So Judah acknowledged them and said, “She has been more righteous than I, because I did not give her to Shelah my son.” And he never knew her again. (Genesis 38:26)

One of the truly remarkable things about the Bible is how honestly it presents the people of God, even heroes among them.

Noah, the great man of faith and action – drunk and in disgrace.
Abraham, the father of the faithful – hiding behind his wife and behind lies.
Isaac, the chosen son – ignoring God’s word and caring only for the material.
Jacob, the father of Israel – deceives others to his own advantage.
Moses, the great lawgiver – misrepresented God in a notable way.
David, the man after God’s heart – a murderer and adulterer.

Genesis 38 is an honest chapter, telling a story from the life of Judah, the son of Jacob and father of one of the great tribes of Israel. Judah’s sons failed to provide descendants to Tamar, the widow of Judah’s oldest son.

Judah refused to do rightly by Tamar, and he compounded that sin by unwittingly hiring her as a prostitute. As a result, Tamar became pregnant, and Judah commanded she be put to death. Tamar then shrewdly revealed the father of the child in her womb: Judah himself.

In the end, Judah confessed that Tamar had acted more righteous than he had, because he didn’t do what was proper and customary in that culture – direct his youngest son to marry Tamar and provide descendants to her who would carry on the name of Judah’s oldest, deceased son.

The unpleasant and unflattering story of Judah and Tamar demonstrates how the corruption of the Canaanites had a bad effect on the sons of Israel and their families. The longer they stayed in Canaan, the more they would become like the Canaanites.

This was a family destined for corruption and assimilation among the depraved Canaanite culture. On the track displayed in Genesis 38, in a few generations there would be no more family of “Israel” – just another family absorbed into a lager people group, and a people group that was severely compromised morally.

What would rescue Israel from the path of doom? God worked in two main ways. First, Joseph and the great injustices done against him. Second, a great famine that afflicted the whole region.

Through Joseph, God would carry out a plan to take this family from Canaan, put them in a culture that would isolate them, and allow them to grow from a large family to a significant nation over many generations. Genesis 38 is more evidence that God’s plan was necessary for Israel’s survival as God’s covenant people.

As believers, we face seasons of difficulty and crisis. Our weaknesses and failings sometimes seem to ruin everything. We often must face consequences from our sin, but despite it all – God is working out His plan. Our failures don’t surprise Him or necessarily ruin His plans for us. God is in control even when things are getting worse.

And this is the genealogy of Esau the father of the Edomites in Mount Seir. (Genesis 36:9)

Genesis 36 is a chapter filled with names, recording the notable men among the descendants of Esau, the father of the Edomites, who became an important neighbor nation to Israel. Edom and the Edomites are mentioned some 130 times in the Bible.

When the Israelites came through the wilderness to the promised land in the time of Moses, the Edomites refused them passage through their land (Numbers 20:21). This was a source of great discouragement for Israel (Numbers 21:4).

Even so, God commanded special regard for the Edomites among Israel: You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother (Deuteronomy 23:7).

In the days of Saul, Edom was made subject to Israel (1 Samuel 14:47), and David established garrisons there (2 Samuel 8:14). But later, in the days of Joram, the son of Ahab, the Edomites became independent of Israel (2 Kings 8:16-22).

Several of the prophets spoke about and against Edom, including Jeremiah (Jeremiah 49:17-18), Ezekiel (Ezekiel 25:12-14). From the time Islam conquered the Middle East, the region was mostly unoccupied, except for a few Bedouins and military outposts. It has been brought to nothing, as Obadiah had prophesied. The entire book of Obadiah records an extended prophecy against Edom.

So, what happened to the Edomites? They were judged by God, as the prophets said would happen (such as Obadiah and Jeremiah). The Edomites were conquered by the Nabatean Arabs, perhaps as early as 500 b.c. Many of the surviving Edomites went to the area of southern Judea (the land on the western side of the Dead Sea) these became known as Idumeans, also mixed the with people already living in that that area.

By the end of spring, AD 68, the Romans had laid waste to Idumaea. This was effectively the end of the Edomite people, who had been in decline and mixing with neighboring peoples for a long time. As a genetic people, the descendants of Esau are lost to history. Of course, their DNA lives on in some sense, but they are so intermixed with other peoples that there is no definable genetic group of “Edomites” today.

It is a strange and sobering thought. The Edomites were a people so numerous and prominent that God devoted an entire chapter in the first Book of Moses to listing the names of their chiefs and notable men.

