Genesis 34

PART THIRTY-SIX RECAPITULATION: SURVEY OF THE PATRIARCHAL AGE

From A Class-Book of Old Testament History, pp. 73-76

by G. F. Maclear, D.D. Published by Macmillan, London, 1881, now long out of print.

With the death of Joseph the Patriachal Age of Israel’s history may be said to close. The Family had now thrown out many branches and was now on the point of emerging into the Nation. At this juncture, then, it may be well to look back, and review some of the chief features of the Patriarchal Life.

1. And the first of these that claims attention is its Nomadic character. Unlike the founders of Egypt, of Babylon, of Nineveh, the Patriarchs were not the builders of cities and towns, but pilgrims and sojourners, dwellers in tents (Hebrews 11:9). But they were very different from rude hordes, like the Amalekites and other sons of the desert, abhorring any higher mode of life. Abraham was no stranger to the highest form of civilization that his age afforded. He was acquainted with Ur, with Nineveh, with Damascus, with Egypt; he had left his home in one of the chief cities of Mesopotamia, not from choice, but in consequence of a direct personal call from God. Moreover, so far from regarding his present mode of life as an ultimate end, he and Isaac and Jacob were ever looking forward to a time when it would close, when their descendants should be settled in the Land of Promise, and become a great nation, when the portable tent should give way to the city that had foundations (Hebrews 11:10; Hebrews 11:13-16; comp. Genesis 24:7; Genesis 28:4; Genesis 49:4; Genesis 50:24). Hence, from time to time, as opportunity offered, we see the wandering life freely and willingly laid aside. Lot settled in Sodom (Genesis 13:10-12); Abraham in Egypt went direct to Pharaoh’s court (Genesis 12:14); at Hebron he settled and became a prince of God in the midst of the Hittites (Genesis 23:6); Isaac not only lived near the Philistines, but occupied a house opposite the palace (Genesis 26:8), and practised agriculture (Genesis 26:12); and Joseph’s dream of the sheaves points out that this was also continued in the time of Jacob (Genesis 37:7).

2. The Family was the center of the Patriarchal commonwealth. Its head was the source of authority and jurisdiction; he possessed the power of life and death (Genesis 38:24); he united in himself the functions of chief and priest; he offered the burnt-offering; he had his armed retainers (Genesis 14:14; Genesis 48:22; Genesis 34:25; Genesis 33:1); his intercourse with his wives (for polygamy was not forbidden) was free and unrestrained; the wife’s consent was asked before wedlock (Genesis 24:57-58); love hallowed the relations of Abraham with Sarah, of Isaac with Rebekah, of Jacob with Leah and Rachel; woman, indeed, did not occupy the position since conceded to her, but her position was far from degraded, and the sanctity of the marriage-bond was defended by severe laws, which made death the punishment for adultery (Genesis 38:24). Slavery, it is true, existed, but in the tents of Abraham the slave was ever treated with consideration, and not excluded from, but made a partaker of religious privileges (Genesis 17:13). The fidelity and attachment of Eliezer the steward of Abraham’s house, the mourning for Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse (Genesis 35:8), are pleasing proofs of the peace that reigned in the Patriarchal household.

3. Civilization. The life of the Patriarchs was chiefly that of the shepherd, and their wealth consisted in their flocks and their herds. But besides practising agriculture they were not unacquainted with money and the precious metals. Abraham paid for the field of Machpelah with coin (Genesis 23:9-20), and the sons of Jacob took money with them into Egypt (Genesis 42:25; Genesis 42:35); while the gold ring and armlets presented to Rebekah by Eliezer (Genesis 24:22), the bracelet and signet ring of Judah (Genesis 38:18), the ear-rings of Rachel (Genesis 35:4), the many-coloured coat of Joseph, indicate an acquaintance with the luxuries of life.

4. Religion. While other nations were rapidly learning to deify the powers of nature, the Patriarchs believed not only in a God above and beyond nature, but in a God Personal, Omnipotent, and Holy. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was. no mere abstraction, no mere law. He could and did reveal Himself by angelic appearances, by visions, by dreams; He could console, strengthen, encourage; He could punish, rebuke, and on repentance forgive. Abraham, the Friend of God (James 2:23), intercedes with Him in behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:23-33); Isaac is warned by Him against going down into Egypt (Genesis 26:2); Jacob is consoled by Him at Bethel when setting out into the land of exile (Genesis 28:13-15), and wrestles with Him by the fords of Jabbok till the break of day (Genesis 32:24); Joseph believes in His invisible but ever-present help in prison and in a strange land, and ascribes to Him all his wisdom in the interpretation of dreams (Genesis 41:16). The Divine Promise of a great future Abraham believed under circumstances of greatest trial, and his faith was counted to him for righteousness (Romans 4:3). Moreover, the God of the Patriarchs was not a mere national or household God. His sphere of operation was not restricted to the Patriarchs and their families; He is the God of all the earth (Genesis 24:3), the God of Righteousness and Holiness. He punishes the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24-25); He plagues Pharaoh’s house (Genesis 12:17); He is the God of the priest-king Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18), and of the Philistine Abimelech (Genesis 20:3); He protects not only Isaac the child of promise, but the outcast Ishmael the child of the bond-woman (Genesis 21:13); He is with Joseph in prison, but He sends dreams to Pharaoh, and through Joseph He saves Egypt from famine (Genesis 50:20).

5. The Religious Worship of the Patriarchs was in keeping with the simplicity of their creed. The head of the family was also the priest of the family. Whenever Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, reached any new spot in their pilgrimage, they invariably erected an altar, generally of stone and on a high situation (Genesis 22:9; Genesis 26:25; Genesis 35:7); there they called on the name of Jehovah, there they presented their burnt sacrifice, there they offered up their prayers. Their history also proves the existence of offering covenant-sacrifices, and celebrating covenant-feasts (Genesis 15:9-18); the making and paying of vows (Gen. 28:23); the erection of memorial pillars, and the consecration of them by pouring upon them oil and wine (Genesis 28:18); the rite of circumcision (Genesis 17:10-14); and the paying of tithes (Genesis 14:20).

6. The Character of the Patriarchs is never represented as perfect; their faults are freely exposed; theirs is no ideal history. If we compare the four most eminent amongst them, we seem to trace in (i) Abraham, the faith that can remove mountains in its power and in its fulness, revealing itself in unfaltering trust and unquestioning obedience under the most trying circumstances conceivable; in (ii) Isaac, the faith that can possess itself in patience, and discharge the ordinary duties of life in quietness and waiting; in (iii) Jacob, the violent contest of faith with the flesh, the higher with the lower nature, till by hard discipline the latter is purified, and the Sup-planter becomes the Prince, the Prevailer with God; in (iv) Joseph, the fidelity and perseverance of faith, revealed not only in the patient endurance of the most grievous trials, but in energetic action, and at length crowned with victory. He unites in himself the noble trust and resolution of Abraham, with the quiet perseverance of Isaac, and the careful prudence of Jacob. He is moreover an eminent historic type of Christ, in (1) his persecution and sale by his brethren, (2) his resisting temptation, (3) his humiliation and exaltation, and (4) his dispensing to a famine-stricken people the bread of life, and (5) in the fulness of his forgiving love.

ADDENDA [Volume 3] LANGE: ON THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH

(CDHCG, 389-390, verbatim)

Between Abram’s connection with Hagar and the next manifestation of Jehovah there are full thirteen years. But then his faith is strengthened again, and Jehovah appears to him (Genesis 17:1). The most prominent and important theophany in the life of Abram is the appearance of the three men (ch. 17). But this appearance wears its prevailing angelic form, because it is a collective appearance for Abram and Lot, and at the same time refers to the judgement upon Sodom. Hence the two angels are related to their central point as the sun-images to the sun itself, and this central point for Abram is Jehovah himself in his manifestation, but not a commissioned Angel of the Lord. Thus also this Angel visits Sarah (Genesis 21:1; compare Genesis 18:10). But the Angel appears in the history of Hagar a second time (Genesis 21:17), and this time as the Angel of God (Maleach Elohim), not as the Maleach Jehovah, for the question is not now about a return to Abram’s house, but about the independent settlement with Ishmael in the wilderness. The person who tempts Abram (Genesis 22:1) is ElohimGod as he manifests himself to the nations and their general ideas or notions, and the revelation is effected purely through the word. Now, also, in the most critical moment for Abram, the Angel of the Lord comes forward, calling down to him from heaven since there was need of a prompt message of relief. In the rest of the narrative this Angel of the Lord identifies himself throughout with Jehovah (Genesis 22:12; Genesis 22:16). To Isaac also Jehovah appears (Genesis 26:2), and the second time in the night (Genesis 26:24). He appears to Jacob in the night in a dream (Genesis 28:12-13). Thus also he appears to him as the Angel of God in a dream (Genesis 31:11), but throughout identified with Jehovah (Genesis 31:13). Jehovah commands him to return home through the word (31:3). Laban receives the word of God in a dream (Genesis 31:24). The greatest event of revelation in the life of Jacob is the grand theophany, in the night, through the vision, but the man who wrestles with him calls himself God and man (men) at the same time. According to the theory of a created angel, Jacob is not a wrestler with God (Israel), but merely a wrestler with the Angel. It is a more purely external circumstance which God uses to warn Jacob through the word to remove from Shechem (Genesis 35:1). In the second-’ peculiar manifestation of God to Jacob after his return from Mesopotamia (Genesis 35:9), we have a clear and distinct reflection of the first (Genesis 32:24). In the night-visions of Joseph, which already appear in the life of Isaac, and occur more frequently with Jacob, the form of revelation during the patriarchal period comes less distinctly into view. But then it enters again, and with new energy, in the life of Moses. The Angel of Jehovah (Exodus 3:2) is connected with the earlier revelation, and here also is identified with Jehovah and Elohim (Exodus 3:4). But he assumes a more definite form and title, as the Angel of his face, since with the Mosaic system the rejection of any deifying of the creature comes into greater prominence, and since it is impossible that the face of God should be esteemed a creature.

The reasons which are urged for the old ecclesiastical view of the Angel of the Lord, are recapitulated by Kurtz in the following order: 1. The Maleach Jehovah identifies himself with Jehovah. 2. Those to whom he appears recognize, name, and worship him as the true God. 3. He receives sacrifice and worship without any protest. 4. The biblical writers constantly speak of him as Jehovah. We add the reasons. 1. The theory of our opponents opens a wide door in the Old Testament for the deifying of the creature, which the Old Testament everywhere condemned; and the Romish worship of angels finds in it a complete justification. 2. The Socinians also gain an important argument for their rejection of the Trinity, if, instead of self-revelation of God, and of the self-distinction included in it in the Old Testament, there is merely a pure revelation through angels. As the fully developed doctrine of the Trinity cannot be found in the Old Testament, so no one can remove from the Old Testament the beginnings of that doctrine, the self-distinction of God, without removing the very substructure on which the New Testament doctrine of the Trinity rests, and without obscuring the Old Testament theology in its very centre and glory. 3. It would break the band of the organic unity between the Old and New Testaments if it could be proved that the central point in the Old Testament revelation is a creature-angel, and that the New Testament revelation passes at one bound from this form to that of the God-man. The theory of the creature-angel in its continuation through a colossal adoration of angels, points downwards to the Rabbinic and Mohammedan doctrine of angels which has established itself in opposition to the New Testament Christology, and is bound together with that exaggerated doctrine of angels in more recent times, which ever corresponds with a veiled and obscure Christology. On the other hand, it removes from the New Testament Christology its Old Testament foundation and preparation which consists in this, that the interchange between God and men is in full operation, and must therefore prefigure itself in the images of the future God-man. 4. The doctrine of angels itself loses its very heart, its justification and interpretation, if we take away from it the symbolic angel-form, which rules it, as its royal centre, i.e. that angelic form which, as a real manifestation of God, as a typical manifestation of Christ, as a manifestation of angels, has the nature and force of a symbol. But with the obliteration of the symbolic element, all the remaining symbolic and angelic images, the cherubim and seraphim, will disappear, and with the key of biblical psychology in its representation of the development of the life of the soul, to an organ of revelation, we shall lose the key to the exposition of the Old Testament itself. 5. Augustin was consistent when, with his interpretation of the Angel of Jehovah as a creature-angel, he decidedly rejects the interpretation which regards the sons of God (ch. 6)as angel-beings; for the assumption of angels who, as such, venture to identify themselves with Jehovah, and notwithstanding they are in peril, abandon themselves to lustful pleasures and a magical transformation of their nature, combines two groundless and intolerable phantoms. We hold, therefore, that Old Testament theology, in its very heart and centre, is in serious danger from these two great prejudices, as the New Testament from the two great prejudices of a mere mechanical structure of the Gospels, and of the unapostolic and yet more than apostolic brothers of the Lord. (See the defence of the old ecclesiastical view in the Commentary by Keil, also with a reference to Kahnis, de Angelo Domini diatribe, 1858. The assertion of the opposite view held by Delitzsch in his Commentary, meets here its refutation).

6. The aspect of all theophanies as visions. It is a general supposition, that divine revelation is partly through visions, or through inward miraculous sights and sounds. We must, however, bring out distinctly the fundamental position, that every theophany is at the same time vision, and every vision a theophany; but that in the one case the objective theophany and in the other the subjective vision, is the prevailing feature. The subjective vision appears in the most definite form in dream-visions, of which Adam’s sleep, and Abram’s night-horror (chs. 2 and 15.), are the first striking portents. It develops itself with great power in the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and is of still greater importance in the lives of Samuel and Solomon, as also in the night-visions of Zechariah. We find them in the New Testament in the life of Joseph of Nazareth and in the history of Paul. It needs no proof to show that the manifestations of God or angels in dreams, are not outward manifestations to the natural senses. In the elements of the subjective dream-vision, veils itself, however, the existing divine manifestation. But what the dream introduces in the night-life, the seeing in imagesthat the ecstasy does in the day or ordinary waking life (see Lange: Apostolic Age). The ecstasy, as the removing of the mind into the condition of unconsciousness, or of a different consciousness, is the potential basis of the vision, the vision is the activity or effect of the ecstasy. But since the visions have historical permanence and results, it is evident that they are the intuitions of actual objective manifestations of God. Mere hallucinations of the mind lead into the house of error, spiritual visions build the historical house of God. But in this aspect we may distinguish peculiar dream-visions, night-visions of a higher form and power, momentary day-visions, apocalyptic groups or circles of visions, linked together in prophetic contemplation, and that habitual clear-sightedness as to visions which is the condition of inspiration. But that theophanies which are ever at the same time Angelophanies and Christophanies, and indeed as theophanies of the voice of God, or of the voice from heaven, of the simple appearance of angels, of their more enlarged and complete manifestations of the developed heavenly scenethat these are always conditioned through a disposition of fitness for visions, is clear from numerous passages in the Old and New Testaments (2 Kings 6:17, Daniel 10:7; John 12:28-29; John 20:10-12; Acts 9:8; Acts 12:7-12; Acts 22:9-14).

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THE ABRAHAMIC PROMISE

(by H. Christopher, The Remedial System, pp. 146-150)

The promise that God would bless the whole world through him [Abraham] had reference to Christ, the son of Abraham, through whom God would fulfill his promise of blessing the whole world through the offspring of Abraham. Whilst it was the first and chief promise made to Abraham, it was the last in fulfillment. Nearly two thousand years intervened. It was ratified and covenanted by the blood of Christ, and looked to the possession of the heavenly Canaan, and to a circumcision that cut off the heart from all that is worldly and sensual, and to a seal that became the pledge of the purchased possession, and its settlement in the heavenly Canaan, by the resurrection from the dead, when the spiritual people of God cross the Jordan of death, and take possession of the land of promise, for which even Abraham looked, when he sought a city whose maker and builder is God. This promise and its blessings have no connection with the others made to Abraham. They differ as widely as flesh and spirit, and as earth and heaven. They connect or coalesce no where. The first were but preparatory and necessary to the last. When the last appeared, the first had served their chief, if not all their, purpose. The first had chief reference to man’s body, while the last has chief reference to man’s spirit. And as the spirit of man is superimposed, as it were, upon the body, and is capable of a separate and independent existence, so was the last promise superimposed upon the first, and is capable of existing, and does exist, independently of it. Hence, the promises and the covenants by which they were ratified, connect with each other only as the flesh connects with the spirit. Between them lies an impassable gulf. There is no possible passage from the first to the last. The Jew has no rights and privileges under Christ by virtue of his being the son of Abraham according to the flesh; for the promise was; In Isaac shall thy seed be called, and he was the child of promise and of faith. The Christian is the child of promise and of faith, and hence is reckoned through Isaac as a special creation of God, and is, therefore, himself a new creation. The last creation supersedes all former ones, and by this supersession abrogates them. The adoption of the children of Abraham as the special and peculiar people of God, set aside the adoption by creation, and during the time of their adoption, the natural adoption was set aside, and the rest of mankind ignored, and treated as an uncovenanted people. So when the Christian adoption came in, the Jewish was set aside, and all the rest of mankind, not embraced in the new adoption, were ignored and treated as uncovenanted. Hence, under Christianity there is neither Jew nor Greek; neither circumcision nor uncircumcision; but all the families, nations, and races of mankind are one in Christ, in perfect fulfillment of the promise: In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

All this is necessarily true. The Remedial System is developed by differentiations which mark the boundaries of the development. The patriarch had no privileges, special and peculiar, after the calling of Abraham. By that call God isolated a part from the whole, and made this part his special care. By the new creation through Christ another isolation was made, which placed Jew and Greek on the same plane before God, and abrogated all special and peculiar rights or privileges claimed by the Jews. This is necessarily true from another consideration. The claim of the Jew rested on an explicit covenant. That covenant recognized him as the chosen of God, through a means wholly different from that by which he had recognized the patriarch, and does now recognize the Christian. This consideration or means was his birth. He was the son of Abraham according to the flesh, and entitled, consequently, only to the rights and privileges guaranteed by the covenant ordained to grant and secure these. He could claim only under the stipulated grants of his covenant. Under other and different covenants, and made with other people, he could, of course, have no claim or right whatever. His circumcision effected all it was designed to effect, and meant more than the Jew was willing to accept. It cut him off from all the rest of the world, and also from all other covenants of God, but according to the flesh. His circumcision bound him down to the provisions and obligations of that covenant, and confined him within its prescribed limits. What claim, therefore can a Jew have to the grants and blessings of a covenant that has no special reference to him whatever, and that was not made with him as a Jew? The European had as well claim equal rights with the American under the constitution of the United States. The Jew was the chosen of God only according to the flesh, and entitled only to blessings of his covenant. He is not the chosen of God according to the spirit, or the seed of Isaac according to the promise, and hence he can have no right with those who are.

There are four things necessary to make a nation the peculiar and chosen people of God, and all these obtained in the case of the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh. These things are, 1. A creation. This we have in the birth of Isaac. His conception was a miracle, and hence a creation. 2. A seal. This we have in circumcision. 3. A purchase. This we have in the deliverance of this people from Egypt. And 4. A covenant. And this we have in the covenant made before Mt. Sinai. All these are peculiar and consistent, and perfectly harmonious with all that God has promised, or has done for, the Jews. They were all equally necessary, and they follow each other as necessary results one of the other. The seal came to ratify the creation, the purchase, in demonstration of the fulfillment of the promise, and the covenant, in order that the people might also pledge themselves by covenant. By this the people became cemented and organized into a nation. As such they needed laws and institutions for their government and welfare as a people; and as the people of God, religious institutions for the various purposes which God had in view with that people. It will be observed that this covenant made with Abraham’s descendants arose under that which covenanted them as the peculiar people of God, and was, consequently, entirely Jewish. The covenant of Mt. Sinai was made with that people, and the institutions subsequently given, were given to that people, and to no other. The Jewish institution, in all its entirety, was as verily circumcised as were the people for whose benefit it was ordained. It was as completely isolated from all other religions and peoples, as were that people. Hence, it had no connection with any other, nor relation, except that of opposition. The covenant stipulated and embraced no more than did the promise under which it was made. It was a ratification, or acceptance on their part, of the stipulations of the promise. It was the covenant by which God renewed his promise to be their God, and by it the people accepted the offer, and covenanted to be the people of God. This covenant bound both parties to their pledgeGod to be their God, and them to be his obedient people. It did not, and could not stipulate and grant more than did the promise; hence, all these were temporal in their nature. This completed all that God had to provide for that people. Henceforth there was naught for either party to do, but to carry out the provisions of the covenant which formulated the promise. But this covenant was not only temporary as respects the rights, privileges, and blessings which it secured to that people; but it was also temporary in its duration. The people broke that covenant: and a covenant broken on one side, is broken on both. It was faulty in that it only contemplated and provided for man’s temporal wants. Indeed, this was the fault of the whole Jewish fabric, from the inception to the close. This was foreseen; and not only foreseen, but the whole structure was but a means to an end; a measure to give time for the preparation and institution of a better. The promise of God under which the whole Jewish structure arose, was not the first and chief promise that God made to Abraham, nor his chief purpose in calling him. This chief and greatest promise was that through him he would bless the whole human family. This promise the apostle interprets as having reference to Christ, and consequently, it was sooner or later, to take precedence of all others. It could not be annulled by any subsequent promise, unless that promise annulled, at the same time, all former ones. But this the subsequent promises did not do, as is affirmed by the people. The promise which had reference to Christ, preceded the ratification of that concerning the land several years, and antedated the covenant of circumcision twenty-four years. The covenant at Mt. Sinai followed the latter four hundred and six thereafter. So that nothing which transpired under the later promises could annul the first. The first and chief promise which contemplated spiritual blessings and a spiritual offspring through Isaac, was not ratified, fulfilled, or covenanted, for nearly two thousand years. All that has grown out of this promise has no connection with what arose under the others. It differs from them in every respect. It differed from them in the beginning. It came into the world through a different line. There were two lines of descendants in Isaac, as two promises were fulfilled in his descendants. The one line was the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, and the other the seed according to the spirit, the latter of which is reckoned the true line under the covenant of the first promise. This excludes the children according to the flesh from all rights and privileges pertaining to the children according to the spirit. As respects, therefore, their nature, rights, and privileges, the Jewish and Christian institutions differ radically and entirely; to that degree as to exclude the one wholly from the other. The creation, the circumcision or seal, the purchase, and the covenant, that made the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh the people of God, have no place nor value under the Christian institution. The latter has its own creation, seal, purchase, and covenant, all of which are spiritual and eternal, and these give the Christian no rights or privileges under the former. Hence, as respects institutions differing so completely and widely, there can be no community of rights and privileges; nor can the one flow out of the other so as to establish any genetic connection between them. As the spiritual and the eternal necessarily supersede the fleshly and temporal, so does the Jewish institution, in whole and in part, give way to the Christian. Under the latter arises a people of God as distinct from the former as spirit is from flesh. The Christian is a new creation, and all that pertains to his creation is new. Before it the Jew and Gentile stand on the same ground. Both must become the subjects of this new creation before they can be regarded as belonging to the people of God. All the claim which the Jew once preferred, goes for naught under the operation of the new creation. A new birth is just as essential for the Jew as for the Gentile. Hence, the Jew’s creation, seal, purchase, and covenant are all naught when he stands before the Christian’S. His birth of the flesh avails nothing, and neither does his circumcision, Nothing is now acceptable to God but the new creation in Christ. These things being true, all that is Jewish has passed away. The Jews are no longer the people of God. Their whole religious service has perished; and what purpose God has now with that people remains to be seen. That he has no further purpose with them in regard to the fulfillment of his promise of blessing the world through them by Christ, is evident from the fact that Christianity has superseded Judaism, and that the whole religious service of that people perished with the total destruction of their temple. Christ is the end of the law, and of all that pertained to it. It was but a pedagogue to lead the Jews to Christ; so that when he came all that was Jewish was set aside, and the pedagogue was dismissed. All now become the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek; neither bond nor free; neither male nor female; but all are one in Christ Jesus. And all who are Christ’s by virtue of the new creation, the spiritual seal, the eternal purchase, and the everlasting covenant, are the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise: In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. (N. B. After hunting several years for a copy of Christopher’s book, I found it in the Dallas Christian College LibraryC. C.)

