A Nation and a Company of Nations


by


Philip du Nard

In Genesis 35:11-12, God said to Jacob,"And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;    And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land."

Slightly more detail is added to previous promises. It would seem that knowledge of God's will for our lives becomes more specific in nature as time goes on. We ought to consider the circumstances that were the occasion for God comforting Jacob-Israel yet again concerning the future.

Jacob had recently returned to Canaan from his twenty year sojourn in Haran with his Uncle Laban. He had just gotten past a potential crisis involving his brother Esau and now he was faced with another one involving his new neighbors. Actually, more time must have passed between chapters 33 and 34 than our initial impression might lead us to believe because in chapter 33, the sons of Jacob are still referred to as "children" as we might expect as Jacob didn't get married until seven years into his twenty year sojourn and so his his oldest son could be no more than twelve at the end of this period. But in chapter 34, his sons are now "men" capable of bearing swords. In Gen 30:21 we learn that Jacob had a daughter named Dinah and in chapter 34, we learn that she was defiled by "Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country..."Shechem then wanted her to become his wife. His father, Hamor, "prince of the country," and therefore not someone you would want to offend, approached Jacob about this and made what would seem to be a very hospitable offer that they all dwell in peace together and and make marriages. If Jacob had any regard for Abraham's commandment regarding marriages with the Canaanites he may have felt on the spot. But it was all out of his hands. His sons, principally Simeon and Levi, were angered by what had transpired with their sister and they hatched a plan of revenge.

They deceived Hamor and Shechem and the men of their city into thinking that they would accept this offer if the men of the city would submit to circumcision.

This counteroffer was agreeable to Hamor and Shechem but we get some insight into their motive for accepting it as they try to sell this to their fellows. Gen. 34:23 states, "Shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours? only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us."

We see a manifestation of sinful nature in the form of covetousness. We also see an example of what would be a pattern of how other peoples would, from time to time, react to God's special blessing upon the Israel peoples. They would imagine that by superficially adopting some of their customs and intermarrying with them, they could be a party to these same blessings, not knowing the basis upon which they were granted in the first place.

As we later see, the men submitted to circumcision and Simeon and Levi took advantage of their medical distress to slay all the males of the city in revenge for what had happened to their sister. Since Hamor was the prince, we might wonder what other recourse they might have had but we also might ask ourselves what the Lord thought of this action. It is evident from Genesis 49:5-7 that He did not approve. Near the end of his life when Jacob-Israel was inspired by the Holy Ghost to prophetically bless each of his sons and their descendants, of Simeon and Levi we read, "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 honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel."

When, in the plan and purpose of Almighty God, white European Christians were providentially led to the North American wilderness to found a great nation under God, not everything was done in a Christian manner toward the indigenous peoples. It is all too convenient to pass judgment on past generations not being faced with what they were faced with but it is possible that the actions of Simeon and Levi are representative of some of what transpired in our own nation's history.

Jacob's reaction is recorded in verses 30-31:"And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: 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.  And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?"

Imagine moving into a new house in a new neighborhood where you expect to live out your days and right off the bat your children burn the neighbors' houses down. This is not exactly getting started off on the right foot. This was how Jacob felt. It was against this backdrop that Jacob required some more comfort and God told him to go to Bethel, a place of worship. It was under these circumstances that Jacob told his household to put away the strange gods. Evidently it required a crisis to get him to do this. This is a familiar pattern, is it not? If the terrorist attacks upon our nation were insufficient to bring us as a nation to where we should be toward the Lord, we might wonder what sort of crisis it will require to bring us to that point but, rest assured, as impossible as it seems, we will return to the Lord.

In this context, God reaffirms Jacob's name change in verse 10, and gives the promise stated above. While Jacob is worried about getting wiped out by his neighbors, God assures him that he will become "a nation and a company of nations."

This is something to ponder. This is not something that would happen overnight nor did Israel become a company or assembly of nations in Biblical times. Keep in mind that these are among the promises given to the fathers that Christ died to confirm. His death on the cross makes their fulfillment possible despite national sin.

Theologians do much to undermine the foundations of truth and the witnesses of God's faithfulness when they spiritualize all of these national promises. As someone once said in regard to this, "They who spiritualize do not have spiritual eyes and tell spiritual lies."

In an earlier article, we saw that Abraham was to be the physical father of many nations of Christendom. What God is telling Jacob-Israel is either the same promise or an added wrinkle. The observation that not a few have made over the past two centuries that just such a company or assembly of nations has indeed developed within the nations of Christendom and that this is a wonderful testimony to the faithfulness of Almighty God has been met with utter scorn and accusations of heresy from none other than the Christian clergy and not just modernist clergymen.

The Hebrew word, qahal, which is translated as company can be translated various ways: company, assembly, congregation, multitude, according to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. The best word to use in translation may be debatable but consider what can be observed.

If we could identify a group of nations that, at their foundation, sprang from basically the same ethnic stocks, had the same language, were very similar in their culture, religion, laws and traditions and one of them became separated from the others but the others retained at least a symbolic union of sorts in memory of their common starting point, would it be inaccurate to characterize this phenomenon as "a nation and a company of nations"? Even if one were not convinced that this had anything to do with what is described in Genesis, I say again, would it, in all honesty, be inaccurate to characterize it in these terms? And if one continues to reject the notion of any connection with Genesis and is inclined to dismiss and ridicule it as farfetched and fanciful speculation would it make more sense to try to make such a connection with a people who have at no time in their history become a company or assembly or multitude of nations, namely, the Jews? Would not such a course make a mockery of the Scriptures? It's not about seizing on words like Saxon and British and seeing a similarity with certain Hebrew words and then, based on that along with a few other nebulous ideas external to the Scriptures to make a claim about the lost tribes of Israel. It's about distinguishing the true from the false based on a knowledge of the Scriptures. Was this not how the true Messiah was distinguished from imposters? Did not the Lord say of the Scriptures, "they are they which testify of me"?

The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, most likely, are not limited to those who trace their ancestry to the British Isles nor are the English speaking nations necessarily the only Israel nations but consider that the United States broke away from Britain to become a great nation while new nations such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa were formed under the auspices of the British Empire. After the empire ceased, the British Commonwealth remained. These lands have had a common language, similar culture and institutions and were founded by related Christian peoples, etc. This was a nation (U.S.) and a company of nations (Commonwealth) arising from the same source: Britain. And whether or not the United Kingdom ( Britain) can resist the forces that threaten to break it apart, have not England, Scotland, Wales, and part of Ireland constituted an assembly of nations as well? Did not the Lord have a hand in all of this or did all of this happen by accident? Is is so unreasonable to suppose that He did this according to that which is written?

Would this not be a subject of great significance that would encourage us to think that perhaps the Lord is not through with us yet even as we see the spiritual darkness that presently afflicts these beloved historical lands including our own United States? Should this not stir us to ponder our national destiny and wonder if, perchance, God is about to reveal something to us that" in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men"? Is not the study of Bible prophecy intended to be like a "light that shineth in a dark place?"II Peter 1:19

May the daystar arise in our hearts.