Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #20 of Genesis 34, and we going to read Genesis 34:27-31: 

The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and spoiled the city, because they had defiled their sister. They took their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field, And all their wealth, and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive, and spoiled even all that was in the house. And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house. And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?

I will stop reading there.  To begin with, we see in verses 27 through 29 that God describes the sons of Israel as coming upon the city Shechem as though they were in a battle, and they won the battle and spoiled the city.  They took their sheep, oxen, asses, all their wealth, their little ones, and their wives, but they slew all the men.  So it does sound very much like a battle.  Of course we know it was the result of a very deceptive thing on the part of the sons of Israel because they told the men of Shechem that they could be one people with them if they would become circumcised.  Then they came upon the men the third day when they were sore from their circumcision.

Because it is described as a battle, we can check it against the Law of God to see if it was a lawfully fought battle.  We read in Deuteronomy 20:10-14:

When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And when JEHOVAH thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which JEHOVAH thy God hath given thee.

We do see some similar elements to what happened in Genesis 34.  They did smite every male, as it says in Deuteronomy 20:13.  And they did take the women, the little ones, the cattle, and all the spoil, according to the Law of God.  However, their action does not qualify as a righteous battle because God said that when they came to a city to fight against it, they were to proclaim peace unto it; and if they gave an answer of peace, then the people would be their tributary, and serve them.  But if they did not make peace, then they could make war.  But there is no indication that the men of Shechem wanted to do battle and make war.  Actually, they had said of the Israelites, “These men are peaceable with us.”  And they wanted to make peace with them and be one people, and the children of Israel gave every indication that this would be the case.  So the situation in Genesis 34 does not qualify as a lawful battle where they could take the spoil of the city.

What they did was unlawful, according to the Law of God, the Bible, and it was “ill-gotten gain” as far as the spoil they took from the city.

Let us continue with Genesis 34:30, after everything had happened, and all the men of Shechem had been slain, and the city had been ransacked and spoiled.  Then it says in Genesis 34:30:

And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.

Jacob was unhappy.  He was fearful about what they had done.  Yes, they defeated that city, but there were many surrounding cities of the Canaanites and Perizzites, and when they heard about it, they could have come against the Israelites and slay them.  And it would have been appropriate because it was an unjust thing that was done to the city of Shechem.  And because of this Jacob told them, “Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land…”  The word “troubled” is the same word we find in the book of Joshua in a couple of places.  First, let us look at Joshua 6:18:

And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing…

That is, when God told the Israelites to destroy the city of Jericho, He told them not to take anything from the city, and if they did so, it would an “accursed thing.”  Then it says in Joshua 6:18:

… lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.

That is what it means to “trouble” Israel.

And in the next chapter it was found that Achan had taken silver, gold, and a “goodly Babylonish garment,” and hid them in his tent.  So it says in Joshua 7:25:

And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? JEHOVAH shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones.

Achan had “troubled” Israel, and in our passage Jacob was using that very word to refer to his sons: “Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land…”

One other place we will go to that uses this word for “troubled” is in 1Kings 18:16:

So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him: and Ahab went to meet Elijah.  And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of JEHOVAH, and thou hast followed Baalim.

Ahab was accusing Elijah of troubling Israel because of the famine, but the famine had come due to Ahab’s sins and the fact that he was going astray from the commandments of God.  He was the true “troubler” of Israel.  So that defines for us what it means to “trouble Israel,” and keep in mind that Jacob is “Israel,” as his name was changed to Israel.  So the sons of Jacob had troubled Israel because they had gone astray and fallen away from the proper keeping of the Law of God in the things they had done by being deceitful to the men of Shechem and by slaying them when they were asking for peace.  But they slew them as if they had given an answer of war.  It was unrighteous, and that is what troubled Israel.

And when the corporate churches went apostate they were “troubling Israel.”  They were troubling Israel in a two-fold way because of their sins, and when Israel is troubled, it also gives occasion to the enemies of God out in the world to speak reproachfully and to blaspheme (speak evil of) God and His kingdom and His Word. 

Israel was the outward representation of God’s kingdom on this earth, and this was the beginning of the nation of Israel with Jacob and his sons.  They had identification with JEHOVAH God of the Bible, but now they have given the appearance of evil, and they have done wickedly by destroying the men of this city, and Jacob is properly horrified, and he is terrified about what can happen when the people around them hear, knowing that Jacob and his sons identify with the Gospel and the true God of the Bible.  It is an evil impression that has been given, and it allows the enemy to gain the upper hand, and to come and destroy. 

