Friday, August 25th – Genesis 33: 6, 7

Jacob had arranged his wives and children in order to preserve them from the attack he feared from Esau (Gen. 32:7,8). Those most precious to Jacob were placed behind all others (Gen. 33:1,2). Now that a joyful reconciliation had taken place between these brothers, Jacob presents his family to Esau in the same order they had been in as preservation from him. Jacob’s most beloved wife, Rachel, and her son, Joseph, who had been placed last in the file to save them from Esau, are now presented as the best wine that Jacob saved as the last for Esau. The peace that God graciously establishes between men is a beautiful fruit of that justifying peace that He establishes between Himself and men. Even the common grace which Esau had as his only taste of divine grace transformed him from a hunting brute to an honored brother. When grace prevails, we do not shield our best from others, but seek to share our best with them.

Saturday, August 26th - Genesis 33: 33: 8, 9

Esau’s attention now shifts from the persons in Jacob’s family to the presents that Jacob had sent in waves to him. By God’s common grace, Esau had prospered, and therefore he graciously tells Jacob to keep his gifts. Nor were those gifts necessary in order for Jacob to procure Esau’s favor. So wonderfully had the Lord been working to shower temporal blessing upon Esau—giving him the only reward he sought—that Esau’s heart could not have been more favorable and generously inclined toward Jacob. When a man’s ways please the Lord, as Jacob’s way of faithful obedience had done, He makes even that man’s enemies to be at sincere and pleasant peace with him. Thus, we see how the Lord had answered Jacob’s prayer (Gen. 32: 9-12) far above what he had asked or thought.

Sunday, August 27th - Genesis 33: 10, 11

Esau had shown nothing but sincere lovingkindness and a gracious and generous consideration to Jacob. The favor Jacob so earnestly sought from Esau would not cost Jacob to acquire, but, by the Lord’s doing, was freely and lavishly given by Esau to his brother. Yet, Esau was a profane man, whose soul the Lord hated, notwithstanding the Lord’s lavishing upon Esau His common grace. Now, as Jacob insists and persists in urging his gifts upon Esau, we perceive the superior value of saving grace, which Jacob possessed. Jacob was intent upon honoring his brother as a sweet fruit of his reverence for God. While Esau boasted: I have plenty (v.9), Jacob testifies to his having received God’s grace. Indeed, so focused was Jacob upon the Lord, that he sees the lifted countenance of God in the favorable face of Esau. Saving grace makes a man to be a cheerful giver to his God and to his fellow man. A cheap, stingy Christian is a contradiction in being and doing.

Monday, August 28th - Genesis 33: 10, 11

At Jacob’s urging, Esau finally accepts his brother’s gifts. The reason Esau initially declined the offered gifts was because as he said in v.9: I have plenty. Jacob also claims to have plenty in v.11. However, the Hebrew word used in v.11 is literally all. Whatever prosperity the worldly man may gather in his life, the godly man possesses all things through his inheritance in Christ (1 Cor. 3:21,22). Our knowing this is the secret of our contentment in all circumstances (Phil. 4:11-13), and the treasury from which we give to others cheerfully and bountifully.

Tuesday, August 29th - Genesis 33: 12

Esau had not come to meet Jacob in order to drive him out of the land of the living, as Jacob had feared, but rather to take his brother to his home. Somewhere over the years Esau’s attitude toward Jacob had changed from one of warfare (Gen. 27:41), to one of welcome. Esau, having met and been joyfully reconciled with his brother, was desirous of traveling with him and dwelling with him. This is the work of the Lord and it is marvelous and should encourage us to pray for and expect wonderful reconciliations in our own strained or severed family relationships.

Wednesday, August 30th - Genesis 33: 12-14

Esau was equipped to travel quickly with his 400 men. However, Jacob was blessedly burdened with children and flocks and herds that required a slower pace. While Jacob was rightly filled with joyful gratitude at this reunion with his brother, he did not forget his primary loves and responsibilities. Therefore, with humble respect for Esau, he requests permission to follow his brother while tending to the needs of his family and estate. Jacob would not hold Esau back, nor would he drive his little ones harshly or leave them to make their own way. Jacob rightly loved and cared for his immediate family and did not let his enthusiasm for his wider family injure them. Too many fathers in our day allow their careers, their hobbies, their friends, or their wider families to take priority over their wives, in whom they should rejoice above all others (Prov. 5:18), and over their children, who are their blessed gifts from the Lord (Ps. 127:3-5).

