Jacob’s Children: 10 Zebulun and Dinah

Oh How I Love The Habitation of Thy House

Then Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. And Leah said, "God has endowed me with a good endowment; now my husband will dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons." So she called his name Zebulun.
Afterward she bore a daughter, and called her name Dinah.
[Genesis 30:19-21 NKJV]

Kilmartin flock, Argyll

We tend to forget in the Bible stories the part that women played. Some names are very familiar - Esther, Ruth, Mary, Mary Magdalene - but generally the male line is the most noticeable. But consider this ...

These were the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Padan Aram, with his daughter Dinah. All the persons, his sons and his daughters, were thirty-three. [Genesis 46:15 NKJV]

We are considering the twelve sons of Jacob, progenitors of the twelve tribes, but we now see that Jacob had thirty-three children including his daughters. Yet of these, only Dinah is mentioned. Why, you ask? On the basic premise that all in scripture is there for a reason, we have to look deeper, and starting with her name, linked as it is to the birth of Zebulun, we can expect that God’s purpose is in this connection. Dinah means judgement, (it has the same root as Dan), and Zebulun (as we see from the context) means dwelling or habitation (of God).

For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? [1 Peter 4:17 NKJV]

There is a lot to pick out from all this, but essentially, ‘judgement begins at the house of God’, whose house we are, as the people of God; if indeed our aim is to be a people in whom The Lord dwells.

In this final grouping of four sons, we see the outworking of ‘a higher calling’ emerging, where we willingly submit ourselves to His judgement now, so that we may live with Him now. And let us be clear, there is nothing to fear in that submission; it is the acknowledgement that He is Lord of All, and is something greatly to be desired.

Incidentally, is it significant that Jacob’s children numbered thirty-three, the age Jesus was at the time of the crucifixion? Or put another way, Jacob completed his family at thirty-three individuals, and Jesus completed His purpose after thirty years and three more, after which He was the gospel of God, and dwelt in the house of God forever ...

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“Lord I Have Loved The Habitation Of Thy House” - Choir of Wakefield Cathedral

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OSWALD CHAMBERS - RUN TODAY’S RACE
Tuesday 19th May 2020
Don’t shut up any avenue of your nature, let God come into every avenue, every relationship,
And you will find the nightmare curse of ‘secular and sacred’ will go.

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