A Bad Dad & the Gracious Father
Jacob never had a great relationship with his father. He was clearly not Isaac's favorite as Esau was. Perhaps that led to his own form of terrible fatherhood when he comes back into the land of Canaan. Jacob stops at Succoth to find business and trade. He's made a financial, not spiritual decision here. God spoke to Him to return where he came from. That was Bethel. But Jacob turned north and ended up in Shechem. Then perhaps one of the hardest chapters in the Bible occurs. Dinah, Leah's daughter, is out with the women of the city when Hamor the Hivite defiles (rapes) her and then desires her as his wife. Jacob hears of it and doesn't respond. In fact, Jacob never gets upset about the ordeal at all. Simeon and Levi do. This is their sister and they won't stand for it. They shrewdly make a deal with the men of the city to form an alliance. They bait all the men to circumcise themselves (ouch) in order to have Dinah and further intermarriages. On the third day af...