Those wacky sons, full of quirks and hijinks. They sing and dance in a variety of musical styles: country-western ("One More Angel in Heaven"), Caribbean ("Benjamin Calypso") and French ballad ("Those Canaan Days"). Their harmonies are impeccable.
They wouldn't be the type driven to murder.
Or would they?
OK, fine. Everyone knows that when Joseph "The Dreamer" came around one day, some of the brothers thought they'd knock off Joey and say goodbye to his dreams. Lucky for Joseph and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Reuben (son No. 1) stepped in got his sentence reduced from death to thrown-in-a-pit-and-sold-to-Ishmeelites. You know the rest.
But that wasn't the first time the brothers had a taste for blood.
Flip back to another chapter in their lives, one we'll call Chapter 34.
Remember, Jacob didn't just have sons. He had at least one daughter we know about, the effervescent, witty and irresistible Dinah. And someone was in the kitchen with Dinah, someone named Shechem.
OK, we don't know for sure where Shechem defiled Dinah, but it might as well be the kitchen.
Poor Shechem. Yeah, he did that "which thing ought not to be done," as that chapter says. But he really picked the wrong family to mess with.
Even after Shechem and his dad apologized and said they'd like to make an honest girl of Dinah, some of her brothers, led by Simeon and Levi, hatched a plan for some serious payback.
These are circumcision tools. I'm not going to explain how they're used, but Dinah's brothers demanded that all the men of Shalem, the city where they lived, be circumcized, and all would be forgotten.
The men of the city agreed and Shechem was first in line. You couldn't get a circumcision fast enough that week. They were selling like hotcakes.
Ouch.
Genesis 34:25
"And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males."
Double ouch.
And if that wasn't enough, they spoiled the city, stole the oxen, sheep, asses, their wealth, their children and their wives and left for Beth-el.
Triple ouch.
But Jacob stayed pretty mad at his boys over this until he died. Even during his final blessing of the family, he cursed their anger and promised they'd be scattered one day.
There are so many lessons in this story that I'm not even going to try to explain them all.
