First Timothy for the life..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Genesis chapter 34. Now we continue with the corporate reading of Scripture.

Now, brothers and sisters, we have a very interesting chapter here. So I want you to pay close attention. If you allow me, I want you to start our reading from chapter 33, just the last two verses or three verses from verse 18. So you will have a little bit of the context there, and that will save me a couple of minutes in the explanation. Pay attention from chapter 33, verse 18, and then we will be addressing chapter 34.

which is in the land of Canaan, on his way from Paddan Aram. And he camped before the city, and from the sons of Hamer, Zechem's father, he bought for a hundred pieces of money the piece of land in which he had pitched his tent. There he erected an altar and called it El Elohe Israel. Now Dinah, or Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. And when Sakem, the son of Hamer the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her.

And his soul was drawn to Dina, the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. So Shechem spoke to his father Hamer, saying, Get me this girl for my wife. Now Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter Dina, but his sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob held his peace until they came. And Hamer, the father of Shechem, went out to Jacob to speak with him.

The sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they heard of it, and the men were indignant and very angry because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel. by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing must not be done. But Hamer spoke with them, saying, the soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him to be his wife. Make marriages with us.

Give your daughters to us and take our daughters for yourselves. You shall dwell with us and the land shall be open to you. Dwell and trade in it and get property in it. Shekem also said to her father and to her brothers, let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you say to me, I will give. Ask me for a great bride price and gift as you will, and I will give whatever you say to me, only give me the young woman to be my wife.

The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamer deceitfully, because he had defiled their sister Dinah. They said to them, We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a disgrace to us. Only on this condition will we agree with you, that you will become as we are, by every male among you being circumcised. And we will give our daughters to you and we will take your daughters to ourselves and we will dwell with you and become one people. But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and we will be gone.

The words pleased Hamer and Hamer's son Shechem, and the young man did not delay to do the thing because he delighted in Jacob's daughter. Now he was the most owner of all his father's house. So Hamer and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying, These men are at peace with us. Let them dwell in the land and trade in it. For behold, the land is large enough for them.

Let us take their daughters as wives and let us give them our daughters. Only on this condition will the men agree to dwell with us, to become one people, when every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised. Will not their livestock, their property, and all their beads be ours? only let us agree with them, and they will dwell with us. And all who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamer and his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised, all who went out to the gate of his city.

On the third day, When they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it fell secure and killed all the males. They killed Hamer and his son Shechem with a sword and took Dina out of Shechem's house and went away. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city because they had defiled their sister. They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys and whatever was in the city and in the field. All their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and plundered.

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the parasites. My numbers are few. And if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed. Both I and my household. They said, should he treat our sister like a prostitute?

Amen. Brothers and sisters, this is the words of God. This is a very interesting chapter in the book of Genesis, and there is a sense, brothers and sisters, in which I could spend some time just giving you some moral teachings, or doctrines, or guidance from this chapter. Like, for instance, the fact that Dinah is a young girl. The commentator says that she's probably 14 years old, and that she's just alone in the country, alone in the land.

She's just led by herself. The Bible says that she went to see the other women. I would make a case that she shouldn't have been by herself alone there. Well, the other case that I would be able to make from this chapter is that just as the father is, the children will be. Because just as Jacob was deceitful, then here we can see how the sons of Jacob are also deceitful.

We have here this story, brothers and sisters. in which Jacob, in his process of going to the promised land, he arrives to this place, and as we have read, Dinah goes out to the land, and then we have Shechem, who is the prince of the land, and he will come and basically abuse her. Then after that, what is going to happen is that Jacob is going to hear what actually happened, and he's not going to do anything because his sons are in the field. So he's going to wait for his sons to actually come and do something about it. Now, the sons of Jacob will come and they will hear what happened and they will take revenge of what actually happened.

But they are going to do it in a very deceitful way. They're going to say, OK, we can become one people. We have come to this place and now we are not from this place. But now you have done this to our sister. We can become one people.

But what we require of you is that you may be circumcised just as we are circumcised. Our father Abraham received circumcision as a sign of the covenant, and that's what makes us distinct and different to all other peoples. So if you want to be one people with us, you have to be circumcised. The Bible says that they did that deceitfully. Because what they actually wanted to do is that when they will actually be circumcised, and on the third day when the pain was very strong, they will come, Simeon and Levi, and they will take the sword and they will destroy them.

And then Jacob will ask him, you have put me or you had you had put me in trouble doing this. And then the Simeon and Levi will say, are we going to allow them to treat our sister as a prostitute? So many moral things that could be said about it. A young girl just alone by herself in the land, in the country, probably 14 years old, as I said, or these deceitful men inheriting and receiving this way, these ways from his father. But I don't think that this is the aim of what Moses wanted to communicate to the immediate audience.

Now, remember, brothers, that Genesis was written by Moses, and this book was given immediately. The immediate audience was the people of Israel that were coming out of the land of Egypt. They were in slavery, and they were freed by the power of God, and they were going towards the promised land. And this is when Moses received the book that we have now here in Genesis. Now, I want you to see the particular character of this chapter.

So what I'm going to do is that I'm going to tell you what I think that Moses is trying to do with this chapter, and then I'm going to try to prove that from scripture. Moses is trying to prove that the nation of Israel was in need of justice. And again, Moses is trying to prove to the readers of Genesis, or the reader of this chapter, or this portion of the scripture, that the nation of Israel was in need of justice. Now, I'm saying two very important things. The nation of Israel was in need of justice.

And this is very important and very particular. Brothers and sisters, go to verse 7. When I read this for the first time during this week, as I was going to prepare, I could not go beyond verse 7. Pay attention to what it says. The sons of Jacob had come in from the field.

