Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #9 of Genesis 34.  We are going to begin by reading Genesis 34:8-19:

And Hamor communed with them, saying, The soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter: I pray you give her him to wife. And make ye marriages with us, and give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you. And ye shall dwell with us: and the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein. And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give. Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife. And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully, and said, because he had defiled Dinah their sister: And they said unto them, We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised; for that were a reproach unto us: But in this will we consent unto you: If ye will be as we be, that every male of you be circumcised; Then will we give our daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people. But if ye will not hearken unto us, to be circumcised; then will we take our daughter, and we will be gone. And their words pleased Hamor, and Shechem Hamor's son. And the young man deferred not to do the thing, because he had delight in Jacob's daughter: and he was more honourable than all the house of his father.

I will stop reading there.  We have spent a good deal of time looking at various elements and various words that we see in Genesis 34.  We looked at Dinah, the virgin daughter of Jacob.  We have looked at the word “defiled” in verse 2, which is “forced,” and is also translated as “humbled” in other places.  And that took us to the account of Tamar, the daughter of David. 

We also looked especially at verse 7, which said of Shechem, “…because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter; which thing ought not to be done.”  From there we went to Judges 19 and Judges 20, and also Deuteronomy 22.  We are checking out the words as we are required to do in order to come to truth.  But you probably noticed that we are not drawing any conclusions regarding this passage, and that is because I am still a little unsure of the direction of the spiritual meaning in Genesis 34.  We know there could be a spiritual picture of a failure on the part of the sons of Jacob (especially Simeon and Levi) to bring the Gospel because we just read of Shechem in verse 11, saying, “Let me find grace in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give.”  And they told him, “Here is what you are to do – you need to be circumcised.”  Keep in mind that circumcision in the Old Testament (like baptism in the New Testament) can be a figure of salvation, the cutting away of one’s sins.  They were willing to do it, and we read of Shechem that he was more honorable than all the house of his father.  So there were some positive things said about Shechem.  But when the men of Shechem circumcised themselves, Simeon and Levi came upon them on the third day when they were sore, and they slew them all.  No mercy was shown.  Later on, Jacob recalled this in Genesis 49 when speaking to his sons on his deathbed, and we read in Genesis 49:5-7:

Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.

It is interesting that God speaks of dividing Simeon and Levi in Jacob and scattering them in Israel.  We know that the Levites did not have their own land, although they had cities set apart for them, so they were scattered among the tribes so that the tribes would have Levites to do service.  Regarding Simeon, when Joshua was giving the inheritance to the tribes of Israel, Simeon’s inheritance was within the tribe of Judah.  So in that way this was fulfilled because Simeon did not have their own land, but were counted in the tribe of Judah.  And that is because Jacob said, “Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel.” 

Notice the emphasis upon their anger and wrath.  It was not God’s anger, or God’s wrath.  Yes, God is angry with sin and the sinner, and He does, indeed, pour out His wrath upon the sinners because of their sin.  But here, it is stressed that it was Simeon and Levi’s own anger and wrath, and that is not to be.  “Vengeance is mine…saith the Lord.”  It is true that in this present Day of Judgment, the saints are judging the world, but we are not to point the finger at anyone and condemn them.  We are not to judge anyone.  All the commandments of God concerning these things are still in place, and we are not to do those things; we are not to exercise our own anger, and pour out our personal wrath in any way.  We are to love our neighbor.  We are to love our brethren.  We are to love even our enemies.  We are to love everyone, according to God.  That command is still in place. 

How then do we judge the world?  How are we, the ten thousand saints that have come with Christ, to execute the judgment written as it says in Psalm 149?  To execute the judgment written, we read the Bible, study the Bible, learn from the Bible, and declare what it says, without any anger or fury toward the people of the world.  We pity them.  We sorrow for them.  We are grieved that this is the case, and we take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, just as God Himself takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.  It is not for us to seek the destruction of our fellow man in any way.

That is why God is so incredibly wise to have given us a dual task in Judgment Day.  We share the truth of the Word in proper time and season, which means that we must share that it is Judgment Day (and all that goes along with that), and we share it faithfully, holding nothing back.  But in doing so, it is our desire that this information feed the sheep.  May the truth of the Gospel serve to nourish the souls of the great multitude that are out there, and we do not know who they are. 

As far as the second part of our task in carrying out the Judgment of the world, we leave that to God.  God will use His Word to accomplish both purposes.  We concentrate on the good purpose, while understanding that God will also carry out the second purpose, which is taking vengeance on the unsaved and pronouncing judgment, and that same Word will be (to them) a savour of death unto death.

This chapter (in Genesis 34) has that in view, but is there more in view?  That is why I am kind of holding back on conclusions.  We will try to learn as we go along, and I will reserve the right to go back once I am more confident of another deeper spiritual meaning.  Then we will go back, if we are able to come to a greater level of understanding, and we will try to relate everything that is going on here.

