Read with Me
Genesis 34:18-24 (HCSB)
Their words seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem. The young man did not delay doing this, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter. Now he was the most important in all his father’s house. So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city and spoke to the men there.
“These men are peaceful toward us,” they said. “Let them live in our land and move about in it, for indeed, the region is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters as our wives and give our daughters to them. But the men will agree to live with us and be one people only on this condition: if all our men are circumcised as they are. Won’t their livestock, their possessions, and all their animals become ours? Only let us agree with them, and they will live with us.”
All the able-bodied men listened to Hamor and his son Shechem, and all the able-bodied men were circumcised.
Listen with Me
As so often happens, the leaders of the community were able to persuade the people to sacrifice themselves in order to accomplish the ends desired by those leaders. And in order to do that, they didn’t emphasize the great cost in the present, but some imagined benefits they will receive in the future.
In this case, the high cost was circumcision, something not practiced among the Canaanites. It’s possible that Shechem and Hamor themselves had only a small idea of how painful the procedure would be. After all, all the Israelites and their slaves were circumcised, so how bad could it be?
But their plea to the people didn’t focus at all on the pain or on the men’s ability to bear it. Instead, they focused on what they would get in the future. There was no doubt that the Israelites were extremely wealthy in flocks and herds. If the Shechemites were able to marry their daughters to them, they would in turn gain a stake in those riches. And of course, so would anyone who married one of their daughters.
Hamor and Schechem’s arguments persuaded the men of this city. Looking forward to the potential benefits, they decided they would bear the necessary pain. Little did they know that that decision would spell their own doom.
Pray with Me
Father, we haven’t changed that much in the intervening 3,500 years. We are still easily persuaded by our leaders to undergo what they assure us is short-term pain in order to gain a greater good that will mostly fulfill their own desires. That’s not to say that all short-term pain is bad. All future gains necessarily involve giving up something in the short-term. But we need to be wise and look closely at whether the promised benefits are actually realistic before we sign up for the pain and sacrifice that is urged by our leaders. Help us to be wise, Lord, in this as well as in everything else. Amen.