This is a riveting tale of rape and retribution by Jacob’s sons. The sons themselves are quite intense. We know what’s going to happen to them in the future. Jacob seems almost a dowager compared to his brash and warlike sons.

This does seem like a trick interlude. God is not part of this episode. It is entirely a melodrama of the characters, similar to Jacob’s family drama back in 29, 30 and 30. It’s solely intended to draw you deeply into their lives.

We’ll see where God reenters the picture.

Assume that, at the time this was being written, it was not just a history, but a work of religious literature in the tradition of Gilgamesh.

The richness of this world, we are a part of. Sumer was not lost. Abraham’s father left Ur with their family god, Hammurabi’s code, cousin Lot, and the traditions of the culture they left behind.

They traveled to Canaan, Hebron specifically, to start life anew. They didn’t know at the time that their culture was fading from history: Ur was falling while Babylon was rising.

In their attempt to preserve their culture, depending on their portable, family protector god, they founded a new nation.

Of the vastness of all the gods of Sumerians, from

The major deities in the Sumerian pantheon included An, the god of the heavens, Enlil, the god of wind and storm, Enki, the god of water and human culture, Ninhursag, the goddess of fertility and the earth, Utu, the god of the sun and justice, and his father Nanna, the god of the moon.

The number seven was extremely important in ancient Mesopotamian cosmology. In Sumerian religion, the most powerful and important deities in the pantheon were sometimes called the “seven gods who decree”: An, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Nanna, Utu, and Inanna.

all the city and family gods of all those civilization, one god survived: the god of Terah and his son Abraham.

Sumerian Origins:
The Creation
The Fall
The Flood
The Tower of Babel
Origin of the Hebrews & The Prophets:
Abraham
Isaac
Jacob
Joseph