Day 17: Jacob Meets Esau

Today's reading: Genesis 33-34, Job 23-24, and Proverbs 3:13-18.

I. Today in Genesis, we get the big "showdown" when Jacob meets with Esau, whom he had cheated. Fortunately, though, the 20 years they had been separated cooled Esau's murderous ire towards Jacob (27:41). They both seemed pleased to see each other again and parted in peace (33:1-16). A bit anticlimactic, but it's always nice to see brothers reconciled in this way. Jacob did wrong to Esau, who likewise had been foolish in his youth for the little regard he had for his birthright, and wished death on his brother for cheating him. Yet, in the end, they were able to move beyond the errors of their youth and remain brothers.

Jacob next traveled to the city of Shechem to camp outside its walls. Sadly, his daughter Dinah was raped by Shechem, the son of Hamor, who, despite this shameful act, claimed to have fallen in love with her (34:1-3). The sons of Jacob were outraged by this, and when he proposed marriage to Dinah, they tricked Hamor & Shechem, as well as the males of the city, to get circumsized to unite themselves with Jacob's people (34:8-17). Simeon & Levi, two of Dinah's brothers, then fell upon the men as they lay helpless in recovery from the circumcision. They slew them all and plundered their goods (34:25-29). Today's reading in Genesis ends with Jacob expressing fear of reprisals from Canaanite tribes, while the brother remained indignant over what had happened to Dinah (34:30-31). 

I have a feeling this will come back to haunt them later.

II. We now have Job respond yet again to Eliphaz, confidently believing that God will find him innocent of wrongdoing (23:7), even though his "friends" insist that he must have sinned greatly and God punishes them in this life (24:18-20). Job kind of wisely points out that this is not always the case, though we may not understand why (cf 24:1-12; 24:22).

As the BIY Companion, Vol 1, states:

Job points out that life is not as straightforward as we would like. Sometimes good people die, while bad people seem to be rewarded. Job wrestles with the Lord about this and tries to make sense of it. (p. 40)

Truth is, live long enough and all of us wrestle with this at one point or another. It's a difficult thing to accept, but in the end, we are still called to trust in the Lord and His will. We are finite, while He is not. Our understanding and knowledge of things is infinitesimal compared to the omniscience of God. A competent theologian could explain this better, no doubt, but as a layman, I've always seen it this way, which becomes clearer in Job several chapters later. It's not easy, which does little to cool the anger at times, but simply IS.

III. We get another tiny morsel from Proverbs. Not enough to finish chapter 3, but we ever so slowly creep closer to this. The imagery of the "tree of life" in 3:18 is interesting. As the Ignatius Bible notes:

In effect, those who find wisdom receive a taste of the undisturbed peace and contentment that once reigned in the primordial paradise of Eden. The Eucharist, called supersubstantial bread, is also called "the tree of life" in Scripture. If one extends his hand and partakes of it, he will live forever. This tree Solomon named "the wisdom of God"... (p. 966)

That's all for today!