Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Genesis 34-36
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 55
Key Verse
Genesis 35:21 — “And Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond the tower of Edar.”
Devotional Thought
Some days the reading plan hands us a passage we would rather skip. Genesis 34 is one of those. Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, goes out to see the daughters of the land and is seized and defiled by Shechem. Her brothers answer with deceit, demanding circumcision as the price of peace, then slaughter a whole city on the third day while the men are sore. Jacob’s only recorded concern is his own reputation: “Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land.” No one in the chapter grieves well. Yet God does not abandon the story. In Genesis 35 He speaks: “Arise, go up to Bethel.” And Jacob finally does what he should have done long before—he tells his household to put away the strange gods, and he buries them under the oak by Shechem.
That is where we live too, in a spring season when the world around us is loud and full of its own claims. We are tempted to answer violence with violence, or to hold our peace until it is too late, as Jacob did. We are tempted to keep little idols in our pockets—the earrings, the trinkets, the small securities we will not surrender—while calling ourselves the people of God. The chapter asks something of us: when we have been wronged, will we run to God or to our own swords? When we have wronged others, will we hide it or bring it into the light?
Notice, too, what God does after the failure. He does not wait for Jacob to clean himself up first. He says, go up to Bethel, and build an altar to the God who answered you in the day of your distress. He renames Jacob Israel. He repeats the promises given to Abraham and Isaac. Even in the same chapter where Rachel dies in hard labor and Reuben sins against his father, God is still speaking, still blessing, still keeping covenant. The psalmist knew this God: “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee.” That is the invitation of this day.
Reflection
- Where in your life are you holding your peace instead of grieving honestly before God, or answering a wound with your own hand rather than His?
- What “strange gods”—small securities, hidden loyalties—is God asking you to bury under the oak today so that you can go up to Bethel?
Prayer
O God, who answered Jacob in the day of his distress and was with him in the way he went, hear us now. We bring You the wounds we have suffered and the wounds we have inflicted, the griefs we have buried and the idols we have kept. Cleanse us, change our garments, and let us arise and go up to Bethel, to build an altar to You alone. Sustain us as we cast our burden upon You, and never suffer our feet to be moved, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 55:1 — “Give ear to my prayer, O God; and hide not thyself from my supplication.”