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THE EXCELLENCE OF FAITH

(Read Romans 5:1-11).

In the study of First Principles the term which first engages our attention is faith. We shall find that it occupies a prominent place in connection not only with conversion, but also with every phase of Christian activity and growth.

Faith is one of the most far-reaching words in the vocabulary of inspiration. Without faith none of the blessings of the spiritual realm would be available to man. Contrariwise, on the ground of faith, such blessings as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived (1 Corinthians 2:9), are within his power to appropriate and enjoy.

Faith is an oft-recurring word in the New Testament. Jesus had much to say about it, and the word is used repeatedly in the Epistles. Paul states expressly that we are justified by faith (Romans 5 :).

The excellence of faith is indicated in scripture by the following representations:

1. Faith is superior to things and circumstances of this material world.

When given full sway in the human heart it rises above the circumstances of life and controls them. The power of faith is described in such scriptures as Matthew 17:20, Mark 9:23; Mark 11:23, Luke 17:6. Christians of this materialistic age, in bondage as they are to the tyranny of things, are inclined to look on these sayings of the Master with more or less skepticism. The tragedy is that we have never really learned to walk by faith. We cannot testify that these sayings are true for the simple reason that we have never learned to stand on God’s promises. True, we claim to do so, and we sing Standing on the Promises, but always with mental reservations. It is only through the exercise of implicit faith that we can throw off the fetters of anxiety and fear which enslave us to this present evil world. We are willing to obey the Lord in confession and baptism, but we certainly fall far short of His teaching in regard to such everyday matters as fear, worry, forgiveness, humility, and the like. (See Matthew 5:3-12; Matthew 5:21-26; Matthew 5:38-42; Matthew 6:25-33; Matthew 7:1-5; Matthew 7:7-12, etc. Cf. 1 John 4:18) He might well say to us as to His disciples of old, O ye of little faith!

2. Faith is the ground of our justification.

Being therefore justified by faithnot by faith alone, or mere intellectual assent (the theologians have added the word alone)we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Not by faith alone, because faith apart from works (i.e., works of faith) is dead (James 2:26). The faith that is unto the saving of the soul (Hebrews 10:39) expresses itself in works of obedience, sacrifice and service (Romans 12:1-2). To walk by faith is to live by the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25). God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son as a propitiation for our sins (John 3:16), but we must appropriate this matchless Gift by faith. By true faith in Him we have access into this grace wherein we stand (Romans 5:2). For by grace ye have been saved through faith, and that (i.e., that salvation) not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).

3. Faith is the motivating principle of all Christian worship and service.

True worship is (1) communion of the human spirit with the Divine Spirit, (2) on the terms of the truth as revealed in scripture (John 4:24). This can be realized only through faith. Repentance is faith choosing; the confession is faith speaking; baptism is faith obeying; the Lord’s Supper is faith remembering; liberality is faith acknowledging God’s ownership; prayer is faith communing; meditation is faith pondering; and. the whole Christian life is faith serving. Therefore we are justified by faith. From the day of conversion to that of the putting, on of immortality, the actuating principle in the life of every true Christian is faith.

4. Implicit faith, along with obedience, is a necessary, condition to the answer of prayer (John 14:12-15; John 15:5-10, etc.).

(1) Acts 12:1-17. We read here that many of the early disciples were gathered together in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, praying for Peter’s deliverance from prison. Yet they were amazed when their prayer was answered and Peter stood in their midst. Most of our praying is of this kind; it has little conviction back of it. (Matthew 21:22).

(2) The prayer of faith, i.e., the petition offered in harmony with the teaching of God’s word, will not go unanswered.

Unanswered yet? The prayer your lips have pleaded

In agony of heart these many years?

Does faith begin to fail? is hope departing?

And thing you all in vain those falling tears?

Say not the Father hath not heard your prayer,

You shall have your desire, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Tho-’ when you first presented

This one petition at the Father’s throne,

It seemed you could not wait the time of asking

So urgent was your heart to make it known.

Tho-’ years have passed since then, do not despair;

The Lord will answer you, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say -ungranted-';

Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done;

The work began when first your prayer was uttered,

And God will finish what He has begun;

If you will keep the incense burning there,

His glory you shall see, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Faith cannot be unanswered;

Her feet are firmly planted on the Rock;

Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted,

Nor quails before the loudest thunder-shock.

She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer, And cries, -It shall be done, sometime, somewhere!-’ And cries, -It shall be done, sometime, somewhere!-'

5. The blessings and rewards of the gospel are all received and realized through faith.

Among these are: (1) salvation from the guilt of sin (Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38; Acts 10:43; Acts 16:31; Acts 26:18); (2) spiritual life (John 20:31; John 6:40, John 3:16; John 3:36; 1 John 5:12); (3) spiritual light (John 1:9; John 8:12; John 12:36); (4) heavenly adoption (Galatians 3:26); (5) the indwelling Spirit (John 7:39, Ephesians 1:13, Galatians 3:14); (6) justification (Romans 5:1, Galatians 2:16): (7) true righteousness (Romans 1:16-17; Romans 10:6; Romans 3:22); (8) true worship (John 4:24, Ephesians 3:12); (9) providential oversight (1 Peter 1:5); (10) eternal rest (Hebrews 4:3). In fact the inheritance of all the promises of God is to be realized through faith (Hebrews 6:12).

Conclusion: No wonder then that faith is represented to be the foundation which supports the entire pyramid of Christian virtues that true disciples build, one stone upon the other, and upon which they climb heavenward (2 Peter 1:5-7). True Christians walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Faith, hope and love, according to Paul, constitute the abiding trinity of spiritual virtues (1 Corinthians 13:13). Of these three, love is greatest; because, in the home over there, faith will have given way to spiritual knowledge, and hope to fruition, leaving only love to consummate the blissful intercourse of the redeemed with their heavenly Father (Revelation 21:1-5).

THE NATURE OF FAITH

(Read Hebrews, ch. 11, esp. Hebrews 11:1.)

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews has been called Israel’s Roll of Honor. It is the great faith chapter of the Bible. It is an inspired discourse on the subject of faith. The discourse begins properly with the last three verses of ch. 10, in which the writer speaks of a faith that is unto the saving of the soul. The subject-matter which follows, in ch. 11, is an analysis of that kind of faith, what it is, whence it is obtained, and how it operates unto salvation, as exemplified in the lives of many illustrious believers of olden times. The writer proves to be an excellent sermonizer, as we might expect in view of his having been inspired by the Spirit of God. He states his text in v. 1, and then proceeds to develop it with appropriate illustrations drawn from Old Testament history. His concluding exhortation follows, in ch. 12, Genesis 12:1-2. We shall attempt here to evaluate the teaching of this great chapter on the nature (i.e., the original and essential characteristics) of faith.

Let me repeat that the kind of faith under consideration here is the faith that works unto the saving of the soul. By some this has been called saving faith. Not that faith of itself will save any one, because it will not; but that the right kind of faith will motivate the believer to such intelligent and sincere cooperation with God, on God’s terms and according to His plan, that He may consistently save the one who so believes. It is God who pardons and saves, but always through Jesus Christ (John 14:6).

What is faith? Considering the excellence of faith, it is exceedingly important that we know what faith is. I am profoundly thankful that the Holy Spirit has not left us in darkness regarding this essential matter. Nor has he left it to our finite minds to formulate a definition. We are not compelled to go either to philosophy or to theology for a definition of faithwe have it in clear, unmistakable terms, in the Christian Scriptures.

What, then, are the essential characteristics of faith? This question is fully answered in the words of our text, as follows:

1. Faith is assurance. Assurance is defined as confidence inspired or expressed, that which produces certainty. It connotes positiveness, certainty, even boldness.

2. Faith is assurance of things hoped for. That is, faith is the foundation of hope.

(1) Authorized Version: the substance of things hoped for. The word substance means in our language the stuff, material, or matter of which anything is composed. It is used here, however, in its derivative sense. It is derived from the Latin prefix, sub (under) and the Latin participle stans (standing). Substance, then is that which stands under. Faith is that which stands under hope. Cf. Living Oracles: faith is the confidence of things hoped for. Moffatt: faith means we are confident of what we hope for. Weymouth: faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope. Goodspeed: faith means the assurance of what we hope for.

(2) Faith is the foundation of hope. This is true in every department of human activity. It is true in the business world. I visited a friend on one occasion to solicit a contribution from him for a worthy cause. Having heard my case, his reply was: I believe in your proposition, and I am sorry that I am not in a position to help just at this time. But I will do something later. I have invested a considerable sum of money in an oil well in Texas, and I am expecting returns from this investment within a few months. If you will come back about a year from this date, I will give you a substantial donation. I thanked him, and departed. About a year later I called at his office a second time, and as soon as I entered he looked at me and exclaimed: I know what you have come for, but I can-’t do anything for you. What is the trouble? I asked, didn-’t the oil well turn out satisfactorily? And in extreme disgust he said: I wish I had the money back that I sank in that hole in the ground. The first time I called he was extremely hopeful, because he believed in the enterprise in which he had invested; the second time I found him with hopes blasted, because he had lost all faith in it. Where there is no faith, there is no hope.

(3) This is also true in the social realm. In the course of time a young couple will fall in love, marry, and establish a home. The success of their undertaking will depend largely on their faith in each other. On this foundation of faith they will erect a structure of dreams and plans and hopes. But let the confidence of one in the other be destroyed and this structure will fall to the ground. Both marriage and home are erected on a foundation of faith.

(4) So, in the realm of spirit, as elsewhere, hope rests upon faith. Every act of worship and service we perform is motivated by faith. Faith underlies the pyramid of Christian virtues (2 Peter 1:5-7). And all our aspirations and hopes respecting the home over there, the inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away (1 Peter 1:4) rest on faith. In everything faith is the foundation of hope.

(5) Illustrations from the chapter (Hebrews 11). (a) Abel’s hope that his offering would be acceptable to God rested on faith, Hebrews 11:4. (1 John 3:12) (b) Enoch’s walk with God was a walk of faith, Hebrews 11:5. (c) Faith was the foundation of Noah’s hope of deliverance from impending judgment, Hebrews 11:7. (d) Abraham’s hope of attaining the far country which he was to receive for an inheritance was founded on faith, Hebrews 11:8. Also, his hope of receiving Isaac back from the dead was inspired by faith, from whence he did also in a figure receive him back, Hebrews 11:17-19. (e) Sarah’s expectation of a son, the child of promise, rested on faith, Hebrews 11:11. (f) Joseph’s hope that the children of Israel would ultimately take possession of the land of promise rested upon his faith, Hebrews 11:22. (g) The aspirations, hopes and plans of Moses for his people, and his matchless efforts in their behalf, were all inspired by his faith, Hebrews 11:24-29. In every example cited, faith is presented as the foundation of hope.

3. Faith is a conviction … A conviction is defined as a strong belief, something firmly believed. The faith which operates unto the saving of the soul is something more than a passive intellectual assent. It is a conviction. It must be a conviction, one that takes hold of the soul and determines the course of one’s life. In the light of this definition, it is obvious that faith is precisely the thing that is lacking in the modern church.

4. Faith is a conviction of things not seen, i.e., a conviction with respect to things not seen.

(1) Authorized Version: the evidence of things not seen. Moffatt: Faith means. we are convicted of what we do not see. Weymouth: a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see. Goodspeed: our conviction about things we cannot see.

(2) Note that faith is a conviction with respect to things not seen. I have never seen Paris, but I have a conviction that there is a city by that name and that it is the capital of France. My conviction is the result of satisfactory evidence. Things which are seen are matters of observation and knowledge, but things that are not seen belong to the realm of faith. God who is a Spirit (John 4:24) cannot be seen, and is therefore to be apprehended only by faith. Angels, spirit, resurrection, immortality, heaven, etc., all these realities of the unseen world are matters of faith. Faith pertains not to the things that are illusive and transitory, but to the things which are abiding. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).

(3) We have never seen God, but we believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him (Hebrews 11:6). We were not present to see the worlds created, but our conviction is that they were framed by the word of God (Hebrews 11:3). We have never seen Christ, our Elder Brother, but we believe in Him as the One who is abundantly able to save us from sin and mortality. We have never had a glimpse of heaven, but we believe that the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in us, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to our mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in us (Romans 8:11). Therefore we are exhorted to live by faith, to walk by faith and to die in the faith.

(4) Illustrations from the chapter (Hebrews 11). (a) Abel brought his offering to the altar with the conviction that the God whom he had never seen, but in whom he believed, would accept it, Hebrews 11:4. (b) In Noah’s heart there was an overwhelming conviction that judgment would come upon the antediluvian world because of its wickedness. Although summer and winter, and seedtime and harvest, continued to come and go as usual for one hundred and twenty years, he never faltered. Through all the trying experiences of this period of grace he retained his conviction. Because that during all these intervening years there was no evidence in nature of the impending catastrophe, it was a conviction with respect to things not seen, Hebrews 11:7. (c) Abraham left home and kindred and friends, and started on a strange journey to a land both unknown to him and unseen by him. He had no idea how far he would have to travel in order to reach it. All that moved him was a conviction with respect to the far country and a conviction that God would give it to him for an inheritance. Hebrews 11:8-12. (d) These fathers of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all died in the faith, having never received the literal fulfilment of the promises. So far as we know they all died without possessing a single acre of the land of promise save the few square feet they had purchased for a burial ground. It seems that as they continued in their pilgrimage their faith became clearer, and they began to look beyond the literal to the spiritual fulfilment of the promise, in the city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God, Hebrews 11:13-16. (e) Joseph’s conviction with respect to the exodus of his people from Egypt pertained to an event far in the future, an event not seen, Hebrews 11:22. (f) Moses, the man who saw an undying flame, chose to share ill treatment with the people of God, above the temporary enjoyment of the pleasures of sin, because he endured as seeing him who is invisible (Hebrews 11:23-29). In all these cases, faith was a conviction with respect to things not seen.

(5) As in the various cases cited from Old Testament history, so it is with respect to faith in the present dispensation and under the new covenant: (a) our faith must be something more than mere assent; (b) it must be genuine conviction in order to work unto the saving of the soul; (c) it must be conviction with respect to things not seen, viz., God, the Son of God, the Spirit of God, the future life, heaven, etc.; (d) this faith undergirds all our spiritual blessings, aspirations and hopes (1 Corinthians 2:6-10).

Conclusion: 1. This inspired definition of faith is perfect and complete. Nothing can be taken from it without weakening its import. Nothing can be added to it that would give it greater force.

2. Christian faith takes in all those convictions with respect to God, the Son of God, the Word of God, the Spirit of God, immortality, heaven, and the like; all of which are eternal realities above and beyond the realm of time and space. Like Moses, we endure as seeing him who is invisible, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Like Abraham, we realize that we are pilgrims and strangers upon this earth, that our present dwelling places are but the tabernacles of a night-time; and, like him, we anticipate a more glorious fulfilment of the promises than would be possible in this world of places and things (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). Our ultimate goal is that heavenly country towards which he made his pilgrimage. In the words of Emily Dickinson:

I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea, Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.

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THE SOURCE OF FAITH

(Read Romans 10:1-17).

Having ascertained the essential nature of faith (1) the assurance of things hoped for, and (2) a conviction with respect to things not seen, we shall now turn our attention to the source of faith. Whence is the faith obtained that is unto the saving of the soul? We may find the answer to this important question by turning again to the cases cited in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews:

1. Abel, Hebrews 11:4. Whence did Abel obtain his conviction that the offering of a sacrifice of blood would be pleasing to God and would bring him God’s blessing? Evidently from the word of God. It seems obvious that God laid down the law of sacrifice as soon as man fell, in order to establish the principle that apart from shedding of blood there is no remission (Hebrews 9:22). Abel, in bringing an offering in which blood was shed, obeyed the law; Cain, in bringing the fruit of the ground, disobeyed it (1 John 3:12). This explains why Abel’s offering was accepted and Cain’s rejected.

That this institution was of divine origin is evident from several considerations: I. We learn from Hebrews 11:4, that Abel offered his sacrifice in faith. But in Romans 10:17, we are told that -faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.-’ And hence it follows that Abel could not have offered in faith without a command from God. II. It could not have been a human invention, because Reason can perceive no connection between the means and the end. It is evidently a positive and not a moral or natural institution. III. Its universality is another proof of its divine origin. Mr. Faber says that -throughout the whole world there is a notion prevalent that the gods can be appeased only by bloody sacrifices. There is no heathen people,-’ he adds, -that can specify a time when they were without sacrifice. All have had it from a time which is not reached by their genuine records. Tradition alone can be brought forward to account for its origin.-’ IV. The distinction between clean and unclean beasts even in the time of Noah (Genesis 7:2) proves also the divine origin of sacrifice. This is a distinction which is altogether positive, and which has no foundation in either reason or philosophy (Milligan, SR, 67).

2. Enoch, Hebrews 11:5.Enoch’s walk of faith was evidently inspired and directed by the word of God (Genesis 5:24).

3. Noah, Hebrews 11:7. How did Noah obtain his conviction that an overwhelming deluge would come upon the antediluvian world? How did he obtain the conviction that in the building of the ark a means of deliverance would be provided him and his family? Evidently from the word of God. God told him the flood would come in due time. God told him to build the ark and how to build it. God gave him the plans for it. God promised him deliverance through the instrumentality of the ark. And Noah believed God. His conviction was inspired not by any manifestation in nature, but solely by the word of God. See Genesis 6:13-22; Genesis 7:1-5; Genesis 8:15-17.

4. Abraham, Hebrews 11:8-19. Whence did Abraham obtain his conviction regarding the land to which he journeyed? Whence did he obtain his belief that this land would be given him for an inheritance? From the word of God. See Genesis 12:1-4; Genesis 13:14-18, etc. It was God who told him about the far country and promised it to him for an inheritance. Whence did Abraham and Sarah obtain their conviction regarding the birth of the child of promise? From the word of God (Genesis 17:15-21). Whence did Abraham obtain his conviction that God would not allow Isaac to suffer an untimely end (Hebrews 11:19)? From the word of God. Had not Isaac been miraculously conceived and born? Were not the details of the Abrahamic promise to be worked out through him? (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 13:16; Genesis 17:19, Hebrews 11:18). Cf. Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, James 2:23.

5. Joseph, Hebrews 11:22. Whence did Joseph obtain his conviction that his people would leave Egypt and repossess Canaan? Evidently from God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 12:1-4; Genesis 13:14-18; Genesis 17:15-21; Genesis 26:2-5; Genesis 28:12-17).

6. Moses, Hebrews 11:22-29. From whom did Moses receive his commission to lead his people out of bondage? From whom did he receive the Law ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator (Galatians 3:19)? From God Himself. See Exodus 3:1 to Exodus 4:17, Exodus 20:1-26, Deuteronomy 5:1-33, etc. Who was his constant Guide and Protector through all those terrible marches in the wilderness? Who rained manna from heaven upon the starving people? Who guided them by means of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night? Moses constantly endured, as seeing him who is invisible.

