Genesis 34

1. And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. And Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her; and he took her, and lay with her, and humbled her. And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel. And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife. Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter; and his sons were with his cattle in the field: and Jacob held his peace until they came. And Hamor the father of Shechem went out unto Jacob to commune with him. And the sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob’s daughter; which thing ought not to be done. And Hamor communed with them, saying, The soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter: I pray you give her unto him to wife. And make ye marriages with us; give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you. And ye shall dwell with us: and the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein. And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give. Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife. And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father with guile, and spake, because he had defiled Dinah their sister, and said unto them, We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised; for that were a reproach unto us: only on this condition will we consent unto you: if ye will be as we be, that every male of you be circumcised; then will we give our daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people. But if ye will not hearken unto us, to be circumcised; then will we take our daughter, and we will be gone. And their words pleased Hamor, and Shechem Hamor’s son. And the young man deferred not to do the thing, because he had delight in Jacob’s daughter: and he was honored above all the house of his father. And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the gate of their city, and communed with the men of their city, saying, These men are peaceable with us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade therein; for, behold, the land is large enough for them; let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters. Only on this condition will the men consent unto us to dwell with us, to become one people, if every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised. Shall not their cattle and their substance and all their beasts be ours? only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us. And unto Hamor and unto Shechem his son hearkened all that went out of the gate of his city; and every male was circumcised, all that went out of the gate of his city. And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city unawares, and slew all the males. And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house, and went forth. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and spoiled the city, because they had defiled their sister. They took their flocks and their herds and their asses, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field; and all their wealth, and all their little ones and their wives, took they captive and spoiled, even all that was in the house. And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me, to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and, I being few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and smite me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house. And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?

The Bible hides nothing of shame; is not afraid of words which make the cheek burn; conceals nothing of moral crippleness, infirmity, or weakness, or evil. The Bible holds everything up in the light. Recognize, at least, the fearless honesty of the book. This is not a gallery of artistic figures; this is no gathering together of dramatic characters—painted, arrayed, taught to perform their part aesthetically, without fault and beyond criticism; these are living men and women—when they pray, when they sin, when they shout like a host of worshippers, and when they fall down like a host of rebels, or flee like a host of cowards. The Bible paints real characters. God says what is true about every one of us. If there is shame in it, we must feel it; the wrong is ours, not his. No other book could be so dauntless, could paint what we call the defective side of human nature with so bold a hand and yet claim to be the revelation of God. J. P.

The events related in this chapter could not have happened till Jacob had lived six or seven years in the neighborhood of Shechem; for in a less time than this the two brothers could not have arrived at man’s estate, nor Dinah herself have attained a marriageable age. Bush.

The history of Dinah is recorded to convince future ages that the sins of impurity are so hateful to God that they seldom go unpunished in this world; if they do, worse will be their punishment in the next. Bp. Wilson.

1. Dinah went out to see. When this happened, the Scripture does not inform us. She was probably fifteen or sixteen years of age. The occasion of the calamity, Josephus tells us, was a great festival held at Shechem, which she ventured to go to, desirous of seeing the spectacles and fashions of the place. Stackhouse.

7. Folly in Israel. The first instance on record where the family of Jacob is designated by the title of “Israel.” The word “folly” in Scriptural usage implies an act of shameless turpitude committed against the Divine precept. The “fool” of the Scriptures is not by interpretation a simpleton, but a sinner; and “folly,” instead of mental infirmity, is moral delinquency, and that of an aggravated character. This should be especially borne in mind in reading the book of Proverbs. It is not unlikely that from the present example the phraseology here employed became proverbially applied to express the same sinful conduct. Bush.

As the cunning of Jacob forms a prototype of the future national character, so now also the carnal pride of the sons in their pre-eminence over the heathen indicates one of the main characteristics of the Jewish people at a later period. K.—A history like this brings typically before us all the aberrations caused during the course of history, when the belief in the high pre-eminence of Israel was in a carnal manner cherished by carnally-minded men. The feeling that they were the sons of Jacob, the chosen race, that any violation of their honor must be more terribly revenged than in the case of others, and that not even submission to the rite of circumcision could atone for it, appears to have mainly influenced the conduct of the sons of Jacob. Gerl.

The heads of the Jewish tribes, as we become better acquainted with them, are full of all rude and savage impulses, impatient of home subjection, not yet tamed by the sterner discipline of law. Just the inclinations and tendencies which we saw in Esau are in them. At the same time they have inherited much of their father’s craft; they will compare their ends by force or cunning, or both. It is no Arcadian picture; the simple life of shepherds, as the book of Genesis represents it, is infected with vices which we think the most foreign from simplicity. Maurice.

