alright, fine, it happens. But then “he told it to his brothers,” he invited them to “hear, please, this dream that I have dreamed” (Genesis 37:5-6). They don't want to hear from him at all already, but he insists on describing his dream. “And behold, we were binding sheaves in the field,” to start with (Genesis 37:7). Of itself, that isn't strange, since shepherds were often hired by farmers during the harvest to help with such chores, so the dream starts true to life.¹⁴ Then things get weird. “And behold,” adds Joseph, “my sheaf arose and stood upright” – not something they tend to do – “and behold, your sheaves gathered around it, and they bowed down to my sheaf!” (Genesis 37:7).

This dream, told as though a taunt, didn't go over so well with the audience. Joseph's ten big brothers scoffed at him: “Are you to reigningly reign over us? Or are you to dominatingly have dominion over us?” (Genesis 37:8). Both are royal verbs,¹⁵ and only one other time in the Bible does the first one, 'reign' or 'be king,' get doubled up this way, and that's the elder Saul confessing to the younger David, “Now behold, I know that you shall reign reigningly,” shall indeed be king (1 Samuel 24:20).¹⁶ But, like Saul, this only made the brothers more enraged; the result of hearing his dream was that they “increased exceedingly to hate him” (Genesis 37:5, 8), building up a “burning fire of unrighteous malice” within their hearts.¹⁷ When it says they 'increased' or 'added' in hating him, it's the same word his mom built his name on; in Hebrew, it sounds like they 'josephed' in hating Joseph!

But still he doesn't let up. “Joseph dreamed again a dream following, and he recounted it to his brothers,” in fact, “to his father and to his brothers” (Genesis 37:9-10), maybe in hopes his dad's authority will help ratify what Joseph takes as his dreams' implications.¹⁸ He tells them, “Behold, I have dreamed a dream again,” and now you're all gonna hear about it! This time, there's one static scene, no development of action. In his first dream, he and his brothers were all there in person, though the grain sheaves acted as their proxies; in this dream, the only person around is Joseph himself, “and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing to me” (Genesis 37:9). What that looked like in his mind, it's hard to imagine. But to whom would sun and moon and stars bow? It's not the glory of Joseph the heavens are there to declare, after all (Psalm 19:1; 148:3). Joseph, in this dream, has effectively seated himself on the throne of the Most High,¹⁹ casting himself in the role of “the king of creation” above.²⁰ These are dreams you'd expect an Egyptian pharaoh to have.²¹

Hearing this dream, “his father rebuked him” – likely a wise choice in the presence of his other sons. “What is this dream that you have dreamed?” asks Israel. “Shall I and your mother and your brothers bowingly bow down to you on the earth?” (Genesis 37:10). It's a good question. The way Joseph understands his dreams right now, and the way Israel and his other sons take them, isn't necessarily what they finally mean.²² So maybe they're jumping to conclusions here. Whatever the case, Israel – even after rebuking Joseph – nevertheless “kept the word,” since he, of all people, understands that certain dreams mustn't be ignored;²³ while “his brothers were jealous of him” (Genesis 37:11), “melting with envy, being torn asunder by it.”²⁴

So what do we make of this teenage Joseph? Many ancient readers rushed to his defense, insisting Joseph was “not puffed up in [his] thoughts,”²⁵ but merely “excelled the others in understanding and wisdom,”²⁶ and so was resented for his “virtuous qualities of soul,”²⁷ his “greater marks of virtue” compared to them.²⁸ On the other hand, plenty of readers then and now have squinted at “the insufferable and excessive boldness which the young man exuded in abundance.”²⁹ His insistence on flaunting his dreams in his brothers' faces, even after he's already been on their bad side, might be a sign that Joseph is “self-absorbed and self-important,”³⁰ “indiscreet and insensitive to those he would rule,”³¹ and tragically “politically deaf and dumb.”³²

It's unclear how much time passes before the story moves on. Joseph is seventeen years old, “and his brothers went to pasture the flock of their father in Shechem” (Genesis 37:12). Maybe they left without notice, leaving their dad in the dark.³³ Given that they've gone to Shechem, where Jacob had feared their bloody deeds would be avenged (Genesis 34:30), he's now deeply worried for their safety.³⁴ Joseph, of course, has stayed behind, as the privileged son. But at some point, Papa Israel suggests he go. “Aren't your brothers pasturing at Shechem? Come, I'll send you to them” (Genesis 37:13). Will Joseph resent this proposal? Not at all. His response strikes a familiar chord: “Behold me,” “Here I am,” “Ready for service.” It's the same word we recall so keenly from when God summoned Abraham to the mountain of sacrifice.³⁵ Given that Joseph's already been singled out as Israel's beloved son, the parallels already hint that something ominous and heartbreaking may follow.³⁶ Israel bids Joseph, “Go, please, see that it is peace with your brothers and peace with the flock, and bring me word” (Genesis 37:14). This is, on the one hand, a wellness check. On the other hand, it's espionage: Joseph is being dispatched to assess whether the flock is healthy in the hands of his brothers, and then report his findings.³⁷ It's interesting that, so soon after hearing how Israel 'kept the word,' he requires Joseph 'bring him word.'³⁸

Sent north from “the Valley of Hebron,” Joseph obediently “went to Shechem” (Genesis 37:14), which took both guts and time; at fifty miles away, that would've likely been about a five-day hike for Joseph.³⁹ But there are no brothers there when he arrives. Now we see Joseph “wandering in the field” outside the city, somewhat at a loss as to what he should do (Genesis 37:15). In this field, he's misled, off-track, himself like a lost sheep of Israel (Psalm 119:176). That's when we're introduced to “a man,” a man who “found him” as he wandered lost and intervened, asking Joseph, “What are you seeking?” (Genesis 37:15). Joseph, naturally, replied he was looking for his brothers, and asked the man to tell them where they were pasturing – he at least assumes they're still alive. Amazingly, the man somehow knows just who Joseph means and is able to report that he overheard the brothers planning their move further northwest to Dothan (Genesis 37:16-17). Who was this mystery man? Some ancient readers imagined he was “an angel in the appearance of a man,”⁴⁰ maybe even Gabriel,⁴¹ sent to help Joseph to his destiny. Others went the other way, guessing it was the devil guiding him toward danger.⁴²