7. Joshua, Hebrews 11:29. Whence did Joshua obtain his confidence that the walls of Jericho would fall? From Jehovah’s word. He went to God for a war program, in his extremity, and God supplied it (Joshua 6:1-20).

8. Rahab, Hebrews 11:30. Whence did Rahab obtain her belief that she should give aid and succor to the men of Joshua’s army? Evidently from her knowledge of God’s promises and judgments (John 2:9-21; John 6:22-25, James 2:25).

9. The creation, Hebrews 11:3. Whence do we obtain our belief that our physical universe was the materialization of God’s word? Our conviction that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear (i.e., that this universe was not fashioned out of pre-existing materials, as the evolutionists and materialists contend)? From the word of God. (See Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:5, etc. Note that the expression, God said, is found ten consecutive times in Genesis 1. Cf. also John 1:1-3, Hebrews 1:1-3, 2 Peter 3:5-8, etc.).

10. Other great heroes and heroines of faith, Hebrews 11:32-39. All received their inspiration to deeds of heroism from the attractions and impulsions of God’s word. So, then, belief cometh of hearing the divine word, as our text says. Believers in all ages endure as seeing Him who is invisible.

Conclusion: So much for the examples from Old Testament history. But what about the faith that operates unto the salvation of the soul, in the present dispensation, under the new covenant?

1. From what source do we obtain our belief that God is, and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him (Hebrews 11:6)? From the testimony about Him as revealed and recorded in Scripture. From the complete and perfect revelation of Him afforded us in the person and work of Jesus Christ, whom to know aright is eternal life. John 15:9-11, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, Hebrews 1:1-3, 1 Peter 1:3-12, etc.

2. From what source do we obtain our conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God? From the testimony presented in the Scriptures, particularly that of the gospel records. This is our only source of accurate information about Him, See John 17:20, John 20:30-31, Acts 15:7, Acts 17:11-12, etc. Why should me reject the testimony of these competent eye-witnesses, these men who walked and talked and supped with Him, and listen to the quibblings of half-baked professors removed from Him by a span of twenty centuries?

3. Whence do we obtain our convictions respecting the future life and its rewards and retributions? From the testimony of Scripture? From the great and exceeding precious promises of God.

4. Romans 10:17. Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Faith does not come by feeling, nor by a direct operation of the Spirit, nor in answer to prayer, but faith does come by hearing the word of God (Romans 10:6-8, 1 Thessalonians 2:13).

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THE PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH

(Hebrews 11:1-19, esp. Hebrews 11:13)

One of the most illustrious characters of ancient times to whom our attention is called by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, is Abraham, the father of the Hebrew people.

Abraham’s life and walk were so eminently motivated by faith, that his name has gone down in sacred history as the Father of the Faithful, and as the Friend of God (Romans 4:17, Galatians 3:29, Isaiah 41:8, 2 Chronicles 20:7, James 2:23).

1. Note, in the first place, that Abraham’s whole life was a pilgrimage of faith.

(1) It was by faith that he first went out from his native home, Ur of the Chaldees. As faith comes from hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17), so he went out in response to God’s command (cf. Genesis 12:1-3). He did not go out in consequence of any urge within himself, but solely in obedience to God. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance (Hebrews 11:8).

(2)* By faith he made his initial pilgrimage from Ur of Chaldea to the land of promise.* As faith is a conviction with respect to things not seen (Hebrews 11:1), he therefore went out not knowing whither he went (Hebrews 11:8). Commenting on this verse, Milligan says: Here we have given the fact that Abraham received a call from God; that by his call he was required to leave his home and kindred in Ur of Chaldea, and go out into a strange land; that this land, though promised to his posterity, was wholly unknown to him at the time; and that he nevertheless obeyed God, and went out of his own country, not knowing whither he went (Milligan, NTCH, in loco.)

(3) By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, etc. It would seem from this that Abraham never regarded Canaan as his home. He knew of course, by faith, that when the Canaanites should have filled up the cup of their iniquity to the full, in the fourth generation, the land would be given to his posterity for an everlasting possession, as indeed it was in the time of Joshua (Genesis 15:12-21). But until that time neither he nor his seed, he realized, had any rights or privileges there beyond what might have been accorded other strangers under like circumstances. (Cf. Acts 7:5). Hence Abraham died without owning a foot of the land other than the cave of Machpelah, which he purchased from Ephron the Hittite for a burying-ground (Genesis 23:3-20); and hence, also, neither he, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, ever established a permanent residence in the country. They were satisfied to live in movable tents, feeling assured that according to the promise, they were to fall heir to a better inheritance than any that is to be found on this earth.

(4) By faith he looked beyond the literal to the spiritual fulfilment of the promise. For he looked for the city which hath the foundations, etc. (Hebrews 11:9-10). From this and other like passages we are constrained to think that God had given the patriarchs information with regard to the heavenly country, far beyond what is now recorded in Genesis or any other part of the Old Testament. What we find there at present was written for our instruction, as well as for the benefit of the ancients (Romans 15:4). But much may have been said to them which would in no way benefit us; and which was, therefore, excluded from the Canon by Moses, Ezra and other inspired writers. The origin of sacrifice, for instance, is nowhere expressly mentioned in the Old Testament; nor is there anything said in it respecting the origin of the Patriarchal priesthood. Information, clear, full, and explicit, on all such matters, was of course needed by the ancients; but for us the more general instructions of the Bible are quite sufficient. And so, also, we think it was with respect to the heavenly country. The Patriarchs seem to have received revelations concerning it which have never been transmitted to us; for it is obvious that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, lived in constant expectation of entering it at the close of their earthly pilgrimage. They were satisfied to live here as strangers and pilgrims, knowing that they had in heaven a city having permanent foundations whose Architect and Framer is God. This city is manifestly the heavenly Jerusalem (Galatians 4:28, Hebrews 12:22; Hebrews 13:14), which for the present is located in heaven, but which will hereafter descend to the earth after the latter shall have been renovated by fire (Revelation 21). Then will be fulfilled in its full and proper sense the promise made to Abraham, that he and his seed should be the heirs of the world (Romans 4:13) (Milligan, ibid.).

In the land of fadeless day,

Lies -the city four-square-';

It shall never pass away,

And there is -no night there.-'

God shall -wipe away all tears,-'

There’s no death, no pain nor fears,

And they count not time by years,

For there is -no night there.-'

(5) By faith he anticipated the birth of the child of promise (Hebrews 11:11-12, Galatians 4:23, Genesis 17:15-21; Genesis 18:9-15; Genesis 21:1-7). The miraculous conception and birth of Isaac, typical in respect to its supernaturalness of that of Jesus, were direct fulfilments of the promise of Jehovah which Abraham believed. In this respect Abraham’s faith was even greater than Sarah’S, who, on being told, at ninety years of age and long after she had passed the age of child-bearing, that she should give birth to a son, received the announcement at first with considerable incredulity (Genesis 18:9-15).

(6) By faith he offered up Isaac on Mount Moriah, accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead; from whence he did also in a figure receive him back (Hebrews 11:17-19). Abraham’s faith was such that he knew that the promise of God (Genesis 17:21; Genesis 21:12) could not and would not fail, and as he could not anticipate that God would interfere, as He did, so as to prevent the immolation of his son, there was really left for him no alternative other than simply to conclude that God would restore Isaac to life. This conviction seems to be implied in the remark which he made to his servants, -Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again.-’ The word rendered come again (we will return) is in the plural number, and seems to indicate a belief on the part of Abraham, that God would immediately raise Isaac up again from the dead (Milligan, ibid.) The account of this, the severest trial and consequently the supreme manifestation of Abraham’s faith, is related in Genesis 22:1-14).

(7) Having walked in faith, he likewise died in faith, not having received the promises but having seen them and greeted them from afar, etc. What were the promises? (a) That Abraham should have a, numerous offspring (Genesis 13:16; Genesis 15:3-5; Genesis 17:2-4; Genesis 22:16); (b) that God would be a God to him and to his seed after him (Genesis 17:1-8); (c) that He would give to him and his seed an everlasting inheritance (Genesis 12:7; Genesis 13:15; Genesis 15:18-21; Genesis 17:8); (d) that through him and his seed, all the nations of the earth should be blessed (Genesis 2:3; Genesis 22:18). With respect to these four details, Abraham looked beyond their literal to their spiritual fulfilment. To each of these God attached a double significance.. They each consisted, so to speak, of two elements, one of which had reference to the carnal side of the covenant, and the other to the spiritual side; one to the type, and the other to the antitype. Thus Abraham was made the honored father of two families: to each of which an inheritance was promised, and through each of which the world was to be blessed (Milligan, ibid.). Abraham, it would seem, understood all this, understood by faith that the spiritual side of the promise would be realized through his seed, the Messiah, and consequently rejoiced to see his day, and he saw it, and was glad (John 8:56). (Cf. Galatians 4:21-31; Galatians 3:6-13, etc.) Hence, he died in faith, knowing that the promise in its various details would be worked out according to God’s eternal purpose and plan. Hence, too, by his constant life and walk of faith, he admitted that he did not seek a home on this earth, that here he considered himself merely a stranger and sojourner, that he did not expect to enter into possession of his true home until he should have reached the end of his pilgrimage and been received into a better country than this, i.e., heaven itself. Wherefore God approved and rewarded the faith of Abraham, and of Isaac and Jacob as well, by preparing for their inhabitation, and for all the redeemed of all ages, a city whose foundations had, even in their day, been laid prospectively in the blood of Jesus Christ (cf. Hebrews 12:22-24).

2. Note, in the second place, that Abraham’s pilgrimage of faith was designed to be typical of the believer’s journey.

(1) A voyage to a distant landsuch is the life of every Christian believer.

Our life is like the hurrying on the eve Before we start on some long journey bound, When fit preparing to the last we leave, Then run to every room the dwelling round, And sigh that nothing needed can be found; Yet go we must, and soon as day shall break; We snatch an hour’s repose; when loud the sound For our departure calls; we rise and take A quick and sad farewell, and go ere well awake.

(2) Here we walk by faith, and not by sight, if we are true Christians. Though in the world, we are not of the world. The worldly spirit deals with things present, but the spirit of faith anticipates the more glorious things to come. The worldly spirit is neither far-reaching nor far-sighted. Its range is bounded by the horizon of time and sense. It has no wings with which to soar into realms invisible. It is of the earth, earthly. Whence comes the manna? why gushes the water from the rock? whither guides the pillar of cloud and fire?these are questions it never asks. It knows not how to soar, how to anticipate and trust and wait, how to endure as seeing Him who is invisible, how to repose under the shadow of His wings, unmindful of the dangers of the wilderness and unalarmed by foes. But the heavenly-minded man walks by faiththat faith which is the substance of things hoped for, and a conviction with respect to things not seen. And, among all the great verities which possess his soul there is none greater, none nobler, none surer, than his conviction with respect to the saints-’ everlasting home. All the circumstances of his present journey, all the remembrances, all his reasonings, all his aspirations, point to a Better Land. By faith he sings:

There is a land of pure delight,

Where saints immortal reign,

Infinite day excludes the night,

And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides

And never-withering flowers;

Death, like a narrow sea, divides

This heavenly land from ours.

(3) We realize that as far as this present life is concerned we are but strangers and sojourners on the earth. We dwell in tents, as did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; in the tabernacles of a night-time. We are here today, and gone tomorrow. There is nothing that we possess here that we can really call our own. All that we shall have in the end is a few square feet of earth in which our mortal remains will be laid away to mingle with the dust. This is not sentimentaityit is plain fact. We can-’t take anything material with us into the next world, for the simple reason that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. No matter how diligently we may toil and strive to accumulate houses and lands and worldly goods, of what value will these things be when we reach the end of the road? We are pilgrims, nothing more, walking by faith in the direction of the heavenly country which we expect to reach beyond the swelling of the Jordan, the country that will truly be, Home, Sweet Home. The true Christian philosophy is expressed by Phoebe Carey in these lines:

One sweetly solemn thought

Comes to me o-’er and o-’er:

I am nearer my home today

Than I have ever been before.

Nearer my Father’s house

Where the many mansions be;

Nearer the great white throne,

Nearer the crystal sea.

Nearer the bound of life,

Where we lay our burdens down;

Nearer leaving the cross,

Nearer gaining the crown.

(4) Observation teaches us that much in this life is inequality and injustice. As far as this world alone is concerned, honesty is not always the best policy, Judas fares about as well as John, and Nero quaffs more of the wine of living than Paul. The voice of experience speaks to us that if this life is all, it is scarcely worth the living. In the words of Robert Browning:

Truly there needs be another life to come! If this be all And another life await us not for one, I say, -Tis a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, A wretched failure, I for one protest Against, and I hurl it back with scorn.

(5) Life as we live it here is largely illusion. (See F. W. Robertson, Sermons, The Illusiveness of Life). Our senses deceive us. They deceive us with respect to distance, shape, and color. That which, afar off, seems to be oval, turns out to be circular when modified by the perspective of distance; that which appears to be a speck, becomes a vast body, on nearer approach. Stand in the middle of a railroad track, and look in either direction, and the rails appear to converge; but they do not actually do so. Look at what we call the horizon and it seems that the earth and sky meet, but they do not actually, meet. The beautiful berry turns out to be bitter and poisonous; that which apparently moves is in reality at rest; that which seems to be stationary is in perpetual motion; the earth moves, but the sun, which appears to be moving, stands still. All experience here is but a correction of life’s illusionsa modification or reversal of the judgment of the senses. Our natural anticipations deceive us. Every human life starts out bright with hopes that will never be realized. These hopes may be different in nature: finer spirits may look on life as an arena for good deeds, while the more selfish regard it as a place only for personal enjoyment; but the results are usually the same. Regardless of the nature of these hopes, the majority will fail of fruition. It would seem almost a satire on life to compare the youth in the outset of his career, flushed and sanguine, with the aspect of the same man when he is nearly done, worn, sobered, covered with the dust of life, confessing that its days have been few and evil. Where is the land flowing with milk and honey? Not on this earth. With our affections it is even worse. Man’s affections are but tabernacles of Canaan, the tents of a nighttime, never the same, always changing. Where are the charms of character, the perfection and purity and truthfulness which seemed so resplendent in our friend? Association has rendered them sordid. They were only our conceptions and they proved false; hence we outgrow friendships. Life as we live it here is an unenjoyable Canaan with nothing real or substantial about it. Our expectations, resting on divine revelation, deceive us. For example, the attitude of the church with respect to the second coming of Christ. The apostles expected Him to return while they were yet here, and the early churches were vitalized by this hope of seeing the great and notable day of the Lord. John, in penning the last words of the New Testament, expressed this hope, Come, Lord Jesus. The church, throughout the centuries of the Christian era, has revived and revitalized this hope many times; in fact it has never died away. And even today, if it should turn out that we who are alive shall remain unto the coming of the Lord, we would consider ourselves fortunate indeed. However, He has not come. He will comebut not as yet. The promise, This Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven, remains unfulfilled. What is the meaning of all this illusiveness of earthly life? Faith replies that it is not delusion, but illusion; that the non-fulfilment of the promises literally, is a pledge of their spiritual fulfilment later; that God, by their very non-realization, lures us onward and upward to nobler things. Suppose, for instance, that the spiritual side of the Abrahamic promise had been revealed to ancient Israel at first; suppose they had been informed at the outset that God’s rest is inward, that the land of promise is to be found only in the Jerusalem which is above; not material, but immaterial; not visible, but invisible. That rude, gross people, yearning after the flesh-pots of Egypt, willing to go back into slavery so only they might have enough to eat and drinkwould they have quitted Egypt on such terms? Would they have taken one step on that pilgrimage which was to find its meaning in the discipline of the ages? Nothey had to be lured on by something visible, something tangible. So we are lured on through life as upon a journey. Could man see the route before hima flat, straight road, unbroken by tree or eminence, with the sun’s heat burning down upon it, stretching out in dreamy monotonyhe could scarcely find either the inclination or the energy with which to begin his journey. It is the very uncertainty of that which is not seen, that which lies just around the bend, that keeps expectation alive. The view we think we may get from yonder summit, the landscape that may be glimpsed as the road winds around yonder knoll, hopes like these beguile the weary traveler on. So our heavenly Father leads us on, educating us day by day, and hour by hour, to walk in faith, ever holding up the seen as an incentive to the unseen. So He deals with us, luring us on by means of life’s unsatisfactory and illusive rewards, ever schooling us in the art of waiting, of enduring as seeing Him who is invisible. Canaan first; then the hope of a Redeemer; and finally the Better Land. It was in this manner that the ancient saints interpreted this mystery of the illusiveness of life. They did not regard life as a dream, nor as a bubble, nor as a delusion. Though they no doubt felt as keenly as any moralist could feel; the brokenness of its promises, yet by faith they pressed on, confessing that they were pilgrims and strangers here, that they had no continuing city, never mournfully moralizing about it, but admitting it cheerfully and even rejoicing that it was so. They felt that all was right; they knew that the promise had a deeper than material significance; so they looked for the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. They even died in faith, not having received the promises, not expecting to receive them here, but hereafter. Now observe the glorious result that comes from the indestructible power of believing and continuing on, in spite of apparent failure. The primitive Christians, for instance, believed in their day that the millennium was at hand. They had heard the apostolic warning, brief and clear, to watch. Now suppose, instead of this, they had been able to look into the future and see all the dreary pages of church history unfolded, with its heresies, its apostasy and divisions; suppose they could have known that even after two thousand years the world would scarcely know the alphabet of the Christian religion; knowing all these things, what would have become of their gigantic and heroic efforts, their sacrifices, their persecutions and their martyrdoms? With such knowledge of the future, do you suppose there ever would have been what we consider the heroism, the sacrifice, the passionate zeal of primitive Christianity? It is in this way that God leads His children on, on to realization and achievement through the illusiveness of the past; as a father educates his child, holding up the seen, all the while nurturing the thought of the unseen. Thus we shall continue to the endto that day when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and His Christ. Thus the non-fulfilment of God’s promises becomes to the man of faith an earnest of their deeper and nobler fulfilment.

(6) Finally, as in Abraham’s case, heaven is the goal of our pilgrimage. We expect to find illusion here, and we expect to find reality hereafter. We know that things here are seen and temporal, and we know, too, that the things we shall enjoy hereafter, the things that are now unseen, will be eternal. Interpreted, then, in the light of faith, life’s illusions are not disappointing; in fact nothing is disappointment if spiritually discerned. Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called our God; for he hath prepared for us a city (Hebrews 11:16).

There’s a land that is fairer than day,

And by faith we can see it afar,

For the Father waits over the way,

To prepare us a dwelling-place there.

Just recently Dr. F. B. Meyer, one of England’s greatest preachers, entered into rest. Writing to a friend just three days before his death, this is what he said: Dear Friend: I have just been told, to my surprise, that my days on earth are numbered. It may be that before you receive this letter, I shall have passed within the Palace of the King. Do not trouble to write. I will meet you in the morning. Yours, with much love, F. B. Meyer. I will meet you in the morningwithin the palace of the King. This is Christian faith. This is conviction. Death isn-’t the end, it is the beginning, the beginning of greater growth, greater progress, greater service, and greater joy. As Louise Chandler Moulton has written:

At the end of Love, at the end of Life, At the end of Hope, at the end of Strife, At the end of all that we cling to so The sun is settingmust we go?

At dawn of Love, at Dawn of Life, At dawn of Peace that follows Strife, At dawn of all we long for so The sun is rising*let us go!

Conclusion:* Wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city. This is the promise! And God keeps His promises!

How beautiful to be with God,

When earth is fading like a dream,

And from this mist-encircled shore

To launch upon the unknown stream!

No doubt, no fear, no anxious care,

But, comforted by staff and rod,

In the faith-brightened hour of death,

How beautiful to be with God.

Beyond the partings and the pains,

Beyond the sighing and the tears,

Oh, beautiful to be with God

Through all the endless, blessed years

To see His face, to hear His voice,

To know Him better day by day,

And love Him as the flowers love light,

And serve Him as immortals may.

My sinner friend, will you not turn now, and start upon your pilgrimage of faith?

Genesis 34:1-31

**PART FORTY-THREE

THE STORY OF JACOB: INCIDENTS IN CANAAN**

(Genesis 34:1 to Genesis 35:28)

*The Biblical Account 1 And Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she bare unto Jacob went out to see the daughters of the land. 2 And Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her; and he took her, and lay with her, and humbled her. 3 And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel. 4 And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife, 5 Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter; and his sons were with his cattle in the field: and Jacob held his peace until they came. 6 And Hamor the father of Shechem went out unto Jacob to commune with him. 7 And the sons of Jacob came in from the fields when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob’s daughter; which thing ought not to be done. 8 And Hamor communed with them, saying, The soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter: I pray you, give her unto him to wife. 9 And make ye marriages with us; give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you. 10 And ye shall dwell with us: and the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein. 11 And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, Let me find favor in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give. 12 Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife. 13 And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father with guilt, and spake, because he had defiled Dinah their sister, 14 and said unto them, We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised; for that were a reproach unto us. 15 Only on this condition will we consent unto you: if ye will be as we are, that every male of you be circumcised; 16 then will we give our daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people. 17 But if ye will not hearken unto us, to be circumcised; then will we take, our daughter, and we will be gone.

