Genesis 34:13–17
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
We come now to one of the bloodiest and most troubling episodes in the life of the patriarchs. It is a story of lust, rape, deceit, and mass murder. It is a tangled mess of righteous indignation and unrighteous vengeance, of covenantal principle and blasphemous practice. And at the center of it, we find a gaping hole where strong, godly, patriarchal leadership ought to be. Jacob, the man who wrestled with God and was renamed Israel, is strangely passive. His daughter has been defiled, his house has been dishonored, and he holds his peace. But nature abhors a vacuum, and so does a covenant household. When a father fails to lead, to protect, to govern, his sons will often rise up to fill that vacuum. And because they are young, full of unseasoned zeal and wounded pride, they frequently do so in a carnal, destructive, and sinful way.