Sex, Lies, and Murder: Acts IV & V

Israel’s mediatory role required its members to be shepherds, not wolves. Instead of showing mercy as humble priests that the Gentiles might have life, Simeon and Levi intended only to steal and destroy.

Read Part 1 and Part 2.

The events of the fourth act are placed in deliberate juxtaposition to those in the third for the same purpose that the account of Judah would be imposed within the Joseph narrative—to contrast the holy with the unholy. The true intentions of Simeon and Levi in the Ethics cycle were entirely unethical, and their deceit resulted in the Shechemites’ failure of judgment in this Oath/Sanctions cycle.

Against the immediate backdrop of the dishonor that Jacob’s sons would bring upon their father, Hamor’s honorable son shines in the eyes of the judges who sat in the gate of the city. The Oath is his desire to honor Dinah in marriage. The positive/negative Sanctions are the willingness of the Shechemites to undergo the “curse” of circumcision in order to enjoy the “blessing” of union with God’s “firstborn,” Israel, who had been promised the entire land. The injustice that would be committed against them was the opposite of the destruction of Jericho. Not only had God not yet given Canaan into the hand of Jacob, but the Shechemites were also willing to be circumcised like the Israelites outside of the city that it might not be “cut around” and bloodied as a devoted “firstfruits” of conquest.

The primary matrix theme in this cycle is the sequence of sacrifice. The honorable intentions of the father and the son will unwittingly bring all the males of Shechem to their deaths.

Act IV: Oath/Sanctions

INITIATION

• Shechem’s faithfulness is highlighted in the way this stanza works through the dominion pattern, from the “early” obedience of Abraham (Genesis 22:3), via the submission of Joseph and the “Ten Words/Things” of Moses, to the delight of David in the light of God’s commands (Psalm 119:105). This obedience results in honor, and the stanza then alludes to even more distant “future history” in the beauty and testimony of Esther, the redemption of the Aaronic priesthood in Joshua (Zechariah 3), and finally in the kingdom of the Son of God. This alignment of mere phrases with eras of covenant history might seem to be a stretch but a similar use of important historical “pillars” of the Church occurs in Revelation 18:1-19:21.¹See Michael Bull, Moses and the Revelation: Why the End of the World is not in Your Future, 164.

DELEGATION

• The reference to the gate of the city in the Firstfruits line symbolically puts Hamor and Shechem upon the altar as living sacrifices. The placement of the mentions of the city at Kingdom (Numbers) and Sanctions (Joshua) hints at the travesty that is coming.

PRESENTATION (Priesthood)

• The three Ethics stanzas comprise their speech before the men of the city, working through the themes of Priesthood (forming), Kingdom (filling), and Prophecy (future). The first stanza thus refers to the priestly promise of the fruit of the land and the fruit of the womb. It seems that Canaan was still relatively barren, as it had been in the time of Abraham, and the Shechemites thus desired the blessing of Israel’s God and the mitigation of the Adamic curses through priestly mediation, like that of Cain and Abel.
• The correspondence of trade with worship is worth noting, a theme that begins in Genesis 2 and runs throughout the Bible to its culmination in the Revelation (13:17; 18:11-13). James B. Jordan writes:

Eden is the land of food, and the outlying lands are lands of other raw materials. The Bible conceives of commerce between these lands, so that those of Adam’s descendants who lived in Eden would have to engage in trade with those who had moved downstream to Havilah. In this way, precious stones would be brought from Havilah back to Eden to adorn the sanctuary. When Israel came out of Egypt, she sojourned in the land of Havilah while the Tabernacle and the High Priest’s garments were made (Genesis 25:18). Here in this land of rocks were made many items of gold and onyx. Indeed, the only reference in the Bible to the onyx stone, outside of Genesis 2, is in connection with the High Priest’s garments. The shoulder stones of the “ephod” were made of onyx, and had the names of the twelve tribes put upon them (Exodus 25:7; 28:9-12).²James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World, 73.

• In contrast to the intermarriage that occurred in Genesis 6, the intermarriage anticipated here would have been sanctified by the Lord, since the Shechemites were converting as a people to the worship of the true God. Under the Noahic covenant, the entire world was organized as priest-kingdoms, so the effect of the marriage of Shechem upon the worship of the people of the city was something that all assumed would be the case.