18 And their words pleased Hamor, and Shechem Hamor’s son. 19 And the young man deferred not to do the thing, because he had delight in Jacob’s daughter: and he was honored above all the house of his father. 20 And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the gate of their city, and communed with the men of their city, saying, 21 These men are peaceable with us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade therein; for, behold, the land is large enough for them; let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters. 22 Only on this condition will the men consent unto us to dwell with us, to become one people, if every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised. 23 Shall not their cattle and their substance and all their beasts be ours? Only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us. 24 And unto Hamor and unto Shechem his son hearkened all that went out of the gate of his city; and every male was circumcised, all that went out of the gate of his city. 25 And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city unawares, and slew all the males. 26 And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house, and went forth. 27 The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister. 28 They took their flocks and their herds and their asses, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field; 29 and all their wealth, and all their little ones and their wives, took they captive and made a prey, even all that was in the house. 30 And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me, to make me odious to the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and, I being few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and smite me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house. 31 And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with a harlot?

35. 1 And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, who appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. 2 Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments: 3 and let us arise, and go up to Beth-el; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. 4 And they gave unto Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hand, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. 5 And they journeyed: and a terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. 6 So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan (the same is Beth-el), he and all the people that were with him. 7 And he built there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el; because there God was revealed unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother. 8 And Deborah Rebekah’s nurse died, and she was buried below Beth-el under the oak: and the name of it was called Allon-bacuth.

9 And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. 10 And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel. 11 And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; 12 and the land which I gave unto Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land. 13 And God went up from him in the place where he spake with him. 14 And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he spake with him, a pillar of stone: and he poured out a drink-offering thereon, and poured oil thereon. 15 And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him, Beth-el.

16 And they journeyed from Beth-el; and there was still some distance to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labor. 17 And it came to pass, when she was in hard labor, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; for now thou shalt have another son. 18 And it came to pass, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin. 19 And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath (the same is Beth-lehem). 20 And Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave: the same is the Pillar of Rachel’s grave unto this day. 21 And Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond the tower of Eder. 22 And it came to pass, while Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine: and Israel heard of it.

Now the sons of Jacob were twelve:* 23 *the sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob’s first-born, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun; 24 the sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin; 25 and the sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid: Dan and Naphtali; 26 and the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s handmaid: Gad and Asher; these are the sons of Jacob, that were born to him in Paddan-aram. 27 And Jacob came unto Isaac his father to Mamre, to Kiriath-arba (the same is Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac sojourned.

28 And the days of Isaac were a hundred and fourscore years. 29 And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, old and full of days: and Esau and Jacob his sons buried him. Jacob at Succoth and Shechem: the Narrative Summarized.*

Esau, as we have already noted, returned to Seir and Jacob journeyed on slowly to Succoth (Genesis 33:18-20). At Succoth, Jacob seems to have dwelt for some time; he then moved on to Shechem, at last in the land of Canaan. (Shalem, in the A.V., meaning peaceful, secure, named as a place near Jacob’s well; it could be that Shalem is not a proper name. The A.R.V. renders it Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem. The R.S.V. gives it: Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem. Cf. John 4:5-6: Sychar used to be identified with Shechem. It is now thought to have been about half a mile north of Jacob’s well, and a short distance southeast of Shechem). Near Shechem Jacob bought a field of Hamor, the prince of the region, and pitched his tent there and erected an altar. Here Dinah, his daughter by Leah, having mingled with the daughters of the land, was carried off by Shechem, the son of Hamor. The young man wished to atone for his unseemly conduct by marriage, and both he and his father endeavored to propitiate Jacob and his sons. The brethren of Dinah, with guile, agreed to the alliance, but demanded the circumcision of the Shechemites; and on the third day after the ceremony Simeon and Levi fell upon the city, slew all the males, including Hamor and Shechem, took Dinah from the house of the young prince, and carried off the women, children, cattle and all material possessions of the Shechemites. Jacob rebuked his children for this cruel and treacherous act, and remembered it in his death-bed predictions regarding Simeon and Levi (Genesis 33:18-20; ch. 34; also Genesis 49:5-7).

1. The Rape of Dinah, Genesis 34:1-31

The immediate objective of Jacob on his return from Paddan-aram was Shechem in the hills of Palestine, just as it had been that of his grandfather Abraham (Genesis 12:6). He encamped east of the city and bought a parcel of ground from the sons of Hamor (Benei-Hamor) evidently the tribe that had established itself there. Their tribal deity seems to have been Baal-berith; this is how they are known to us in the story of the conquest of central Palestine under Joshua (cf. Joshua 8:33). (Cf. Judges 9:46: it seems that for the Israelites later, on drifting into idolatryin this case as generallymeant drifting into the usual mode of cultural absorption whereby they acquired the name El-berith, El having been to the Hebrews the short form of Elohim, God.) Jacob’s purchase of a field is in a certain sense parallel to Abraham’s purchase of the field and cave at Mamre (cf. Genesis 23:18 and Genesis 33:19).

The outstanding eventand the most interesting, from various points of viewof the prolonged sojourn of Jacob and his household (clan) in Shechem is the dramatic episode about the treachery of Simeon and Levi, and its backdrop, so to speak, in the rape of Dinah by the prince of Shechem. Speiser comments pointedly on these incidents as follows: The narrative is unusual on more counts than one. For one thing, it is the only account to concern itself with Jacob’s daughter Dinah, who is otherwise relegated to two statistical entries (Genesis 30:21, Genesis 46:15). For another, Jacob himself has a minor part, while the spotlight rests on the next generation. For still another, there is a pronounced chronological gap between this section and the one before. There, Jacob’s children were still of tender age (Genesis 33:13); here, they have attained adulthood. Most important of all, the history of Jacob has hitherto been in the main a story of individuals. This time, to be sure, personalities are still very much at the forefront of the stage; but their experiences serve to recapitulate an all but lost page dealing with remote ethnic interrelations. The account, in other words, presents personalized history, that is, history novelistically interpreted. And since we have so little evidence about the early settlement of Israelites in Canaan, the slender thread that we find here assumes that much more importance. By the same token, extra caution is needed to protect the sparse data from undue abuse (ABG, 266). Again: The story before us is a tale of sharp contrasts: pastoral simplicity and grim violence, love and revenge, candor and duplicity. There is also a marked difference between the generations. Hamor and Jacob are peace-loving and conciliatory; their sons are impetuous and heedless of the consequences that their acts must entail. The lovesick Shechem prevails on his father to extend to the Israelites the freedom of the landwith the requisite consent of his followers. But Dinah’s brothers refuse to be that far-sighted. After tricking the Shechemites into circumcising their males, and thus stripping the place of its potential defenders, they put the inhabitants to the sword. Jacob is mournful and apprehensive. But his sons remain defiant and oblivious of the future (ibid., 268).

This may well be described as the story of a generation gap of the long, long ago.

Note that Dinah is specifically mentioned as the daughter of Leah. -Like mother, like daughter.-’ Of Leah it is said, And Leah went out to meet him (Genesis 30:16), and now her daughter went out. She is described as Leah’s daughter in order to draw attention to the fact that she was the full sister of Simeon and Levi who avenged her (Genesis 34:25)and whom she had borne unto Jacob is added to indicate that all the brothers were jealous for her honor (SC, 205). Dinah, we are told, went out to see the daughters of the land, that is, she evidently went into the city (Jacob had pitched his tent outside it). And Prince Shechem saw her, and, like the pagan he was, took her and humbled her. The verb always implies the use of force. Although Shechem was a prince of the land, she evidently did not submit of her own free will (SC, 205). Though freed from foreign troubles Jacob met with a great domestic calamity in the fall of his only recorded daughter. According to Josephus she had been attending a festival; but it is highly probable that she had been often and freely mixing in the society of the place, and that being a simple, inexperienced, and vain young woman, had been flattered by the attentions of the ruler’s son. There must have been time and opportunities of acquaintance to produce the strong attachment that Shechem had for her (Jamiespn, CECG, 219). It is useless to speculate as to whether she was prompted by mere idle curiosity, in this instance, or whether she went without consulting her parents, or whether she even went forth contrary to their wishes. We have no means of knowing to what extent she was at fault, if at all. In any case, it seems she should have known that Egyptians and Canaanites (Genesis 12:15, Genesis 20:2, Genesis 26:7) regarded unmarried women abroad in the land as legitimate prey and should not have gone unattended. Shechem happens to find her. The fact that he is the son of Hamor, a Hivite, prince, seems to make him feel that he especially has privileges in reference to unattended girls. We are not told whether she was pleased with and encouraged his first approaches. At least the young prince was bent upon seduction. This his object was accomplished, whether she resisted or not. If Genesis 48:22 informs us that the inhabitants of Shechem were Amorites, the apparent contradiction seems to be solved by the fact that the general name for the Canaanite tribes was Amorites (Leupold, EG, 897). (Surely our present-day knowledge of the gross immoralities which characterized the Cult of Fertility so widespread throughout the ancient pagan world (cf. Romans 1:18-32) would cause us to think that Shechem would have had no scruples against seizing and violating the young maiden the first time he ever saw her. We see no point in sugar-coating this plain case of rape, or the acts of presumption, treachery and violence which ensued as consequences of it. The Bible, it must be remembered is a very realistic book: it pictures life just as people lived it.) It should be said, however, in favor of the young prince, that he really loved the maiden: his soul clave unto her (Genesis 34:3). Of course Dinah would have been only one among the many others of his harem, if the marriage had been formalized. It was in some degree an extenuation of the wickedness of Shechem that he did not cast off the victim of his violence and lust, but continued to regard her with affection. addressed to her such words as were agreeable to her inclinations (Genesis 34:3, spake to the heart of the damsel) probably expressing his affection, and offering the reparation of honorable marriage, as may be legitimately inferred from what is next recorded of his behavior (PCG, 405).

How old was Dinah when this incident occurred? We suggest the following explanation of the chronological problem here: Dinah was born about the end of the fourteenth year of Jacob’s residence in Haran. She was thus about six years old at the settlement at Succoth. The sojourn at Succoth appears to have lasted for about two years. Jacob must have spent already several years at Shechem, since there are prominent and definite signs of a more confidential intercourse with the Shechemites. We may infer, therefore, that Dinah was now from twelve to sixteen years of age. Joseph was seventeen years old when he was sold by his brethren (Genesis 37:2), and at that time Jacob had returned to Hebron. There must have passed, therefore, about eleven years since the return from Haran, at which time Joseph was six years of age. If now we regard the residence of Jacob at Bethel and the region of Ephrata as of brief duration, and bear in mind that the residence at Shechem ceased with the rape of Dinah, it follows that Dinah must have been about fourteen or fifteen years of age when she was deflowered. In the East, too, females reach the age of puberty at twelve, and sometimes still earlier (Delitzsch). From the same circumstances it is clear that Simeon and Levi must have been about twenty (Lange). Again: If Dinah was born before Joseph (Genesis 30:21) she was probably in her seventh year when Jacob reached Succoth (Genesis 33:17); but it does not follow that she was only six or seven years of age when the incident about to be described occurred (Tuch, Bohlen). If Jacob stayed two years at Succoth and eight in Shechem (Petavius), and if, as is probable, his residence in Shechem terminated with his daughter’s dishonor (Lange), and if, moreover, Joseph’s sale into Egypt happened soon after (Hengstenberg), Dinah may at this time have been in her sixteenth or seventeenth year (Kurtz). Yet there is no reason why she should not have been younger, say between thirteen and fifteen (Keil, Lange, Kalisch, Murhpy, et alii), since in the East females attain to puberty at the age of twelve, and sometimes earlier (Delitzsch) (PCG, 404). With reference to the statement in Genesis 34:1, Whitelaw comments: it is not implied that this was the first occasion on which Dinah left her mother’s tent to mingle with the city maidens in Shechem: the expression is equivalent to -once upon a time she went out-’ (Hengstenberg)to see the daughters of the landwho were gathered at a festive entertainment (Josephus, Ant., I, 21, 1), a not improbable supposition (Kurtz), though the language rather indicates the paying of a friendly visit (Lange), or the habitual practice of associating with the Shechemite, women (Bush), in their social entertainment, if not in their religious festivals (PCG, 404).

Genesis 34:2-4. Shechem was captivated by Dinah, the daughter of Jacob; he fell in love with the young girl and comforted her. Accordingly Shechem said to his father Hamor, -Get me this young girl, I want to marry her-’ (JB rendering). (Cf. Samson’s request, Judges 14:2). Genesis 34:5-7 :Jacob somehow heard of the incident, but took no steps to redress the wrong until Dinah’s brothersJacob’s sons by Leah and probably by Zilpahcame in from the fields. It is interesting to note that the brothers of the daughter had a voice in all important concerns relating to her (cf. Genesis 24:50 ff.). In the meantime Hamor, Shechem’s father, consulted with Jacob about the incident. When the sons came in from the field, and were told what had occurred, they were very wroth because Shechem had wrought folly in Israel by his act. which thing ought not to be done, etc. This idea of folly in Israel seems to have been that of Jacob’s sons, though the manner of expressing it seems to have been that of the historian, as usual in his time: folly or wickedness in Israel, where God ought to be reverenced and obeyed. As we know that the Canaanites were steeped in immorality: ought not, etc. refers to Israel: it was repulsive to the house of Israel. (It is a matter of note that this is the first use of the new name in the Old Testament). Folly: this is a standing expression for crimes which are irreconcilable with the dignity and destiny of Israel as the people of God, but especially for gross sins of the flesh (Deuteronomy 22:21, Judges 20:10, 2 Samuel 13:12), but also for other great crimes (Joshua 7:15).The sons of Jacob were enraged; they burned with anger; it was kindled to them (Gosman, in Lange, 560). In this case the dishonor was a double impurity, because it was an uncircumcised person who had dishonored the maiden. Moreover, Shechem’s special wickedness consisted in dishonoring a daughter of one who was the head of the theocratic line, and therefore under peculiar obligations to live a holy life.

Genesis 34:8-12: Hamor, the king, now offers Jacob and his sons the full rights of citizens in his little country. The son offers to fuflil any demand of the brothers as to the bridal price and bridal gifts. The king offers them the privilege of unrestricted movement throughout his domain, with the right of establishing settlements, carrying on trade, and acquiring property. (Perhaps it should be stated here, parenthetically, that we do not know what happened to Dinah after this incident. Dinah was in Shechem’s house all this time, and although he believed that he could have her by force, being the son of the prince of the land, he spoke thus because he wanted to win her by consent. Scripture does not record what happened to her afterwards; she probably remained -a living widow,-’ i.e., unmarried, descended to Egypt with the rest of the family, died there, and her body was brought back by Simeon and buried in Canaan. According to tradition, her tomb is in Arbeel. Sforno suggests that he [Shechem] offered the large dowry and gift as an atonement (SC, 206). Hamor seems to have taken a rather broad view of the matter: in addition to offering to arrange this particular marriage, he proposes an amalgamation of the two ethnic peoples, thinking, apparently, that the advantage to Jacob would be adequate compensation for the offense. His son’s offer, obviously, related only to his own private affair with respect to Dinah. (The Hebrew law of compensation for seduction is given in Exodus 22:15 ff.. the price paid to the parents (Exodus 22:16-17, 1 Samuel 18:25). and the gift to the bride, are virtually distinguished in Genesis 24:53).

The story of the fanatical revenge of the sons of Jacob follows, Genesis 34:14-31. The sons of Jacob answered the king and his son with guile, i.e., with duplicity. As noted above, they were consumed with rage: it burned them greatly (cf. Genesis 31:36, 1 Samuel 15:11, 2 Samuel 19:43). Michaelis mentions an opinion still entertained in the East which explains the excessive indignation kindled in the breasts of Dinah’s brothers, viz., that -in those countries it is thought that a brother is more dishonored by the seduction of his sister than a man by the infidelity of his wife; for, say the Arabs, a man may divorce his wife, and then she is no longer his, while a sister and daughter remain always sister and daughter-’ (PCG, 405). Some writers express the opinion that the refusal lay basically in the proposal itself, that is, if they had not refused they would have denied the historical and saving vocation of Israel and his seed. The father, Israel, appears, however, to have been of a different opinion. For he doubtless knew the proposal of his sons in reply. He does not condemn their proposition, however, but the fanatical way in which they availed themselves of its consequences. Dinah could not come into her proper relations again but by Shechem’s passing over to Judaism. This way of passing over to Israel was always allowable, and those who took the steps were welcomed. We must therefore reject only: (1) The extension of the proposal, according to which the Israelites were to blend themselves with the Shechemites; (2) the motives, which were external advantages. It was, on the contrary, a harsh and unsparing course in reference to Dinah, when Leah’s two sons wished her back again; or, indeed, would even gratify their revenge and Israelitish pride. But their resort to subtle and fanatical conduct merits only a hearty condemnation (Lange, 561). (Note that Jacob had scarcely become Israel when the arts and cunning of Jacob appear in his sons, and, indeed, in a worse form, since they glory in being Israel (ibid., 560).

Note that the duplicity of Leah’s sons consisted in their utter hypocrisy and accompanying trifling with a divine institution (just as people in our day, and thousands of professings church-members trifle with the institution of Christian baptism. This writer has had parents request of him what they called infant baptism solely for the purpose of acquiring a legitimate birth certificate for the child: a modernized hypocritical form of union of church and state.) These brothers answered deceitfully. The honor of their family consisted in having the sign of the covenant. Circumcision was the external rite by which persons were admitted members of the ancient Church (rather, theocracy or commonwealth: the church is first, last, and always the ecclesia of Christianity and was never a part of the Jewish system). But although that outward rite could not make the Shechemites true Israelites, yet it does not appear that Jacob’s sons required anything more. Nothing is said of their teaching them to worship the true God, but only of their insisting on the Shechemites being circumcised; and it is evident that they did not seek to convert Shechem, but only made a show of religiona cloak to cover their diabolical design. Hypocrisy and deceit, in all cases vicious, are infinitely more so when accompanied with a show of religion; and here the sons of Jacob, under the pretense of conscientious scruples, conceal a scheme of treachery as cruel and diabolical as was perhaps ever perpetrated (Jamieson, 221). The demand was made that they [Shechemite males] should circumcise themselves in the belief that they or their townspeople would not consent (Sforno). Although Shechem and Hamor spoke to Jacob and his sons, only the latter answered, Jacob remaining silent because the incident was so disgraceful that he could not speak about it. Jacob and all his sons assented to this guile, either for the reason given by Sforno, or because they thought to take advantage of the resulting weakness to get Dinah out of Shechem’s house. But only Simeon and Levi contemplated the revenge which was subsequently taken (Nachmanides) (SC, 206). (It seems to me, however, that any person with moral standards of consequence could not possibly excuse Jacob’s silence on so flimsy a ground. The fact appears to be that Israel had drifted back into the role of Jacob, despite what may be suggested as a reasonin reality, a pretextfor his failure to act, if for no other purpose than to protect the moral and spiritual image implicit in his theocratic pre-eminence.) The ground on which they declined a matrimonial alliance with Shechem was good; their sin lay in advancing this simply as a pretext to enable them to wreak their unholy vengeance on Shechem and his innocent people. The treacherous character of their next proposal [Genesis 34:15-16] is difficult to be reconciled with any claim to humanity, far less to religion, on the part of Jacob’s sons; so much so, that Jacob on his death-bed can offer no palliation for the atrocious cruelty to which it led (Genesis 49:6-7).. This proposal was sinful, since (1) they had no right to offer the sign of God’s covenant to a heathen people; (2) they had less right to employ it in ratification of a merely human agreement; and (3) they had least right of all to employ it in duplicity as a mask for their treachery (PCG, 406).

