God had changed Jacob’s name to Israel.^[1]  Jacob kept the oath he made at Bethel^[2] that the Lord would become his God.  After he left Paddan Aram, Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and he camped near the city.  Then he purchased the portion of the field where he had pitched his tent; he bought it from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of money.  There he set up an altar and called it “The God of Israel is God.”^[3]  Though the word fear does not occur in Genesis 34, the events described prompted the fear that motivated Jacob in the beginning of chapter 35.

The sons of Israel by his wife Leah were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun.  After that she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.^[4]  Now Dinah…went to meet the young women of the land.^[5]  I assume that some time had passed between the end of Genesis 33 and the beginning of chapter 34, that Dinah was of a marriageable age (perhaps not at an age that we would consider marriageable, but more than seven or eight years old).  When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, who ruled that area, saw her, he grabbed her, forced himself on her, and sexually assaulted her.  Then he became very attached to Dinah, Jacob’s daughter.  He fell in love with the young woman and spoke romantically to her.^[6]  Shechem asked his father to get Dinah for him as his wife.

When Jacob heard that Shechem had violated his daughter Dinah, his sons were with the livestock in the field.  So Jacob remained silent until they came in.^[7]  “The expected response would be anger or rage; but Jacob remained silent,” the note in the NET begins.  So in my mind the question becomes, what intervened in Jacob to mute the natural human response?  “He appears too indifferent or confused to act decisively,” the note continues.  Having been through this before with David, Amnon and Tamar^[8] I wonder whether Jacob’s silence is evidence that his wrestling with God^[9] had resulted in his sharing some of the Lord’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.^[10]

If that were the case I can easily imagine how difficult it would be to communicate that experience to Dinah and her brothers, or to his wives Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah, without the lives and words of Jesus and Paul as points of reference.  I can imagine how difficult it would be to communicate that experience even with their lives and words as points of reference to my son, my daughter, and their mother if my daughter had been raped.  And I wonder how often the fruit of the Lord’s Spirit is mistaken for indifference or confusion.

The note in the NET ends with a rule, “When the leader does not act decisively, the younger zealots will, and often with disastrous results.”  The rule may well be true, but the note doesn’t say what decision Jacob should have made.  My son Shechem is in love with your daughter, Hamor said to Jacob and his sons.  Please give her to him as his wife.  Intermarry with us.  Let us marry your daughters, and take our daughters as wives for yourselves.  You may live among us, and the land will be open to you.  Live in it, travel freely in it, and acquire property in it.^[11]

Let me find favor in your sight, and whatever you require of me I’ll give, Shechem entreated them.  You can make the bride price and the gift I must bring very expensive, and I’ll give whatever you ask of me.  Just give me the young woman as my wife!^[12]

Jacob probably knew that his grandfather Abraham had made his servant solemnly promise by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth: You must not acquire a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living.  You must go instead to my country and to my relatives to find a wife for my son Isaac.^[13]  He certainly knew that his brother Esau’s marriage to two Hittite women caused his parents Isaac and Rebekah great anxiety.^[14]  Perhaps he believed that the Lord would drive the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite^[15] out of the land.  He may have grasped that he should not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land…lest it become a snare.^[16]

I am not convinced, however, that Jacob knew the full import of the law God would give his descendants: When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are going to occupy and forces out many nations before you – Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and powerful than you – and he delivers them over to you and you attack them, you must utterly annihilate them.  Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy!  You must not intermarry with them.  Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from me to worship other gods.  Then the anger of the Lord will erupt against you and he will quickly destroy you.^[17]

Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully when they spoke because Shechem had violated their sister Dinah.^[18]  While it may be tempting to read what happened next as a cold-blooded plot to use Dinah’s misfortune as justification for a get rich quick scheme, the point is clearly made that Dinah’s brothers were anything but cold-blooded at the moment they were deceitful.  They were offended and very angry because Shechem had disgraced Israel by sexually assaulting Jacob’s daughter, a crime that should not be committed.^[19]

We cannot give our sister to a man who is not circumcised, they said, for it would be a disgrace to us.  We will give you our consent on this one condition: You must become like us by circumcising all your males.^[20]  This would be a minimum requirement for any covenant between them.  Throughout your generations, God told Abraham, every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, whether born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not one of your descendants.  They must indeed be circumcised, whether born in your house or bought with money.^[21]  The brothers’ deceitfulness, I think, is that they never expected Hivites to agree to such drastic measures and hoped to gain Dinah’s release instead.  But if you do not agree to our terms by being circumcised, then we will take our sister and depart.^[22]

Their offer pleased Hamor and his son Shechem.^[23]  And Hamor and Shechem persuaded all the men of their city to be circumcised.  If we do so, won’t their livestock, their property, and all their animals become ours?  So let’s consent to their demand, so they will live among us.^[24]

Dinah’s perspective on all this is missing from the narrative.  But if I consider that the Holy Spirit mentioned Tamar’s^[25] rather remarkable response despite its relative irrelevance to the story compared to Dinah’s, and that Jacob’s silence was mentioned precisely because it is unexpected, I feel safe assuming that Dinah was not in favor of a marriage to her rapist Shechem.  Dinah was not socialized like Tamar under the law: Suppose a man comes across a virgin who is not engaged and overpowers and rapes her and they are discovered [Table].  The man who has raped her must pay her father fifty shekels of silver and she must become his wife because he has violated her; he may never divorce her as long as he lives [Table].^[26]  And that law would not have applied to a Canaanite like Shechem the Hivite anyway.

Dinah’s brothers’ deceitful blunder not only failed to win her release as Shechem’s “love” hostage, it risked involving them in an at least suspect covenant with one of the peoples of the land, the Hivites.  In that light the rest of the story unfolds like an anger-fear-testosterone-adrenaline-fueled nightmare.  I can almost hear them as they stewed about if for three days: What do we do now?  We’ll kill him.  Shechem?  We’ll have to kill his father, too.  Who are you kidding?  We’ll have to kill them all?  What do we do with the women and children?

Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and went to the unsuspecting city and slaughtered every male [Table].  They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword, took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and left [Table].  Jacob’s sons killed them and looted the city because their sister had been violated [Table].  They took their flocks, herds, and donkeys, as well as everything in the city and in the surrounding fields [Table].  They captured as plunder all their wealth, all their little ones, and their wives, including everything in the houses [Table].^[27]

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought ruin on me by making me a foul odor among the inhabitants of the land – among the Canaanites and the Perizzites.  I am few in number; they will join forces against me and attack me, and both I and my family will be destroyed!”  But Simeon and Levi were not about to back down then, “Should he treat our sister like a common prostitute?”^[28]

Just as an aside, other Hivites^[29] many years later deceived Joshua and saved their own lives by successfully making a covenant with the nation of Israel.^[30]