I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 33-35.
When Jacob returned to Canaan he was worried that Esau would still be angry with him. However, Esau was glad to welcome Jacob back. The stories we have about Isaac, Jacob, and Esau tell us a lot about good families. They made mistakes, they had disagreements, they were angry with each other. However, despite having a legitimate grievance with his brother, Esau was glad to see him return and was willing to accept him into his “household”. Reading between the lines, Esau not only welcomed Jacob back, but invited him under his protection. However, Jacob had had enough of being subordinate and wished to remain independent of Esau (it is interesting to note that today’s passage suggests that Isaac had maintained his own independent household, while his sons went off and created their own). We need to model the willingness to be reconciled which Esau and Jacob demonstrated here (note the lengths to which Jacob went to appease his brother).
The story about the rape of Dinah and her brothers’ response tells us quite a bit about the relationship between Jacob’s family and the surrounding peoples. It, also, suggests some of the differences between the descendants of Abraham and the local people which may explain why Abraham and Isaac wanted their sons to marry women from their homeland. Shechem raped Dinah in an effort to force Jacob to allow him to marry her. He appears to have also believed that she would want to marry him because he had raped her (or, at least that the rape was not an insurmountable obstacle to winning her love). We do not know what Dinah’s thought of his suit, but reading between the lines suggests that she was not receptive. Certainly her brothers were angered by this approach. Isaac and Jacob married women who willingly came to them. Schechem forced Dinah to accept him and only failed because such force was unacceptable to her father and brothers (although Jacob was concerned about the consequences of rejecting Shechem’s court so forcefully).