Julie
I am going to be honest and say that I am not really sure what to say about today's passage. I feel like this is just more of an explanation of how Jacob becomes Israel and returns back to his homeland and is the end of his story. I am not really sure if there is truly a lesson or something else that we should have gotten out of this other than that. I am curious to see how you all interpret it.
For Psalm 21 I am going to cheat and just explain the explanation I read which is that this and Psalm 20 go together as this is the praise for all the prayers that God answered. We need to remember that we need to give him thanks and praise when he answers our prayers, even if it is not the exact answer we expected.
Michelle
I am catching up today. I read this passage the other day but didn't really get much till I read it again. And I am still not sure how some of the things shared are relevant, unless they are providing details for later information.
The story told of Jacob's daughter Dinah seems to show us that his sons have similar traits to his younger self. After the last chapters where it seems Jacob is in the process of changing and becoming Israel, he had some deceitful traits previously. And his sons are now showing the same things when responding to their sister's defilement. I understand in those days it was devastating for something like this to happen to a young woman as she would not be able to marry and therefore have no hope for the future. Her father does nothing and her brothers overreact. But it seems to be about Jacob and his sons more than the daughter's plight. There is a part in 35 vs. 22 that says Reuben slept with his father's concubine Bilhah, and then his father heard about it. But then goes on to tell us of the 12 sons of Jacob and his father Isaac dying. I am not sure why we are told about this unless it's for future information.
The psalm appears to be one of praise. Although I don't understand who we are talking about in it as it references "the king".
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