Genesis 34:27

Then the cruel treachery of Jacob's sons comes to the surface. The text names only Simeon and Levi here, the brothers of Dinah, though Reuben and Judah were also her brothers. But the two of them attack the unarmed city. They kill every male while the men are still sore from surgery. Of course this took the men by surprise, and they had no defence. No one remained to organize a counter attack. The two also killed Hamor and Shechem, who had been considerate of Jacob's family. They took Dinah from Shechem's house. They carried off the other women and children as captives. They seized the goods of the people, including all their livestock, as if they were the spoils of war.

Simeon and Levi say, "Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?" making her honour cover their covetousness. At least Jacob is honest, for he says, "You have brought trouble on me by making me stink … and I shall be destroyed, both I and my household."

In condemning Simeon and Levi, the Holy Spirit speaks out against religious intolerance and persecution. They are joined together and deceitful, as religious bigotry always is. But every truly religious man will echo Jacob's rejection of it: "Let my soul come not into their council; O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen." The innocent suffer with the guilty in these cursed crusades — the innocent ox along with the guilty Shechem — and Shechem was not half as bad as they were. The worst of this crime is that they do it in the name of God, religious order and separation. So they bring religion into the contempt of unthinking minds. They manage to wrong the world and the church at the same time.

One wrong step away from our true position before the Lord leads to many a sin, scandal, and sorrow. So we find here, as the consequence of Jacob's buying the land of the Hivite and building himself a house. His stay at Succoth and Shechem covers some ten years. He had to be unsettled to get him back to his pilgrim place. But the way was painful for all. For Jacob himself it brought deep shame, humiliation and fear.

Years later, in Genesis 49, the dishonour to the name of God and the horror and shame of the whole thing come over Jacob's soul. They strike him far more strongly than they seem to have done at the moment of the sin. He cries: "Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel." God scattered Levi in Israel to punish that terrible sin, committed centuries before at Shechem. But now, for our encouragement, see the grace of God. The very punishment, the scattering in Israel, becomes an unspeakable blessing. God chooses this tribe to draw near to Him. He scatters them through Israel, so the knowledge of God and His Word spreads just as widely through them.

We have here a truly humbling view of human nature as seen in the light of the holiness of God. It is as if the Lord would say to us: Look here! See a man dressed in nature's blackest clothing, showing nature's most repellent face. Examine him closely. See what man is once you strip away all the false clothing that ignorance or empty self-righteousness would put on him. Then you may know the rich abundance of My grace, which can lift even such a one into the highest heights of communion.