Open an explanation beneath verses with notes. Your notes and highlights stay on this device.
Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.
Verse 1. Country, when a great festival was celebrated. Josep. Ant. i. 18.) Dina was urged by curiosity to see and to be seen. Let others take example from her, and beware of associating with infidels, and of opening their hearts to pleasure at fairs and nocturnal meetings.
Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her. He took her, lay with her, and humbled her.
Verse 2. Virgin. Hebrew and Septuagint “He humbled or afflicted the virgin.” It is well if she made all the resistance she was able, and resented the indignity; as she seems to have done, though Sichem tried all means to comfort her. Bible.
His soul joined to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the young lady, and spoke kindly to the young lady.
Shechem spoke to his father, Hamor, saying, “Get me this young lady as a wife.”
Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah, his daughter; and his sons were with his livestock in the field. Jacob held his peace until they came.
Verse 5. Heard this, perhaps, from Dina’s companion. Menochius.
Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to talk with him.
The sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it. The men were grieved, and they were very angry, because he had done folly in Israel in lying with Jacob’s daughter, a thing that ought not to be done.
Verse 7. In Israel, or against the honour and peace of their father and all his family.—An unlawful act, which some nevertheless commit without scruple, and even dare to represent as a matter of small consequence if they marry afterwards!
Hamor talked with them, saying, “The soul of my son, Shechem, longs for your daughter. Please give her to him as a wife.
Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves.
You shall dwell with us, and the land will be before you. Live and trade in it, and get possessions in it.”
Verse 10. Command, or you are at liberty to purchase and till it as you please. Bible.
Shechem said to her father and to her brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you will tell me I will give.
Ask me a great amount for a dowry, and I will give whatever you ask of me, but give me the young lady as a wife.”
Verse 12. Dowry for Dina.—Gifts for her parents and brothers. G. 24:53. Calmet.
The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father with deceit when they spoke, because he had defiled Dinah their sister,
Verse 13. Deceitfully. The sons of Jacob, on this occasion, were guilty of a grievous sin, as well by falsely pretending religion, as by excess of their revenge. Though, otherwise their zeal against so foul a crime was commendable. Challoner.—In this light it is viewed by Judith 9:2. Simeon and Levi spoke on this occasion. Septuagint as they were afterwards the chief actors, verse 25. There were commissioned by their father to speak for him; but Jacob was ignorant of their deceit. Bible.
and said to them, “We can’t do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised; for that is a reproach to us.
Verse 14. Abominable. To be uncircumcised, was a reproach among the Hebrews. Yet there was no law forbidding to marry such. Laban was of this description, and the Chanaanites also; whose daughters the sons of Jacob themselves espoused, at least Juda and this very Simeon, as the Scripture assures us.
Only on this condition will we consent to you. If you will be as we are, that every male of you be circumcised,
then will we give our daughters to you; and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people.
But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, then we will take our sister, and we will be gone.”
Verse 17. Our daughter, the only one of our father; who, it would hence appear, was detained by Hemor, verse 26. Calmet.
Hebrew has, literally, “daughter”
Their words pleased Hamor and Shechem, Hamor’s son.
The young man didn’t wait to do this thing, because he had delight in Jacob’s daughter, and he was honored above all the house of his father.
Verse 19. The greatest man, (inclytus) perhaps associated to his father in the government of the town. Yet he is willing to submit to this painful operation. Bible.
Hamor and Shechem, his son, came to the gate of their city, and talked with the men of their city, saying,
Verse 20. Gate. Here judgment was given, the markets held, and so forth They endeavoured to convince the people, that the conditions offered would be for their interest. Menochius.
“These men are peaceful with us. Therefore let them live in the land and trade in it. For behold, the land is large enough for them. Let’s take their daughters to us for wives, and let’s give them our daughters.
Only on this condition will the men consent to us to live with us, to become one people, if every male among us is circumcised, as they are circumcised.
Won’t their livestock and their possessions and all their animals be ours? Only let’s give our consent to them, and they will dwell with us.”
Verse 23. Ours, by mutual commerce. The Rabbin pretend the Sichemite designed to circumvent Jacob and his family. But their conduct seems to screen them from any reproach of this kind, and Jacob throws the blame upon his own sons. Calmet. 49:6. If Hemor said more than he was authorized by them to do, this will not palliate their injustice and sacrilegious perfidy. Calmet. Menochius.
All who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor, and to Shechem his son; and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city.
On the third day, when they were sore, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword, came upon the unsuspecting city, and killed all the males.
Verse 25. Greatest. On that day a fever and inflammation likewise often take place. See Hippocrates on fractures, Valesius sac. Philippians 12. Menochius.—Brothers of Dina by Lia, and both of a fiery temper. They were assisted by some servants, ( Menochius.) and afterwards the other children helped to pillage the city. Theodot. ap. Eus. ix. 22.
They killed Hamor and Shechem, his son, with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house, and went away.
Jacob’s sons came on the dead, and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister.
They took their flocks, their herds, their donkeys, that which was in the city, that which was in the field,
and all their wealth. They took captive all their little ones and their wives, and took as plunder everything that was in the house.
Verse 29. Captive. No doubt Jacob would force them to restore such ill-gotten goods. Calmet.—They had acted without authority, and even contrary to the known disposition of their father. They rashly exposed him to destruction, which would inevitably have taken place, if God had not protected him. Calmet. 35:5. Bible.
Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have troubled me, to make me odious to the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am few in number. They will gather themselves together against me and strike me, and I will be destroyed, I and my house.”
They said, “Should he deal with our sister as with a prostitute?”
Verse 31. Should they, and so forth This answer, full of insolence, to a father who was as much hurt by the indignity offered to Dina as they could be, heightens their crime. Sichem was the only one among the citizens really guilty, unless perhaps some of his servants might have given him assistance; and Hemor, the king, might contract some stain by not causing a better police to be observed, and by not punishing his son with greater severity, and not sending Dina home, and so forth But why are the harmless citizens to be involved in ruin? unless
Quicquid delirant Reges, plectuntur Achivi. Bible.
Procopius says Hemor also abused Dina; but the plural is here used for the singular, and this author builds upon a false supposition. Calmet.