CHAPTER 34

(1739 B.C.)

DINAH

¹And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bore unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land (this seems very innocent; however, these daughters led to a companionship with shame; the Christian has to be very careful concerning the world and its ways).

²And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her (Pulpit says, Dinah paid the full penalty of her carelessness; she suffered the fate which Satan had planned for Sarah and Rebekah in the land of Pharaoh and Abimelech; she was seen and taken by the son of the prince, forcibly, it seems, against her will, but yet with the claims of affection by her lover).

³And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spoke kindly unto the damsel (probably refers to marriage).

⁴And Shechem spoke unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife (marriages were arranged in those days, so Shechem asked his father Hamor to work out the arrangements).

⁵And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter: now his sons were with his cattle in the field: and Jacob held his peace until they were come.

⁶And Hamor the father of Shechem went out unto Jacob to commune with him (supposedly to make arrangements for the marriage).

⁷And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very angry, because he (Shechem) had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacobs daughter: which thing ought not to be done (in this Verse, the word Israel is used for the first time to designate Jacobs descendants, which actually became the great nation of Israel; the phrase, folly in Israel, became a standing expression for acts done against the sacred character which belonged to Israel as a separated and covenanted community, as the people of God).

⁸And Hamor communed with them, saying, The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter: I pray you give her him to wife (the special wickedness of Shechem consisted in dishonoring a daughter of one who was the head of the theocratic line and, therefore, under peculiar obligations to lead a holy life).

⁹And you make marriages with us, and give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you (by the act of intermarriage, Satan will compromise and corrupt the sacred lineage).

¹⁰And you shall dwell with us: and the land shall be before you; dwell and trade you therein, and get you possessions therein (the end result of this plan, as fomented by Satan, was to ultimately stop the Incarnation; the lineage must be kept pure).

¹¹And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes, and what you shall say unto me I will give (in essence, Shechem was saying that whatever they asked, as far as monetary value was concerned, he would pay it).

¹²Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as you shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife.

¹³And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully, and said, because he had defiled Dinah their sister (the sons of Jacob practice deceit in this situation, in which Jacob had no part therein; however, God no more overlooks deceit in His Own than He does in those outside the Covenant):

¹⁴And they (the brothers of Dinah) said unto them (Shechem and those with him), We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised; for that were a reproach unto us:

¹⁵But in this will we consent unto you: If you will be as we be, that every male of you be circumcised;

¹⁶Then 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 (the sons of Jacob are now beginning to show the traits which will ultimately lead to their desire to murder Joseph).

¹⁷But if you will not hearken unto us, to be circumcised; then will we take our daughter, and we will be gone.

REVENGE

¹⁸And their words pleased Hamor, and Shechem Hamors son.

¹⁹And the young man deferred not to do the thing (did not want to put it off), because he had delight in Jacobs daughter: and he was more honorable than all the house of his father (in other words, Shechem was sincere).

²⁰And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the gate of their city, and communed with the men of their city, saying (presented the proposal to them),

²¹These men are peaceable with us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade therein; for the land, behold, it is large enough for them; let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters (Jacobs sons were of the Semitic stock and, therefore, possessed of high physical and mental endowments; and, as they were rich in cattle and other wealth, their incorporation with the people of Shechem, or so they reasoned, would raise it to a high rank; so they agreed to Hamors proposal).

²²Only herein will the men (Jacobs clan) consent unto us for to dwell with us, to be one people, if every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised.

²³Shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours? only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us (we find here that Hamor is practicing deceit as well; this was not the idea of Shechem, he being more honorable than his father, but it was the idea of his father and the other men of the city).

²⁴And unto Hamor and unto Shechem his son hearkened all who went out of the gate of his city; and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city (in that Hamor agreed so readily, we must come to the conclusion that circumcision was something not unknown to them and, as well, something that they regarded as a small price to pay for what they believed they would receive).

²⁵And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinahs brothers, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and killed all the men (there is nothing that would justify what these men did).

²⁶And they killed Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechems house, and went out.

²⁷The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and spoiled the city, because they had defiled their sister (in fact, the annals of uncivilized warfare scarcely record a more atrocious crime).

²⁸They took their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field,

²⁹And all their wealth, and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive, and spoiled even all that was in the house (and we must understand, this was the Church of that day!).

³⁰And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, You 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 shall gather themselves together against me, and kill me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house (Jacob readily sees the hand of Satan in all of this and, but for the protection of the Lord, he was right).

³¹And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?