Genesis 34

This chapter belongs to the Jacob narrative in the latter part of Genesis. In Genesis 33, Jacob, now reconciled with Esau, pitched his tent before the city of Shechem and settled there after buying land from the sons of Hamor. This chapter recounts what happened there.

Outline

• Verses 1–7 Dinah, the daughter Leah bore, goes out to see the women of the land and is violated by Shechem, the son of Hamor. Shechem asks his father to get Dinah for him as a wife. Jacob holds his peace until his sons return, and when they hear the news, they are greatly angered.
• Verses 8–12 Hamor proposes that the two peoples intermarry and live together, and Shechem offers to pay any bride-price, however great.
• Verses 13–17 Jacob's sons, with a hidden purpose, answer that they will become one people if every male is circumcised.
• Verses 18–24 Hamor and Shechem persuade the inhabitants at the city gate, adding that the livestock and possessions of Jacob's household will become their own. Every male of the city is circumcised.
• Verses 25–29 On the third day, while the men are in pain, Simeon and Levi take their swords, attack the city by surprise, kill every male, including Hamor and Shechem, and take Dinah away. Jacob's sons plunder the city and take the women and children captive.
• Verses 30–31 Jacob rebukes the two sons, fearing that the surrounding peoples will attack because of this deed and that his household will be destroyed. The two sons reply by asking whether they should have allowed their sister to be treated as a harlot.

Key Verses

• Genesis 34:7 "he had wrought folly in Israel … which thing ought not to be done" — the first occurrence of an expression denoting an evil that can never be tolerated within the community.
• Genesis 34:30 "Ye have troubled me" — shows that Jacob's response is focused more on the safety of his household than on justice.
• Genesis 34:31 "Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?" — the chapter ends with this question, and the narrator offers no verdict.

Characters and Places

• Jacob: Dinah's father.
• Dinah: the daughter whom Leah bore to Jacob.
• Shechem: son of Hamor the Hivite and prince of the land. The city of the same name is the setting of the events.
• Hamor: Shechem's father.
• Simeon and Levi: sons born to Leah and full brothers of Dinah. Levi is the ancestor of the Levites.
• The Canaanites and the Perizzites: inhabitants of Canaan whose retaliation Jacob feared.

Points for Reflection

• Dinah's words and feelings never appear in the text. Some recent interpreters read it as a text from which the victim's voice is absent.
• Because the narrator does not directly evaluate the actions of Simeon and Levi, interpreters are divided over whether to regard them as righteous anger or excessive revenge. Many interpreters find fault with their use of circumcision, the sign of the covenant, as a means of deception. Later, in Genesis 49 (verses 5–7), Jacob curses the anger and wrath of the two sons.
• In chapter 9 of the apocryphal Book of Judith, which the Catholic and Orthodox churches accept as canonical, Judith refers favorably to Simeon's sword in her prayer. This is a later tradition outside the text of Genesis.
• In the following chapter, Genesis 35, Jacob departs for Bethel at God's direction. In the New Testament, the land of Shechem and the sons of Hamor are mentioned in John 4:5 and Acts 7:16.