05 Sep What Hope Does God Have for Assault Victims? Part 4
Genesis 34:25 – On the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males.
After Jacob’s only daughter, Dinah, is defiled, and Jacob sits idly by, we see another mini-Fall not unlike Adam, Noah, and Abraham. After entering covenant relationship with God, and seeing God save his life by gracious mercy, Jacob responded in sin because of his unbelief. As is the case throughout Genesis, human sin is used for God’s purposes as the line of the covenant family is protected from intermarriage with the Shechemites through the slaughter of Simeon and Levi.
Thankfully, through this family would come Jesus Christ, who Himself was abused and defiled. Throughout Scripture, some dozen Hebrew and Greek words are used to explain sin in terms of defilement often translated into English as such things as defilement, uncleanness, and filth (e.g. Ps. 106:39; Pr. 30:12; Jer. 2:23, 20:30-31).
Some examples of the causes of defilement include sexual sins such as sexual assault (Gen. 34:5, 34:13, 34:27), incest (Gen. 49:4; 1 Chr. 5:1), adultery (Lev. 18:20; Num. 5:20, 5:27-29), prostitution (Lev. 21:7-9, 21:14), and bestiality (Lev. 18:23). Additionally, places in which defiling sin has been committed can also become defiled such as locations (Lev. 18:24-30; Num. 35:34) and marriage beds (Hebrews 13:4).
(continued in next devo…)
Why is it important that the victims of sexual assault know that Jesus can take away any sense of defilement and make them clean (1 John 1:7-9)?
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