Parenthetically, the question of the extent and design of the practice of circumcision obtrudes itself at this point. It will be noted that when the proposal made by the sons ofLeah was presented to the males of Shechem, the primary argument for its acceptance was the material advantage which such an alliance would inevitably secure for them. The appeal of the rulers was in the strongest manner to the self-interest of the Shechemites: Jacob’s house was wealthy, and the Shechemites therefore could only gain by the connection: as stated above, a complete amalgamation ofthe two groups. Hamor naturally says nothing of the personal matter, but dwells on the advantages the clan will derive from union with the Israelites. The men are already on friendly terms with them; the land is spacious enough; and by adopting circumcision they will obtain a great accession to their wealth (Skinner, 420), The ready acquiescence of the Shechemites has with some measure of validity been regarded by some authorities as a proof that they were already acquainted with circumcision as a social, if not religious rite. Knobel notes it as remarkable that the Hivites were not circumcised, since, according to Herodotus, the rite was observed among the Phoenicians, and probably also the Canaanites, who were of the same extraction, and thinks that either the rite was not universally observed in any of these ancient nations where it was known, or that the Hivites were originally a different race from the Canaanites, and had not conformed to the customs of the land (Lange). Murphy thinks the present instance may point out one way in which the custom spread from tribe to tribe (PCG, 408). As a matter of fact According to Herodotus, circumcision was practised by the Phoenicians, and probably also among the Canaanites, who were of the same race and are never referred to in the Old Testament as uncircumcised, as, e.g., it speaks of the unCanaanitish Philistines (Lange, 561); cf. uncircumcised Philistines, 1 Samuel 14:6; 1 Samuel 17:26; 1 Samuel 17:36; 1 Samuel 31:4; 2 Samuel 1:20; 1 Chronicles 10:4, etc. Some authorities think that the spread of circumcision was the consequence of the growing awareness of its value as a sanitary measure. That it did exist among the Egyptians, Canaanites, and Hebrews is well established; but not, so far as the records go, among the Greeks, Romans, and Hindoos. At the present time, we are told, it is to be found among all Moslems and most Jewish communities, throughout Africa, Australia, Polynesia, and Melanesia, and, it is said, in Eastern Mexico. It is hardly possible to say what its original distribution was, and whether or not there was a single center of distribution. As to its origin many theories have been advanced. Its character as initiatory is not an explanationall customs of initiation need to have their origins explained.. It may be said at the outset that it must have sprung from simple physical need, not from advanced scientific or religious conceptions (Toy, IHR, 69). The simple fact is that for the Hebrews it was specifically appointed a Divine institution, a fleshly sign, to separate God’s people of olden times from the pagan world and at the same time to serve as a symbol of religious faith and moral purity. Circumcision was a divinely appointed sign of the old covenant, much in the same manner, it would seem that the rainbow was appointed a sign of God’s promise (covenant) to Noah and all mankind that He would never bring a universal judgment on the human race in the form of a Deluge, and as the bread and fruit of the vine of the Lord’s Supper were appointed memorials of the death of Christ for our sins (Genesis 8:20-22; Matthew 26:26-29; 1 Corinthians 11:23-28; 1 Corinthians 15:13, etc.). Surely it is not to be understood that these things came into existence just at the respective times they were appointed signs, memorials, etc. It would be unreasonable to assume that they had not existed from the beginning, that is, from the foundation of the world (Matthew 13:15; Matthew 25:34; Luke 11:50, John 17:24, Ephesians 1:4, 1 Peter 1:20; Revelation 13:8; Revelation 17:8; Hebrews 4:3, etc.). With respect to the symbolical significance of circumcision it is said to have originated in phallus worship, but if so this would have no bearing on the Israelite view of the rite. It was practised, say some, because of its medical advantages, as the warding off of disease through ease in cleanliness, or that it served to increase the generative powers, but these can hardly be received as proper explanations, for whole nations not practicing circumcision appear as healthy and fruitful. Nor can the rite be brought into connection with the idea of sacrifice, -the consecration of a part of the body for the whole,-’ or even -as an act of emasculation in honor of the Deity, that has gradually dwindled down to the mere cutting away of the foreskin.-’ We must rather look for the significance of this rite in the fact that the corruption of sin usually manifests itself with peculiar energy in the sexual life, and that the sanctification of the life was symbolized by the purifying of the organ by which life is reproduced. But, as spiritual purity was demanded of the chosen people of God, circumcision became the external token of the covenant between God and His people. It secured to the one subjected to it all the rights of the covenant, participation in all its material and spiritual benefits; while, on the other hand, he was bound to fulfill all the covenant obligations. It had not, however, a sacramental nature; it was not a vehicle through which to convey the sanctifying influences of God to His people, but was simply a token of the recognition of the covenant relation existing between Israel and God (UBD, s.v., 206). (We must call attention to the fact, however, that the word sacrament derives from the Latin sacramentum, which was the name of the oath of obedience taken by the Roman soldier to his centurion. In this sense, circumcision was indeed a sacrament, the oath of fidelity to the provisions of the Old Covenant by the Covenant-people. We reject the theological corruption of the term in using it to designate some mystical [esoteric] impartation [usually explained as a means of grace] from God to His New-Covenant people.) Circumcision was formally enacted as a legal institution by Moses (Leviticus 12:3, John 7:22-23), and was made to apply, not only to the Jewish father’s own children, but to slaves, home-born or purchased; to foreigners before they could partake of the Passover or become Jewish citizens (Cf. Genesis 17:13he that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with money of any foreigner not of thy seed, etc.). In its specific meaning for the Children of Israel circumcision was a seal, a seal in the flesh, as the Old Covenant was a fleshly Covenant, and hence indicative of the relationship designed to obtain between God and His Old-Covenant people, proffered by grace and accepted by the obedience of faith, See my Genesis, Vol. III, 250-264, 272-282).

During the wilderness journey circumcision fell into disuse. This neglect is most satisfactorily explained as follows: The nation, while bearing the punishment of disobedience in its wanderings, was regarded as under temporary rejection by God, and was therefore prohibited from using the sign of the covenant. As the Lord had only promised his assistance on condition that the law given by Moses was faithfully observed, it became the duty of Joshua, upon entering Canaan, to perform the rite of circumcision upon the generation that had been born in the wilderness. This was done, immediately upon crossing the Jordan, at or near Gilgal (Joshua 5:2-9). From this time circumcision became the pride of Israel, they looking with contempt upon all those people not observing it (Judges 14:3; Judges 15:18; 1 Samuel 14:6, Isaiah 52:1, etc.). It became a rite so distinctive of them that their oppressors tried to prevent their observing it, an attempt to which they refused submission (1Ma. 1:48; 1Ma. 1:50; 1Ma. 1:60; 1Ma. 1:62). The process of restoring a circumcised person to his natural condition by a surgical operation was sometimes undergone from a desire to assimilate themselves to the heathen around them, or that they might not be known as Jews when they appeared naked in the games. Against having recourse to this practice, from an excessive anti-Judaistic tendency, St. Paul cautions the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 7:18-19). Circumcision was used as a symbol of purity of heart, in certain instances (Deuteronomy 10:16; Deuteronomy 30:6; cf. Leviticus 26:41; Jeremiah 4:4; Jeremiah 9:25; Ezekiel 44:7). Exodus 6:12Who am of uncircumcised lips: By this figure Moses would seem to imply that he was unskilled in public address, as the Jews were wont to consider circumcision a perfecting of one’s powers. Circumcision is also figurative of a readiness to hear and obey (Jeremiah 6:10) (UBG, 207). (For Christian [spiritual] circumcision, see my Genesis, Vol. III, 282-290).

Skinner holds that the requirement of circumcision imposed by the sons of Jacob upon the Shechemites was merely a pretext to render them incapable of self-defense (ICCG, 419). Certainly the Scripture account of the transaction contains no hint of anything that would refute this view; if it be true, it renders their duplicity even more perfidious. And even though the rulers of Shechem and their people agreed to the proposaleven though for reasons of expediency (for them no question of morality was involved)Jacob’s sons-’ must have rejoiced within themselves that those against whom they sought revenge were so open-minded as to accept a proposal that would render them so completely helpless against the execution of this vengeance. And so we read, that on the third day when they (the Shechemites) were sore (when the inflammation is said, in the case of adults, to be at its height), two of the sons of Jacob, namely, Simeon and Levi took the lead in attacking the unsuspecting city with the sword, killing the males therein, and carrying off the women and children and all material goods as spoils. In this ferocious act of revenge they slew both Hamor and Shechem with the edge of the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house (Genesis 34:25-26).

Jacob’s displeasure (Genesis 34:30-31) seems to have been occasioned by the principle of expediency rather than by considerations of morality or righteousness. The massacre displeased Jacob, the more so since he had few supporters and he was a -sojourner-’ who could ill afford enemies (AtD, 92). Jacob rebukes Simeon and Levi, not for their treachery and cruelty, but for their recklessness in exposing the whole tribe to the vengeance of the Canaanites (ICCG, 421). Lange is inclined to be a bit more lenient: Jacob felt that, as the Israel of God, he was made offensive even to the moral sense of the surrounding heathen, through the pretended holy deed of his sons; so far so that they had endangered the very foundation of the theocracy, the kingdom of God, the old-covenant church. Fanaticism always produces the same results; either to discredit Christianity in the moral estimate of the world, and imperil its very existence by its unreasonable zeal, or to expose it to the most severe persecutions (CDHCG, 564). Whitelaw summarizes as follows: That Jacob should have spoken to his sons only of his own danger, and not of their guilt, has been ascribed to his belief that this was the only motive which their carnal minds could understand (Keil, Gerlach); to a remembrance of his own deceitfulness, which disqualified him in a measure from being the censor of his sons (Kalisch, Wordsworth); to the lowered moral and spiritual tone of his own mind (Candlish); to the circumstance that, having indulged his children in their youth, he was now afraid to reprove them (Inglis). That Jacob afterwards attained to a proper estimate of their bloody deed his last prophetic utterance reveals (Genesis 49:5-7). By some it is supposed that he even now felt the crime in all its heinousness (Kalisch), though his reproach was somewhat leniently expressed in the word -trouble-’ (Lange); while others, believing Jacob’s abhorrence of his sons-’ fanatical cruelty to have been deep and real, account for its omission by the historian on the ground that he aimed merely at showing -the protection of God (Genesis 35:5), through which Jacob escaped the evil consequences of their conduct-’ (Hengstenberg) (PCG, 408). Note the sons-’ attempted justification: Should he [Shechem]* deal with our sister as with a harlot?* That is, She is not a harlot and her wrong must be avenged; so we as her brothers had to do it (SC, 209). But Shechem offered Dinah honorable marriage!

Note Genesis 34:27-29In the sons of Jacob here surely all the sons of Jacob are included. It is inconceivable that only two of them could have massacred all the males of the city. They must have had the help of other males (servants, herdsmen) in Jacob’s entourage. Simeon and Levi, however, were the ringleaders. But the other males were surely involved: the prospect of loot becomes to many the primary, rather than the secondary motivation when a mob forms. They who seemed to have scruples or fears about taking part in the slaughter have no compunctions of conscience about taking a hand in the plundering of the city. This act of theirs again does them little credit. The thing that ranked in the bosom of all was that this was -the city that had defiled their sister.-’ They are, indeed, largely correct in imputing to the city a share in the wrong done; for the city condoned the wrong and had not the slightest intentions of taking steps to right it. But only the most excessive cruelty can demand such a wholesale retribution for a personal wrong.. Then to show how thoroughly Jacob’s sons were in the heat of their vengeance the author reports that also -all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives-’ were captured, the latter, no doubt, being kept as slaves. Then to produce the impression that the sacking of the city was done with utmost thoroughness the writer adds: -and they plundered even everything that was in the houses.-’ By translating thus we remove the necessity of textual changes which the critics regard as necessary (EG, 909). (But can we truly say that the Shechemites did nothing to right the wrong done Dinah? Only if we assume, of course, that their proposal for amalgamation was motivated solely by expediency without any awareness of the moral law which had been violated. But again did they have any notion of moral law whatsoever? Of course, we have no way of obtaining conclusive answers to these questions.) Again: It is almost unbelievable that Jacob should be reproached by commentators at this point for what he is supposed to have failed to say, namely, for not rebuking Simeon and Levi for -their treachery and cruelty.-’ Yet such a man as Jacob could not have failed to be in perfect accord with us in our estimate of this bloody deed of his sons, for Jacob was truly a spiritual man, especially in these later years. Nor was the moral issue involved in the least difficult to discern, The chief reason for the writer’s not mentioning Jacob’s judgment on the moral issue is that this issue is too obvious. Furthermore, that judgment is really included in the statement, -Ye have brought trouble upon me.-’ Then, lastly, the author is leading up to another matter that specially calls for discussion. Since, namely, the entire Pentateuch aims to set forth how God’s gracious care led to the undeserving people of His choice from grace to grace, the author is preparing to show another instance of such doing and prepares for it by mentioning how greatly Jacob was troubled by this deed. For akhar, which means -disturb,-’ -destroy,-’ here means -bring into trouble.-’ In what sense he means this in particular is at once explained, -by causing me to become odious (literally, to stink) to the inhabitants of the land.-’ That surely implies that the deed done was both obnoxious and dangerous. In comparison with the inhabitants of the land Jacob had -but a small following,-’ or, says the Hebrew, -Men of numbers,-’ i.e., men easily numbered. Had not God intervened, the outcome would inevitably have been as Jacob describes it: they would have gathered together and destroyed him and his family. Though without a doubt the deed of Jacob’s sons gave evidence of great courage, it certainly also entailed even greater rashness. The thoughtlessness of young men who rush headlong into ill-considered projects was abundantly displayed by this massacre.. We are greatly amazed in reflecting upon the event as a whole that descendants of the worthy patriarch Abraham should almost immediately after his time already have sunk to the level upon which Jacob’s sons stand in this chapter. A partial explanation is to be sought in the crafty cunning of their father which in the sons degenerated to the extremes here witnessed. A further bit of explanation is to be sought in their environment; hardly anywhere except in their own home did they see any manifestation of godly life. Then, in the third place, we must attribute a good measure of the guilt of any improper bringing up of these young men to the irregularities of a home where bigamy ruled. All true spirit of discipline was cancelled by the presence of two wives and two handmaidens in the homepractically four wives. Lastly, the chapter as a whole furnishes, a clear example as to how much the critics are divided against themselves in spite of their strong protestations of unanimity (EG, 909-912).

Some additional pertinent comments concerning the tragedy of Shechem are in order at this point. For instance, the following: Shechem was inhabited at the time by Hurrian elements; the text (Genesis 34:2) calls Hamor a Hivite, but the LXX identifies him as a Horite. The latter identification is supported by two independent details: (1) The Shechemites are as yet uncircumcised, a circumstance that supplies the key feature of the story; the contrary was presumably true of Semitic Canaanites. (2) Cuneiform records from the region of Central Palestine have shown that Hurrians were prominent there during the Amarna age (ca. 1400 B.C.); they must have arrived prior to that date. There is, furthermore, the fact. that Simeon and Levi are depicted here as headstrong, and vengeful. In later sources, Simeon was a rudimentary tribe settled in the south of Judea, a long way from Shechem; and Levi has no territorial holdings whatsoever. Evidently, therefore, a pair of once vigorous tribes had suffered critical losses in their attempt to settle in Central Palestine, losses which they were never able to recoup. Standard tradition retained no memory of that remote event, except for the faint echo in the Testament of Jacob (ch. 49), where the blame is laid, significantly enough, on the two brother tribes themselves. The period in question should thus be dated before the Exodus, and very likely prior to Amarna times (Speiser, ABG, 267). (It should be recalled that there were four other sons of Jacob by Leah, in addition to Simeon and Levi: namely, Reuben, the eldest; then respectively Simeon and Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun, There were also two (adopted) sons of Leah, by her handmaid, Zilpah, namely, Gad and Asher. Of all these Simeon and Levi undoubtedly took the lead in pressing and executing vengeance on Shechem). (It is interesting to note that among the Amarna clay tablets in Accadian cuneiform, discovered by a peasant woman in 1886 at Tell el Amarna (mound of the city of the Horizon) about 200 miles south of present-day Cairo, there is mention of events leading to the surrender of Shechem to the Habiru. Apparently, roving bands of these Habiru (Hebrews?) infested the country and menaced the settled communities, adding to the general insecurity during the period when Egyptian hegemony in Palestine was on the wane. These tablets were found to contain correspondence of petty Canaanite princelings with their Egyptian overlords. They date back to about 1400 B.C. (See Chronology, xx., supra). The Habiru appear prominently in the letters of Abdi-Hiba, governor of Jerusalem (Urusalim) to the Pharaoh Akhnaton asking for Egyptian troops to hold off these invaders, who could easily have been the Israelite tribes invading Canaan under Joshua. Among these hundreds of clay tablets there is a letter written by Lab-‘ayu, ruler of Shechem, to the Egyptian king vehemently protesting his loyalty). The indications in the Bible may imply that the patriarchs were not ordinary nomads, whom an older school of Orientalists liked to compare with the present-day Arab nomads. Even though the latter live exotically in tents and move about, they are quite unsophisticated and detached from the current history of their time. They stand in sharp contrast to the Hebrew patriarchs, who had dealings with Amorites, Canaanites, Philistines (early Caphtorians), Egyptians and, of course, kinglets from all over the Near East. The patriarchs-’ careers seem to lie on the hub of the highly cosmopolitan Amarna Age, or very close to it.. Whatever its background in history may be, it is evident that the proto-Aramean strain, represented in the saga of Jacob, is the nomadic element referred to later in the Deuteronomic phrase -a wandering Aramean was my father-’ and from this stock of Hebrew and -Aramean-’ origin sprang the clans who formed the beginning of a Hebrew settlement in Canaan, at Shechem and Bethel, long before the sojourn in Egypt and the Exodus out of Egypt. G. E. Wright maintains that -it has long been realized that Genesis 34 has behind it a tradition of a Hebrew relationship with Shechem which relates to early events not necessarily altered by the Sojourn and Exodus. Even during the Sojourn the city must have been under Israelite control; that is, a mixed Canaanite-Hebrew group of clans may have been united by covenant, worshipping a deity called -Baal-berith (Lord of the Covenant)-’ (AtD, 94). (Cf. Deuteronomy 26:5; Deuteronomy 1:10; Deuteronomy 10:22; Genesis 46:27; Judges 8:33; Judges 9:4; Judges 9:27; Judges 9:46).

It might be well to note, in this connection, the rather important role played by Shechem in the Old Testament story, as follows: (a) A capital of the Hivites, and as such the scene of the brutal heathenish iniquity, in relation to the religious and moral dignity of Israel; (b) The birthplace of Jewish fanaticism in the sons of Jacob; (c) A chief city of Ephraim, and an Israelitish priestly city; (d) The capital of the kingdom of Israel for some time; (e) The principal seat of the Samaritan nationality and cults. The acquisition of a parcel of land at Shechem by Jacob, forms a counterpart to the purchase of Abraham at Hebron. But there is an evident progress here, since he made the purchase for his own settlement during life, while Abraham barely gained a burial place. The memory of Canaan by Israel and the later conquest (cf. Genesis 48:22) is closely connected with this possession. In Jacob’s life, too, the desire to exchange the wandering nomadic life for a more fixed abode, becomes more apparent than in the life of Isaac. [Wordsworth’s remarks here, after enumerating the important events clustering around this place from Abraham to Christ, is suggestive. Thus the history of Shechem, combining so many associations, shows the uniformity of the divine plan, extending through many centuries, for the salvation of the world by the promised seed of Abraham, in whom all nations are blessed; and for the outpouring of the Spirit on the Israel of God, who are descended from the true Jacob; and for their union in the sanctuary of the Christian church, and for the union of all nations in one household in Christ, Luke 1:68Gosman] (Lange, 563).

Shechem has a long history Biblically. (1) The name appears once as Sichem (Genesis 12:6, A.V., marginal rendering, Sychar, cf. John 4:5). The town was in Central Palestine. The etymology of the Hebrew word shekem indicates that the place was situated on some mountain or hillside; and this presumption agrees with Joshua 20:7, which places it on Mount Ephraim (see also 1 Kings 12:25), and with Judges 9:6,which represents it as under the summit of Gerizim, which belonged to the Ephraim range (UBD, s.v.). (2) Shechem is the first Palestinian site mentioned in Genesis. Abram, on first entering the land of promise, pitched his tent there and built an altar under the oak (or terebinth) of Moreh (Genesis 12:6). The Canaanite was then in the land, i.e. even at that early time; nevertheless, Yahweh revealed Himself to the patriarch there, and renewed His covenant promise (Genesis 12:7, whereupon the patriarch built an altar unto Him. (3) Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, on returning from Paddan-aram, came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, and pitched his tent (Genesis 33:18-19; ch. 34) on a parcel of ground which he bought from Hamor, the Hivite prince of the region (Genesis 33:18; Genesis 34:2). When Shechem, the son of Hamor, defiled Dinah, Simeon and Levi led in the massacre of the men of the region (Genesis 34:25-26) and the other sons of Jacob pillaged the town (Genesis 34:27-29), though Jacobthen Israelcondemned the action (Genesis 34:30; Genesis 49:5-7). (4) Here Jacob buried all of his household’s strange gods under the oak (Genesis 35:1-4) and raised an altar to El-elohe-Israel (God, the God of Israel), Genesis 32:20. This parcel of ground which Jacob purchased he subsequently bequeathed as a special patrimony to his son Joseph (Genesis 33:19, Joshua 24:32, John 4:5); and here the Israelites buried the bones of Joseph which they had brought with them out of Egypt (Joshua 24:32, cf. Genesis 50:25). (5) Joseph as a young man in Canaan sought his brothers who were tending their flocks near the rich pasture lands around Shechem (Genesis 37:12 ff.). (6) In the 15th century B.C. the town fell into the hands of the Habiru as we learn from the Tell-el-Amarna letters (Ancient Near Eastern Texts, J. B. Pritchard, 1950: pp. 477, 485-487, 489, 490). The name probably occurs earlier in the Egyptian records dating back to the 19th-18th centuries B.C. (ANET, 230, 239; see Douglas, NBD, 1173). (7) In the course of the Conquest, Joshua as the successor of Moses called for a renewal of the Covenant at Shechem: at this time the Law was again promulgated: its blessings were proclaimed from Gerizim and its curses from Ebal (Deuteronomy 27:11, Joshua 8:33-35). Various features of the typical covenant pattern well known in the East in the centuries 1500-700 B.C., may be identified in these Scriptures. (See especially NBD, under covenant.-’) (8) In the distribution of the land, Shechem fell to Ephraim (Joshua 20:7, 1 Chronicles 7:28) but was assigned to the Kohathite Levites, and became a city of refuge (Joshua 21:20-21). (9) At Shechem Joshua assembled the people shortly before his death and delivered to them his last counsels (Joshua 24:1; Joshua 24:25). (10) After the death of Gideon, Abimelech, his illegitimate son by a Shechemite woman, persuaded the men of the city to make him king (Judges 9:6; cf. Judges 8:22-23). In the time of the Judges, Shechem was still a center of Canaanite worship and the temple of Baal-berith (-the lord of the covenant-’). Abimelech proceeded to exterminate the royal seed, but Jotham, one son who escaped the bloody purge, standing on Mount Gerizim, by means of a parable about the trees, appealed eloquently to the people of Shechem to repudiate Abimelech (Judges 9:8-15). This they did after some three years (Judges 9:22-23), but Abimelech destroyed Shechem (Judges 9:45) and then attacked the stronghold of the temple of Baal-berith and burned it over the heads of those who sought refuge there (Judges 9:46-49). In a subsequent engagement at Thebez, however, Abimelech was mortally wounded by a millstone thrown down on his skull by a woman, and to save his honor commanded his armor-bearer to end his life (Judg., ch. 9). (11) Evidently the city was soon restored, for we are told that all Israel assembled at Shechem and that Rehoboam, Solomon’s successor, went there to be inaugurated king of all Israel (1 Ki.,ch. 12): at this same place, however, the ten tribes renounced the House of David and transferred their allegiance to Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:1-20, 2 Chronicles 10:1-19). Jeroboam restored Shechem and made it the capital of his kingdom (the northern kingdom, Israel) for a time (1 Kings 12:25): later it seems, he moved his capital to Penuel, and his successors still later moved it to Tirzah (1 Kings 12:25; 1 Kings 15:21; 1 Kings 16:6). (12) From that time on, the town declined in importance, but continued to exist long after the fall of Samaria, 722 B.C., for men from Shechem came with offerings to Jerusalem as late as 586 B.C. (Jeremiah 41:5). The Assyrian king, Shalmeneser (or Sargon?) on taking over Samaria carried most of the people of Shechem into captivity and then sent colonies from Babylon to take the place of the exiles (2 Kings 17:5-6; 2 Kings 17:24; 2 Kings 18:9 ff.). Another influx of strangers came under Esarhaddon (Ezra 4:2). In post-exilic times Shechem became the chief city of the Samaritans who built a temple there (Sir. 50:26-28; Josephus, Ant., 11, 8, 6). In 128 B.C. John Hyrcanus captured the town (Josephus, Ant., 13, 9, 1). In the time of the first Jewish revolt Vespasian camped near Shechem, and after the war the town was rebuilt and was named Flavia Neapolis in honor of the emperor Flavius Vespasianus: hence the modern Nablus. From the time of the origin of the Samaritans (cf. 1 Kings 16:23-24) the history of Shechem is interwoven with that of this people (the ten tribes having lost their identity by forced amalgamation with foreign colonials) and their sacred mount, Gerizim. It was to the Samaritans that Shechem owed the revival of its claims to be considered the religious center of the land; but this was in the interest of a narrow and exclusive sectarianism (John 4:5 ff.) (UBD, 1008). (For information about archaeological discoveries at Shechem, see especially BWDBA, or any reliable Bible Dictionary, e.g., UBD, NBD, HBD, etc.). Shechem is now generally identified with Tell-Balatah.