Genesis now shifts us to the viewpoint of the brothers, pasturing the flocks near Dothan, as they spy Joseph on the horizon. They can't help but see him: he's got the loudest clothes around! Did he really have to flaunt his finery all the way out here?⁴³ He's still out of earshot when the other sons of Israel begin to plot against their little brother, whom they sarcastically dub “this master of the dreams,” to death (Genesis 37:18-19) – “and we will see what will become of his dreams” then (Genesis 37:20). They mock the dreams, but secretly fear them.⁴⁴ So one says to his brother, “Come now, let's slay him and throw him into one of the pits” (Genesis 37:20). In the wake of revisiting Shechem where Simeon and Levi had slain a whole city, later readers imagined Simeon had suggested violence as the answer yet again, having already “determined inwardly to destroy him,”⁴⁵ that “Simeon and Gad came upon Joseph to kill him,”⁴⁶ to “gobble him up from the living as an ox gobbles up grass from the ground.”⁴⁷ What they propose to do, 'slay him,' is what Cain did to Abel, what Esau had hoped to do to Jacob (Genesis 4:8; 27:41).⁴⁸ Where Abel had just one Cain, Joseph has many; where Jacob had just one Esau, Joseph has many. And unlike Cain and Esau, this bad band of brothers are brainstorming already how to cover their tracks, by claiming that “an evil animal has eaten him” (Genesis 37:20).

Here, though, is where one of the brothers stands apart – or tries to, at least. And that's Reuben, firstborn of the sons of Israel, who's maybe twenty-four now. After what he did to his stepmother Bilhah, he's fallen from favor (Genesis 35:22), and desperately hopes to regain the spotlight by acting in his father's interests. So as he hears what his younger brethren are scheming, he interjects that they mustn't take Joseph's life (Genesis 37:21). He demands that they “shed no blood” (Genesis 37:22), echoing the law given to Noah that “whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God he made man” (Genesis 9:6).⁴⁹ Understanding, though, that his brothers need some outlet, he suggests that, rather than slay him themselves, they throw him alive into the pit “here in the wilderness, and do not lay a hand on him” (Genesis 37:22), since otherwise “from the hand of a man's brother [God] will require the life of man” (Genesis 9:5). But if animals or the elements do their dirty work, maybe they can bypass divine law on a technicality. In this proposal, Reuben “rescued him out of their hand,” which was secretly his goal: to “rescue him out of their hand to return him to their father” (Genesis 37:21-22). But Reuben “did not dare to rescue his brother openly,”⁵⁰ so he tried to combine leadership of his brothers with deceiving the very ones he meant to guide.⁵¹

We aren't outright told that Reuben convinced anybody.⁵² But when Joseph finally gets close, they grab him and strip off his tunic – yes, that colorful tunic that was on him (Genesis 37:23) – to denude his signs of privilege and break what they see as their father's injustice in designating Joseph honorary firstborn;⁵³ and then they follow Reuben's proposal: “they threw him,” alive, “into a pit,” an empty pit without water in the bottom (Genesis 37:24). “With no mercy they cast him into a pit in the desert.”⁵⁴ We hear nothing here, but later his brothers will admit that “we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen” (Genesis 42:21). Had it been written yet, Joseph might've prayed the thirtieth psalm: “To the Lord I plead for mercy: What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the Pit? … Hear, O LORD..., be my helper!” (Psalm 30:8-10). As he cries out from the depths, the brothers “sat down to eat bread” near the pit (Genesis 37:25).

Reuben's plan had saved Joseph's life, but it also required Reuben to go watch the flocks as the others ate their lunch, so that he'd have a solitary lunch break later that would afford him opportunity to rescue Joseph.⁵⁵ Reuben thus left them, confident that his brothers would so honor him as their leader that they'd stay the course he set even without his supervision.⁵⁶ But as the brothers glance up from their bread, they notice a merchant “caravan of Ishmaelites” coming southward down the road from Gilead; it seems too good to be true (Genesis 37:25). As the brothers lift their eyes and behold the caravan, we're reminded of Abraham lifting his eyes from the altar and beholding the substitute ram (Genesis 22:13).⁵⁷

Now another brother speaks up – Judah, fourth son of loveless Leah. Echoing that psalmist in advance, he asks “what profit” they get if they kill Joseph (cf. Psalm 30:9). Sure, they'll be minus one bothersome brother, but what if they can both subtract Joseph and add some silver? Isn't Joseph all about addition? So, says Judah, let's not “slay our brother and conceal his blood.” Instead, “come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites – and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh” (Genesis 37:26-27). Like Reuben, Judah points to the problem of bloodshed.⁵⁸ Like Reuben, Judah urges them not to lay a hand on Joseph.

Now, it could be that calculating greed and “crass practicality” are what's driving Judah here.⁵⁹ And this plan will be a symbolic death for Joseph, since the caravan is carrying “gum and balm and myrrh” to Egypt, and those were supplies used in the process of mummification (Genesis 37:25); “let not our hand be upon him,” let Egyptian hands do the work.⁶⁰ But some ancient readers suspected, or maybe wished, that Judah, like Reuben, was acting out of a concern to save Joseph's life.⁶¹ Unlike Reuben, Judah explicitly appeals to their brotherly bond with Joseph, the fact that he's their own flesh.⁶² The nature of brotherhood is central to this chapter, with the word showing up in Hebrew three-times-seven times.⁶³ But can Judah's words carry the day? Reuben tried to lead by laying down the law; Judah leads with invitations.⁶⁴ And now we read, as we didn't read after Reuben spoke, that “his brothers heard him” (Genesis 37:27); Judah has “a quality of leadership” that wins them over.⁶⁵