Yet, because of their many sins – including the sin of rejoicing and offering no help when their cousin-nation Israel was attacked – God brought upon them a severe judgment, so severe that they no longer exist as a people.

It is also significant that God has preserved the people of Israel, when they could have ended up as Edom. It shows a basic truth: How good it is to be in God’s favor (by the grace of Jesus Christ), and how terrible it is to be the target of His judgment.

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have troubled me by making me obnoxious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and since I am few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and kill me. I shall be destroyed, my household and I.” (Genesis 34:30)

Genesis 34 tells of one of the most violent and shameful incidents in Genesis. Outraged that a Canaanite prince had raped their sister, Simeon and Levi used deception, treachery, and grotesque violence to massacre a whole city of Canaanites.

They did all this without their father Jacob’s permission or knowledge. When Jacob found out, he confronted Simeon and Levi, but weakly. He said, You have troubled me by making me obnoxious. In response to the terrible massacre and plundering of Shechem, Jacob seemed to only be concerned with himself and the danger of retribution against his small family (his complaint was, I am few in number). Jacob showed no concern for right and wrong, for God’s righteousness, or for the death and plunder of innocents.

Barnhouse noted that the deception of Simeon and Levi grew in the soil of Jacob’s own poor witness and compromise. They saw their father compromise and deceive other people when it suited him, so they followed his pattern. Barnhouse said that Jacob should “Talk to God about your own sin before talking to these boys about theirs.”

Simeon and Levi were correctly outraged that their sister Dinah had been abused and degraded. Yet none of that justified their evil deeds of mass murder, enslaving women and children, and theft through plunder.

When Jacob was about to die, he prophesied over his 12 sons. This is what he said about Simeon and Levi: Simeon and Levi are brothers; instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place…. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce; and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel (Genesis 49:5, 7). He saw Simeon and Levi for who they were, but he rebuked them far too late.

That prophetic word of God through Jacob proved true. God did in fact both divide the tribes of Simeon and Levi and scatter them among Israel. Yet significantly, the way this happened for each tribe was different.

The tribe of Simeon, because of their lack of faithfulness, was effectively dissolved as a tribe, and was absorbed into the tribal area of Judah.

The tribe of Levi was also scattered, but because of the faithfulness of this tribe during the rebellion of the golden calf (Exodus 32:26-28), the tribe was scattered as a blessing throughout the whole nation of Israel.

Both were scattered, but one as a blessing and the other as a curse.

When God brings His correction to our life, we can receive it either as a blessing or a curse. If you faithfully humble yourself under God’s mighty hand, His discipline can be a blessing.

Then Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your family, and I will deal well with you’: I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant; for I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children. For You said, ‘I will surely treat you well, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’” (Genesis 32:9-12)

Someone once said, “you can’t go home again,” meaning that we can’t really return to our exact past. But Jacob tried to go home after being gone 20 years, remembering that brother Esau had vowed to kill him, so Jacob ran for his life. However, he could not stay away from the Promised Land forever, so in Genesis 32 Jacob came back to Canaan to face both his past and his future.

Jacob didn’t first respond well to the pressure of coming home. He reacted in fear and unbelief. Then Jacob did something right, going to the LORD and praying with faith, thanksgiving, and God’s word.

First, notice Jacob’s prayer had God’s word: the LORD who said to me, “Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will deal well with you” (what God said in Genesis 31:3); For You said, “I will surely treat you well…” (what God said in Genesis 28:13-15). Praying the words of God’s word is important, and many prayers fall short because God’s word is not in them. Often, there is often none of God’s word in our prayers because there is so little of God’s word in us. Jacob did well to remember what God said.

Second, Jacob’s prayer had thanksgiving. He said, I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies. Jacob understood he was not worthy of what God had done, or what he was asking God to do. Instead, he relied on what God promised.

Finally, Jacob’s prayer had faith. He prayed, deliver me, I pray. Jacob boldly asked God to do something based on God’s own promise.

No matter how great Jacob’s prayer seemed to be, the true quality of his prayer would be seen after he prayed. Real prayer, great prayer, changes us. We can leave our prayer and face our situation with a different mind. George Mueller, a great man of faith and prayer, once was asked, “What is the most important part of prayer?” He replied: “The fifteen minutes after I have said ‘Amen.’”

Today, pray according to God’s word, pray with thanksgiving, and pray with faith. Most of all, stay firm in faith after you’re done praying.