PURIFICATION (Kingdom)

• The Kingdom stanza highlights the legal side of the Abrahamic covenant. It begins with the command from God, moves to the sanctification of Israel from other nations, to the promise of the Land. The Law was given at the first Pentecost, and Trumpets highlights the fact that all Israelites were “counted” as sacrifices, not counted as actual troops (thus David sinned in his “kingly” census). The final two lines remind us that circumcision was only a “taste” of judgment, an inoculation that spared Israel from actually being cut off forever, unlike the rest of the nations.

TRANSFORMATION (Prophecy)

• Stanza 5 deals with plunder and plagues, and the irony here is obvious once again. The Shechemites had been promised “plunder” but would instead receive “plagues.” Some commentators state that the desire of the Shechemites for the wealth of Jacob was a selfish one, but that is not the spin that the author has put upon the account up to this point. Unity is strength, so the Babelites and Jesus tell us, possibly explaining the location of “let us” in the Pentecost line, alluding to the use of the phrase in the unity of confession at Babel (Genesis 11:4, 7) and the corresponding miraculous tongues at Pentecost. The rulers of the city desired to share in Jacob’s divine prosperity, not plunder it. And they were willing to shed their own blood to do so. In Acts 7:15-16, Stephen tells his Jewish inquisitors that Jacob died in Egypt and his body was “carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.” The only explanation for this apparent discrepancy is that Ephron the Hittite, the man who was willing to give Abraham the field of Machpelah for no charge, was a son of Hamor. It seems that Hamor and his sons were a people of exceeding courtesy and generosity. Their willingness to enter into covenant with the sons of Abraham was likely motivated by the memory of Abraham’s generosity and faith as an itinerant priest-king who refused to receive any plunder from the Mesopotamian kings who had invaded Canaan (Genesis 14:17-24).³For more discussion, see Microcosmic Abraham.
• This sequence seems to correspond items of the “Land” with their representative counterparts in the “Garden,” perhaps implying a united “tent”—a unified, blessed cultus leading to a unified, prosperous culture. The conclusion of this “prophetic counsel” is that there would be unity and rest in the Land, the final line corresponding to the Feast of Booths.

VINDICATION

REPRESENTATION

• The final two stanzas—as a set of two pillars—are much like the Ten Words. Each fivefold column works from the Adamic tent to the Evian city, just like Genesis 2 (Adam to Eve) and the Book of Revelation (Christ to the City-Bride). The first column concerns the “priestly head” and the second the “kingly body.” Like Jesus in Revelation 19, God’s order is the opposite of Man’s order, with the sword in the mouth (the Covenant Oath) and the name on the thigh (the blessed “curse” that brought forth miraculous fruit). This also relates to the necessity of the circumcision of the firstborn of Moses before Moses could testify to Pharaoh (Exodus 4:24-26).
• The first column relates to the rulers of the city and their power to bless and to curse, and the second relates to the glory of Covenant Succession—a city of refuge that could not be cut off because its cultic light would be the Lamb of God. By putting themselves under the knife of Israel’s God, they believed that they would be spared from the sword of Israel. The circumcision of the Shechemites was the result of the circumcision of the heart of Shechem.

ACT V: Succession

TRANSCENDENCE

• The first stanza begins with the males of Shechem on the altar. They had desired table fellowship with Israel but instead would be the meat on that table. Simeon and Levi lie in wait for their innocent blood in the Table line. In the Trumpets line they are two legal witnesses, but false witnesses who bring judgment down upon the innocent.
• Killing all the males was not only an exaggerated retaliation (like that of Lamech, the first enthroned “melech,” in Genesis 4) but also left the women vulnerable to attack. Invading troops often raped the women of a city as a symbol of kingly dominion—the walls were not impregnable and thus neither were the women. The city of Shechem was cut out of history, so the reference to slaying all of the males in the Booths line, rather than offering sacrifices on behalf of faithful Gentiles, shows just how abhorrent this act by Israelites was in the sight of God.

