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)