A final word is in order here concerning the tragedy of Shechem. Jacob reproved the originators of this act most severely for their wickedness. -Ye have brought me into trouble (conturbare), to make me stink (an abomination) among the inhabitants of the land;. and yet I (with my attendants) am a company that can be numbered (lit. people of number, easily numbered, a small band, Deuteronomy 4:27, Isaiah 10:19); and if they gather together against me, they will slay me, etc. If Jacob laid stress simply upon the consequences which this crime was likely to bring upon himself and his house, the reason was, that this was the view most adapted to make an impression upon his sons. For his last words concerning Simeon and Levi (Genesis 49:5-7) are a sufficient proof that the wickedness of their conduct was also an object of deep abhorrence. And his fear was not groundless. Only God in His mercy averted all the evil consequences from Jacob and his house (Genesis 35:5-6). But his sons answered, -Are they to treat our sister like a harlot?-’. Their indignation was justifiable enough; and their seeking revenge, as Absalom avenged the violation of his sister on Amnon (2 Samuel 13:22 ff.), was in accordance with the habits of nomadic tribes. In this way, for example, seduction is still punished by death among the Arabs, and the punishment is generally inflicted by the brothers.. In addition to this, Jacob’s sons looked upon the matter, not merely as a violation of their sister’s chastity, but a crime against the peculiar vocation of their tribe. But for all that, the deception they practised, the abuse of the covenant sign of circumcision as a means of gratifying their revenge, and the extension of that revenge to the whole town, together with the plundering of the slain, were crimes deserving of the strongest reprobation. The crafty character of Jacob degenerated into malicious cunning in Simeon and Levi; and jealousy for the exalted vocation of their family, into actual sin. This event -shows us in type all the errors into which the belief in the pre-eminence of Israel was sure to lead in the course of history, whenever that belief was rudely held by men of carnal minds-’ (O. v Gerlach) (K-D, 314-315).

To sum up: The city of Shechem was overpowered, of course, but Jacob thought it prudent to avoid the revenge of the Canaanites by departing from the region of what must have been to him a great disillusionment. It seems most likely that he returned afterward and rescued -from the Amorite with his sword and his bow-’ the piece of land he had previously purchased and which he left, as a special inheritance, to Joseph (Genesis 48:22, Joshua 17:14).

2. Jacob at Bethel, Genesis 35:1-15.

Jacob had allowed some ten years to pass since his return from Mesopotamia, without performing the vow which he had made at Bethel when in flight from Esau (Genesis 28:20-22). However, he had recalled it in his own mind when he was resolving to return (Genesis 31:13), and had also erected an altar in Shechem to God, the God of Israel (Genesis 33:20). He is now divinely directed to go to Bethel and there build an altar to the God who had appeared to him on his original flight to Paddan-aram. This divine injunction evidently prompted him to perform a task which he had evidently kept putting off, namely, to put out of his house the strange gods which he apparently had tolerated, weakly enough, out of misplaced consideration for his wives, and to pay to God the vow he had made in the day of his trouble. He therefore ordered his household (Genesis 34:2-3), i.e., his wives and children, and all that were with him, i.e., his men and maid-servants, to put away all the strange gods they were harboring (and, it may be, concealing), then to purify themselves and wash their clothes. He also buried all the strange (foreign) gods, including no doubt Rachel’s teraphim (Genesis 31:19), and whatever other idols there were (including, in all likelihood some that were carried off in the looting of Shechem), and along with these the earrings which were worn as amulets and charms: all these he buried under the terebinth at Shechem, probably the very tree under which his grandfather Abraham had once pitched his tent (Genesis 12:8, Genesis 13:3, Genesis 28:19). Bethel was about twelve miles north of Jerusalem and thirty miles south of Shechem. From Shechem to Bethel there is a continuous ascent of over 1000 ft.

Genesis 34:1Because you delayed on the road you were punished by what happened to Dinah (Rashi). Dwell there: You must dwell there a little time before you set up the altar, so that your mind may be duly attuned to the service of God (Sforno, Nachmanides). The purpose of the altar was, according to N, to cleanse himself from his contact with idols, or from the slain; according to S, as a thanksgiving for his deliverance (SC, 209). The command to dwell there (at Bethel) surely signified at least one thing, namely, that the massacre of the Shechemites had rendered longer residence in that region unsafe. The divine injunction here contained an assurance that the same Divine arm which had shielded him against the enmity of Esau and the oppression of Laban would extend to him protection on his future way. Genesis 34:2Put away the foreign gods, etc. Note that the same words were spoken by Joshua under the same tree (Joshua 24:23). These facts would point, it would appear, to the memory of a great national renunciation of idolatry at Shechem in the early history of Israel (Skinner, ICCG, 423). The gods of the stranger included most likely the teraphim of Laban, which Rachel still retained, and other objects of idolatrous worship, either brought by Jacob’s servants from Mesopotamia, or adopted in Canaan, or perhaps possessed by the captives (PCG, 411). Cleanse yourselves. The word is that which is used later to describe purifications under the Law (Numbers 19:11-12, Leviticus 14:4; Leviticus 15:3), Change your garments: the directions here given were similar to those subsequently given at Sinai (Exodus 19:10-15), and were designed to symbolize a moral and spiritual purification of the mind and heart (the inward man, cf. Romans 7:22, 2 Corinthians 4:16). Let us arise and go up to Bethel: evidently Jacob had acquainted his family with the original experience at Bethel. I will make there an altar unto God: El is probably used because of its proximity to and connection with Bethel, or house of El, and the intended contrast between the El of Bethel and the strange Elohim (gods) which Jacob’s household were commanded to put away (PCG, 411). Note that the language here, Genesis 34:3, clearly looks back to his Bethel experiences (Genesis 28:20, Genesis 32:9, Genesis 31:9). It ought not to be forgotten that Jacob had now a large band of followerswives, children, domestics, slaves, and shepherds. His tribe, as it may be called, could scarcely have numbered fewer than from two hundred to three hundred persons, old and young. These had all come from Mesopotamia, and most of them had been trained in idolatry. So long as Jacob resided in Mesopotamia it is probable he had not the power to prevent idolatrous practices; but now, having come to another countrya country in which the power of Jehovah had been so signally manifested to himself and his fathershe felt that he might safely and effectually eradicate idolatry from his people (SIBG, 270). Did he not also have a great number of captives from Shechem? (Cf. Genesis 35:29). Note that the purgation followed Jacob’s commands, evidently without protest. The foreign gods were handed over and buried, as were also all their earrings, those employed for purposes of idolatrous worship, which were often covered with allegorical figures and mysterious sentences, and supposed to be endowed with a talismanic virtue (PCG, 411). Cf. Judges 8:24, Isaiah 3:20-21; Hosea 2:13). Tradition has it that these were the teraphim which Rached had stolen and kept until now. The verse may mean that the servants of Jacob had brought their own household gods from their homeland. Jacob compels them to give them up and accept the worship of the God of Israel. Earrings were, and still are, worn in the Orient as amulets or charms against evil. In ancient times they had ritual significance, Judges 8:24-27 (Morgenstern). The oak which was by Shechem: Whether the oak (terebinth) under which Abraham once pitched his tent (Genesis 12:6), the one beneath which Joshua later erected his memorial pillar (Joshua 24:26), the oak of the sorcerers (Judges 9:37), and the oak of the pillar at Shechem (Judges 9:6), were one and the same, we cannot determine with certainty: the probability is, however, that they were. Change your garments: From this we learn that when one goes to pray in a place dedicated to that purpose, one must be clean bodily and in raiment (Ibn Ezra). Lest you have garments dedicated to idolatry (Rashi) (SC, 209). What a lesson here for our generation. A lesson this is, to be commended to our present-day long-haired, female-imitating hippies and to our hip-skirted, fashion-enslaved women (both young and old), indeed to the entire unholy breed of our twentieth-century idolaters! Let them be reminded of one thing; namely, that garishness, rather than modesty, has no place in the conduct or dress of one who presumes to come into the presence of God for divine worship. (Cf. 1 Corinthians 10:31, 1 Peter 3:1-7). Truly he that sitteth in the heavens must laugh at such antics: the Lord will have all such in derision, Psalms 2:4). The burial of the idols was followed by purification through the washing of the body, as a sign of the purification of the heart from the defilement of idolatry and by the putting on of clean and festal clothes, as a symbol of the sanctification and elevation of the heart to the Lord (Joshua 24:23) (K-D, 316).

So Jacob and his household journeyed toward Bethel. And a terror of God was upon the cities round about them and they did not pursue them. Was this simply a great terror literally? Or was it a supernatural dread inspired by Elohim, or a fear of Elohim, under whose care Jacob manifestly had been taken? It seems obvious that we have here another instance of what is designated the numinous revelation of Elohim: that is, a manifestation, and the accompanying awareness, by human beings, of the dreadfulness, the awesomeness of God. (It will be recalled that this is the thesis of the book, The Idea of the Holy, by Rudolph Otto. See infra, pp. 140ff., 171ff., esp. 174). (Cf. Genesis 28:17; Genesis 32:30; Exodus 19:16-19; Exodus 23:27; 1 Samuel 14:15, 2 Chronicles 14:13, Psalms 68:35, Hebrews 10:26-31). So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan (a clause obviously designed to draw special attention to the fact that Jacob had now accomplished his return to Canaan), the same is Bethel, he and all the people that were with him (the members of his household and the captive Shechemites). (Luz, as we have noted, was the ancient name of Bethel, and continued to be the name by which it was known to the Canaanites (Genesis 28:19; Genesis 35:6; Genesis 48:3; cf. Judges 1:22-26). Luz was given the name of Bethel by. Jacob (Genesis 28:16-19), after spending the night of his sublime dream-vision near to the city. It was the site of Jacob’s sojourn near to the city, rather than the city itself, that received the name Bethel (Joshua 16:2);but this site later became so important that the name was applied to the city as well (Joshua 18:13, Judges 1:23) (NBD, s.v.).

Jacob, having arrived safely at Bethel, built an altar, but this time he called the place El Bethel (the God of Bethel) in remembrance of God’s manifestation of Himself to him on his flight from Esau. It will be noted that Bethel marks two significant stages in the course of Jacob’s life: the first on his flight from Esau (ch. 28), and now the second on his return trip home, many years later. The name God of the House of God definitely connects the present experience with that of his dream-vision on the journey to Paddan-aram (Genesis 28:16-22). V. 5He had formerly called it Beth-el, i.e., the house of God. Now, to attest his experience of God’s fulfillment of His promises, he calls it, El Bethel, i.e., the God of Bethel (SIBG, 270).

The death of Deborah, Genesis 34:8. Deborah was the same nurse who accompanied Rebekah when she left home (Genesis 24:59). She had been sent by Rebekah to fetch Jacob home in fulfilment of her promise (Genesis 27:45), but she died on the way (Rashi). It is extremely unlikely that it was the same nurse, because she would have been very old by then and hardly fit for such a mission. She was probably another nurse who had remained with Laban after Rebekah left, and then became nurse to Jacob’s children. Now Jacob was taking her home with him to look after Rebekah in her old age. But why is this fact mentioned? The Rabbis asserted that we have here a veiled hint at the death of Rebekah herself, this being really the reason why the place was named Allon-bacuth (Nachmanides). As to why Rebekah’s death is not explicitly stated, Rashi cites a Midrash that the reason was that the people might not curse her as the mother who bore Esau. Nachmanides holds that it was because very little honor could have been paid to her at the funeral, in view of Isaac’s blindness which confined him to the house so that he could not attend it, and Jacob’s absence (SC, 210). A Midrash is an exposition of Hebrew Scripture esp. one that was made between 4th Century B.C. and the 11th century A.D.) Morgenstern suggests the following: There could be some confusion here between this tradition of the great tree near Bethel, sacred because of its association with a certain Deborah, and the tradition recorded in Judges 4:5 of the sacred -palm-tree of Deborah-’ also located near Bethel, because Deborah the prophetess was supposed to have sat beneath it while revealing the oracle to Israel (JIBG). Lange comments: The nurse of Rebekah had gone with her to Hebron, but how came she here? Delitzsch conjectures that Rebekah had sent her, according to the promise (Genesis 27:45), or to her daughter-in-law and grandchildren, for their care; but we have ventured the suggestion that Jacob took her with him upon his return from a visit to Hebron. She found her peculiar home in Jacob’s house, and with his children after the death of Rebekah. Knobel naturally prefers to find a difficulty even here. It is a well-known method of exaggerating all the blanks in the Bible into diversities and contradictions (p. 563). Leupold writes: Deborah must have been very old at this time. Since Jacob may have been nearly 110 years old at this time and was born rather late in his mother’s life, an age of 170 years for Deborah is not unlikely. But Isaac lived to be 180 years old (Genesis 34:28).But these unexplained and unusual features constitute no reason for questioning the historicity of the event. The confusion of our event and the person of Deborah (Judges 4:5) does not lie in these passages but in the minds of the critics. The Deborah of a later date -judged-’ and dwelt -under a palmtree between Ramah and Bethel.-’ Our Deborah -died-’ and was buried -under an oak below Bethel. More important to observe is the fact that the Scripture regards the death and burial of this menial worthy of notice; and that fact would lead us to infer, as Luther does, that -she was a wise and godly matron, who had-’ served and advised Jacob, had supervised the domestics of the household and had often counseled and comforted Jacob in dangers and difficulties.-’ So the -Oak of Weeping-’ became a monument to a godly servant whose loss was deeply mourned by all (EG, 919). This final word, in the present connection: V. 8There Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and was buried below Bethel under an oak, which was henceforth called the -oak of weeping-’ [Allon-bacuth], a mourning oak, from the grief of Jacob’s house on account of her death. Deborah had either been sent by Rebekah to take care of her daughters-in-law and grandsons, or had gone of her own accord into Jacob’s household after the death of her mistress. The mourning at her death, and the perpetuation of her memory, are proofs that she must have been a faithful and highly esteemed servant in Jacob’s house (K-D, 316). Skinner is right (ICCG, 425), it seems to us at this point, in saying that the chief mystery here is not concerning Deborah, but the mystery as to how the name of Rebekah got introduced in this connection at all. He adds that it is an unsafe argument to say that a nurse could not have been conspicuous in legend, e.g., cf. the grave of the nurse of Dionysus at Scythopolis, in Pliny, Natural History, 5, 74).

The Renewal of the Covenant Promises at Bethel, Genesis 34:9-15. Genesis 34:9The distinction between God spake and God appeared is analogous to the distinction in the mode of revelation: cf. ch. 12, 1 and 7 (Lange, 563).Whitelaw comments: This was a visible manifestation, in contrast to the audible one in Shechem (Genesis 34:1), and in a state of wakefulness (Genesis 34:13), as distinguished from the dream-vision formerly beheld at Bethel (Genesis 28:12). God appeared to Jacob, and blessed him, that is, renewed the covenant-promise of which Jacob was the heir. Note again the mention of the change of name (cf. Genesis 32:28). At Peniel the name of Israel was given to Jacob; here it is sealed to him; hence, here it is definitely connected with the Messianic Promise. (Murphy suggests also that the repetition of the new name here implies a decline in Jacob’s spiritual life between Peniel and Bethel). Not also that God appeared unto Jacob again: Now, at his return when the vow has been paid, as before in his migration, when the vow was occasioned and made (Genesis 28:20-22). After Jacob had performed his vow by erecting the altar at Bethel, God appeared to him again there (-again,-’ referring to ch. 28), -on his coming out of Paddan-aram.-’ as He had appeared to him 30 years before on his journey thitherthough it was then in a dream, now by daylight in a visible form (cf. Genesis 34:13, -God went up from him-’). The gloom of that day of fear had now brightened into the clear daylight of salvation. This appearance was the answer, which God gave to Jacob on his acknowledgment of Him; and its reality is thereby established, in opposition to the conjecture that it is merely a legendary repetition of the previous vision. The former theophany had promised to Jacob divine protection in a foreign land and restoration to his home, on the ground of his call to be the bearer of the blessings of salvation. This promise God had fulfilled, and Jacob therefore performed his vow. On the strength of this, God now confirmed to him the name of Israel, which He had already given him in chap. Genesis 32:28, and with it the promise of a numerous seed and the possession of Canaan, which, so far as the form and substance are concerned, points back rather to chap. Genesis 17:6; Genesis 17:8 than to chap. Genesis 28:13-14, and for the fulfilment of which, commencing with the birth of his sons and his return to Canaan, and stretching forward to the most remote future, the name of Israel was to furnish him with apledge. Jacob alluded to this second manifestation of God at Bethel towards the close of his life (chap. Genesis 48:3-4); and Hosea (Hosea 12:4) represents it as the result of his wrestling with God. The remembrance of this appearance Jacob transmitted to his descendants by erecting a memorial stone, which he not only anointed with oil like the former one in chap. Genesis 28:18, but consecrated by a drink-offering and by the renewal of the name Bethel (K-D, 317). Note again the name-change. The reason of the second investiture with the name of Israel seems probably to be that either Jacob himself, or his family, had refrained from using it. Note: Believers, like Jacob and his family, are oftentimes negligent of the use and unmindful of the privilege of the new name. Believers -were by nature children of wrath, even as others,-’ Ephesians 2:3. But, Behold what manner of love God has bestowed, that they should be called, through faith (Galatians 3:26) the children of God, 1 John 3:2 (SIBG, 270).

Note especially Genesis 34:11: I am God Almighty, etc. This self-applied title of God has the same significance here as it had in the revelation of God for Abraham (Genesis 17:1); there he revealed himself as the miracle-working God, because he had promised God a son; here, however, because he promises to make from Jacob’s family a community [assembly] of nations (Lange). The kahal here is significant as it refers to the ultimate complete fulfilment of the promise in true spiritual Israel (Gosman, in Lange, p. 563). Murphy calls attention to the fact that from this time the multiplication of Israel is rapid. In twenty-five years after this time he goes down into Egypt with seventy souls, besides the wives of his married descendants, and two hundred and ten years after that Israel goes out of Egypt with numbering about one million eight hundred thousand. A nation and a congregation of nations, such as were then known known in the world, had at the last date come of him, and -kings-’ were to follow in due time (MG, 427). It should be noted that the land, as well as the seed, is again promised. Note here also the repeated items of the Promise. (1) Be fruitful and multiply: Abraham and Isaac had each only one son of promise; but now the time of increase has come (MG, 427). (Cf. Genesis 1:28). (2) A nation and a company of nations shall be of thee: cf. Genesis 17:5, Genesis 28:3. (3) And kings shall come out of thy loins: cf. Genesis 17:6; Genesis 17:16. (4) And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac (cf. Genesis 12:7, Genesis 13:15, Genesis 26:3-4), to thee I will give it (Genesis 28:13), and to thy seed after thee will I give the land (the time of their actual taking possession of the land was specified to Abraham, Genesis 15:12-16).

Note also that this is the first mention of the drink-offering in the Old Testament (Genesis 34:14).

