Why Jacob Called His Sons' Revenge a Stench (Genesis 34:18–31)

A city that felt secure

Unsuspecting translates betach (H983), security or ease, a city living with no guard up. Simeon and Levi "went into the unsuspecting city" (Genesis 34:25), and translators differ on who the Hebrew word describes: some read the city as feeling secure, and others read the brothers as coming in boldly.

The same word names the security God promised Israel: "You are to keep My statutes and carefully observe My judgments, so that you may dwell securely in the land" (Leviticus 25:18). Moses' last blessing over the tribes said, "So Israel dwells securely" (Deuteronomy 33:28), and David prayed, "for You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety" (Psalms 4:8). In each of those lines the security comes from God.

The word also names the ease of a city with no one to defend it. The Danite spies came to Laish and "saw that the people were living securely" (Judges 18:7), and later the Danites came "to a quiet and unsuspecting people, and they struck them with their swords" (Judges 18:27). Shechem and Laish both fell to the sword while they felt safe, and the safety David prayed for came from God alone. Jacob gave what his sons had done a name of his own.

Trouble, the word behind Achor

Jacob's word for trouble is akar (H5916), to stir up disaster that falls on a whole community, and it is the root of the place name Achor (H5911). Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have brought trouble upon me" (Genesis 34:30), and he meant the whole household would pay for what two sons had done.

Israel heard the verb again at Jericho. Achan took plunder God had forbidden, and Joshua said, "Why have you brought this trouble upon us?" (Joshua 7:25). Then he said, "Today the LORD will bring trouble upon you." The place was called "the Valley of Achor to this day" (Joshua 7:26). Achan and Jacob's sons both took plunder, and both brought trouble on all their people.

Centuries later God named that valley again in Hosea 2:15 and promised to make it a gateway of hope. The God whose people kept bringing trouble on themselves promised to turn the place of trouble into the way back to Him. Jacob's other word in Genesis 34:30 was older still in Israel's memory.

A stench to the peoples of the land

Jacob said his sons had made him "a stench to the Canaanites and Perizzites" (Genesis 34:30), with ba'ash (H887), to stink, to become hateful to the people around you. Only a short time before, Jacob "arrived safely at the city of Shechem" (Genesis 33:18), and now every city around him had reason to hate his name.

The first readers of Genesis knew that verb from their own story. In Egypt, Israel's foremen said to Moses and Aaron, "you have made us a stench before Pharaoh and his officials; you have placed in their hand a sword to kill us" (Exodus 5:21). The verb is the same, and a sword is in it again. A people who had once said those words to Moses heard their father Jacob say them at Shechem.

They also heard what came next. God spoke to Jacob, "Arise, go up to Bethel" (Genesis 35:1), and as the family set out, "a terror from God fell over the surrounding cities, so that they did not pursue Jacob's sons" (Genesis 35:5). The God who brought Israel out of Egypt past Pharaoh's sword had brought Jacob's house out from among the Canaanites first.

Shechem, where Israel promised to obey

Shechem became the place where all Israel renewed its covenant with God, and the first readers of Genesis knew it as that place. "Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem" (Joshua 24:1), and there "they presented themselves before God." The people said, "We will serve the LORD our God and obey His voice" (Joshua 24:24), and Joseph's bones were buried "in the plot of land that Jacob had purchased from the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father" (Joshua 24:32).

Jacob's sons had used the sign of God's covenant to make a false covenant at Shechem, and nobody there listened for God's voice. Generations later Israel stood on the same ground and promised to obey His voice. Every Israelite who heard Genesis 34 read in the land heard it as the story of the city where their own covenant was renewed.

The God who speaks first

To know God is to bring Him the wrong and hear what He says, and Jacob's house learned it after the swords. Jacob had nothing to say to God in Genesis 34, and God spoke to him first. Then Jacob told his household, "Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you" (Genesis 35:2), and he remembered "God, who answered me in my day of distress" (Genesis 35:3).

We are the people who remember what God has said. When He answers you in a day of distress, write down what He said with the date in the Doxa app, and read it back the next time trouble comes. The God who promised to make the Valley of Achor a gateway of hope still speaks first to His people.

This goes with today's Doxa Daily Lift: Simeon and Levi Killed a City Still in Pain (Genesis 34:18–31)