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make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land: ... 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.” But the grief and
abhorrence with which he regarded their bloody deed is shown by the
words in which, nearly fifty years later, he referred to it, as he lay upon
his deathbed in Egypt: “Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of
cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their
secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united.... Cursed
be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel.”
Genesis 49:5-7
.
Jacob felt that there was cause for deep humiliation. Cruelty and
falsehood were manifest in the character of his sons. There were false
gods in the camp, and idolatry had to some extent gained a foothold
even in his household. Should the Lord deal with them according
to their deserts, would He not leave them to the vengeance of the
surrounding nations?
While Jacob was thus bowed down with trouble, the Lord directed
him to journey southward to Bethel. The thought of this place re-
minded the patriarch not only of his vision of the angels and of God’s
promises of mercy, but also of the vow which he had made there,
that the Lord should be his God. He determined that before going to
this sacred spot his household should be freed from the defilement of
idolatry. He therefore gave direction to all in the encampment, “Put
away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change
your garments: and let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make
there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress,
and was with me in the way which I went.”
With deep emotion Jacob repeated the story of his first visit to
Bethel, when he left his father’s tent a lonely wanderer, fleeing for his
life, and how the Lord had appeared to him in the night vision. As he
reviewed the wonderful dealings of God with him, his own heart was
softened, his children also were touched by a subduing power; he had
taken the most effectual way to prepare them to join in the worship of
God when they should arrive at Bethel. “And they gave unto Jacob
all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings
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which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was
by Shechem.”