Genesis 34:14And Jacob set up a pillar, etc. It would seem that the former pillar (Genesis 28:18) had fallen down and disappeared. This pillar of stone was to commemorate the interview, God having gone up from him in the place where He talked with him. This setting up of memorial pillars seems to have been a favorite practice of Jacob’S. Cf. the first pillar at Bethel (Genesis 28:18), the pillar on Galeed (Genesis 31:45), the second pillar at Bethel (Genesis 35:14), the pillar over Rachel’s grave (Genesis 35:20). Note that Jacob poured a drink-offering on this pillar of stone, and oil also. This is the first mention of a drink-offering (sacrificial libation) in the Old Testament. Mosaic sacrifices were often accompanied by drink offerings (cf. Exodus 29:40, Leviticus 23:13. In Numbers 15:3-10 the quantity is prescribed according to the types of blood sacrifice to be presented. Its use was perverted by the Jews who offered it along with their sacrificial cakes to Ashtoreth the queen of heaven (Jeremiah 44:17). God reproved Israel for offering it to idols (Isaiah 57:5-6; Isaiah 65:11;Jeremiah 19:13; Ezekiel 20:28). The drink offering is symbolic of the outpoured blood of Christ on Calvary (Isaiah 53:12, Matthew 26:28, Hebrews 9:11-14) and of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon His Church (Joe 2:28, Acts 2:17-18; Acts 10:45) (HBD, 57). The drink offering consisted of a fourth part of a hin of wine, which was equal to about a third of a gallon (Exodus 29:40). Jacob poured oil on the memorial stone as he had done previously (Genesis 28:18). The holy anointing oil of the Old Testament was always a type of the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit (Leviticus 8:12, Psalms 45:7, Hebrews 1:9, Acts 10:38, etc.).

Genesis 34:15God called the place Bethel (cf. Genesis 28:19). Do we not have a pro-lepsis here, that is, a referring back, by way of explanation for the sake of emphasis, to what had previously been said and done at this place on the occasion of Jacob’s dream-vision (Genesis 28:18-22).

Bethel (known originally as Luz, Genesis 28:19) has a long and notable history in the Biblical record. (It is usually identified as the modern Tell Beitin on the watershed route 12 miles north of Jerusalem.) Abram camped to the east of Bethel and there built an altar to Yahweh (Genesis 12:8), at the time of his entrance into Canaan. After his sojourn in Egypt, he returned to this site (Genesis 13:3). For Jacob, Bethel was the starting-point of his understanding of God, who was for him in a special sense God of Bethel (Genesis 31:13; Genesis 35:7). On being divinely ordered to Bethel, on his return from Mesopotamia, he built an altar and set up a memorial pillar, renewing the name he had given the place originally (Genesis 35:1-15). After the Conquest it was assigned to the Joseph tribes who captured it, especially to Ephraim (1 Chronicles 7:28), and bordered the territory of Benjamin (Joshua 18:13). According to excavated potsherds Bethel began to be occupied as a city in the 21st century B.C. It suffered a severe destruction in the early 14th century B.C.: this is usually referred to as a burning by the tribes of Israel at the time of the Conquest. Later excavations seem to support the view that this destruction was wrought by the Josephites, some time after Joshua’s death (Judges 1:22-26), and had nothing to do with the actual Conquest. When the Israelites took over after Joshua’s death, they called it by the name Jacob had given to the place of his vision instead of calling it Luz (Judges 1:23). When it became necessary for Israel to punish Benjamin, the people sought advice as to the conduct of the battle and worshiped at Bethel for the ark. was there (Judges 20:18-28; Judges 21:1-4). It was a sanctuary in the time of Samuel who visited it annually to hold court (1 Samuel 7:16; 1 Samuel 10:3); hence it obviously was a site of one of the schools of the prophets which were originated under Samuel (2 Kings 2:1-3; 1 Samuel 10:10; 1 Samuel 19:20; 1 Kings 20:35, etc.). The archaeological remains of this period indicate that it was a time of great insecurity: the settlement was burned twice by the Philistines. Under the early monarchy, the city seems to have begun to prosper again, becoming the center of Jeroboam’s rival cultus, condemned by a man of God from Judah (2 Ki. 12:28-13:32). Abijah of Judah captured the site (2 Chronicles 13:19); and Asa, his son, may have destroyed it (2 Chron., ch. 14). Elisha met a group of sons of the prophets from Bethel, and along with them the mocking boys (2 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 2:23). Amos condemned the pagan rites of the Israelite royal sanctuary (Amos 4:4; Amos 5:5-6; Amos 7:13; cf. Hosea 10:15) and Jeremiah bespoke their futility (Jeremiah 48:13). (Ashtoreth was the Canaanite mother-goddess of the Canaanites, the goddess of fertility, love and war (1 Kings 11:5): her counterparts were the Syrian Atargatis, the Phoenician Astarta, the Babylonian Ishtar, the Phrygian Cybele, the Egyptian Isis, etc.). The priest sent to instruct the Assyrian settlers in Samaria settled at Bethel (2 Kings 17:28). Josiah invaded all the pagan sanctuaries of both Judah and Israel and restored the true worship of Jehovah in a mighty national reformation (2 Kings 23:15 ff.). Bethel was later occupied by the returning exiles from Babylon (Ezra 2:28, Nehemiah 11:31); their worship, however, was again centered in Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:2, Isaiah 51:22-23). The city grew again during the Hellenistic period until it was fortified by Bacchides about 160 B.C. (1 Macc. 9, 50). Vespasian captured it in A.D. 69,and a little later it was rebuilt as a Roman township (a small political unit). (In this connection, cf. Beth-aven (house of iniquity), which was near Ai and to the east of Bethel (Joshua 7:2 and served as boundary mark for Benjamin’s allotment (Joshua 18:12). In Hosea (Hosea 4:15; Hosea 5:8; Hosea 10:5), the name may be a derogatory synonym for Bethel, -House of the (false) god-’ (NBD, s.v.). Bethel continued to flourish until the time of the Arab conquest. Bethel, specified by Eusebius and Jerome, twelve miles from Jerusalem and on the right hand of the road to Shechem, corresponds precisely to the ruins which bear the name Beitin (UBD, 139). The site is perhaps Burg Beitin to the southeast of Tell Beitin, the -shoulder of Luz-’ (Joshua 18:13) (NBD, 143).

3. The Birth of Benjamin and the Death of Rachel, Genesis 34:16-20.

Jacob now left Bethel, evidently not in opposition to the divine command which simply directed him to go there, build an altar, and dwell there long enough at least to perform his vow. In accordance probably with his own desire, if not also Heaven’s counsel, we find him leaving Bethel and proceeding toward Mamre, no doubt to visit Isaac, (What has happened to Rebekah, in the meantime? When did she die? The Scriptures do not give us the answers, It has been conjectured that her death occurred while Jacob was absent in Paddan-aram, The place of her burial, incidentally mentioned by Jacob on his deathbed (Genesis 49:31), was in the field of Machpelah. The Apostle Paul refers to Rebekah as having been acquainted with God’S-’ purposes regarding her sons even before they were born (Romans 9:10-12, cf. Genesis 25:23), It seems obvious that Jacob never saw her after his hurried departure for Paddan-aram (Genesis 27:46, Genesis 28:5). Was not this very fact a form of retribution for her deceptive manipulation of events in favor of Jacob, her favorite?)

As they proceeded on their journey southward in the direction of Hebron, Rachel was taken in labor as they entered the vicinity of Ephrath. The text tells us literally that she was suffering hard labor in her parturition, all the more severe no doubt because it had been some sixteen years since her first son, Joseph, was born. In the course of the labor, the midwife told her that this baby was also to be a son, fulfilling a wish expressed by her when Joseph was born (Genesis 30:24). And Rachel dies during the final fulfilment of the strongest wish of her life. Note as her soul was departing (for she died). the term nephesh meaning soul or life. That is, departing not to annihilation, but to another state of being (cf. Luke 16:22, John 1:18). For she died (Whitelaw calls this a rather pathetic commentary on ch. Genesis 30:1). As Rachel was dying she named the baby Ben-oni, son of my pain. Jacob, however, called him Ben-jamin, probably son of good fortune, according to the meaning of the word jamin sustained by the Arabic, to indicate that his pain at the loss of his favorite wife was compensated by the birth of this son, who now completed the number twelve (K-D, p. 318). The father changes the name of ill omen to Benjamin: -son of the right hand,-’ i*.e.,* -son of happy omen-’ (JB, 57). With her last breath Rachel names her son Ben-oni; but the father, to avert the omen, calls him Bin-yamin. The pathos of the narrative flows in sympathy with the feelings of the mother: a notice of Jacob’s life-long grief for the loss of Rachel is reserved for Genesis 48:7 (ICCG, 426). Joseph buried Rachel on the road to Ephratah, or Ephrath. * i.e., Bethlehem* (bread-house), by which name it is better known, though the origin of it is obscure (K-D, 318). Jacob erected a monument (pillar) upon Rachel’s grave; the same is the Pillar of Rachel’s grave unto this day (Genesis 34:20). That is, unto the time of Moses; yet the site of Rachel’s sepulchre was known as late as the time of Samuel (1 Samuel 10:2). There seems no reason to question the tradition which in the fourth century has placed it within the Turkish chapel Kubbet Rachil, about half-an-hour’s journey north of Bethlehem (Whitelaw, PCG, 417; cf. Robinson, I, 322; Thompson, LB, 644; Tristram, Land of Israel, 404; Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, 149). Bethlehem, or House of Bread, became the birthplace of David, 1 Samuel 16:18), and of Christ (Micah 5:2, Matthew 2:1). This narrative is more than mere history, for the event occurred, and the record was made, to symbolize a greater sorrow that was to occur at Ephrath nearly two thousand years after, in connection with the birth at Bethlehem of that Man of Sorrows in whom every important event in Hebrew history received its final and complete significance (Thomson, LB, 644-645). The grave of Rachel was long marked by the pillar which Jacob erected over it; and her memory was associated with the town Bethlehem (Jeremiah 31:15, Matthew 2:18) (OTH, 105). Nachmanides remarks that the Tomb is about four parasangs from the Ramah of Benjamin, but more than two days-’ journey from the Ramah of Ephraim. Hence, when Jeremiah said, A voice is heard in Ramah … Rachel weeping for her children (Jeremiah 31:15), it must be hyperbole: so loud is her weeping that it can be heard as far as Ramah. Jacob buried Rachel on the way and did not take her body into the nearby city of Bethlehem because he foresaw that it would belong to the tribe of Judah, and he wished her body to lie in the portion of Benjamin (SC, 212). Rachel’s sepulchre is still a noted spot. Jews and Mohammedans unite in honoring it. It is marked by a small building surmounted by a white dome. It is on the leading road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, three miles from the former and one from the latter. The original name of Bethlehem appears to have been Ephrath, -fruitful.-’ This gave place to Bethlehem, -house of bread-’; which in modern times has given place to the Arabic Beit-lahm, -house of flesh-’ (SIBG, 270). Benjamin was the twelfth and last son of Jacob. He was a full brother to Joseph, being born of Rachel, the favorite wife of Jacob. Benjamin alone was born in Canaan rather than Paddan-aram, and his mother was buried on the way to Bethlehem in the region later assigned to Benjamin. He and Joseph were special objects of the affection of Jacob, because their mother was Rachel. In her dying agonies Rachel gave him the name of Benoni, -son of my sorrow,-’ but Jacob named him Benjamin, -son of the right hand.-’ The peculiar concern of Joseph for Benjamin during the Egyptian episode may be understood by the fact that they were full brothers, whose half brothers looked upon them with envy because of Jacob’s special love for them (HBD, 58). In Jeremiah 31:15-16, the prophet refers to the exile of the ten tribes under Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, and the sorrow caused by their dispersion (2 Kings 17:20), under the symbol of Rachel, the maternal ancestor of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, bewailing the fate of her children, which lamentation was a type or symbol of that which was fulfilled in Bethlehem when the infants were slaughtered by order of Herod (Matthew 2:16-18) (UBD, 907).

Rachel is a figure of great importance in the saga, as Jacob’s beloved wife and as the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, who were to constitute the very core of the Israelite state. And so the narrative in Chapter 35 continues with the death of Rachel and the birth of Benjamin, for she died in childbirth. Tradition hails a cupola-topped structure on the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem as the -tomb of Rachel.-’ It was actually erected in the 15th century A.D. over a monolith which marks an ancient grave. It is mentioned by the 7th century pilgrim Arculf. This shrine was frequented by Jewish pilgrims in Palestine until 1948 when the Arab-Israel War of Liberation broke out (AtD, 95). In the time of the sixth-century [?] pilgrim Arculf, the grave was already marked by a monument of some sort, which he calls a -pyramid.-’ That probably means a pyramid-topped mausoleum, for these were frequently constructed in Roman times (Kraeling, BA, 88). 4. Reuben’s Incest. Genesis 34:21-22.

Israel went on his way toward Hebron from Ephrath, after the funeral of Rachel, and spread (i.e., unfolded, cf. Genesis 12:8, Genesis 26:25) his tent beyond the tower of Eder. He that departs from the scene of his sorrow is designated as -Israel,-’ as it would seem to indicate that he bore his grief as his better, newer nature helped him to do, and so -moved on-’ a chastened but a more seasoned saint of God. But for the present he did not move far. For -Migdal-Eder,-’ meaning -the tower of the flocks,-’ i.e., a lookout tower for shepherds, was, according to Micah 4:8, (rightly interpreted), on the southeast hill of Jerusalem on old territory of the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18:28, Judges 1:21) (EG, 926). Probably a turret, or watch-tower, erected for the convenience of shepherds in guarding their flocks (2 Kings 18:8, 2 Chronicles 26:10; 2 Chronicles 27:4), the site of which is uncertain, but which is commonly supposed to have been a mile (Jerome) or more south of Bethlehem (PCG, 416). Such towers would be numerous in any pastoral country; and the place referred to here is un-, known (Skinner, 426). Here it was that Reuben, Jacob’s eldest, committed incest (Leviticus 18:8) with Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid and Jacob’s concubine. For this crime he received the dying curse of Jacob and his birthright was taken from him (Genesis 49:4, 1 Chronicles 5:1). Need we be told the self-evident thing, that Jacob disapproved and was deeply grieved and shamed? We are merely informed that he became aware of what had happened: he -heard of it.-’ This prepares us for Genesis 49:4 where his disapproval finds lasting expression for all future time (EG, 927). Another local story, writes Cornfeld, attached to a place called Migdal Eder, is connected with the oldest roots of the Jacob traditions. It concerns Reuben, Jacob’s eldest son, and an affair with his father’s concubine, Bilhah. It is of such a scandalous nature that it is reported with characteristic Hebrew conciseness. The biblical storyteller, while not suppressing scandal and -frauengeschichten-’ does not lavish time and words on sex and gossip, in line with the Bible’s rigid and ascetic social code. This incident, a mere fragment of the vast Jacob saga, is necessary to the Biblical storyteller for an understanding of Jacob’s last blessing to his sons, and his paternal curse on Reuben, in Genesis 49:4. But according to the oldest Jewish commentators, Reuben was not motivated by lust, but acted to protect his mother Leah [as in Genesis 30:14?] and defend her interests. Commentators assume that Jacob made Bilhah his favorite after Rachel’s death, whereupon Reuben seduced her and alienated the patriarch’s affection from her. There is more to this than appears in a few short sentences. This motif is part of the epic repertoire of the East Mediterranean and comes up in the Iliad (9:444-57), where Phoenix, like Reuben, received a paternal curse and no blessing for seducing his father’s concubine. He also, like Reuben, was not motivated by lust. This goes to prove that the more we study the Bible, the more we have to respect the importance of the mere details which help to piece together and interpret Biblical stones (AtD, 95-96). But why was it necessary to try to explain away the content of Gen 49:4, or also of 1 Chronicles 5:1? The connection between these passages and Genesis 35:22 is very clear and meaningful. Moreover, there is no real reason for trying to prove that Reuben was too much different from young men of his time, especially in his attitude toward one who was only a concubine? Imaginative reconstructions are entirely unnecessary: the Scriptures in this case, when allowed to do so, speak for themselves. This is equally true of other Jewish interpretations. E.g., Reuben did not actually do this, but removed her couch from his father’s tent, and Scripture stigmatized his action as heinous as though he had lain with her. For during Rachel’s lifetime Jacob’s couch was always in her tent; on her death he removed it to Bilhah’S, Rachel’s handmaid. Reuben resented this, saying, -If my mother, Leah, was subordinate to Rachel, must she also be subordinate to Rachel’s handmaid!-’ Thereupon he removed her couch and substituted Leah’s (Rashi, quoting the Talmud). Nachmanides suggests that he did this from the fear that Jacob might have another son by her, as she was still young, and so diminish his heritage (SC, 213). We call attention to the fact that these passages (Genesis 35:22; Genesis 49:4, and 1 Chronicles 5:1) all make sense when taken together. Why then should anyone resort to utterly uncalled-for and unnecessary flights of the imagination which serve only to create confusion and offer little or nothing that can be substantiated by external evidence. The Scriptures present the story of Reuben’s incest as fact: the whole story forms a pattern which authenticates itself, Why should any writer have indulged a midrash trying to ameliorate Reuben’s sin, when as a matter of fact it could hardly be comparable in its heinousness to the massacre of the Shechemites perpetrated by Simeon’s and Levi’s thirst for vengeance?

5. The Twelve Sons of Jacob, Genesis 34:22-26.

(1) By Leah: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, and Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun, (Cf. Genesis 29:32-35, Genesis 30:18-20, Genesis 46:8-15; Exodus 1:2-3). (2) By Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. (Cf. Genesis 30:22-24, Genesis 35:18, Genesis 46:19). (3) By Bilhah, Rachel’s haidmand: Dan, and Naphtali. (Cf. Genesis 30:4-8). (4) By Zilpah (Leah’s handmaid): Gad, and Asher. (Cf. Genesis 30:9-15). Of all these, Benjamin was the only one born in Canaan; the others were born to Jacob in Paddan-aram. We now have the genealogy of the origin of the twelve tribes who later became a people (a nation, the Children of Israel). These verses are anticipatory of the Testament of Israel (ch. 49) and of the establishment of the Theocracy, under the mediatorship of Moses, at Sinai.

6. The Death of Isaac, Genesis 34:26-28.

Jacob came finally to Mamre, unto Kiriath-arba, which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned, Cf. Genesis 13:18, Genesis 23:2; Genesis 23:19; John 14:15; John 15:13, etc. Here Isaac died, being old and full of days, literally satisfied with days. (Cf. the statement about Abraham’s death, Genesis 25:8). This chapter closes the ninth of the pieces or documents marked off by the phrase -these are the generations.-’ Its opening event was the birth of Isaac (Genesis 25:19), which took place in the hundredth year of Abraham, and therefore seventy-five years before his death recorded in the seventh document. As the seventh purports to be the generations of Terah (Genesis 11:27), and relates to Abraham who was his offspring, so the present document, containing the generations of Isaac, refers chiefly to the sons of Isaac, and especially to Jacob, as the heir of the promise. Isaac as a son learned obedience to his father in that great typical event of his life, in which he was laid on the altar, and figuratively sacrificed in the ram which was his substitute. This was the great significant passage in his life, after which he retired into comparative tranquility (MG, 429). (Murphy, by the term document here has reference to the sections which are introduced by the word toledoth, of which there are nine, not including the use of the word with reference strictly, in Genesis 2:4, to the physical or non-human phases of the Creation. Note the use of toledoth (generations) to mark off the nine sections of the book as follows: the generations of Adam, beginning at Genesis 5:1; of Noah, beginning at Genesis 6:9; of the sons of Noah, at Genesis 10:1; of Shem, at Genesis 11:10; of Terah, at Genesis 1:27; of Ishmael, at Genesis 25:12; of Isaac, at Genesis 25:19; of Esau, at Genesis 36:1; and of Jacob at Genesis 37:2. See my Genesis, I, 46-47.)

Isaac did indeed live in relative tranquility throughout most of his life; as a matter of fact, his personality seems not to have been motivated at any time to works of greatness: he was more or less under the domination of his wife throughout his entire married life. Commentators write eloquently of the Saga of Abraham, the Saga of Jacob, and the Saga of Joseph, but never of the Saga of Isaac: Isaac’s career never attained such note, such epic proportions, one might well say.The careers of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph, on the other hand, did attain epic proportions.

It is interesting to note also the prominent role played by the women of the patriarchal narratives. For example, Abraham accepted, apparently without any protest whatsoever, the barren Sarah’s proffer of a concubine as a substitute bearer of children, and thus acquiesced in her lack of faith and unwillingness to abide God’s own time for the fulfilment of His promise (Genesis 16:1-2). Isaac allowed himself to be victimized by the schemes of the strong-willed Rebekah (Genesis 27:5 ff.). Jacob labored under the spell which his deep love for Rachel seems to have cast over him throughout her life and even after her death (as evinced by the fact that he worked fourteen years to secure her as a wife: cf. Genesis 29:10-11; Genesis 29:30; Genesis 35:16-20; Genesis 37:3; Genesis 44:20-22); it was Jacob’s great love for Rachel that sparked his deep affection for Joseph and Benjamin, no doubt to the disgust of his other sons. It has always been true, and we suppose always will be that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Men are frequently made or marred, or even destroyed, by the passionate devotion they give to the women whom they truly love.

Jacob finally arrived at Hebron with his whole entourage of relatives and servants. Hebron was the third notable station occupied by his grandfather Abraham in the Land of Promise (Genesis 13:18). Here also Jacob’s father Isaac now sojourned. At the time of Jacob’s flight Isaac, we will recall, was resident in Beer-sheba; however, as he advanced in age he seems to have moved to Mamre, probably to be near the family sepulchre. Hebron was a town in the Judean mountains, some 2800 feet above sea level, midway between Jerusalem and Beersheba, and about twenty miles from each. It was named Kiriath-arba (Genesis 23:2; Joshua 14:15; Joshua 15:13), also Mamre, after Mamre the Amorite (Genesis 13:18; Genesis 14:13; Genesis 14:24; Genesis 35:27; Genesis 23:17; Genesis 23:19). Here Abraham entertained three heavenly Visitants on occasion and was promised a son (Genesis 18:1; Genesis 18:10; Genesis 18:14). The cave of Machpelah lay before Mamre, probably to the east of the grove of Mamre (Genesis 23:17; Genesis 23:19; Genesis 25:9; Genesis 49:30-32; Genesis 50:13; Genesis 50:26).

