Day 24

Return to Bethel

from the reading plan


Genesis 34:1-31, Genesis 35:1-29, Genesis 36:1-43, Psalm 116:1-2, Isaiah 43:1-2


A few months ago, my son was asking for permission to watch a movie that had just come out. I wasn’t sure if I was comfortable with it. The movie had a lot of violence, and he would be exposed to things I wasn’t sure were age appropriate. I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea and explained my reasons. His response caught me off guard:

“But dad, I have read the Bible.”

It is a fair point. Everything I was worried about him seeing in the movie, you read about in the Bible. While he has not read the entire Bible, he has read stories in the Old Testament full of violence, war, deception, vengeance, immorality, and all manner of sin that comes out of the human heart.

Genesis 34 is one of those chapters. You have a few victims and a whole lot of villains. If this scene of the Bible was turned into a movie it would come with the “viewer discretion advised” warning. Like much of Genesis, the Bible describes what happens with little comment on how we should respond or what moral judgments we should make.

Throughout God’s word, we get an honest, unfiltered picture of the worst of sinful humanity.

Then comes chapter 35. Often when humanity is at its worst, we see the best of God.

God spoke again to Jacob and reaffirmed what He told Jacob in chapter 32. He gave him a new name, and with that new name the covenant promise made to Abraham and Isaac continued through Jacob. By now we know enough about Jacob’s story to know this is simply based on the unmerited grace of God. Jacob had not earned this new name, but God gifted it to him because He is merciful to His people and faithful to His word. In chapter 34 we see the worst of humanity. In chapter 35 we see the best of our gracious God.

Nowhere is this pattern clearer in the biblical story than in the cross of Jesus Christ. The people around Jesus betrayed, wrongfully accused, mercilessly tortured, and unjustly crucified the Messiah. It is the worst of humanity on display. Jesus willingly laid down His life, prayed on behalf of His executioners, entrusted his life to His Father, and died the death we deserve to die.

From before the time of Jacob to the day when Jesus returns, the goodness and faithfulness of our God has overcome the worst of sinful humanity. Praise God!

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