Psalms are the hymnbook- prayerbook even – of God’s people. Put together after God’s people return from Exile, they offer songs and prayers that capture the heart of God’s people as they muddle through life as God’s people.
As we read them, we recognise so much that is current. Just take today’s Psalm, 56... Written by David as he was captured in Gath (read 1 Samuel 21:10-15), it captures the heart of a man completely alone, but knowing that God is for him, that God knows his tears and predicament, and that God is trustworthy – just look at his words!
All of that resonates with us – but we must proceed with care... before we sing this song, we must see how Jesus IS this Psalm for us. And all of Jesus’ life speaks to the truth of this Psalm: the great-descendant of David IS this Psalm in the flesh.
Because Jesus IS this Psalm, we can sing it.
Have you ever wondered, what do God’s people look like? Here, at the close of Jacob’s story we learn some fascinating things about what types of people God calls to be in His family and what their life looks like.
After all the nastiness of chapter 34 God still calls Jacob and his family back to Bethel. God is faithful to His people and brings them back to the land and blesses them.
Jacob’s life shows the faithfulness of God to an undeserving people.
Ruben’s failure points us to the truth that true power in God’s people is found in service.
The death of Rachel and Deborah show us that God saves His people through suffering, not from it.
All of this points us to the God who sends His only Son to die, so we, a group of undeserving rebels, can be counted among His people and made fit for His service.
It really is a section of the Bible you feel like you need a shower after: there is sexual violence, anger, silence, rage, favouritism, deception, carnage, and silence. In fact, on a surface reading, God seems as absent as His speech or acknowledgement! Like so many other episodes in the family history of Jacob, no human actor emerges well. Jacob has placed his family here through disobedience. Shechem violates Dinah. Shechem and his father are duplicitous. Simeon and Levi are deceitful and deceptive. The brothers are wanton in their violence. And the outcome is described in purely self-interested terms by Jacob!
But, the mere presence of this episode in the word of God speaks a number of truths. First, the silence of God must never be construed as the absence of God – look at the cross! Second, the word of God never shies from the brutality of sin. Third, the events make our hearts recognise our own sin – and yearn for a family where sin will be confronted, not ignored or taken advantage of. Those three truths taken together find voice in Psalms 27 and 56, expression in the genealogy of Jesus, and resolution at the cross, where the one man who should never have met God’s silence experienced the full brutality of sin so that we can always hear God’s voice!