So “there passed by men of Midian, traders, and they drew him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty of silver” – which was a typical price for slaves at that time⁶⁶ – “and they took Joseph to Egypt” (Genesis 37:28). It's not totally clear if the 'men of Midian' are new characters, in which case they cut the brothers out of the equation, or if they're the same as the Ishmaelites.⁶⁷ But our earliest sources, including the New Testament (Acts 7:9), say the brothers sell Joseph to these Ishmaelites of Midian.⁶⁸ Some even add that they “accepted the money” and “bought shoes for themselves,” as if to trample Joseph's blood-price underfoot as a further act of contempt toward his dreams of ruling them.⁶⁹ But the real kicker is, no matter how you slice it, every person involved in selling Joseph is from a people biblically tied to Abraham.⁷⁰

Now Joseph's off-screen. Unaware of what's happened in his absence, it's Reuben's turn for a lunch break, his pretext to jailbreak Joseph from the pit – but when he checks, “behold,” he gets an error message: no Joseph found! In deep distress, he rips his clothes, returning to his brothers and the flock and lamenting, “The child is gone – and I, where shall I go?” (Genesis 37:29-30). His first thought, on finding Joseph seemingly snuffed out of existence, is about how this will affect himself.⁷¹

As a group, the brothers now default to the second half of their original plan: to explain Joseph's absence, they'll claim he perished in an animal attack. But instead of outright making the claim, they scheme to manufacture evidence. (Later Jews envisioned that this was Dan's shrewd idea.⁷²) Exploiting their control of their father's flocks, they select “a hairy one of goats,” a kid, and butcher it in the field. Then they dip the Joseph's colorful, handwoven garment in its blood, staining it permanently beyond cleansing (Genesis 37:31). In an age before modern forensics, it certainly looks convincingly as if it's Joseph's own blood, spilled in unsurvivable quantities. “And they sent the patterned tunic, and they brought it to their father” (Genesis 37:32). The goal is to fool him, to deceive him, into pronouncing Joseph dead and clearing them of responsibility. But notice the tools they've chosen: the death of a goat kid, and borrowed clothing. It sounds a lot like the time a younger Jacob borrowed Esau's clothes and the skins of goat kids to deceive his blind father Isaac.⁷³ Even the word Genesis uses here, “a hairy one of goats,” invokes Esau's alternate name of Seir – it's as if Genesis is taunting Jacob. For where he once coerced his big brother into selling him the birthright (Genesis 25:31), now his older sons have sold the very brother of theirs to whom he had transferred the birthright.

Now say the sons of Israel, as they present the faked evidence: “This we have found! Recognize, please, the robe of your son, whether it is or not” (Genesis 37:32). How cold their language is, referring to Joseph with detachment, not as 'our brother,' but as “your son.” The word 'recognize' has shown up only twice so far: in Isaac's inability to recognize the deceptively disguised Jacob (Genesis 27:23), and in Jacob's challenge for Laban to recognize his stolen property in the sight of their brethren (Genesis 31:32).⁷⁴ It feels at this point as if Genesis is beating us over the head with it: Jacob's treatment of Isaac, Esau, and even Laban is now being further revisited on him unwittingly by his own sons. There's an irony in that, where Israel wanted Joseph to bring him back word about his other sons, now those other sons bring back Joseph's ruined clothing.⁷⁵ But unlike a younger Jacob in Isaac's tent, these sons tell no lies, exactly; they merely mislead Israel to jump to wrong conclusions.⁷⁶ And so the very tunic that stood once for Israel's love and joy will now be the forged proof meant to crush his heart and avenge the grievances of the unchosen sons.⁷⁷

For his part, their father can't help but recognize the unique pattern he'd personally stitched together for Joseph. “The robe of my son!” he cries. He can't deny it. And he, once so crafty, leaps to exactly the conclusion his sons intended: “An evil animal has eaten him. Torn, torn to pieces is Joseph!” (Genesis 37:33). But what the sons didn't bargain on was the sheer vehemence of his response. Now, for the first time since the action began, Genesis calls him not 'Israel' but 'Jacob' again. “Jacob rent his garments,” much as Reuben had rent his clothes – but Jacob goes further still: “He put sackcloth on his waist, and he mourned his son many days” (Genesis 37:34). This is the Bible's first scene of mourning, of lamentation (cf. Genesis 27:41); it thereafter shows up in the Books of Moses largely as a response to a divine judgment (Exodus 33:4; Numbers 14:39).

As this drags on and on, “there arose all his sons and all his daughters to comfort him,” trying to calm Jacob down, but he won't oblige them: “he refused to be comforted,” and said, “For I shall descend to my son in mourning into Sheol,” the darkness and gloom of the underworld; the last we see of Jacob in this story, he's crying tears of unabating grief (Genesis 37:35). Maybe he's consumed, not merely by grief, but by a load of guilt for having sent his beloved son, albeit unknowingly, to his apparent doom.⁷⁸ Ironically, the brothers' action to evict Joseph permanently from their lives makes it feel now like his ghost “haunts them endlessly,” both for Father Jacob and for each of them.⁷⁹ If they thought this would fix everything, how sorely they were mistaken.

But as the chapter ends, the author reminds us of what we may have forgotten: Joseph's no ghost. He isn't even dead, not literally. In fact, the “Medanites” – a third name for the merchants, apparently – have sold Joseph in Egypt at the slave market, and he's been bought by one of Pharaoh's high officials, Potiphar (Genesis 37:36). In his house is where we'll have to catch up with Joseph next Sunday. For now, what we get to realize, what Jacob doesn't yet know, is that – just like his dad and grandpa on that mountain – an animal has in fact been slain in the place of the beloved son, leaving hope that the beloved son will be restored alive after all.⁸⁰

In an old Jewish tradition, the day Joseph's brothers brought the goat-blood-drenched clothes to break their dad's heart was a specific date, “on the tenth of the seventh month.”⁸¹ Why pick that? Because of what God would then say to Moses: “On the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves... and you shall not do any work on that very day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before the LORD your God; for whoever is not afflicted on that very day shall be cut off from his people” (Leviticus 23:27-29). Famously, the rituals on the Day of Atonement involved Aaron casting lots over a pair of male goats (Leviticus 16:8). One goat would be slaughtered as a sin-offering, and its blood would be used to ritually cleanse the Tabernacle (Leviticus 16:15-19); the other goat, the scapegoat, would be chased into the desert after having hands laid on it by the high priest (Leviticus 16:20-22).

