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Dr. Manny Arango
Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. To all my fellow pastors, I've got a question for you. Does your city know that your church exists? Listen, I get it. You're preaching, you're leading, you're discipling, you're doing ministry. We are in the same boat. And let's be honest, social media and marketing, not your strong suit. Not mine either. And that's probably the last thing on your mind. And that's why we chose to partner with Church Candy marketing for our church Plant the garden. We out here, y'all. They help churches get more actual guests walking through the doors on Sunday without your eye having to stress over ads or algorithms or trying to crack the social media code. Right now, Church Candy is helping nearly 400 churches reach their communities with simple invite ads. And it works. It's super effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience. So if you're tired of being your city's best kept secret, how about you do this? Go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a free consultation book a discovery call. Their team will break it all down and show you how to start seeing new faces at your church this Sunday. I'm in the trenches with you trying to grow the church. And how about we just start a whole campaign? No more empty churches. So let's partner with Church Candy and get our churches full. The glory of Jesus. Let's go. We Got Genesis, chapter 34, 35, 36. Emotional content today. In. In my opinion there is. The violation is the rape of. Of one of Jacob's daughters. Her name is Dina. Or Dina, I think. Two legitimate ways to pronounce her name. If you have not done the reading for today, stop this video. Stop the audio. Pause everything. Go do the reading for today. Short reading, three chapters. I will warn you, the last chapter is a genealogy. But we love genealogies. We can rock with genealogy. So if you haven't done the reading, go do that. If you have done the reading, let's tackle some context clues. Let's give you some nerdy nuggets. Let's give you a timeless truth so we can just extract the most out of the reading as possible. My job is to add value to you. The very first thing that I want to deal with is chapter 34. Okay? In chapter 34, you have the. The sin. Actually just gonna pull up chapter 34, and I read a little bit. Here's how chapter 34 starts. It says, now Dinah, the daughter of Leah. Okay? That's a really, really important detail. From this point on in the story, when Jacob son. Sons are getting talked about, you kind of need to know, is it Rachel's sons that are going to get talked about, or is it Leah's sons that are going to get talked about? Because Leah's sons are going to be loyal to their siblings and they don't see Rachel's kids as their siblings. This is a. If. If. If you are a part of like a blended family or you got like baby mama drama or. Or like there's just like tension in your family of origin, then whoever said the Bible's not relevant doesn't know what they're talking about. So it's important that the text reminds us that Dina is the daughter of Leah, which is. That's going to make sense in a little bit why that's important, who she had born to. Jacob went out to see the women of the land. And when Shechem, the son of Hamor, the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her. Now the niv is. Is gonna. Is gonna say he raped her. We'll get into the. To the nuance of that in a moment. And his soul was drawn to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. So Shechem spoke to his father, Hamor, saying, get me this girl for my wife. Now this. This is interesting. So we have to understand, coming from our culture, nothing about this makes sense, okay? It does not make sense to violate someone sexually, to rape them, and then to. To say, well, I love them, I want to marry them. Like that is a bit odd in our culture. So let's transport back into time into the culture of the Bible. In the culture of the Bible, all marriages are arranged, okay? Arranged marriage. There is no. We met, we fell in love, and we just. We eloped. Like, that's. That's not a thing. And so Shechem would have had to negotiate for Dina's hand in marriage with Jacob. What it seems like is happening, and this is common in the ancient world, if the negotiations with the dad aren't going well, then it is a strategy. A strategy to do one of two things to either rape the girl, because now she can't get married. Off to anybody. So if you really want to marry someone bad enough, you would rape the girl. Because now in this culture, I'm not saying universally in this culture, that would make her damaged goods. Her dad can't marry her off to anyone. Once she's deflowered, once she's. It's known that she's not a virgin. Second, the couple would decide that we are going to have intercourse with each other, like consensual, consensually, to essentially force the parents into a situation where the. The parents have to agree that these people are now going to get married. So even in a culture of arranged