Thursday, August 31st - Genesis 33: 15, 16

Once again we find an exchange between common and special grace taking place between Esau and Jacob. With gracious care and consideration, Esau agrees to let Jacob follow him to Seir, pacing himself according to the capacity of his little ones. Yet, Esau also shows concern for his brother and his family, as they were traveling without armed protectors. Therefore, Esau offers Jacob an escort from his 400 men. Jacob, however, thinks, feels, speaks, and acts from the springs of saving grace and confident reliance upon the Lord. Accordingly, he declares that he has no need for such an escort. He who is humble does not need the pomp of a retinue; he who trusts in the arm of Almighty God does not need the arms of frail men to guard him.

Friday, September 1st - Genesis 33: 15, 16

Jacob took care not to give offense to Esau when he declined the offered escort. All that Jacob asked to receive from Esau was his favor, and that Esau had given and continued to give to Jacob. It was the favor of Esau, not his forces, and certainly not his fortune that Jacob desired. This was so because Jacob had received the blessed favor of the Lord of heaven, who had promised to be with him and bless him (Gen. 31:3). He who has the promise of God needs not the provision of man, although it should be with respectful appreciation for the offer that he acknowledges his lack of need for the latter (Phil. 4:10-13).

Saturday, September 2nd - Genesis 33: 17

This verse informs us that Jacob stopped and apparently sojourned in Succoth on his way to Seir. Succoth was on the east side of the Jordan River, about 20 miles east of Shechem and about 100 miles north of Seir. It is unclear what significance there was to Jacob’s stopping at this place. It appears that his sojourn was significant enough to have founded a place named after his having dwelt there for a time in booths (the Hebrew word, Succoth, means booths). Wherever the righteous stay, however briefly, becomes significant because of their having been there. Also, we note how Jacob sojourned, namely, in booths. He manifests his humility when he declined to hurry to Esau’s houses and stayed, instead, in booths so that his children and livestock might rest.

Sunday, September 3rd - Genesis 33: 18

After more than 20 years from the time of his departure from Canaan, Jacob returned to the Promised Land. He did not settle in or near Beersheba, where his father and mother had their home in their latter years (Gen. 23:23), and from where he had fled from Esau (Gen. 28:10). Instead Jacob settled in Shechem, located in central Canaan. It was at Shechem that the Lord first revealed to Abraham that he was in the midst of the Promised Land (Gen. 12:6,7). It was a mark of Jacob’s godly obedience that when the Lord told him to return to the land of his fathers (Gen. 31:3), he settled in the very midst of the land, and not in the southern extremity where his parents lived and to where he had previously hoped to return (Gen. 28: 20,21). In our walk by faith, we should aim to stay well within the boundaries of our Lord’s revealed will, and not drift or perversely wander to the verge of disobedience.

Monday, September 4th - Genesis 33: 19

Although the Lord had given Jacob title to all the land of Canaan, the patriarch purchased a part of the land from Hamor, Shechem’s father. The deed whereby believers inherit the earth is recorded in heaven. While we are on pilgrimage in this life, we must respect and responsibly use the provisional modes of procuring and legally holding property that are recognized among men. That is why Paul teaches us to respect what is right in the sight of all men (Rom. 12:17), even through we may not agree with some of the social and economic systems in which we must have dealings. Jesus paid the tax money at Capernaum, even though as a son of Israel and the Son of God He was exempt from such payment (Mt. 17:24-27). Many things the Christian should do in this life, he does not from obligation, but so that he will not give offense to others.

Tuesday, September 5th - Genesis 33: 19

Although Jacob was buying land in the heart of Canaan in obedience to divine guidance (Gen. 31:3), the mention of Shechem in this verse sounds a note of warning that in this life there are thorns amidst all roses. In Chapter 34 we shall learn what grief Shechem brought upon Jacob and his children. Even in Shechem, therefore, Jacob dwelt in tents, for he was looking for and was prodded toward the city whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11:9,10,16).