So in later Jewish tradition, the affliction of the Day of Atonement, with its goat sacrifice and the dispatching of another goat into the desert, was held to be the anniversary of the day the sons of Israel afflicted their father's heart with a goat sacrifice disguising the dispatching of his beloved son from the desert to a foreign land; and that, they said, is why “it is decreed for the children of Israel that they mourn on the tenth of the seventh month, on the day when that which caused him to weep for Joseph came to Jacob his father, so that they might atone for them with a young kid on the tenth of the seventh month, once a year, on account of their sin, because they caused the affection of their father to grieve for Joseph his son.”⁸²

Early Christians, though, saw in those Day of Atonement goats a double-foreshadowing of Jesus;⁸³ and it makes sense, because they saw Joseph too as “a figurative representation of Christ.”⁸⁴ In the scene of Israel sending forth Joseph to scout out the flock under his brothers' care, they saw a picture of the Father sending his Son into the world to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10), “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6), negligently tended by the shepherds (Ezekiel 34:3-6).⁸⁵ In Joseph being “traded” away for silver pieces, they found a foreshadowing of “the mystery of the Lord,”⁸⁶ since where Joseph “suffered persecution from his brethren and was sold into Egypt” by his brother Judah, Jesus was persecuted by “his brethren according to the flesh” and was sold out for silver by his disciple Judas (Matthew 26:15).⁸⁷ “We will see,” his crucifiers might've said, “what will become of his dreams,” his vision of the kingdom of God. Where Jacob rent his garments over the seeming blood of Joseph, the Father rent the temple veil as Christ died on the cross (Mark 15:38).⁸⁸

Christ was thus sent “down into a pit – the deep, dark pit of death” – but, as Joseph was drawn back out, so then “Christ came back to life and rose out of the pit,” being carried away to all nations by “the blessed disciples..., merchants of spices, spreading the fragrance of the mystery of Christ” abroad.⁸⁹ In his daring dream of divine mastery of creation, he was dreaming with a Christ's-eye view.⁹⁰ So “in our true Joseph – that is, our Lord Jesus Christ – the mysteries of that dream were fulfilled,”⁹¹ and are fulfilled as his gospel sweetness fills the world. If Father Jacob refused to be comforted on the Day of Atonement, requiring the annual affliction of his sons for their sin, Christ comes to “comfort all mourners” and perfect atonement unto all-surpassing peace (Isaiah 61:2).

And this Messiah whom sun and moon and all the bright beacons of heaven adore – “a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another” (John 13:34). That wasn't all new. The Law of Moses had warned the sons of Israel that “you shall not hate your brother in your heart” (Leviticus 19:17). For, as St. John observed, “whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and doesn't know where he's going” (1 John 2:11). That, said the ancients, was the moral here: “Each of you love his brother. Drive hatred out of your hearts; love one another in deed and word and inward thoughts.... Love one another from the heart, therefore, and if anyone sins against you, speak to him in peace.”⁹² Undo in yourselves what you see going wrong here. Expel hatred like a demon to be exorcised; cherish brotherhood, peace, love. Says St. Paul, “love one another with brotherly affection” (Romans 12:10), and St. Peter, “Love the brotherhood” (1 Peter 2:17). Because the Beloved Son has descended and risen for us, has been sold to purchase our redemption. Let us love as he loved. Let us embrace his dreams. May his dream of the kingdom of God, a world of brotherly love, come to be in us.  Amen.

Making Me Stink

It's been a mighty long journey for Jacob. Shuffled away from home to flee from his brother's rage twenty years ago, Jacob had vowed a vow at Bethel: “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and I come again to my father's house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you” (Genesis 28:20-22). Now Jacob's long night of exile has come to its close. Has God been with Jacob? Jacob's confessed as much: “the God of my father has been with me” (Genesis 31:5). Did God keep Jacob in the way he went? Yes, God sheltered and protected Jacob's way from Laban's wrath (Genesis 31:24). Did God supply Jacob's basic needs? More than that, says Jacob, “God has taken away the livestock of [Laban] and given them to me” (Genesis 31:9). And has God brought him safely home? Why, it's in progress as we speak! Jacob's quite nearly there.

God had ordered him, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred” (Genesis 31:3). So we expect that, as Esau descends to Seir, Jacob not joining him there means Jacob's about to hurry into Canaan. But Jacob doesn't do that. He went to a place he calls Succoth, which is where the Jabbok flows into the Jordan, on the east bank. Rather than going to seek out the House of God, Jacob “built himself a house and made booths for his livestock” there (Genesis 33:17). In this fertile valley on a major travel path, he might have settled for a bit to let his flocks and herds rebound from the losses involved in all those gifts to Esau.¹ But even so, Succoth here represents a delay in answering God's call, which “puts his quest to find his destiny on hold” for a while.²

At last, though, Jacob decides to cross the river. And you'd think this would be a beeline to Bethel, since Jacob's move back was spurred by a dream from “the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and vowed a vow to me” (Genesis 31:13). That was a transparent hint that Bethel's his divinely ordained destination. And he comes close! But he stops a day's journey short when he finds someplace flashier.³ “Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram” (Genesis 33:18). Shechem was one of the bigger cities of Bronze-Age Canaan, with a “monumental fortification system.”⁴ It had rule over a lot of surrounding territory, maybe as much as four times the size of Caernarvon Township.⁵ We're told Jacob got there “in peace,” answering Jacob's last vow condition to get home “in peace” and safety (Genesis 28:20).⁶ He's back in Canaan complete, intact, unharmed, undiminished, and in no evident hurry to reunite with his father Isaac, despite that having been his original goal (Genesis 31:18).

