Simeon and Levi were so incensed at their sister Dinah being treated like a prostitute, their anger transformed them into monsters. They murdered every man in the city of the rapist, looted the entire city, “seized flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else in the city and out in the fields. They carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses,” Genesis 34:28-29.
Risks and consequences weren’t even considered. Did it even cross the boys’ minds that they’d only just settled in Canaan, on a plot of land just recently bought by Jacob for “a hundred pieces of silver” from the very group of people they’d just murdered (33:18-19)? No wonder Jacob was scared, because if the Canaanites and Perizzites banded together in a revenge attack against them, their whole family would be wiped out (34:30).
And what about Dinah? Not only had she lost her virginity, she’d also lost the man who loved her, and possibly her chances of anyone else wanting to marry her in the future too. And what about the guilt and horror she must have felt, hearing that her brothers had ruined the lives of an entire city of people because of what had happened to her?
Is there anything that can be salvaged from this awful situation, then? Well, it’s an obvious (and highly memorable) reminder of the shortsightedness of anger, and the damage it can do if allowed free rein. And that becomes really useful to know when living in an angry age like ours, where people are incensed at the lives of their family and friends being ruined by rapacious corporations, insensitive governments at all levels, Big Pharma lies about the safety and efficacy of experimental gene therapy jabs, the sexualization of children, the cost of housing destroying the dreams of the young, the fear of challenging the prevailing narratives, people saying whatever they like on social media destroying people’s lives and reputations – all of which can make us who have to live in such times, very, very angry.
And understandably so; God is very, very angry too (Romans 1:18-32). And like Jacob in his summary of Simeon and Levi in Genesis 49:7, God makes sure there are consequences for those doing the damage (Romans 2:6, 8-9). But to us he says, “Be angry, yes, but don’t sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Don’t do a Simeon or Levi; do Romans 12:18-21 instead. On to Jacob and Leah’s fourth son, then – “Judah: not afraid to speak to power”….(next blog)