Wednesday, September 6th - Genesis 33: 20

Jacob built an altar on the property he bought in Shechem. By his doing this, he followed the holy example of his fathers: Noah (Gen. 8:20); Abraham (Gen. 12:7; 13:18; 26:25); and Isaac (Gen. 26:25). Like them, he erected this altar in grateful recognition of the Lord’s mercies to him. Upon that altar, he offered sacrifices that pointed to the Lord’s supreme mercy in Christ, through whom he and we are redeemed from all sin, delivered from all enemies, led by infallible wisdom, loved with everlasting love, and given access by faith to the throne of God’s grace and ushered ultimately into the glory of the Lord. We do well to follow Jacob’s example, not by our building altars—for since Christ’s sacrifice there should be no altars—but by our presenting ourselves to the Lord gratefully as living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1,2).

Thursday, September 7th - Genesis 33: 20

    The altar Jacob erects is a tangible expression of the fulfillment of his vow that the Lord would be his personal God if the Lord would bring him safely back to Canaan (Gen. 28:20-22).  The name Jacob gave to the altar is: God is the God of Israel.  The God of Abraham and Isaac had proven Himself to be Jacob’s own God, by His preservation, guidance, protection, and prospering of Jacob over the course of more than 20 years.  By the grace, wisdom, love and power of this God, Jacob’s course and character had been blessedly changed.  The altar and its name would also serve as a testimony to Jacob’s descendants that they, too, should trust and obey the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.

Friday, September 8th - Genesis 34: 1, 2

    Jacob is home from Haran, with wives and children and land and livestock.  He has been happily reunited with Esau.  He has trusted, obeyed, and worshiped the Lord.  Yet even the most faithful sons of God’s saving grace must endure many afflictions in this life.  Hence, we are told of the rape of Dinah, one of Jacob’s daughters, by Shechem, the son of Hamor from whom Jacob had purchased his land (Gen. 33:19).  We do well to take very seriously the words of Jesus when He tells us that in the world we shall have tribulation. Yet even amidst such thorns we shall find our peace and joy in Christ (Jn. 16:33), not in pleasing circumstances.

Saturday, September 9th - Genesis 34: 1

    In this verse we are given a brief note respecting Dinah’s excursion.  The Bible is not telling us that Jacob’s daughter was minding her own business when she was victimized by Shechem.  Rather, we are given words that the wise will take to heart.  For example, we are told that Dinah went out.  This does not mean that she fled from home as Jacob had earlier done, nor that she left her family in conscious rebellion.  But it alerts us that we are more vulnerable to attacks from the wicked when we are away from our homes and family, even if we are away on innocent excursions or legitimate business.  Home is not only where the heart is, but also where our greatest security and happiness can be found.

Sunday, September 10th - Genesis 34: 1

    This verse not only informs us that Dinah went out from her home, but also tells us what prompted her excursion.  She left home literally tosee the daughters of the land.  In other words, an unsettled curiosity led her away from her home.  She was not on an errand for her family, but she sought to make contact with the Canaanite women.  We are not told that her motivation for such contact was her desire to evangelize them.  When we seek diversion from familial duties and family devotions, we open ourselves to sinister exploitation to a degree that we can hardly expect.

Monday, September 11th - Genesis 34: 1, 2

    Dinah left home intending to see the daughters of Canaan.  Instead, she encountered the son of Hamor who sinned grievously against her.  Shechem was responsible for his sin; Dinah was responsible for her curious wandering.  As a wise pastor once said: The sheep may not have meant to get lost, but it did mean to wander.
       
Tuesday, September 12th - Genesis 34: 2, 3

    In these verses, we are told that Shechem was the son of Hamor, king of the Hivites.  His nobility, however, is shown to be a mere veneer covering his base and ignoble heart.  He was in no way like the King of kings, who is a shepherd that protects, provides for, and tenderly loves His sheep.  This son of Hamor, instead, takes what he sees to satisfy himself.  It is true that v.3 informs us that he loved Dinah.  However, his lust and abusive domination of the daughter of Jacob preceded and spoiled whatever love he might have had for her.  The Apostle Paul speaks of Christian men possessing their wives in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion (1 Thess. 4:4,5).  For the believer, holy love leads to commitment and intimate communion that is right in the sight of God, and mutually satisfying to a man and his wife.  Lust leads not to love, but to sinful brute force, pain, misery, corruption, guilt, and shame.  Let us then learn how to love not from the rapacious kings of the earth, but from our God who is love.