Jacob's encounter with Esau was full of camps and faces; now he's “stretched out his tent” and “encamped at the face of the city” (Genesis 33:18-19). From God's face to Esau's face to the city's face, this reminds us of when “Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom” (Genesis 13:12).⁷ There, like Grandpa Abraham negotiating with the Hittites of Hebron to buy a cave and field for four hundred shekels of silver (Genesis 23:16), Jacob bargains with the local authorities, “the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem,” to buy the bit of land where he's stretched his tent (Genesis 33:19). Jacob pays a hundred qesitah, and nobody's sure what that is. The important bit is being introduced to Hamor, “prince of the land,” whose name is Hebrew for 'donkey' and whose sons include Shechem. These people are Hivites (Genesis 34:2), one of the “clans of the Canaanites” (Genesis 10:17-19). Literally, Jacob buys “the smoothness of the field” (Genesis 33:19), reminding us both of Esau's attachment to the field and Jacob's notorious smoothness (Genesis 25:27; 27:11).

Up until now, we've been with Jacob for so many chapters, yet this is the first time we've seen him interacting with Canaanites.⁸ The fact that they so willingly sold him this parcel outside their city, when Abraham had to negotiate so hard to buy Ephron's cave for Sarah's burial, seems a great sign for peaceful, productive relations. So Jacob “erected there an altar, and he called it El-Elohe-Yisra'el” (Genesis 33:20).

And there Jacob settled, with his altar there claiming El as his own God. But this doesn't seem like it's where he belongs. He pledged to make his sanctuary at Bethel where he'd set up that stone, and then the LORD would be his God. Vows made at holy sites were repaid where they were made. So Jacob's altar here doesn't match his promise. And that's a problem. The Law will insist that “if a man vows a vow to the LORD..., he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth” (Numbers 30:2). In fact, says Moses, “if you vow a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to complete it, for the LORD your God will absolutely require it from you, and it would be sin to you” (Deuteronomy 23:21). The word to 'complete' a vow is from the same root as Jacob coming 'in peace' or 'safely' to Shechem. God brought Jacob in completion to Canaan, but Jacob neglects then to complete his vow. There's sure to be a price to pay.

We readers don't have to wait long for things to unravel, but Jacob does. Chapter 34 picks up five to ten years after Jacob settles down at Shechem, an even clearer sign he has no thoughts of completing his vow at Bethel.⁹ Then our attention turns to “Dinah, the daughter of Leah whom she had borne to Jacob” (Genesis 34:1). Poor lass, “the unnoticed daughter of the unfavored wife,”¹⁰ Leah's seventh and final child, surrounded all the time by her eleven brothers and half-brothers.¹¹ By now, some ancient readers guessed she was “little, only twelve years old,”¹² while others figured she “was 16 years and 4 months old.”¹³ She's certainly neither older nor younger.

Dinah, maybe feeling stifled and bored, “went out” one day from the family encampment, apparently venturing off solo and unsupervised, “to see the daughters of the land” (Genesis 34:1). The last time we heard the local girls called that, it was how Esau married “daughters of the land” who were “bitterness of spirit to Isaac and Rebekah” (Genesis 27:46; 26:35). Maybe she entered the city as they celebrated a festival because she wanted to go to the party,¹⁴ “to see the finery of the women of the country.”¹⁵ Maybe she was craving some female friends, “desirous of friendship with those of the same age.”¹⁶ Whatever her aim, she crossed the border into alien territory to see Hivite girls, learn about their ways, find out what this foreign place under foreign gods is all about.¹⁷ But we can't forget that Dinah's decision takes place in the context of Jacob's own mistakes towards God, in settling short of Bethel, and towards his family, in his unequal treatment of Leah.¹⁸

Dinah went out to see the land's daughters; instead she's seen by the land's prince's son, Shechem. Be Dinah 12 or 16, she caught the young man's eye and, “completely enraptured by the sight,” Shechem “gave his lust free rein.”¹⁹ “He saw her, and he took her” (Genesis 34:2), as the powerful before the flood saw women and took them (Genesis 6:2). But Shechem “laid her” – not, you'll note, 'with her,' and this irregular phrase suggests something irregular here: a lack of consent.²⁰ Our worst suspicions are then confirmed: “and he humiliated her,” degraded her (Genesis 34:2). This string of actions is “swift and violent.”²¹ I think we all know what Shechem's done.

But then we're confused when, in the very next line, we read that “his soul clung to Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the young woman, and he spoke to the heart of the young woman” (Genesis 34:3), who was clearly distraught and grief-stricken by her newfound plight.²² Love, Shechem? You call this love, when you have to quiet her after what you've done, try to persuade her after the fact since you had no consent before? Yet then “Shechem spoke to his father Hamor, saying, 'Take for me this damsel for a wife!'” (Genesis 34:4).

There are cultures, sadly even today, where sometimes there's a practice of marriage by abduction. A man, often with the help of some friends, lies in wait and kidnaps the target girl; they take her away someplace secret, and he violates her; then his clan will notify her family of what's happened and try to negotiate to make the marriage official, since at this point her marriage prospects to other men have been lessened and so both she and her clan might feel this is now the best of their bad options.²³ The Romans, in their legends, bragged that their founder Romulus arranged a mass marriage-abduction on the daughters of their Sabine neighbors, after which the Romans told the kidnapped women they'd done it out of passionate love and that the ladies should now embrace their new status as Roman wives.²⁴ After all, the Romans insisted, “of all methods of contracting marriages for women,” such an abduction was, in their eyes, “the most illustrious.”²⁵  Shechem is simply a Romulus before Rome. 