Isaac died at the age of 180 years (cf. Psalms 91:16). The death of this venerable patriarch is here recorded by anticipation, for it did not take place till fifteen years after Joseph’s disappearance. Feeble and blind though he was, he lived to a very advanced age; and it is a pleasing evidence of the permanent reconciliation between Esau and Jacob, that they met at Mamre, to perform the funeral rites of their common father (Jamieson, CECG, 225). This author would have us think kindly of Isaac, even reverently. He writes: In the delicate simplicity and unobtrusive humility of Isaac, in the quiet, gentle, amiable purity of his life, we have an early type of Christ’s perfect example. Indeed, his whole character, and the leading events of his history were a foreshadowing of those of the Savior (ibid., 225).It can be said of Isaac truthfully, whatever else might be said in criticism, that he was a man of peace, a man who always sought peace in preference to violence.

The last sentence in this chapter 35 reads like a benediction in itself: Esau and Jacob his sons buried him. Esau evidently arrived from Mount Seir to pay the final service due his deceased parent, Jacob according to him that precedence which had once belonged to him as Isaac’s firstborn. The Solemnity of Death: in Genesis 34:29 there comes a haunting echo of an earlier passage: Genesis 25:8-9. Except for the names, the two are identical. Isaac dies, and his sons Esau and Jacob come to bury him. Abraham died, and his sons Isaac and Ishmael came and buried him. In each case there had been bitterness between the two sons. Isaac was the cherished one: Ishmael had been driven out because of Sarah’s jealousy for Isaac. So in the next generation also the two sons had been divided by Jacob’s crafty trick that stole the birthright and Esau’s resulting furious anger. But both times the two sons meet at a father’s funeralthe one thing that after a long separation could unite them. The verses are more than bare records of events. They suggest a deep instinct that runs throughout all the history of Israelthe instinct of family loyalty. Whatever might drive individuals apart, something stronger held them, and would keep them from complete estrangement. Not in word only, but in fact the people of Israel accepted the commandment, -Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.-’ Obedience to that commandment is one reason why the Jewish race has had such tenacity and toughness of survival. It has honored and protected the family. It has chastened and corrected selfish irresponsibility by putting into the hearts of each generation a sense of duty to the group (IB, 743). History proves beyond all possibility of doubt that *when family life goes to pieces the nation falls.

This is the last mention of the living Esau in Scripture.* The sentence seems to indicate that Jacob and Esau continued to be on brotherly terms from the day of their meeting at the ford of Jabbok. Stillno mention whatever of Rebekah in her last days! Nothingbut a passing mention, by Israel himself, of her place of burial, the Cave of Machpelah (50:31).

It is interesting to note the chronology involved in the intertwined lives of Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. Jacob was born in the sixtieth year of Isaac’s life (Genesis 25:26), and was thus 120 years old when Isaac died (at the age of 180). But later when he (as Israel) was presented before Pharaoh in Egypt he was 130 years old (Genesis 47:9). Of this stretch of time there were seven fruitful and two unfruitful years since Joseph’s exaltation to power in Egypt (Genesis 41:53-54; Genesis 45:6), and thirteen years between the selling of Joseph and his elevation, for he was sold at the age of seventeen and made prime minister at thirty (Genesis 37:2, Genesis 47:9). Hence we must take twenty-three years from the 130 years of Jacob, to determine his age at the time Joseph was sold: which is thus 107. -Isaac therefore shared the grief of Jacob over the loss of his son for thirteen years.-’ In a similar way, Abraham had witnessed and sympathized with the long unfruitful marriage of Isaac. But Isaac could see in these sorrows of Jacob the hand of God, who will not allow that anyone should anticipate him in the self-willed preference of a favorite son (Lange, 571). Leupold presents this problem in a somewhat clearer light as follows: From this time [of Isaac’s death] onward Jacob enters into the full patriarchal heritage, having at last attained unto a spiritual maturity which is analogous to that of the patriarch. Coincident with this is Isaac’s receding into the background. Consequently Isaac’s death is now reported, though it did not take place for another twelve or thirteen years. For shortly after this, when Joseph was sold into Egypt, he was seventeen years old. When he stood before Pharaoh he was thirty (Genesis 41:46). Seven years later when Joseph was thirty-seven, Jacob came to Egypt at the age of 130 (Genesis 47:9). Consequently Jacob must have been ninety-three at Joseph’s birth and at the time of our chapter, 93, plus 15, i.e., about 108 years. But Isaac was sixty years old when Jacob was born: 108 plus 60 equals 168, Isaac’s age when Jacob returned home. But in closing the life of Isaac it is proper to mention his death, though in reality this did not occur for another twelve years. Strange to say, Isaac lived to witness Jacob’s grief over Joseph (EG, 929). Whitelaw writes as follows: At this time [of Isaac’s death] Jacob was 120; but at 130 he stood before Pharaoh in Egypt, at which date Joseph had been ten years governor. He was therefore 120 when Joseph was promoted at the age of thirty, and 107 when Joseph was sold. Consequently Isaac was 167 years of age when Joseph was sold, so that he must have survived that event and sympathised with Jacob his son for a period of 13 years (PCG, 417). Isaac died at the age of 180, and was buried by his two sons in the Cave of Machpelah (ch. Genesis 49:31), Abraham’s family grave, Esau having come from Seir to Hebron to attend the funeral of his father. But Isaac’s death did not actually take place for 12 years after Jacob’s return -to Hebron. For as Joseph was 17 years old when he was sold by his brethren (Genesis 37:2), and Jacob was then living at Hebron (Genesis 37:14), it cannot have been more than 31 years after his flight from Esau when Jacob returned home (cf. ch. Genesis 34:1). Now, since according to our calculation at ch. Genesis 27:1; he was 77 years old when he fled, he must have been 108 when he returned home; and Isaac would only have reached his 168th year, as he was 60 years old when Jacob was born (Genesis 25:26). Consequently, Isaac lived to witness the grief of Jacob at the loss of Joseph, and died but a short time before his promotion in Egypt, which occurred 13 years after he was sold (Genesis 41:46), and only 10 years before Jacob’s removal with his family to Egypt, as Jacob was 130 years old when he was presented to Pharaoh (Genesis 47:9). But the historical significance of his life was at an end, when Joseph returned home with his twelve sons (K-D, 320). This means simply that Jacob and his household must have dwelt with, or in close proximity to that of Isaac for some twelve or thirteen years, that is, until Isaac was gathered to his people at the age of 180.

We learn later, from Jacob’s last words, that Isaac and Rebekah were both buried in the Cave at Machpelah (Genesis 49:31). However, the Scriptures are completely silent about her life and death, following the departure of Jacob for Paddan-aram at her instigation. It seems only reasonable to conclude that after that departure she never saw her favorite son again.

FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING

John Peter Lange: On the Fanaticism of Leah’s Sons

(CDHCG, 564)

The collision between the sons of Jacob and Shechem the son of Hamor, is a vidid picture of the collisions between the youthful forms of political despotism and hierarchal pride. Shechem acts as an insolent worldly prince, Jacob’s sons as young fanatical priests, luring him to destruction. After Jacob became Israel, the just consciousness of his theocratic dignity appears manifestly in his sons, under the deformity of fanatical zeal. We may view this narrative as the history of the origin, and first original form of Jewish and Christian fanaticism. We notice first that fanaticism does not originate in and for itself, but clings to religious and moral ideas as a monstrous and misshapen outgrowth, since it changes the spiritual into a carnal motive. The sons of Jacob were right in feeling that they were deeply injured in the religious and moral idea and dignity of Israel, by Shechem’s deed. But still they are already wrong in their judgment of Shechem’s act, since there is surely a difference between the brutal lust of Amnon, who after his sin pours his hatred upon her whom he had dishonored, and Shechem who passionately loves and would marry the dishonored maiden, and is ready to pay any sum as an atonement; a distinction which the sons of Jacob mistook, just as those of the clergy do at this day who throw all breaches of the seventh commandment into one common category and as of the same heinous dye. Then we observe that Jacob’s sons justly shun a mixture with the Shechemites, although in this case they were willing to be circumcised for worldly and selfish ends. But there is a clear distinction between such a wholesale, mass conversion, from improper motives, which would have corrupted and oppressed the house of Israel, and the transition of Shechem to the sons of Israel, or the establishment of some neutral position for Dinah. But leaving this out of view, if we should prefer to maintain (what Jacob certainly did not maintain) that an example of revenge must be made, to intimidate the heathen, and to warn the future Israel against the Canaanites, still the fanatical zeal in the conduct of Jacob’s sons passed over into fanaticism strictly so called, which developed itself from the root of spiritual pride, according to three world-historical characteristics. The first was cunning, the lie, and enticing deception. Thus the Hugenots were enticed into Paris on the night of St. Bartholomew. The second was the murderous attack and carnage. How often has this form shown itself in the history of fanaticism! This pretended sacred murder and carnage draws the third characteristic sign in its train: rapine and pillage. The possessions of the heretics, according to the laws of the Middle Ages, fell to the executioner of the pretended justice; and history of the Crusades against the heretics testifies to similar horrors and devastation. Jacob, therefore, justly declared his condemnation of the iniquity of the brothers, Simeon and Levi, not only at once, but upon his death-bed (ch. 49) and it marks the assurance of the apocryphal standpoint, when the book Judith, for the purpose of palliating the crime of Judith, glorifies in a poetical strain the like fanatical act of Simeon (ch. 9). Judith, indeed, in the trait of cunning, appears as the daughter in spirit of her ancestor Simeon. We must not fail to distinguish here in our history, in this first vivid picture of fanaticism, the nobler point of departure, the theocratic motive, from the terrible counterfeit and deformity. In this relation there seems to have been a difference between the brothers, Simeon and Levi. While the former appears to have played a chief part in the history of Joseph also (Genesis 42:24), and in the division of Canaan was dispersed among his brethren, the purified Levi came afterwards to be the representative of pure zeal in Israel (Exodus 32:28, Deuteronomy 33:8) and the administrator of the priesthood, i.e., the theocratic priestly first-born, by the side of Judah the theocratic political first-born. A living faith and a faithful zeal rarely develop themselves as a matter of fact without a mixture of fanaticism; -the flame gradually purifies itself from the smoke.-’ In all actual individual cases, it is a question whether the flame overcomes the smoke, or the smoke the flame. In the life of Christ, the Old-Testament covenant faithfulness and truth burns pure and bright, entirely free from smoke; in the history of the old Judaism, on the contrary, a dangerous mixture of fire and smoke steams over the land. And so in the development of individual believers we see how some purify themselves to the purest Christian humanity, while others, even sinking more and more into the pride. cunning, uncharitableness and injustice of fanaticism, are completely ruined. Delitzsch: -The greatest aggravation of their sin was that they degraded the sacred sign of the covenant into the common means of their malice. And yet it was a noble germ which exploded so wickedly.-’

This Shechemite carnage of blind and Jewish fanaticism is reflected in a most remarkable way, as to all its several parts, in the most infamous crime of Christian fanaticism, the Parisian St. Bartholomew. [The narrative of these events at Shechem shows how impartial the sacred writer is, bringing out into prominence whatever traits of excellence there were in the characters of Shechem and Hamor, while he does not conceal the cunning, falsehood, and cruelty of the sons of Jacob. Nor should we fail to observe the connection of this narrative with the later exclusion of Simeon and Levi from the rights of the firstborn, to which they would naturally have acceded after the exclusion of Reuben; and with their future location in the land of Canaan. The history furnishes one of the clearest proofs of the genuineness and unity of GenesisGosnian] (Lange, 564). (Cf. Genesis 29:32-35; Genesis 35:22; Genesis 49:3; Genesis 49:5-7, etc.).

Analogies: Jacob and Christ

Genesis 32:24-32; John 14:1-14

A study of the lives of the patriarchs reveals the fact that human nature has been the same in all ages. The Bible is unique and superior in that it reveals men just as they are and have always been. It does not turn aside from its faithful record to cover up a single fault, nor hide an unpleasant incident. It is essentially the Book of Life.

In the biography of Jacob, we will find some very marked weaknesses of character. On the other hand, the remarkable virtues that manifest themselves demonstrate the superiority of his character over that of Esau, his brother, who was willing to sell his birthright for a mere mess of pottage, Genesis 25:29-34, Hebrews 12:16. Hence the promise to Abraham, which looked forward to the Gospel, Genesis 12:1-3, Galatians 3:8, was repeated to Isaac, Genesis 26:4, and to Jacob, Genesis 28:14. The names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are inseparably linked together as the fathers of the Jewish people, Exodus 3:6, Matthew 8:11, Acts 3:13, Hebrews 11:18-20.

While Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph are spoken of as types of Christ, it is not to be understood that they are types in character. That would be impossible, for in this He stood alonegreat in His solitude, and solitary in His greatness in holiness and perfection. We do not desire to become too fanciful in this study, yet there are many circumstances in the lives of these men that are strongly typical. We take up now the analogies between Jacob and Christ.

1. Jacob’s vision at Bethel, Genesis 28:10-22.

2. Christ’s place in the world vision he announced, John 1:51. As Jacob saw in his dream the vision of angels ascending and descending the ladder, so the disciples would see in Christ the connecting link between heaven and earth. Through Christ the heavens would again be opened, and communion between heaven and earth restored, John 14:6, Hebrews 8:1-2.

3. Jacob went into a far country to secure his bride, laboring as a servant to secure her, Genesis 29-30.

4. Christ came to the world as a servant, laboring to secure His Bride, the Church. John 1:1-5, Colossians 1:16-17, Hebrews 1:2-3, Philippians 2:5-8, John 8:58.

5. In the far country eleven sons were born, Genesis 29-30.

6. While on earth, Christ called twelve apostles, but one of them fell. Matthew 10:2-4, John 6:70-71, Matthew 27:3-5, Acts 1:25.

7. Jacob was servant of Laban. At the end of his service, they set a three days-’ journey between them. Genesis 30:36.

8. At the end of Christ’s personal ministry, a three days-’ journey was set between Himself and the world. John 2:18-21, Matthew 16:21, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.

9. Following the return to Canaan, Benjamin was born, making, the twelfth son. These twelve sons were the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. Genesis 35:22; Genesis 49:28-29, Exodus 24:4, Leviticus 24:5.

10. After Christ’s return to Heaven, Paul was called to be an apostle, born out of due season, of the tribe of Benjamin. Acts 9:1-43; Acts 26:1-7; Acts 26:16-17, Philippians 3:4-6, 1 Corinthians 15:8. The apostles will occupy thrones of judgment and positions of power in the Kingdom, 1 Corinthians 6:2, Luke 22:29-30, Revelation 3:21; Revelation 21:14. These twelve are now the pillars, or the foundation of the Church, Galatians 2:9, Ephesians 2:20.

11. Benjamin was born amidst sorrow and grief, yet was named The Son of the Right Hand, Genesis 35:16-20.

12. Paul was born to the Church in the period of intense sorrow and persecution, yet came to be the greatest of the apostles, Acts 8:13; Acts 26:9-10, 2 Corinthians 11:22-28. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles distinctly, Acts 26:16-18. To him was committed the task of writing a large part of the New Testament.

13. Thy name shall be called Israel, (that is, a prince of God); As a prince thou hast power with God and with men, Genesis 32:24-30.

14. Christ has power with God and with men, John 12:32; John 11:41-42, Hebrews 7:25.

It is said that Frederick the Great of Prussia once asked a minister, of whom he was an intimate friend, What do you consider the best evidence of the claims that Jesus is the Son of God, and that the Bible is divinely inspired? The man of God very quickly replied, The history of the Jews. And the supposed unbeliever was silenced.

In studying God’s dealings with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their posterity, we are plainly shown that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men. God is in history, and especially in the history of the Jews. Today they are scattered among all nations, for their rejection of Christ, until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled. What a warning to Gentiles who refuse to acknowledge Jesus as their Christ, Romans 11:11-12. When the world is again bathed in sorrows, we may see the light!

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART FORTY-THREE

Name the places that figured in the journey of Jacob and state what important event (or events) took place at each.

What place was the immediate objective of Jacob on his return from Paddan-aram?

What dramatice episode took place at Shechem?

Who was Dinah and what apparently were her relations with the women of Shechem?

What indignity was perpetrated on Dinah by Shechem the prince of the place?

Who was the king of Shechem at this time?

What was the reaction of Jacob’s sons to this indignity? Who were the ringleaders in the terrible revenge visited on the Shechemites?

What is the significance of the statement regarding Shechem’s folly, which thing ought not to be done?

What restitution did the king and prince of Shechem propose for the latter’s crime? To what extent did this restitution include Jacob’s entire tribe or ethnic group?

What was the feature of Shechem’s act that was to Jacob’s sons a special kind of iniquity? Do we see here a taint of national (or ethnic) pride and self-righteousness?

What can we ascertain about Dinah’s life following the incident at Shechem?

What fanatical revenge did the sons of Jacob perpetrate on the Shechemites?

In what way did they profane the institution of circumcision in actualizing this vengeance? Did they have any right to propose circumcision to non-Hebrews? Explain your answer.

Of what special kind of hypocrisy were the sons of Jacob guilty?

What was the total vengeance which they imposed on the Shechemites?

What was Jacob’s attitude toward this tragedy?

What special character did circumcision have in relation to the progeny of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? How was it related to the Abrahamic Covenant?

Is there any evidence that circumcision had any other meaning to the children of Abraham than that assigned to it as a feature of the Covenant? Explain your answer.

What other suggestions have been offered by anthropologists as to the design of circumcision? Do these suggestions apply to the design of circumcision in the Abrahamic covenant? Explain.

What validity is there in the view that the imposition of Circumcision on the Shechemites was merely a pretext to render them incapable of self-defense? Explain your answer.

What do we mean by the statement that Jacob’s displeasure over the tragedy perpetrated by his sons seems to have been occasioned by expediency? Do you consider this charge valid?

Do you consider that parental weakness comes to light in the duplicity of Jacob’s sons?

Trace the significant role played by Shechem in the Old Testament story. Where was the place located? How is it related to events in the New Testament?

May the, tragedy of Shechem be rightly called an example of the dangers of religious fanaticism?

Explain, in this connection, the origin of the Samaritans. Why were they so cordially disliked by the Jews in New Testament times? Where in the New Testament do we find this prejudice, clearly revealed?

Why, in all likelihood, did Jacob set out immediately for Bethel after the tragedy of Shechem? What did he do with the people of Shechem?

What did God command Jacob to do, after the incident at Shechem?

What steps did Jacob take to purify his household? What did he do with their foreign gods? Whom may we suppose to have had these gods?

What final purification ceremonies did Jacob enforce? What lessons do we learn from this incident about the importance of cleanliness and modesty of dress when we come into the presence of Jehovah to worship Him?

What was the first thing Jacob did on arriving at Bethel? On this second visit, what name did he give to the place and what was the significance of it?

Who was Deborah? On what grounds can we account for her appearance in the narrative at this point? How had she probably figured in the life of Joseph’s household? What significance is there in the name Allon-bacuth?

What happened at Bethel with reference to the change of Jacob’s name?

In what sense did Jacob perform the vow he had uttered at Bethel on his way to Paddan-aram?

What is the import of the name El Shaddai (God Almighty) as it occurs in this theophany?

What were the items of the Abrahamic Promise which were repeated and renewed to Jacob at this time?

What memorial did Jacob set up at this time? What was the drink-offering and what was its symbolic meaning?

Who was the goddess known as the queen of heaven? Of what cult was the worship of this goddess an essential feature?

What names were given this goddess among various other peoples?

Where did the Israelites bury the bones of Joseph when they came out of Egypt?

What was the usual punishment for seduction among nomadic tribes?

On what ground was the indignation of Simeon and Levi against the rulers of Shechem justifiable?

What great evils were involved in the vengeance which they executed?

Sketch the notable history of Bethel as it is given us in the Old Testament.

Where was Rachel’s second son born? How did Rachel’s life come to an end?

What did she name this son? What name did Jacob bestow on him? What did each of these names mean?

Where was Rachel buried? What was her special importance in the patriarchal history?

What crime did Reuben commit? What penalty did he suffer for this crime?

What probably was the original name of Bethlehem and what did it mean? What does the name Bethlehem mean?

What explanations of Reuben’s act do we find in Jewish interpretations? Is there any legitimate ground for rejecting the truthfulness of the Biblical record as indicated in Genesis 35:22; Genesis 49:4, and 1 Chronicles 5:1?

Name the twelve sons of Jacob and their respective mothers.

Where did Jacob’s journeying finally come to an end?

How old was Isaac when he died? What general characteristic can we apply to Isaac’s life?

Where were Isaac and Rebekah buried? How account for the lacuna in the Biblical record with reference to the later period of Rebekah’s life?

Why do we say that the last statement in the 29th chapter of Genesis reads like abenediction? With what event does the story of Esau’s life come to an end?

Why do we say that Jacob and his household spent some twelve or thirteen years with Isaac at Hebron prior to Isaac’s death? Explain the chronology of this interesting fact.

Summarize Lange’s essay on fanaticism.

List the analogies between the life of Joseph and that of Christ.