The intention was malicious, as appears by the sequel of the story; all they aimed at was to prepare them for the day of slaughter. Bloody designs have often been covered and carried on, with a pretence of religion; thus they have been accomplished most plausibly, and most securely. But this dissembled piety is, doubtless, double iniquity. Religion is never more injured, nor God’s sacraments more profaned, than when they are thus used for a cloak of maliciousness. H.

To execute rigor upon a submissive offender, is more merciless than just; or if the punishment had been both just and proportionable from another, yet from them which had vowed peace and affinity, it was shamefully unjust. To disappoint the trust of another, and to neglect our own promise and fidelity for private purposes, adds faithlessness unto our cruelty. What impiety was this; instead of honoring a holy sign, to take an advantage by it! Bp. H.

It was true that Shechem had done ill, but he was endeavoring to atone for it, and was as honest and honorable after the deed as the case would admit. It was true that Shechem had done ill; but what was that to all the Shechemites? Does one man sin, and will they be wroth with all the town? Must the innocent fall with the guilty? This was barbarous indeed. But that which above all aggravated the cruelty was the most perfidious treachery that was in it. The Shechemites had submitted to their conditions, and had done that upon which they had promised to become one people with them; yet they act as sworn enemies to those to whom they were lately become sworn friends, making as light of their covenant as they did of the laws of humanity. And are these the sons of Israel? Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce. This also added to the crime, that they made a holy ordinance of God subservient to their wicked design, so making that odious; as if it were not enough for them to shame themselves and their family, they bring a reproach upon that honorable badge of their religion; justly would it be called a bloody ordinance. H.

Jacob’s sons, making every allowance for their outraged feelings, acquitted themselves most detestably in this whole transaction. The allegation of a religious principle in the proposition which they made makes it all the more atrocious; and they stand forth in an aggravated likeness as the genuine descendants of the maternal family whence they sprung. There was something diabolical in the deceit wherewith the plot was constructed, and the appalling cruelty of its termination—when a hecatomb of innocent men and families was offered up to appease their vengeance. Altogether, it was a most revolting tragedy. T. C.

Their atrocious wickedness elicited from the dying lips of their father the prophetic denunciation (Gen. 49:7). “Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.” Bash.—As a token of the divine displeasure at this treachery and cruelty, they were excluded from the subsequent blessing, sharing in this respect the fate of Reuben, the firstborn, who incurred the same punishment from a similar cause. Hence it was that the promise of becoming the progenitor of the Messias devolved upon the fourth son, Judah. Moses, however, though himself a Levite, relates this enormity of Levi without a scruple,—a sufficient proof that he wrote in the service of God and truth, and not for any selfish purpose or personal interest. C. G. B.—In all the simplicity of truth he gives an unvarnished statement of atrocities which have reflected everlasting disgrace upon the memory of the founder of his line. Would an impostor have done this? The story teaches us, with affecting emphasis, how one sin leads on to another, and, like flames of fire, spreads desolation on every side! Dissipation leads to seduction; seduction produces wrath; wrath thirsts for revenge; the thirst of revenge has recourse to treachery; treachery issues in murder; and murder is followed by lawless depredation! Bash.

The whole of this miserable story has its place in the development of the kingdom of God. No alliance can be true and safe which is not upon the foundation of the Divine covenants. Circumcision without faith is a mere carnal ordinance, working evil. The sin of Shechem was avenged, but it was avenged by the commission of a greater sin by Simeon and Levi. It was not thus that the kingdom of God was to be spread. “Ye have troubled me,” Jacob said. And so have all worldly agencies and methods troubled the true Church. It is better to suffer at the hands of the wicked than to make compromising alliance with them. The worldly Church has filled the world with misery. Abuse of Divine things has been the source of innumerable evils, not only among the people of God, but even in the sphere of men’s secular life. But notwithstanding the sin of Simeon and Levi, their prompt execution of the Divine judgment upon the sin of Shechem must have produced a wholesome fear in the country, and connected that fear with moral purity. The sins of unchastity and violation of family rights were monstrously prevalent among the heathen people of Canaan, and it was doubtless ordered that this outbreak of human passion should bear witness for God as the God of purity and the God of households, who blesses the life which is free from the defilement of sensual indulgence, and in which the bonds of relationship and virtuous marriages and the sanctities of home are deeply reverenced. We read afterward, “the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them.” Pul. Com.