Jacob also said, in Genesis 34:30: “Ye have troubled me to make me to stink,” and the use of this Hebrew word translated as “stink” confirms to us the whole idea that has been presented in this chapter regarding the fact that the sons of Israel had behaved themselves like a “false gospel.”  They have lied, and with their lies, they have slain those who believed their lies, and the “stinking” ties it together with the idea we see in Exodus 16 where God is speaking of the manna that fell from heaven.  The manna, the “light bread,” is a type and figure of Christ, and Christ is the Word, so the Word of God, the Bible, is what the manna represents.  It says in Exodus 16:19-20:

And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning. Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank: and Moses was wroth with them.

You see, the manna had to be harvested, and it had to be handled according to God’s Law.  It was to be gathered on the sixth day when they were to gather twice as much in order to have manna for the seventh day because the manna would not fall on that day.  Also, they were not to leave it until the morning, but they did not listen.  You see, they had the Word of God, just as we have the Word of God, but the Word of God comes with qualifications, or instructions.  The “instruction manual” is within the Word of God itself, and the Law is good if it is handled lawfully.  The Bible must be handled in the way the Bible says it must be handled, and if you refuse to listen to God’s instructions, then the resulting “gospel” is something that will breed worms and stink, spiritually.  The good and perfect Word of God has been misused tremendously over the course of time, and it has given the Bible a bad name.  It has given God and His kingdom a bad name.  When men misuse the Word and are unlawful in the handling of the Scripture, they cause that which is wonderful and beautiful to be sent forth as something that “stinks” and is despised by the people out there. 

Of course this is Satan’s tactic.  It is all part of his plan, and that is why he sowed tares among the wheat during the church age.  His emissaries infiltrated the churches and rose to positions of power because when you are in a position of power and authority in the church, you are in charge of the type of gospel that is taught in the congregation.  And, obviously, the type of gospel that Satan and his emissaries want to promote is a “false gospel,” and a false gospel will always send forth a “stinking savour.”  It will cause God and His kingdom to be “troubled,” and it will be as though those around can “smell” the rottenness of it.  When the unsaved of the world see charlatan preachers and charlatan gospels that are selling “prayer hankies” and trying to raise as much money as possible, and when pastors are jetting around from mansion to mansion, the people of the world do not know much about the true Gospel (and they are not interested in trying to discover the truth of the matter), so they simply identify the whole of Christendom, or the whole of God’s kingdom, with these charlatans.  And Satan is aware of that, and that is part of the tactic.

There is another verse that goes along these same lines in the book of Ecclesiastes where God uses this word “stink” in Ecclesiastes 10:1:

Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.

Dead flies change the nature (even if it is accidental), and when a fly falls into the mixture and dies, the ingredients have now been changed.  It was to be according to God’s specifications.  He is the One who determines the true Gospel, with specific “ingredients” that are according to Law, the Bible.  If something changes that prescription, even if it was an accident or through ignorance, it does not matter.  It has become a different “mixture” or a “another gospel,” and it immediately sends forth a stinking savour in regard to the “spiritual aroma,” as it were, that rises up to God.  He will have nothing to do with it.  The fact that men are ignorant, for example, of the fact that faith is a work, and they put forth a gospel that encourages men to “exercise faith” to believe and become faith, it does not change the truth that it has become “another gospel” that has added a little bit of work to grace.  Another example would be the man who picked up a few sticks on the Sabbath.  Otherwise, he observed the Sabbath very well, but he added that little bit of work that polluted the Sabbath, and being polluted, it was not a faithful Sabbath.  The “Sabbath rest” has been destroyed with the tiniest work, and the true, faithful Gospel of the Bible is destroyed with the slightest addition or subtraction to it, and it will immediately send forth a “stinking savour.”

That is what is in view here with Jacob’s statement in Genesis 34:30-31:

…Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house. And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?

This was their only response to justify their actions.  Shechem had laid with their sister Dinah and treated her as a harlot.  Earlier in verse 7, we saw that this was the reason there was “folly in Israel.”  It says in Genesis 34:7:

And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter; which thing ought not to be done.

So the charge was that he had wrought folly in Israel, and he had done so, but remember that Shechem then wanted to marry Dinah and do what was right thereafter.  So they should have been willing to allow that, or at least not to have destroyed him the way they did.  But it is no justification, ultimately, for their response.  From everything we can read in this chapter, it is just a sorrowful, true, historical event that God has highlighted here for His people to emphasize the need for faithfulness.  It is very important that we deal faithfully with the Word of God, the Bible, so we are not involved in that which might give forth a “stinking savour.”