HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div

And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house. Genesis 34:30

The Bible does not hesitate to hold the mirror up to our fallen nature or show us what we are. Here is Israel, the prince with God, who had power with man, in a very sorry plight. His children had involved him in it; but first, he had involved them.

Dinah.  Little did she realize all the evil which that visit of hers would bring on her people and on those whose guest she was. What took her there? Had her upbringing been unnecessarily strict, and did she want a little more freedom? There is an inevitable rebound with young people to the other extreme if needless seventy has been brought to bear on them in their early days.

The probability, however, is that the laxity of her father’s home, and the effect of her mother’s gods, had made the line of separation a very faint one, and she felt no difficulty in overstepping it.

Simeon and Levi.  “Ye have made me to stink.” On his dying bed, Jacob remembered this treacherous cruelty and pronounced their scattering in Israel; though Levi undid the effect of that bitter curse by his obedience and devotion. In after days it was said, “My covenant was with him of life and peace,” and though scattered, he was as salt. In Simeon’s case, the curse was not cancelled by any subsequent manifestation of obedience and devotion and ran out its course.

There are encouragement and warning here.

Jacob.  The real mistake of it all was that Jacob bought that land, and settled too near the city (Genesis 33:18). As a pilgrim, he had no right to do this. If Christian parents will settle down in fellowship with the world, they have themselves to thank for all the misery which accrues to themselves and children, and the dishonour to God.

In other words, brethren, though the land is your there are choices to make. In these days will limited land we have to look at the heart of man and where he wants to go and settle. You may be far from the city but your heart is living in the city. You may even take the city to the countryside and God is watching your every move.