Wednesday, September 13th - Genesis 34: 4, 5

    Hamor is told only part of the story by his son.  Shechem declared his desire to have Dinah, and said nothing about his having raped her.  Jacob, on the other hand, heard a fuller, more truthful account, presumably from Dinah herself.  He learned the grievous truth that his daughter had been wrested from him and defiled by lustful Shechem.  While Jacob was having his daughter trustingly confide in him the painful news of her violation, Hamor was being enlisted by his sinful son to do his bidding for him.  The pleasures, joys, and seeming innocence of the wicked do but form a veneer that covers the depths of their shameful sins and guilt.  The sorrows of the righteous are unspeakably deep, yet they can be taken to the godly, who love us, and to the Lord, who will one day wipe away all of their tears.

Thursday, September 14th - Genesis 34: 6, 7

    It was while Hamor set off in ignorance to do his sinful son’s bidding, that Jacob shared with his sons a full disclosure of the awful truth.  It is acknowledged by them all to be a painful, ugly truth.  Shechem had done something he ought not to have done, yet we live in a world where men in rebellion from the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth do all sorts of things they ought not to do.  This is a truth that the wicked themselves suppress, as they delude themselves into thinking that the bad things they do are simply accidents, mistakes, inconveniences, and not violations of God’s holy law.  The righteous can face this truth and fortify and protect themselves by their donning the full armor of God.

Friday, September 15th - Genesis 34: 8

    Hamor makes his request on behalf of Shechem.  It may be that Hamor remained in ignorance of his son’s sin against Dinah when he asked for her hand in marriage for Shechem.  If so, we see how often things can be very much worse than we may at times suspect when we request something from others.  Yet because this verse begins with the word, But, the indication is that Hamor, too, received the report given to Jacob’s sons in the previous verse, and passed it off as a trifling thing that should be understood and accepted by all on account of the strength of Shechem’s love for Dinah.  The godless will always regard practically any sinful action as being justified if the action was prompted by strong passion.  In fact, the only way a sinner is justified is not by his own sinful passions, but by the holy, saving passion of Christ.

Saturday, September 16th - Genesis 34: 8, 9

    From the sin of the son springs the temptation from the father to greater sin.  Hamor proposes a social solution to the matter of Shechem’s sin and Dinah’s wounding.  He would have Jacob and his sons cast a fig leaf of inter-marriage with the idolatrous Hivites over Shechem’s sin, seeing such inter-marrying as a solution to any future friction and frustration between the children of Jacob and the children of Canaan.  Compromise with the godless is never a solution to any problem the godly may have, but only an invitation to greater problems.  Union with the godless necessarily results in disunion from the Lord.

Sunday, September 17th - Genesis 34: 9, 10

Hamor adds incentives to his proposal that the children of Jacob intermarry with the children of Canaan. Rights, privileges, and opportunities for economic prosperity are offered to Jacob and his descendants. Hamor is offering citizenship to a man and his family who have been living all their lives as strangers and sojourners. It is, however, an enticement to forsake their high status as God’s covenant people and as citizens of heaven. Jacob is being tempted to form an unholy union with a people who, although seemingly well-situated in this world, in reality had their feet set in slippery places by the hand of the Lord (Ps. 73:17-20). Godless enticements always come to us with terrible hidden costs.

Monday, September 18th - Genesis 34: 9, 10

The enticement Hamor offered to Jacob was an appeal to immediate gratification and personal pleasure. The intention behind this offer was that the appeal of personal pleasure would serve as a blinder to Jacob’s commitment to godly principle and as a cover for the wounding of Dinah personally and of Jacob in terms of the family dishonor he had suffered. Yet, despite the seeming fairness and pleasing prospect of this offer, it remained true that such a thing as Shechem had done ought not to be done (v.7) at any price. Shechem had sinned against Dinah, Jacob and his whole family, but above all against God. Such sin can only be cleansed—and the wounds it causes healed—not by man’s trinkets but by the precious blood of the Lamb of God. Men are experts at wounding but the Lord is the Great Physician who alone can heal.