So now “Jacob heard” what had happened, probably because Shechem sent word about how he'd claimed the damsel by taking her. But in Jacob's eyes, Shechem “had defiled his daughter” (Genesis 34:5). This is hardly an acceptable practice in Jacob's world. This is a monstrous breach, and coming from his trusted hosts, of all people!²⁶ When news arrives, Jacob's sons are out tending livestock, so Jacob has to keep his anguish bottled up inside while he waits for them to come, since he's too old and crippled to handle the situation.²⁷

Meanwhile, Hamor himself approaches Jacob to negotiate, father to father and clan chief to clan chief (Genesis 34:6). It becomes clear he's heeding his son's command and hasn't rebuked Shechem in the slightest.²⁸ But lest this be a reasonable meeting of father to father, the sons show up – Shechem with Hamor, and Jacob's sons with him. “And the men were grieved and exceedingly angry” about what Shechem had done, “because he had done a folly in Israel by laying Jacob's daughter – and such a thing just isn't done!” (Genesis 34:7). Hamor and Shechem might want to brush this under the rug, but Jacob and his sons “regarded the act as the greatest outrage,”²⁹ it being a crime in itself, “a challenge to their family honor,”³⁰ and a serious desecration of a taboo. What's more, they know what we might not: that, as ever with abductive marriage, Dinah is being held in a secret place, likely Shechem's residence in the town's secure acropolis.³¹

Hamor's here to wheel and deal, confident he's got power enough to resist any retaliation and prestige enough to sweeten any deal. He first proposes to Jacob's whole clan the basic request his son insisted: “Shechem my son – his soul delights in your daughter,” says Hamor to them, gliding silently past any acknowledgment of Dinah's victimization or current whereabouts.³² Since it'd make Shechem so happy, “please give her to him to be his wife,” Hamor says (Genesis 34:8). After all, shouldn't little prince always get whatever he wants?

But Hamor's not done. An opportunist, he foresees a more productive and ambitious arrangement with this clan of rich shepherds on their doorstep. Instead of one marriage, why not go bigger? “Become sons-in-law with us – give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves” (Genesis 34:9). He figures that's sure to get the attention of a family worried about wedding eleven bachelor sons. Jacob's people will take the initiative in giving and taking daughters, so don't worry about more abductions. Then, he offers further perks: permanent residency, the right of free movement, the right of free trade, the right to get property (Genesis 34:10).

Ominously, the offer subtly reminds them of the rights they don't yet have, that they're vulnerable outsiders who need to stay on Hamor's good side.³³ But with this “mutually advantageous political alliance,” Jacob's clan then “would become full citizens.”³⁴ He thinks this is an offer they can't refuse. Jacob's sons recognize, of course, that Hamor's pitch ultimately would lead to the full integration of Jacob's clan into the city of Shechem. In one Roman account, that's just what Romulus intended by his abductive marriage scheme, so he “demanded that the Sabines accept a union with the Romans.”³⁵ This idea is “a serious threat to the covenant family” and “a threat to the divine promise,”³⁶ since Hamor's temptation of land is a shortcut to what only God must give them.³⁷ The very language Hamor ends on, about getting possessions in the land, is literally that they may “seize her,” phrasing that uncomfortably reminds Jacob and sons of what Shechem did to Dinah (Genesis 34:10).³⁸

At this point, though, Shechem thinks his dad's gone rogue. What's all this big-picture nonsense to a man in love? So he butts in, “undermining his father's attempt to salvage or capitalize on the situation.”³⁹ Shechem pleads to “her father” and to “her brothers” – that's the only way he can see them – “Let me find grace in your eyes!” (Genesis 34:11). That's pretty rich, considering what he did when Dinah entered his eyeline. But the phrase might remind Jacob of his desperate efforts to “find grace in the eyes” of Esau (Genesis 33:8). Shechem goes on: “Whatever you say to me, I'll give – multiply to me much bride-price and gifts, and I'll give according to what you say to me – but give me the young woman for a wife!” (Genesis 34:11-12). It perfectly sums up Shechem's character. Not once does he express remorse, not once does he even use Dinah's name. He's a spoiled rich brat convinced that everybody's got a price and he can throw money at his problems.⁴⁰ But that, too, might remind Jacob of himself lavishly sending Esau gifts, perhaps more bribes than reparations. Yet the language Shechem uses isn't far from Laban's “name your wages to me, and I will give” (Genesis 30:28).⁴¹

Often, where marriage abduction is practiced in today's world, the family often gives in. But before Jacob can, his sons butt in, just as Hamor's son had done. As chips off the old block, their answer to the proposals is made “in deceit” (Genesis 34:13; cf. 27:35). This chapter has seven speeches, and this one's the centermost; it begins and ends by pointing to Dinah, lest we forget what this is really all about.⁴² They tell Hamor and Shechem that it's impossible for them to “give our sister to a man who has a foreskin, for that would be a disgrace to us,” reproach, scorn, insult (Genesis 34:14). Beneath the politeness of their no, they're calling Shechem and his whole people unclean.⁴³ However, they have a suggestion. “If you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised” (Genesis 34:15) – and here they're quoting God's words to Great-Grandpa Abraham (Genesis 17:10) – then by all means, “we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to ourselves, and we will dwell with you and become one people” (Genesis 34:16). All that's needed is for that 'one people' to continue this one quirky Hebrew custom, that's all. Isn't that such a modest stipulation?