In this study, one thing we want to look at is Shechem himself.  I may have mentioned what his name means.  In the Hebrew, “Shechem” is Strong’s #7928, and it has a related word, #7926, which is a word translated as “shoulder.”  It is also translated as “portion” at least one time, but it is often translated as “shoulder.”  For example, let us go to Isaiah 9, it is found there a couple of times.  The first time it is found is in verse 4.  The early verses of Isaiah 9 is that wonderful passage that tells us of the Messiah.  For instance, it says in Isaiah 9:1-2:

Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

We know this is Messianic, referring to Christ and His coming.  The New Testament gospels quoted from these Scriptures.  Then it says in Isaiah 9:3:

Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

This identifies with the Gospel during the church age.  God had ended His relationship with Israel, and established a new relationship with the churches and congregations, and this served to spread the Gospel to the nations (the Gentiles) in a tremendous way.  The churches really did an excellent work, by God’s allowance and help, in spreading the Word, the Bible, into practically every nation.  That is why the nation was multiplied; that is, the outward representation of His kingdom.  It was greatly multiplied over the church age.  However, it did not increase the joy to the degree we would have expected as far as salvation taking place within the churches and congregations over almost two thousand years.  The church age was active for 1,955 years.  Yes, it started off well with about 3,000 saved on the Day of Pentecost, and we read of others as the Bible was being compiled, like those we read about in the book of Acts.  But the joy having to do with salvation (there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth), was not increased all that much, considering the numbers of churches and how many nations the churches were established in during the nearly two millennium.  We would have expected enormous numbers to have been saved.

Now the Bible does tell us that a great multitude of fish were caught in Luke 5, and that is similar to “multiplying the nation,” but we read that the net brake.  And the net would be a type and figure of the actual kingdom of God, but when the net brake fish could come out of the net, and they would flop around on the deck of the ship, as the ship typified the corporate church.  So “many were called,” and taken in that net through the sending forth of the Word of God in the churches, but few were chosen, and that is why there is language of the net breaking.  Yes, there was joy, but, again, it was not to the degree that we would have expected.

Then it says in Isaiah 9:4:

For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.

We wonder who this is referring to, but we know that it is Christ who has “broken the yoke of his burn, and the staff of his should, the rod of his oppressor,” but who is it referring to?  We are helped when we turn to the next chapter, as it says in Isaiah 10:24:

Therefore thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt.

Now if we go back a few verses, it says in Isaiah 10:5:

O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.

Then we go back to verse 24, God is speaking to His people, “O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt.”  Then it goes on to say in Isaiah 10:25-27:

For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction. And JEHOVAH of hosts shall stir up a scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb: and as his rod was upon the sea, so shall he lift it up after the manner of Egypt. And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.

The burden taken off the shoulder and the yoke off the neck is referring to the Assyrian, the rod of God’s anger.  Back in verse 4, it said, “For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.”  And, again, in Isaiah 10:26 we saw a reference to Midian at the rock of Oreb.  In speaking of the Assyrian, God is really speaking of Satan.  Satan is typified as the king of Assyria, or “the Assyrian,” just like the king of Babylon is also a type of Satan.  In Isaiah 14, we read of the king of Babylon, and it says in Isaiah 14:3:

And it shall come to pass in the day that JEHOVAH shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve,  That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! JEHOVAH hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.

It is just like the rod of the Assyrian was taken off.  So, too, we see it here with the king of Babylon, and we know the reference of the king of Babylon as Satan is in view all the way through verse 17.  It speaks of him in Isaiah 14:15-17:

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?

That is the king of Babylon, a type of Satan.  Then we read in Isaiah 14:24-26:

JEHOVAH of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.

Not only does God go from referring to the king of Babylon to referring to Satan, but then He transitions just as easily from the king of Babylon to “the Assyrian,” which would also be Satan.  And we have confirmation of that in Jeremiah 50:17-18:

Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria hath devoured him; and last this Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath broken his bones. Therefore thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria.

It was the king of Assyria and the Assyrians that destroyed Samaria, the ten tribes of Israel in the north, while the king of Babylon destroyed Judah, the outward representation of God’s kingdom in the south.  Both kings of these heathen nations portray and represent the devil, the evil one who is Satan.

If we go back to Isaiah 9, we understand Isaiah 9:4:

For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.

That is, the Lord Jesus has defeated Satan.  And remember that Satan was bound at the cross.  Then we read in Isaiah 9:5-7:

For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of JEHOVAH of hosts will perform this.

Remember, we are following the word “shoulder” because it is the same word as “Shechem.”  And we know in verse 6 that the “child” is the Lord Jesus, and the government shall be upon His shoulder (Shechem).  And it says, “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end…”  What is this government?  We will have to pick this up in our next study, as we have run out of time.  Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, we will come back here to Isaiah 9, and we will look at this reference to Christ’s “shoulder.”  And, again, this is the related word to “Shechem.”  It has the same consonants, so it is the same Hebrew word.