Poor masculinity leads to problems. An exegesis of Genesis 34.
Readership: All
Theme: Masculine Authority and Responsibility
Length: 1,200 words
Reading Time: 7 minutes
The Patriarch Jacob Lacked Masculinity
The patriarch Jacob is the Biblical prototype of the “Nice Guy” from Robert Glover’s book, “No More Mr. Nice Guy”. The Nice Guy exemplifies the opposite of masculinity. The story of Jacob’s life shows us what happens in the absence of masculine leadership. I’ll keep the points on a summary level for brevity.
Jacob colluded with his mother and used trickery to steal his brother’s birthright, then ran away when the relationship got dangerous instead of facing his brother and owning up to what he did. He let his uncle Laban give him Leah first and didn’t just take Rachel. Instead, he internalized his weakness and took it out on Leah while putting in another 7 years of service to his uncle for Rachel’s hand in marriage.
An artists rendition of Leah (left) and Rachel (right), wives of Jacob. Jacob’s Family Life
According to the scriptures, God saw that Leah was unloved by Jacob and as a consolation, opened her womb to have 7 children. One of the interesting aspects of Jacob’s life story are the names of his children and what they reveal about Jacob’s marriage to the two sisters.
- Reuben means, “He has seen my misery” or “He will love me”.
- Simeon means, “He has heard of my suffering”.
- Levi means, “He will join with me in harmony”.
- Judah means “Thanksgiving” or “Praise”.
- Issachar means “man for hire” or “reward”.
- Zebulun means “gift” or “honor”.
- Dinah means “judged”.
The names of his children by Rachel are similarly revealing.
- Joseph means, “God has taken away my reproach.”
- Benjamin means, “Son of my sorrow.”
As you can see from the meanings of their names, Leah and Rachel named their sons according to how Jacob was toward them relationally. In these names, we see the fruits of the “Nice Guy” Jacob’s bitterness and resentment, the struggle that Leah had with being the unwanted woman, and the shame that Rachel endured as a result of God’s response to Jacob’s ill treatment of Leah (i.e. giving Leah the honor of having more children). If we look at the larger context and compare how he favored his sons by Rachel, we get an idea of how miserably bitter he was over being tricked into marrying Leah and then taking it lying down.
Genesis 34
The story in Genesis 34 is of Jacob’s daughter Dinah getting raped by prince Shechem. There are multiple parts to the story and at any point the application of a biblically masculine course of action could have mitigated further damage to all parties involved.
Dinah goes out on the town of Shechem, named after the prince, to see the culture. She’s abducted and seduced/raped by Shechem and she is kept captive by him at his residence. He falls for her and tells his father Hamor to go get permission to make her his wife, so they go visit Jacob. Jacob is silent on the matter when no man should be silent. He could have demanded justice for his daughter, but there is nothing from him. When Dinah’s brothers come home from the fields and hear of what happened they are angry. Jacob’s lack of a response most likely infuriated them more. Had he told Hamor, “no”, and seized the opportunity to exact justice from Shechem, his son’s fury would probably have been assuaged. Even if he agreed to the union as the best positive outcome of the situation (since Dinah had already been defiled), and used the situation to forge an alliance with Shechem, he would have been showing the masculine trait of rolling with the punches and staying on top of things. But he didn’t do that either. Nothing, not even a word.
Given this vacuum of definitive authority from Jacob, Dinah’s brothers usurp the role of Jacob as father and plot revenge. They say that the bride price is for all the men of Shechem to be circumcised, according to the Israelite’s tradition. Blinded by the hope of obtaining Dinah and growing the tribe, Hamor and Shechem convince the town’s men to go under the knife, and when they are all recovering the brothers go kill every man in the town and take their sister back. They plunder all their belongings, and take the women and children as their own. (This could be a scene straight from Donovan’s thought exercise in “The Way of Men”.)
The sons, in their thirst to avenge, perpetuated violence on innocent people just like their innocent sister had been assaulted. Basically, they did to the town of Shechem what Prince Shechem did to their sister. This is not the justice of biblical masculinity, this is world of masculinity and revenge. Killing all the men because one was a rapist was overkill, pun intended.
A decisive word from Jacob could have prevented all this carnage, but he remained silent.
When Jacob heard what his sons had done his immediate response was to worry about other’s reactions. He chastised his sons because of what the other inhabitants of the area might think of him and what they might do to him. This is a sign of his misunderstanding of masculinity and his weakness in general. The other inhabitants of the land were then worried about what Jacob’s sons might do if they are crossed. The inhabitants might not have liked what happened but they knew there would be a price to be paid for treating Jacob’s people wrong, and they knew the sons were willing to inflict it.
Epilogue
In Shaking the dust off your shoes (2022-8-15), Jack made the point that no matter what situation a man is in, or what he has decided to believe, he must make a decisive action, if only to make a statement and/or obtain a catharsis. The story of Jacob in Genesis 34 reinforces this conclusion.
Jacob basically shrugged when he found out his daughter had been kidnapped and raped. His failure to act incited his sons to usurp his mantle of authority and respond to the situation.
Jacob’s sons took action. Their response was deceitful, unjust, and brought needless death to many innocent men. This goes to show that it is better to take action rather than to leave that responsibility to others, who may not act in the best interests of all concerned, and may in fact make things worse.
What we learn from this is that the absence of masculinity has been causing issues for thousands of years. Its absence causes men to allow themselves to be walked upon today just like it did back then. Only in modern times, a man will get trod over by his own woman along with other men.
Σ Frame Axiom 33: A man should never leave the responsibilities of being the Head of his domain to others, unless the are duly delegated to do so (which is an action in itself).
On a positive note, we see the grace of God shown to Jacob in spite of his personal failures as a man. He became a patriarch and the father and namesake of the Israelite nation. Thus, his life story offers hope to Nice Guys everywhere.
Related
- Σ Frame (Red Pill Apostle): Lessons on Life and Marriage from Matthew 10 (2021-09-20)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Developing Masculinity (2021-12-6)