Now for the ultimatum. “If you will not hear us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and we will go” (Genesis 34:17). Until this line, she was 'our sister'; now, she's 'our daughter,' as if they've usurped Jacob's fatherly role over Dinah. They don't care about a bride-price or gifts or trade deals or open land. This is the one non-negotiable, and if it isn't met, they'll reclaim Dinah and leave, taking their wealth with them. This comes across as a “thinly-veiled threat,”⁴⁴ since them taking back Dinah would humiliate not just Shechem but Hamor and, in fact, his entire people.⁴⁵

Well, “their words were good in the eyes of Hamor and in the eyes of Shechem son of Hamor” (Genesis 34:18). The request made sense to them, since many societies then practiced circumcision as a pre-wedding ritual in hopes of enhancing fertility. So “the young man,” Shechem, “didn't delay to do the thing” they'd demanded, to circumcise himself, “because he delighted in the daughter of Jacob, and he was more honorable than all his father's house” (Genesis 34:19). We can't deny Shechem's sincere and eager. But notice that Jacob's sons didn't say a word about what circumcision meant to them, as the sign of God's covenant with Abraham. In fact, they said nothing about the religious gulf between themselves and the Hivites.⁴⁶ Actually, from start to finish, this chapter is one of the only chapters in Genesis totally devoid of any mentions of God at all. If the stories of Isaac eight chapters back showed strife turning to peace once God was acknowledged, this chapter is showing us peace collapsing into strife and chaos as God is ignored and shunned.⁴⁷

But back to Shechem and his dad. If they're to get what they each want, they've got to win over the men of their city to submit to a bit of surgery. So they gather everyone in the city gate and give the next speech (Genesis 34:20). They open on the note that “these men,” the clan of Jacob, “are at peace with us” – not that Shechem's respected that peace so far. Notice that Hamor and Shechem, typical politicians, never admit to their people the real motive of this proposal. But on the grounds of this peaceful coexistence, Hamor urges his people to grant them privileges of occupancy and trade, just as he'd proposed to Jacob. But Hamor leaves out the last-mentioned privilege, taking possession of property, that being a bridge too far for the city-folk to abide.⁴⁸ “Let us take their daughters as wives, and let us give them your daughters” (Genesis 34:21). And notice that now it's the city-folk, not Jacob, who'll control the giving and taking.⁴⁹

Only now does Hamor slip in the unpleasant condition, that “only on this will the men consent to dwell with us to become one people: when every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised” (Genesis 34:22). It's a fair summary of what Jacob's sons said. It's also a potential sticking point, but Hamor's saved the best incentive for last: “Their livestock and their property and all their beasts, will they not be ours? Only let us agree with them, and they will dwell with us” (Genesis 34:23). Aha! And there it is: this 'alliance,' this 'union,' is really about absorbing Jacob's clan into Shechemite society so as to despoil them and gain their wealth.⁵⁰

With that, Hamor and son win over their people, one and all. “All who went out of the gate of his city heard Hamor and Shechem his son, and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city” (Genesis 34:24). Men who 'go out' the city gate are those capable of military service.⁵¹ Their 'going out' to fight echoes Dinah's having 'gone out' to explore, masculine to feminine. As every male in the house of Abraham was circumcised on the day of the divine covenant (Genesis 17:23), so now every male in the city of Shechem is circumcised this day of the deceitful covenant. For the sons of Jacob weren't negotiating in good faith.

When the Romans abducted women, their neighbors went on the attack, though all but the Sabines learned “how ineffectual is anger without strength.”⁵² The war with the Sabines was much harder, ending only when the women themselves, now mothers of Roman children, intervened and forced both sides to make peace and, as Romulus had hoped, to integrate into a single people.⁵³ That isn't how the sons of Jacob will let this end. Now “on the third day, when they were in pain” in the city and thus vulnerable, the sons of Jacob sprang into action.

Two of Dinah's full brothers, Simeon and Levi the sons of Leah – aged between 18 and 22 – “took each his sword, and they came against the city in boldness” (Genesis 34:25), or maybe that should be 'in trust,' as in, the citizens felt secure, trusting in the goodwill of Jacob's clan.⁵⁴ Perhaps the pair crept into the city “under cover of night,” catching everyone doubly by surprise,⁵⁵ like the Greeks entering Troy in that now-famed wooden horse (which, come to think of it, ended a war that began in a Trojan prince abducting a Greek queen). We read next that “Hamor and Shechem they slew with the mouth of the sword” (Genesis 34:26); Jewish tradition held that Simeon dealt with Hamor, while Levi handled Shechem.⁵⁶

This is the first time in the Bible we've ever read of God's chosen ones employing violence. Abraham never slapped a Sodomite, Isaac never punched a Philistine, Jacob never so much as scratched Laban or bit Esau, but brothers Simeon and Levi let their swords drink up the blood of a Hivite father and son.⁵⁷ And not only that, but they also “slew every male” in the entire city, leaving none alive (Genesis 34:26). This wholesale slaughter “reeks of barbaric cruelty,”⁵⁸ reminding us of the Cainite Lamech who bragged of his overkill (Genesis 4:23).⁵⁹ And this by exploiting the sign of God's sacred covenant to weaken the Shechemites! But after it all, “they took Dinah out of Shechem's house,” whether she wanted rescued or not, “and they went out” (Genesis 34:26). The crisis began with Dinah going out and being taken, so it ends with Dinah being taken and going out.⁶⁰

But then the tidily closed loop is broken. Shechem and Levi have dealt bloodily with Shechem and retrieved their sister Dinah; but with that settled, now “the sons of Jacob came upon the slain” (Genesis 34:27). These are Jacob's other sons, who've entered the defenseless city and found the carnage. Realizing that no one can now stop them, the sons of Jacob “plundered the city because they had defiled their sister,” holding the city itself collectively responsible for the polluting crime of their prized nobleman. “Their flocks and their herds, their donkeys” – their hamors – “and whatever was in the city and in the field, they took; all their strength, all their little ones and their women, they captured and plundered, and all that was in the houses” (Genesis 34:28-29). In the structure of the chapter, this act stands in parallel to Shechem taking Jacob's daughter.⁶¹ But how does it bring healing to anyone for the taking of one woman to be answered by the taking of many women? The whole sordid saga, which began with Jacob building his own house instead of going to the House of God, has led to his sons entering and robbing the houses of this vast pagan city.

