Genesis 34 Study Notes

34:1-7 Perhaps Dinah was seeking some female companionship since she was the only daughter in her large family. Shechem, one of the previous owners of the property on which Dinah now lived, saw her, forcefully took her, and then raped (“humbled”) her. The fact that he loved her, spoke tenderly to her, and even ordered his father to get that girl for him to take as a wife suggests that Shechem was following Hivite customs in his treatment of Dinah, though what he did should not be done in Israelite society. Jacob delayed responding to Shechem, probably because he knew there was nothing he could do alone.

34:8-12 Hamor, a prince, had the right to negotiate treaties with Jacob, who was now a landowner in the region. Jacob had been trustworthy in past business deals (33:19), so Hamor negotiated in good faith to build closer ties with Jacob and his sons. As a “member of the family” through intermarriage, Jacob would be able to move about with fewer restrictions and acquire additional property.

34:13-18 By answering the Hivite leaders deceitfully, Jacob’s older sons proved that they could behave as wickedly toward outsiders as Hamor’s son, Shechem, had done. Ironically, a later generation of Hivites would practice deception to join their peoples with the Hebrews (Jos 9:3-15). In an outrageous misuse of the sacred rite of circumcision (Gn 17:9-14), Jacob’s sons stated that they could only give their daughters—and their sister Dinah—away in marriage to men who had been circumcised. Men of many different cultures in the biblical world besides the Israelites practiced circumcision, including the Egyptians, Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites (Jr 9:25-26), and the idea seemed good to Hamor and Shechem as well.

34:19-24 As the future prince over the region, Shechem had great influence over the citizens of the village bearing his name. Meeting with the men at the gate of their city, where people gathered to share news and consider proposals, Shechem and Hamor provided the men with four reasons to establish a treaty with Jacob’s sons, ratifying it with circumcision. Shechem convinced all the men of the village, and they were circumcised.

34:25-29 While the men of Shechem were still in pain, immobilized and recovering from the removal of their foreskins with flint knives, they were murdered by Simeon and Levi, two of Jacob’s four sons who had the same mother (Leah) as Dinah. After killing Shechem, they took Dinah from his house; she had been brought there after Shechem’s circumcision. When Jacob’s other adult sons—Joseph was probably not among them—learned of it, they plundered the city, using the excuse that their sister had been defiled. The Hivite dependents and wives they stole would possibly have been sold to slave traders (37:27-28).

34:30-31 Upon learning of the outrageous actions of Simeon and Levi, Jacob condemned them. Their deeds had not only brought death to the Hivites, they had brought trouble on their father as well. Jacob’s reputation for being a man of peace (v. 21) had now been destroyed. The clan, now marked as murderers, would have to live in fear that the Canaanites and the Perizzites would attack and kill them. Simeon and Levi would later be cursed by their father (49:5-7) because of their horrific crime. Their only defense was that Shechem had treated their sister like a prostitute—a criminal act, to be sure, but not one that was considered punishable by death in the Torah (Ex 22:16-17; Dt 22:28-29).