Now, brothers and sisters, Jacob had been changed his name in the previous chapter, or God or the Lord changed his name to Israel. But now Moses decides to call him again, Jacob. He says, then the sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they heard of it. And the men, the sons of Jacob, were indignant and very angry because Shechem had done an outrageous thing, where? In Israel.

And then it says in Israel, by laying with Jacob's daughter. It is the first time in the book of Genesis that this family is now recognized as a nation, as a people, the people of Israel. Now, these were just Jacob's sons and some other people there. But now is the first time that Moses is going to recognize these people as a nation. Not only that, but as I said, the nation of Israel in the need of justice.

They were coming to deal with another community, with other people. They themselves were a community, and many things started to arise within them that needed to be regulated. Now, look how the verse finishes there. For such a thing must not be done. Who says that?

Moses said there that such a thing, the humiliation of a virgin, must not be done in the nation of Israel. And then in the end of the chapter, they say, are they going to treat our sister as a prostitute? They're using language that is related to justice. Who is going to make justice out of it? Not only that, brothers and sisters, but it is very uncommon in the Bible.

Pay attention to this, please. in every single genealogy. And I don't know if that happens to you when you read Genesis for the first time, or when we were going through Genesis chapter 29. But every genealogy in the Bible, always the male is named. Always the man or the male is given preeminence in the genealogy.

There are no women that are named in the genealogies. It's always men, men, men, because in the Bible there's this concept of headship of the house. The man represents the house. But when we go through the genealogy of Jacob, Moses intentionally inserts Dina, or Dinah. Go to verse 29.

Chapter 29, please. Sorry, chapter 30 is what happens when you have a new Bible. Chapter 30, verse 20. Then Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment. Now my husband will honor me because I have borne him six sons.

So she called his name Zebulun. Afterward, she bore a daughter and called her name Dina. That's the only thing that Moses said. That's the only thing that he said about this girl. That is the only thing.

And this is the only two things, the only two mentions that are going to be named of Dina in the whole book. Only here that she was Idora and also what happened in chapter 34. Moses was trying to communicate something very important to the people of Israel with the story of Dinah. You know what the meaning of Dinah is? Justice.

The meaning of her name is justice, and Moses intentionally puts her in this genealogy, and then in chapter 34, he is going to present us a transgression, a transgression of justice that requires to be dealt with. But now, what Moses is trying to show in chapter 34 is that justice was not done as it should have been done. Because who was the one who was in charge of all the tribe? Who was the one who was required to make justice with the family and with the people? Jacob!

Jacob was the head of the tribe. The Bible says, if we go back to chapter 34, and then I will be finishing very soon. Chapter 34. Now, when Jacob, in verse 5, pay attention to these brothers and sisters. Now, Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter Dina.

Now, this word defiled is very important because it means it made her unclean. It will be exactly the same word that Moses will use in Leviticus to explain all of these sins that make a person unclean or defiled. Now, Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter Dina, but his sons were with his livestock in the field. So Jacob held his peace until they came." He should have solved the situation with Hamel.

He was the father of this young girl. He was supposed to go and fix things and to come and to face this guy and to speak to him about the situation. Rather, he waits and he holds and he allows his children to make or to take the situation by their hands and to make justice on their own. Brothers and sisters, what we see here is a failure of Jacob to make justice as he was supposed to do. And then we see the people or the tribes of all of these men trying to make justice in his own understanding and coming with something that was completely unrighteous.

They use the sign of the covenant as means to be deceitful in the midst of these people. Now, brothers and sisters, this is so important. because the apostle Paul is going to tell us something very important about justice. Justice is only accomplished by the law of God. And just let's go please to Galatians and we'll finish there.

Go to Galatians chapter three. Galatians chapter three. This is the first time that Israel is called a nation. And as a nation, they have fallen in a transgression and a transgression that needed to be made justice. Once we read the Leviticus code, we will see that Moses will start giving lots of rules and lots of law that are related to the defilement of a virgin and to a woman that is about to get married.

He gives lots of laws that are related to that. This is the mosaic law that is inserted, that is given with the purpose of bringing justice among the nation of Israel. But the apostle in Galatians 3 is going to give us the purpose of the law. In verse 19, chapter 3. Why then the law?

This is the law that was added 430 years afterward. We know that because verse 17 says that, that this is the mosaic law that was added or given 430 years after Abraham. Then the apostle it says, why then the law? And the purpose is it was added or it was given because of transgressions. until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made."

That is Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, all the nation of Israel, and if you didn't get anything of what I said, please just pay attention to this. The nation of Israel was formed from a seed, from Genesis 3.15, the only purpose of the whole country, of the whole nation of Israel, was that the Messiah would be born under the law. So all the laws were given because of their transgressions, so the people of Israel will be preserved.

will be kept. They will make it. They will not be combined or mingled or mixed with the Gentiles. They will be separated and they will be holy. They will be kept.

This was the purpose of the law. So the Messiah, the upstream, will be born in the nation of Israel and all the promises that were given, He will actually fulfill. Now, brothers and sisters, When Christ comes, he fulfills all the requirements of the law. And there is nothing that we have to do. There is no transgression that will separate us from Jesus Christ because he has fulfilled all the requirements of the mosaic law, the moral law, all the ceremonial laws.

He has fulfilled all of those requirements. So the Christian has no need for righteousness sake to fulfill all of those requirements, all of that by grace. through faith, the limitations of my words that not allow me to communicate the depths of what is happening here, brothers and sisters, because Israel now is a shadow. It is a reflection. He's a type of the Son of God.

Israel is called the Son of God. And this is a shadow, a reflection of Jesus Christ as the Son of God in whom there will be no transgression and all the law will be kept and he will be the recipient of all the promises. Okay? Amen.