Summaries:
Jacob and Esau meet, and Jacob asks for forgiveness, and Esau graciously forgives him and welcomes him and his family (33). Jacob's daughter Dinah is raped by Schechem, who "loves" her and begs his father Hamor to get Dinah to marry her, so Hamor talks to Jacob and asks that their peoples be allowed to inter-marry and share the land, to which Jacob agrees, so long as all the males become circumcised, so they agree and become circumcised. Then Jacob's sons kill the males and capture the wealth and women out of revenge for their sister, but bringing Jacob great trouble (34). Jacob and his family rid themselves of other gods and go to Bethel, where God tells Jacob that he will bless his descendants and make an assembly of nations stem from him, and that he shall be called Israel (35). Then the descendants of Esau (36).
Reflections:
I found the whole thing with Jacob and Esau to be a very good read. Seeing Esau so willingly forgive his brother Jacob, who returns so afraid that his brother will not forgive him, and so ready to offer him anything for his forgiveness, was quite moving.
Then the whole encounter with the rape and then the agreements, the circumcisions, and then the revenge. Wow. I didn't see that coming. I was starting to think that God had made something good out of a bad situation by using the horrible circumstance of Dinah's into a chance to make these people into God's people, but after the circumcision, Dinah's brothers took matters into their own hands.
I really like Jacob, and he's a character that I did not know much about before re-reading this. I'm feeling like I'm starting to understand the main lineage too, such as Abraham -> Isaac -> Jacob -> Joseph, and who they are and what they did. It's very cool to see this all unfold.
Quotes:
Gen. 33:4 - "Esau ran to meet (Jacob), embraced him, and flinging himself on his neck, kissed him as he wept."
Gen. 35:19 - "Thus Rachel died; and she was buried on the road to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem)." I found it interesting to see that Jacob's wife Rachel, whose later descendant is Jesus, was buried in the place that Jesus was born.
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I know I'm several days late on this comment, but these things happen.
ReplyDeleteI had been thinking the same thing about understanding the lineage. I think because we tend to jump around a lot at Church with the selection of Old Testament readings (and because they can be a bit...dry) that I've always had a hard time understanding who begat whom, and when. And those long lists they provide sometimes don't help too much! Thanks for laying it all out :)