HIERARCHY

• Singling out faithful Hamor and his honorable son in the Exodus stanza throws the darkness of the Lord upon this “Egyptian” act of bloodshed. The slaying occurs in the Priesthood line, the deciding edge (redemption versus vengeance) in the Kingdom line, and the sword is once again in the Prophecy line. These three are the flesh, fire, and smoke of a human sacrifice, a stink in the nostrils of God.
• The taking of Dinah from the house in the Joshua line corresponds to the future rescue of Rahab, but as mentioned, this was an ungodly act, a seizing of dominion.

ETHICS: PRIESTHOOD

• The spoiling of the city in the Levitical stanza perhaps highlights the fact that the protection afforded by Israel’s mediation was stolen from the Shechemites. There was no refuge in this city. It was entirely “devoted,” but not to God.

ETHICS: KINGDOM

• At the center of the Succession Act, the seizing of “kingdom” is described with an architectural flourish. The first three lines describe the fauna subjects named by Adam, who was supposed to represent them before God (remember that the donkey is a symbol for a believing Gentile, like Ishmael, Genesis 16:12). This construct would also explain God’s choice of a donkey to speak to Balaam the prophet. Aptly, the actual Kingdom line of the stanza is missing, because stolen authority is not true authority. The stanza then works its way in again from the World to the Garden via the three-tiered theft of fruit committed by the antediluvians.

ETHICS: PROPHECY

• In this stanza, the “plunder” anticipated by the Shechemites is turned into plagues. The prophets were God’s “repo men,” and so was Jacob when he “stole” the Abrahamic birthright and blessings back from the seed of the serpent. Jesus came to Israel as the same sort of “thief,” stealing the inheritance from the usurpation of the Herods. But in this case, the sons of Jacob were the brood of snakes who stole the inheritance of the righteous. The central matrix icon is the wisdom of the serpent, and in this stanza, that line is missing once again. Simeon and Levi were not servant-kings but serpent-kings.

OATH/SANCTIONS

• Father Jacob pronounces a judgment upon the works of his two sons who (at Hierarchy) have not only misrepresented Jacob but also their father Abraham.
• The first half of the stanza follows the Garden, Land, World order. At Ascension, the murder and plunder are a satanic offering upon the altar of the abyss. The word used for “trouble” is related to the name Achan, the man who stole gold, silver, and a robe, from Jericho. His Judahite line (from Zerah) was cut off from among the people, and replaced by the other Judahite line (from Perez) into which faithful Rahab married.
• At Testing, there is the “smoke” of this false offering going up as a testimony to their sin. The inhabitants of the Land are placed at Trumpets as a threat to Israel, a “wild sea” that could rise up and wipe them out. Finally, the Succession line refers to the curse upon the womb, evaded through polygamy, which is expanded upon in the final stanza.

SUCCESSION

• The Succession stanza works through the steps of the sacrificial pattern, with Jacob and his house as the olah.
• Jacob speaks as the authority from heaven (Covenant head) but the “bridal” response is the false testimony of his two sons (Covenant body). As is often the case in the Torah, we are left to judge the actions of the protagonists according to what has previously been revealed to us concerning the mind of God. This omission of important details is God’s means of developing wisdom and discernment in His sons and daughters. So, what is our judgment? Shechem did not treat Dinah as a prostitute. He sinned with her but unlike Amnon who sinned with his half sister Tamar did not despise her afterward. Shechem was willing to give anything to have her as his wife, and ultimately, his co-regent. This aligns with the covenantal ”feminism” that runs throughout the Scriptures: the woman is first given to the man as a possession, but she is redeemed through his priestly faithfulness, and eventually rules by his side. That is what was intended in Eden. That is what happens in the book of Esther. And it is also what happens in the New Testament concerning Christ and the Church. The harlot and the bride both appear at the Oath/Sanctions step in the Revelation, but the harlot is sent a strong delusion and the bride cannot be deceived. The bride dines with Jesus in heaven as a true queen and prophetess, but the harlot who claimed to be a queen is devoured by birds and beasts on the earth. The two-edged sword of the Lord, a man wiser than Solomon, redeemed the bride by cutting Jerusalem in two, as Hagar and Sarah (Galatians 4:21-31; Hebrews 4:12). Those who condemned the prostitutes and tax collectors whom Jesus loved continued to represent a great city that, under the cloak of priestly robes, committed the same sins at a geopolitical level. Like Saul and the Pharisees, Simeon and Levi shed innocent blood and claimed to be doing the will of God.

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