marriage, there are ways to manipulate the system, and this is a way to manipulate the system. Everything that's happening in the text is not like. It's not like Shechem is just a violent person. It's. It actually in the text doesn't make it clear which of the two options it actually is. It doesn't make it clear whether or not this is a consensual strategy between Dina and Shechem, or if this is just Shechem, literally without Dina's consent, raping her in a, in a, like violating her in that way. All right, this is now going to force Jacob's hand into intermarrying with the HIVites. So this is now what Shechem's dad is going to say, hey, let's enter into a covenant with each other. My son can marry your daughter, your sons can marry our girls. Like, let's just go ahead and intermarry with each other. Deceptively. Simeon and Levi, this is son number two and son number three. The second oldest and third oldest boys are going to essentially act as if they are all about this. But they have one caveat. They that all the guys got to get circumcised. And once all the guys are circumcised, Simeon and Levi are going to go through the Shechemite camp and kill all these guys for retribution. Now, here's the thing. This is not like eye for an eye. This would be way more intense. Like, the punishment here does not actually match the crime. And I don't need. Don't think about that emotionally. Think about that just logically. And even the Torah is going to give what retribution is. And I know there is no fair retribution when someone's been violated or a woman's been raped. Like, even our retribution is never going to be fulfilling in any kind of way. But to kill every man, regardless of whether they were a part of this crime or not. And to take now all the women and livestock. I mean, Jacob is beside himself that his sons would do this. Now what purpose does this serve in the narrative? We already got into our context clue. This. This is all context. Okay, here's the purpose that serves in the narrative is to show us how Simeon and Levi have disqualified themselves from being in line for the Messiah to come through their tribe. That's why this stuff is here. So the story is actually not here. Dina and Shechem are not the main characters here. Dina and Shechem. There's something that happens with Dina and Shechem that prompts Simeon and Levi to murder people. And that is actually what the author wants us to see, that these boys have disqualified themselves. Genesis chapter 35, verse 22 does the exact same thing. It's gonna tell us why the boys who should be in charge are not. Genesis chapter 35, verse 22 is going to deal with the oldest son. Okay, remember I told you Simeon Levi is son number two and son number three. Well, let's talk about son number one. Can the Messiah come through son number one? Can Genesis chapter three 15 be fulfilled through Reuben, who's the firstborn son? It says this in 35. 22. Genesis chapter 35, verse 22. While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine. And Israel heard of it. So Bilhah's literally born children for Jacob. And now you have the oldest boy, who has now slept with his father's concubine, which would have been. Remember when Leah and Rachel are given to Jacob in marriage, they both get a maidservant, which is Bilhah and Zilpah, and Bilhah and Zilpah end up having children for Jacob as well. So now Reuben is disqualified from being the. He's the firstborn by. By natural birth. But. But the Messiah's not going to come through him. Neither is it going to come through Simeon, Levi. And a little bit later, we're going to get a story about Judah, who is. Ends up having sexual intercourse with. With his dead son's. Well, his dead son's wife, who he won't give to his other children, and she pretends to be a prostitute. Essentially, these stories are showing us why is Reuben not going to be the. The lineage that the Messiah comes through. Why is Simeon not going to be the lineage of the Messiah? Why is Levi not going to be the lineage of the Messiah? Okay, now let's kind of get into some nerdy nuggets so that's context. In the ancient world, since marriage was arranged, part of the way to manipulate the father of the bride or the parents was to have sexual intercourse. It's essentially like saying, you know what? I'm going to go into a store and I want a discount on these jeans. So I'm going to take a Sharpie into the store and I'm going to deface the property so that I can get a discount on it. This is why Simeon and Levi, the words that they say are, how dare you treat our sister like a prostitute? Because now that he's violated her, humiliated her, he knows that she can't be on the market for anybody else. She can't be available as a bride to anybody else. Which means that they can drive the bride price through the roof and Shechem will pay it. And that transactional nature of you had sex with our sister so that you. So that you would have to negotiate. That is essentially they're saying that that's prostitution. You don't rape a prostitute in the sense of like, just violate, just have sex