Jacob is deeply disconcerted. Silent though he's been throughout the grievous ordeal, he now breaks silence and rebukes his sons. “You have troubled me!” he tells them, much as Achan “troubled Israel” by flouting a ban and bringing down a curse on Israel's camp by hiding plunder in it (Joshua 6:18; 7:25). Jacob argues Simeon's and Levi's actions “make me stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanite and the Perizzite” (Genesis 34:30). Jacob's hard-won reputation as a man of peace and even a man of honesty is shattered.⁶² And that poses a threat, because “I am few in number, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I'll be destroyed, both I and my house” (Genesis 34:30). Shechem was allied with many smaller settlements nearby, and Jacob's acutely aware that his “entire household could be held responsible for what happened” by the same logic Simeon and Levi used, and so they could now all be targets for the next round of vengeance.⁶³

For now, though, the last word goes to the sons, whose retort – “Like a prostitute should he treat our sister?” (Genesis 34:31) – says all they can see is the original wrong. They end the chapter on the word 'our sister,' suggesting they stick up for Dinah because, as fellow-children of Leah whose own names memorialize Leah's unmet longings, they feel they can't count on Jacob's love, and they see proof of that in his litany now of 'I,' 'me,' 'my.'⁶⁴ Since Shechem's deed humiliated all Israel, whatever they've done in the course of redressing that original wrong is irrelevant, so long as all dwelling in the land now know that a sister of the men of Israel mustn't be treated so; to do any less than they've done would surrender their honor, purity, and wholeness.⁶⁵

So who's right? Ancient Jews consistently sided with the sons, as “Israel will not be cleansed of this defilement if there is in it... one who has given any of his daughters to a man who is from any of the Gentiles.”⁶⁶ So “with these two swords, the Lord God punished the insult of the Shechemites by which they insulted the sons of Israel.”⁶⁷ Some went so far as to picture Levi being given weapons by Israel's guardian angel,⁶⁸ and that the Lord himself “gave [Simeon] a sword to avenge the foreigners.”⁶⁹ Thus “God smote the inhabitants of Shechem.”⁷⁰ As his instruments, Simeon and Levi's deeds were recorded in heaven as “righteousness.”⁷¹

On the other hand, Jacob on his deathbed gets the last word, denouncing Simeon and Levi for the excess of their violence, treating it as a peril and curse in Israel (Genesis 49:5-7).⁷² And so early Christians censured the sons of Jacob for their “godless acts..., for they wrought destruction and killed those who trusted them and intended to become one with them.”⁷³ Rather than looking down on Jacob as passive and weak, they lauded him for putting a premium on compassion, moderation, and understanding.⁷⁴

What's clear is that the ordeal has exposed and exacerbated fractures in the social fabric of God's chosen people, who can't agree on whether this was an acceptable resolution.⁷⁵ The mess that is chapter 34 shows a scenario that “presents no good options to anybody,”⁷⁶ so it's no wonder every single character comes out looking pretty lousy. In the wake of all this, and gripped by his fear, Jacob has to be wondering why this happened to him. Is he not the chosen one of God? How could things have gone so wrong? Why are there no good options here?⁷⁷

Then, in the middle of the intractable debate, God redirects them from questions of worldly rights and worldly wrongs to something deeper still.⁷⁸ “Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make an altar there to God who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother” (Genesis 35:1). And that's the point. He may not have tried to sail to Tarshish, but Jacob was off-the-mark like Jonah, so why be surprised Shechem swallowed him up and spat him out? All this folly and defilement and slaughter and trouble and stench is the horrid byproduct of Jacob's own failure, “an adverse consequence for the unfulfilled vow.”⁷⁹ This is a strong hint now from God for Jacob to go “perform those sacrifices which he had vowed to offer” years before.⁸⁰

See, it's written: “When you vow a vow to God, do not delay to complete it, for he has no pleasure in fools” (Ecclesiastes 5:4). Shechem committed an immense foolishness, Shechem was immensely displeasing to God, and yet, however discreditable was his desire for Dinah, it was strong enough that Shechem didn't delay going through with circumcision on the spot (Genesis 34:19). Jacob, by contrast, has for years delayed the completion of his vow – so has he not condemned himself as loving God less than a spoiled predator loves a pretty girl?

In the preparations to go to Bethel, Jacob at last takes charge and speaks, and his speech reveals a lesson he needs his children to hear. The way to deal with defilement isn't all about striking back at the polluters, as if violence solved everything. Clearly, it's done little for Dinah, from whom we hear nothing. Instead, the way to handle defilement is by turning to God and his grace to bring renewal.⁸¹

Now renewed in determination to complete what God requires, now cured of his deceitful ways and his smooth operating, Jacob leads the pilgrimage to Bethel and finds that, contrary to his fears, “a terror from God was upon the cities that were around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob” (Genesis 35:5). Now that he was again following God's will, God was again their protector. And at last he reaches Bethel (Genesis 35:6). Now, “there he built an altar” (Genesis 35:7), toward the completion of his vow after thirty years.⁸² Now he's proclaimed Israel – not because he fights and strives, but because he's learned to be upright in the eyes of God.⁸³

Now the LORD is his God. Now this stone pillar is, for him, God's house and sanctuary. But what about that tithe Jacob vowed? Genesis doesn't explicitly say, so later Jews filled in the blanks, saying that when Jacob “tithed everything which he possessed according to his vow,” Levi himself was tithed to God for ordination as a priest,⁸⁴ and Jacob “paid tithes for all to the Lord through” Levi.⁸⁵ As for Dinah's fate, some thought she died young,⁸⁶ others suggested she lived a long life but never married or had children,⁸⁷ but in a third old tradition, she did end up a happy wife and mother to a man who'd himself been through the ringer. His name? Job.⁸⁸

There are so many lessons people have tried to wring out of these chapters over the years. But perhaps all we should say is that, because Jacob fails to be where he's vowed to be, he “brings a sword, not a blessing, upon the nations.”⁸⁹ As a result, he becomes a stench in the land. This disruption of peace is the first stone slip in what becomes a landslide.⁹⁰ But then enters Christ, who “gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). And “thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing – to one, a fragrance from death to death; to the other, a fragrance from life to life” (2 Corinthians 2:14-16). So let us raise our thank-offerings to God, sing praises always to his name, and thus “complete my vows day after day” (Psalm 56:12; 61:8). Amen.