Tuesday, September 19th - Genesis 34: 11, 12

Here Shechem adds his own personal offer and appeal. He will pay any price to have Dinah as his wife. No doubt, Shechem was sincere in this offer. Yet he was sincerely misguided by his own godless passion and blinded by his pride. His sinful conceit was leading him to add insult to injury, as he urged a proposal that he thought should so please Jacob that he would come to consider Dinah’s rape as the spark that ignited great prosperity for him. How woefully do the godless underestimate their sins and overestimate their capabilities to rectify their sins!

Wednesday, September 20th - Genesis 34: 13

There was a snare, hidden even to Hamor, in the temptation offered to Jacob of having his children intermarry with the Canaanites. The snare was that of the temptation to sinful vengeance, and it was one that Jacob and his sons failed to resist. The sons of Jacob took their sister’s defilement very hard and personally. They did not seek from the Lord their healing for these grievous wounds, but determined instead, to vent their sinful retaliatory passion against Shechem. Thus, they went from being sinned against to sinning. While the sins of others against us may injure us, it is our own sins that ruin us. It is far better to be sinned against than to sin.

Thursday, September 21st - Genesis 34: 13

Shechem took an unholy initiative against the daughter of Jacob. It was followed up by his father’s unholy initiative toward Jacob and all of his children. The result was an escalation of sin and misery. Jacob should have himself seized the initiative. Instead of his waiting for Hamor to approach with his godless and insulting enticements, Jacob should have confronted Shechem directly with his sin, setting out for him clearly the way for godly reconciliation. Failing that, Jacob should have maintained a principled separation from Hamor and Shechem, exercising forbearance until the day of Shechem’s repentance or of God’s judgment. By Jacob’s passive endurance of the insulting enticements of these Hivites, he and his sons, in spite of their revulsion at the proposal of intermarriage with Hamor’s people, become very much like them. As Shechem’s lust for pleasure drove him to ravish Dinah, so the lust to inflict retaliatory pain upon Shechem drove the sons of Jacob to become deceivers and destroyers. Deceit had always been a family trait for the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When their vital union with the Lord grew weak, they reverted to the sinful default mode of their family. We, too, shall revert to our besetting sin when we fail to cleave vitally to the Lord and adhere zealously to His ways.

Friday, September 22nd - Genesis 34: 14

A deceptive guise is employed by the sons of Jacob. They do not state the true impediment to Dinah’s marriage to Shechem as being their refusal to give her to a godless, lustful abuser of women, and thus condemn her to a life of misery at the hands of his sinful passions. Instead, they state the issue as being merely a matter of Shechem lacking the ritual externals, but not the essence, of true religion. This is, of course, a lure that is part of the cunning plan to have Shechem and the men of his father’s kingdom submit to something as easy as circumcision. Deception is sinful, but especially is it so when matters of the true faith are used to deceive others. God will not hold guiltless those so abusing His holy ordinances.

Saturday, September 23rd - Genesis 34: 15-17

The sinful deception and guilt of Jacob’s sons deepen. They require Shechem and his countrymen to submit to circumcision, ostensibly so that Shechem could rightly marry Dinah. In fact, they were abusing the Lord’s holy ordinance, leading their prey into accepting the sacramental wound of circumcision, not as a sign and seal of the Lord’s covenant promise and of their saving faith, but rather to make them tender and vulnerable before the mortal blows the sons of Jacob were planning to rain upon them. In this way, the sons of light sin worse than did Shechem, a son of darkness. If we do not go to Christ for our healing, we will eventually find ourselves driven by a hellish, murderous ire.

Sunday, September 24th - Genesis 34: 15-17

The sons of Jacob require that every male of Shechem receive circumcision. Theirs was not a passion to extend the saving gospel to all of these men for their highest good and for the glory of God, but rather was a passion to exact an unholy, unloving, ungracious revenge on an excessive scale, pressing the ordinances of the Lord into such sinful service. The Apostle Paul speaks of men proclaiming the gospel out of selfish ambition (Phil. 1:17). It is a terrible temptation against which we all must be on guard, that we can turn the blessed ordinances of God’s grace into tools for our own selfish and impure motives.