against her will. The reason they they that they compare this to prostitution is because they're driving. Shechem knows that he's driving Jacob's hand to the negotiation table. In chapter 35, Jacob is now going to have to go to Bethel. And the Bible says this is actually Yahweh appears. Now, remember back when we got the vision of Jacob's Ladder, the Ziggurat, Jacob made a threefold promise. He said, God, if you protect me on this journey, if you're with me, you'll be my God. I'll profess your name everywhere that I go. I'll come back here, I'll build an altar, and I'll give you a tenth of everything that I have. And so chapter 35, start out with this. God said to Jacob, arise. Go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there. To the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau, he's saying, hey, you haven't fulfilled your part of this covenant. You haven't fulfilled your part of the vow. I need you to go back to the place where you got the vision of the Ladder, where you got the vision of the Ziggurat. Go back there and actually do the thing that you told me you were going to do. So what does Jacob do? He collects all the idols from everybody. He says in verse two, put away your foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. Then let Us arise and go up to Bethel so that I may make there an altar to the. To. To the Lord, to the God who answers me in the day of my distress. Get this, verse 4. So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had in the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terabynth tree that was near Shechem. Now why is this relevant? Well, because the thing that you're supposed to do with an idol is destroy it, not bury it. So what Jacob does is he buries it in the ground. He hides it. This is the exact same language that Judges is gonna use for Achan. Achan took some of the devoted things for himself and he hid it. He buried it. This is like the parable of the talents. What did the wicked and lazy servant do? He hid it. That means he buried it. So Jacob doesn't destroy these idols. He hides the idols. He buries the idols, which immediately tells you this is not. Is not what you're supposed to be doing. Okay, that's our nerdy nugget. And honestly, that could be a Thomas truth, because there's lots of things that God has asked us to destroy that instead of destroying it, we just hide it. And Christians learn how to hide things really, really well. Our way of hiding it is to bury it. Bible nerds. I have an announcement. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos releases May of 2025 in pre orders are officially open. When I began to learn Genesis in its proper context, I learned that the creation account is not primarily about God creating something out of nothing, but rather God bringing divine order to the chaos of the cosmos. That one nugget was a game changer for me because I've been preaching to all the kids in my youth group that peace was a solution for their anxiety. But really, God's solution to chaos is never peaceful, but rather order. Peace isn't something that you stumble into. It's something that you intentionally step into. And that starts with aligning your life with God's order. I think that this book is a game changer. It's nerdy, it's practical, it provides a very contextual understanding of the book of Genesis. And if you grab a copy, you'll learn why there's a huge dragon on the COVID Head to the link in the show notes to pre order or head to crushingchaos.com to see the really dope trailer that we made for this book. I think it's time for you to crush the chaos in your life. And that starts with grabbing a copy of this book. Now back to the podcast, My Timeless Truth. We're actually going to compare two verses. They get to Bethel, and Rachel is actually going to give birth to her final son. We're going to get into Genesis chapter 35. Genesis chapter 35, and we'll pick up reading in verse 16. Then they journeyed from Bethel. When they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel went into labor. And she had hard. A hard labor. And when her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, do not fear for you have another son. And as her soul was departing for she was dying, she called his name Ben Oni, but his father called him Benjamin. So Jacob is like, no, no, no, you're not going to name this boy out of pain. You're not going to essentially doom him to a life of pain because you're dying. So Jacob takes his rightful place, names him Benjamin, which actually means son of my right hand. And then so Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem. And Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. It is the pillar of Rachel's tomb, which is there to this day. Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder. Now, here's what's fascinating. Nobody knows where this is, so it seems like they buried her somewhere and marked the location. But to be totally honest, Rachel gets marked in an unmarked grave in the middle of nowhere. No historian can find this location to this day. Okay, this also, this to this day. Language that we see right here in the text shows us that the writing of the events happens way later than the actual events that are occurring. Always look out for that phrase when you're reading the Bible, because that phrase lets you know. Yeah, the time when these events occurred is actually like a long time ago. To this day means it's been a long time. Big thing I want to get to. Rachel dies giving birth to her last son, Benjamin. Now, I want to remind you of Genesis, chapter 30, verse 1, because in Genesis, chapter 30, verse 1,. Rachel, who stole her father's household gods, Rachel, who lied about stealing those household gods, Rachel, who dies giving birth to Benjamin. Listen to what she says. She's emotionally manipulating Jacob in Genesis, chapter 30 because she doesn't have children. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. It never says that Leah envied Jacob. Rachel, but Rachel definitely envied Leah. Jacob's anger was kindled against her. Am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the Fruit of your womb. And then here comes Bilhah again. Rachel gives Bilhah to, to Jacob, remember who Reuben is going to have sex with? So that, that's a big no. No, it's verse one. Sorry. She said to Jacob, give me children or I shall die. Did you hear those words? Give me children or I'm going to die. I don't think it's ironic that she actually does die giving birth to her second son. And that's our timeless truth for the day. I think there's a lot of people who are like, yeah, if I don't have that, I'll die. And that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that whatever is more important than life, you begin to give your life for. And I don't think it's ironic that in Genesis chapter 30, verse one, Rachel's like, I'd rather die than, than, than not have children. And then the very thing that she dies doing is she dies bearing children. I actually think that her words in Genesis chapter 30, verse 1 are not faith filled words. I think they are fear filled words. And I, and I think she means what she's saying. And I think that she gets, she has to eat the fruit of the seeds of her words. And so she says, I, I'd rather die than, than not have children. And then she actually does die on the birthing table while she's, while she's giving birth to children. All right, As I was studying for today's content, I came across John Walton's commentary on Genesis. And I'm just gonna read a portion of it. And that's how we'll end our time today. We'll kind of go back to Dina being raped. And Reuben and Levi in what they do, says this what brings what begins as a personal tragedy in Jacob's family, the violation of Dina, turns into serious jeopardy to the entire covenant promise. This jeopardy is articulated in Genesis chapter 34, verse 9 through 10, where the offer is put forth for Jacob's family to intermarry with the Hivites and to merge their families and societies. While the short term gains may be economically and socially attractive, the long term result would be assimilation of the family of Abraham and the loss of their distinct identity. So remember, once Shechem rapes Dinah, the dads get together and they're like, hey, let's just combine and become one person. Which would have meant the Israelites intermarrying with the Hivites. The covenant hangs in the balance. As this proposal is even considered, it is unacceptable to say that Simeon and Levi's massacre of the Shechemites saves the day, for they are responding to an entirely different problem, and their solution is entirely unacceptable. Nevertheless, as it turns out, in the providence of God, the reprehensible and inexcusable behavior of Simeon and Levi accomplishes something that is in harmony with God's will. That is, the horrific behavior of the sons to avenge their family honor results in assimilation being avoided. We often think of Providence as a fortunate turn of events, but here, and in subsequent chapters, Providence more often than not operates in context of sinful behavior. If God can only work through godly behavior, there is little he can do in our sinful world. He does not, of course, guide Jacob's sons to act as they do. His sovereignty in these cases is demonstrated not by overriding the free, wicked choices that people make, but by dovetailing those acts of wickedness into his own plan. We will have much to say about this in the next few chapters. I thought John Walton's words were nuanced and careful and brilliant and helpful, and I wanted to add that to our content for today. All right, I hope Day 92 has been helpful. Tomorrow we finally get into Joseph's story, and so we got Genesis chapter 37 to 40 tomorrow. If you're on a streak, don't break it if you're not on a streak. Hey, today's a great day to start one. I love you guys. I'm so proud of you. I'll see you right here tomorrow. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department Podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at the Bible Department and on Instagram. Hebibledepartment if you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.