“Genesis 34:8-17”

Sunday, March 01, 2020

“But Hamor spoke with them, saying, 'The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter; please give her to him in marriage. 9 Intermarry with us; give your daughters to us and take our daughters for yourselves. Thus you shall live with us, and the land shall be open before you; live and trade in it and acquire property in it.' Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, 'If I find favor in your sight, then I will give whatever you say to me. Ask me ever so much bridal payment and gift, and I will give according as you say to me; but give me the girl in marriage.' But Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor with deceit, because he had defiled Dinah their sister. They said to them, 'We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a disgrace to us. Only on this condition will we consent to you: if you will become like us, in that every male of you be circumcised, then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters for ourselves, and we will live with you and become one people. But if you will not listen to us to be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and go.”

---End of Scripture verses---

“The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter; please give her to him in marriage.” (verse 8) It would appear that Shechem's “soul” was not the driving force behind his desires for Dinah, but his uncontrollable lust. Be that as it may, Shechem was convinced that he just could not be satisfied unless he had his victim's hand in marriage. “Hamor deals with the family only on account of his son's amorous and matrimonial interests. He omits any mention of the crime; it is as though nothing has happened! Actually, the terms offered by Hamor are unrelated to the immediate and stated purposes of his visit; they are clearly a cunning appeal to avarice as a means of placating Jacob and his sons, purchasing their docility, and inducing them to let the incident be forgotten. The effectiveness of the strategy is reinforced by the grim fact that Dinah is still being held in Hamor's house within the city (vv. 17,26)... Shechem...too ignores his crime and offers neither apology nor regrets.” (Nahum Sarna)

“Intermarry with us; give your daughters to us and take our daughters for yourselves. Thus you shall live with us, and the land shall be open before you; live and trade in it and acquire property in it.'” (verses 9-10) Hamor's offer and desire was that Jacob and his family be amalgamated into the community of Shechem and become “one people” with them (verse 22) . If Israel would agree to give Dinah to Shechem as a wife, all his sons could acquire wives from among the people of the land, they could work and trade and buy and sell and be full-fledged members of their society. “The land shall be open before you” implies “unlimited grazing rights.” or freedom to trade or barter according to Nahum Sarna. He also observes that to “acquire property” was “the most valuable of the privileges offered, even as it is also a subtle and pointed reminder to Jacob of his present alien and disadvantaged position.”

“Ask me ever so much bridal payment and gift, and I will give according as you say to me; but give me the girl in marriage.” (verse 12) Ask whatever will for the girl as a dowry, says Hamor. Money not an option! The sky is the limit! Only give your daughter that we are holding hostage to my son for a wife! According to Nahum Sarna the amount of the “bridal payment” was “usually a fixed custom. Shechem's indicated readiness to pay far beyond that constitutes a tacit recognition of the need to make reparations.” Sarna says the “gift” was separate from the “bridal payment” and corresponded “to the Akkadian...ceremonial gifts made to the bride's family, called migdanot in 24:53.” Hamor was willing to do whatever was necessary to make things right and make this marriage take place. It must have been his habitual manner of life to overindulge his son, Shechem, thus making him the egotistical sociopath that he had become.

“But Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor with deceit, because he had defiled Dinah their sister.” (verse 13) It was with amazing swiftness and alacrity that the sons of Israel cooked up this murderous plan of vengeful deceit. Their excessive vengefulness was driven not only by the fact that Dinah had been physically and forcefully brutalized and humiliated by Shechem, but also the lingering affect of “defilement” which rendered he “unclean” on the spiritual and ceremonial level. Three separate times in the text the word “defiled” is used (verses 5, 13, 27) emphasizing the deplorable lingering affects of Shechem's outrageous crime.

“We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a disgrace to us.” (verse 14) There was certainly the element of truth in this statement because “Genesis 17:9-14 makes circumcision the indispensable precondition for admittance into the community of Israel.” (Nahum Sarna) But the sons of Israel only used this technicality as a convenient method of incapacitating the men of the city so they would be defenseless against the swords of Simeon and Levi as they were recuperating from surgery (verse 25).

“Only on this condition will we consent to you: if you will become like us, in that every male of you be circumcised, then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters for ourselves, and we will live with you and become one people.” (verses 15-16) Hamor and Shechem wanted this arrangement so badly that they went for it. They convinced the men of the city to go along with the painful procedure of circumcision and pitched it so well that they even made it seem “reasonable” to them (verse 18), if you can imagine that! What were the motivations behind this ridiculous agreement? On one side it was rage and revenge and on the other it was lust and greed (verses 23-24). This confluence of raw emotion and raging hormones had all the makings for a catastrophe of biblical proportions!

With all due respect for the broken heart of a worried and grieving father, Jacob was still not the complete leader that he needed to be for his family and future nation. He should have stepped in and stopped this foolishness even if he was unaware of what Simeon and Levi had purposed to do. He knew that he would never allow for the intermarriage of his children with these heathen Canaanites, and if that actually was an option for him, something drastic did need to happen to prevent such a forbidden and ungodly union. Abraham had banned his servant from taking a wife for Isaac from among the Canaanites (Genesis 24:3), and Isaac had done the same for Jacob (Genesis 28:1). Either Israel was not quite in his right mind at this moment or he was struggling to be decisive and resolute at a time of extreme stress and crisis.

“But if you will not listen to us to be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and go.” (verse 17) You either do what we say or we are all out of here! The plan was, indeed, to take Dinah and go, but they would leave much carnage in their wake. Dinah was being held against her will at Shechem's house (verse 26), and her brothers would spring her out at the most advantageous moment. Perhaps the brothers did believe that their best shot of successfully extracting their sister from her confinement was to render all the soldiers of the city immobile, but it wasn't necessary to slaughter the lot of them to pull it off.

Please read Genesis 34:18-24 for tomorrow.

Have a blessed Lord's Day!

-Louie Taylor

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