Genesis

Chapter 33 & 34

• Prov 16:7

• 7 When a man's ways please the LORD,

• He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

• Matt 18:21

• 21 The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

Prov 15:1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

Proverbs 15:23

• 23 A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, And a word spoken in due season, how good it is!

Proverbs 15:28

• 28 The heart of the righteous studies how to answer, But the mouth of the wicked pours forth evil.

Ecclesiastes 10:12-13• 12 The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious,• But the lips of a fool shall swallow him up; • 13 The words of his mouth begin with foolishness,• And the end of his talk is raving madness.Isaiah 50:4• 4 "The Lord GOD has given Me • The tongue of the learned,• That I should know how to speak • A word in season to him who is weary.• He awakens Me morning by morning,• He awakens My ear • To hear as the learned. • NKJV

Jacob Comes to Canaan

• Gen 33:17-18• 17 And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, • built himself a house, and made booths for his livestock.

Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth. • 18 Then Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem,

which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan Aram; and he pitched his tent before the city.

• 19 And he bought the parcel of land, where he had pitched his tent,

• NKJV

• Gen 28:20-22• 20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with

me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, 21 so that I come back to my father's house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God. 22 And this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be God's house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You."

• Gen 31:13• 13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar

and where you made a vow to Me. Now arise, get out of this land, and return to the land of your family.'"

• It was that God directed Jacob to return to Beth-el, and fulfill the promise which

• he had there made on fleeing from the face of Esau his brother.

• About ten years must have elapsed since the return of Jacob from Mesopotamia, and yet he had not paid his vows unto the Lord

• Hamor

• Chamowr (kham-ore'); donkey

• Shechem = "back" or "shoulder"

• Dinah, his daughter, at that time (as we gather) about fifteen years of age,

in the language of the sacred text, “went out to see the daughters of the land,” or, as Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us, to take part in a feast of the Shechemites.

• If ‘Shechem’ means (shoulder), and Hamor is a word derived from (hemar, or donkey), what Shechem and his father did, refers to the work of the devil, who persuades creation to acquire a (stubborn shoulder) toward God, and to behave according to carnal thought, like an animal, a donkey.

• The devil here, violates the human soul, to get her corrupted like Dinah, by stubborn spirit and lustful thoughts. Then, pretending to solve the problem, he approaches with exaggerated tenderness and generosity, and proclaims his wish for making close marriage relationship, presenting his land, trade, and possessions, as a dowry, in an attempt to draw the soul away from her true Jacob ! These are the devil’s deceits in every generation, attempting to

draw the soul away from faith, through appearances of tenderness, generous giving, and making closer relationship. That is why the apostle Paul warns us, saying, ”What communion has light

with darkness ? “ (2 Corinthians 6: 14).

St. Jerome• Letter 107 - To Laeta• We read of Eli the priest that he became displeasing to God on

account of the sins of his children; and we are told that a man may not be made a bishop if his sons are loose and disorderly.

• If parents are responsible for their children when these are of ripe age and independent; how much more must they be responsible for them when, still unweaned and weak, they cannot, in the Lord's words, "discern between their right hand and their left:" –

• when, that is to say, they cannot yet distinguish good from evil? If you take precautions to save your daughter from the bite of a viper, why are you not equally careful to shield her from "the hammer of the whole earth"? to prevent her from drinking of the golden cup of Babylon? to keep her from going out with Dinah to see the daughters of a strange land? to save her from the tripping dance and from the trailing robe?

• so, the better to deceive us, vice puts on the mien and the semblance of virtue.

St. Jerome While the son is a child and thinks as a child and until he comes to

years of discretion to choose between the two roads , his parents are responsible for his actions whether these be good or bad.

But perhaps you imagine that, if they are not baptized, the children of Christians are liable for their own sins; and that no guilt attaches to parents who withhold from baptism those who by reason of their tender age can offer no objection to it.

The truth is that, as baptism ensures the salvation of the child, this in turn brings advantage to the parents. Whether you would offer your child or not lay within your choice, but now that you have offered her, you neglect her at your peril. I speak generally for in your case you have no discretion, having offered your child even before her conception.

GREGORY THE GREAT • Chapter 29 - How They are to Be Admonished Who Lament

Sins of Deed, and Those Who Lament Only Sins of Thought• For it is written, Dinah went out to see the women of that land; and

when Sichem, the son of Hemor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he loved her, and seized her, and lay with her, and defiled her by force; and his soul clave unto her, and he soothed her with kind blandishments when she was sad (Gen 34:1-3).

• For indeed Dinah goes out to see the women of a foreign land, when any soul, neglecting its own concerns, and giving heed to the actions of others, wanders forth out of its own proper condition and order. And Sichem, prince of the country, overpowers it inasmuch as the devil corrupts it, when found occupied in external cares.

• And his soul clave unto her, because he regards it as united to himself through iniquity. And because, when the soul comes to a sense of its sin, it stands condemned, and would fain deplore its transgression,

GREGORY THE GREAT• But the corrupter recalls before its eyes empty hopes and grounds

of security to the end that he may withdraw from it the benefit of sorrow, therefore it is rightly added in the text, And soothed her with blandishments when she was sad.

• For he tells now of the heavier offences of others, now of what has been perpetrated being nothing, now of God being merciful; or again he promises time hereafter for repentance; so that the soul, seduced by these deceptions, may be suspended from its purpose of penitence, to the end that it may receive no good hereafter, being saddened by no evil now, and that it may then be more fully overwhelmed with punishment, in that now it even rejoices in its transgressions.

• (from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, PC Study Bible formatted electronic database Copyright © 2003 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)

• How deeply the soul of Jacob recoiled from this piece of Eastern cruelty, appears from the fact, that even on his deathbed, many years afterwards, he reverted to it in these words: —

• “Simeon and Levi are brethren;• Their swords are weapons of iniquity.• O my soul, come not thou into their council;• Unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou

united!”• (Genesis 49:5, 6)