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What the Bible says about Simeon and Levi
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Genesis 34:2

It seems that Jacob failed Dinah in several ways. He put her outside Shechem where she should have never been. He allowed continuing worship of pagan gods in his home. He was concerned more with his personal honor and image than that of his daughter. Moreover, he left it to his sons to deal with this tragedy rather than taking a leadership role.

Where was Leah in all this? The Bible is silent about her. Should she have known where her thirteen-year-old daughter was? Maybe she did know; perhaps she allowed her to go to Shechem unattended. The pagan festival held there may have been familiar to Leah, and she felt no threat from it or its attendees. An ancient Jewish commentator on the Torah, Rashi, alleged that "the daughter is like the mother," managing to condemn both of them in his short comment. Notice that Leah—the mother of six of the tribes of Israel, part of Christ's genealogy, a woman blessed in so many ways by God—is blamed rather than any of the men.

Are Hamor and Shechem to blame? Certainly, Shechem must take blame, as he raped a child, one in mind if not in body. In some respects, despite being the perpetrator of a dreadful crime, he comes off as somewhat honorable. He is said to have loved her, he appears to be sorry, and he offers to marry her and give the family a dowry.

Hamor's role in this seems to be two-fold. He wants to give his boy his desire, and he wants to accumulate more wealth and power for himself. When he pitches the idea of circumcision to the townsmen in Genesis 34:23, he says "Will not their livestock, their property, and every animal of theirs be ours?" Hamor means "ass" or "donkey," so make of it what you will.

Then there are the sons of Jacob, led by Simeon and Levi, full brothers to Dinah. There is no excusing the crimes that they committed, and they are subsequently punished (see Genesis 49:5-7), a part of the saga that is a story unto itself. They certainly share great blame.

What about Dinah? Was she a hussy? A shameless and promiscuous girl? It is interesting that in this entire chapter we never hear from her. Was the rest of her life ruined? Did she have a child from this rape? Many interesting theories have been suggested about the remainder of her life.

My personal opinion is that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, she put herself in that situation, so she does carry some blame for what happened. She does not deserve all of it, as the older commentaries have it, nor was she some sort of feminist out to break the hold of her male-dominated world, as more modern commentators try to make her.

We cannot know all that went on in this matter, but God has given us a great deal of information about the various players. As with most things in life, there is more to it than what appears at first blush. There are layers to be peeled back and meditated on. When examined from all angles, we can see that none were truly innocent in the Rape of Dinah, which is a lesson for us all.

Mike Ford
The Rape of Dinah

Genesis 35:1-3

In Genesis 28:20-22, Jacob made a vow that, if God would be with him, he would return to Bethel. Instead, however, after leaving Laban, he stops first at Succoth for a time, then settles in Shechem, fifteen miles short of Bethel. Perhaps he does not feel ready to go to Bethel, which means "House of God," because some of his family still hold to their pagan gods. Perhaps he feels that he knows best, and Shechem is a better spot (Bethel is about a thousand feet higher in elevation than Shechem).

God allows him this latitude, but in the Rape of Dinah and the subsequent murders (found in Genesis 34), it is obvious that God wants him to honor his promise to return to Bethel.

In Genesis 34:30, we see something else about Jacob:

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have troubled me by making me obnoxious among the inhabitants of the land, . . . and since I am few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and kill me. I shall be destroyed, my household and I." (Emphasis ours)

This verse does not put Jacob in the best light! He appears to have been just a bit self-centered. At this point in the story, he was not thinking in terms of Dinah's best interests, only of his own.

It seems that Jacob failed Dinah in several ways. He put her outside Shechem where she should have never been. He allowed continuing worship of pagan gods in his home. He was concerned more with his personal honor and image than that of his daughter. Moreover, he left it to his sons to deal with this tragedy rather than taking a leadership role.

Mike Ford
The Rape of Dinah

Genesis 49:5-7

Simeon and Levi, treated together, would be "divided" in Jacob, "scattered" in Israel, because of their "fierce" and "cruel" anger. (Jacob is referring to the duplicity and brutality they displayed in the slaying of the men of Shechem. See Genesis 34.)

Charles Whitaker
Searching for Israel (Part Two): Blessings in Faith

Genesis 49:5-7

Here in Jacob's last words to his sons, we read of two of them, Simeon and Levi, being singled out as cruel. By their actions, they had proved themselves cruel both to animals and to humans. God warns them through their father Jacob that this trait would likely be passed down to their descendants. Because of it, He would be forced to scatter them throughout the other tribes of Israel, diluting its ill effects within the larger nation.

It is interesting that, despite its inherent leanings toward cruelty, the family of Levi was chosen by God to serve Him in His Tabernacle, Temple, and through the Aaronic priesthood (Numbers 1:50). Perhaps by concentrating the members of this tribe on His work, God transferred their aggressive tendencies to a far better purpose.

Is it also possible that, although God softened him with His Holy Spirit and made him the meekest of men (Numbers 12:3), Moses—a Levite—inherited some of his tribe's proclivity towards cruelty? Did he not murder an Egyptian whom he caught beating one of his fellow-Israelite countrymen (Exodus 2:11-12)? Did not Moses' wife, Zipporah, call him a "bloody husband" or a "bridegroom of blood" (Exodus 4:25-26)? Yes, we know that she says this relative to the circumcision of their son, but was there perhaps more to her outburst than just this?

Later, after Moses had been on Mount Sinai for almost forty days, the Israelites persuaded Aaron to make an idol, the infamous Golden Calf, for them to worship. Seeing the idolatrous rites and perversions happening in the camp, God sent Moses down to deal with the situation. Not only did he break the two tablets on which God had inscribed the Ten Commandments (Exodus 32:19), "he took the calf which they had made, burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder; and he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel drink it" (verse 20)! Incidentally, he afterward called for all those who were on the Lord's side to go throughout the camp to kill their idolatrous fellow Israelites—and the tribe of Levi rallied to him (verses 25-28)!

It seems that Moses had to keep his anger in check throughout his life. After he had brought Israel to Kadesh, just before the final push into the Promised Land, the children of Israel murmured due to the lack of water. In his impatience, anger, and frustration, Moses struck the rock rather than speaking to it as God had commanded (Numbers 20:7-11). Doing so destroyed his chance to enter the Promised Land with the people.

Staff
Don't Be Cruel!


 




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