Genesis 34:25-31

25 Now it came to pass on the third day, when they were in pain, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and came boldly upon the city and killed all the males.

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

27 The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and plundered the city, because their sister had been defiled.

28 They took their sheep, their oxen, and their donkeys, what was in the city and what was in the field,

29 and all their wealth. All their little ones and their wives they took captive; and they plundered even all that was in the houses.

30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have troubled me by making me obnoxious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and since I am few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and kill me. I shall be destroyed, my household and I.”

31 But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a harlot?”

Jacob speaks only of the danger to himself and his family from the enraged Canaanite. He expressed no horror at the treachery and bloodshed of which his sons were guilty. He does so years afterwards; but his actions and his language here are deplorable. He seems to have quite forgotten the Divine assurance of safety which had been repeated to him again and again; he takes his eyes off God, he looks only at the violence of Simeon and Levi, and he cries out: “I shall be destroyed!” — Williams, page 35.

__________

“And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, ‘Ye 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 slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.'” Thus, it was the consequences in reference to himself that affected Jacob most. He seems to have walked in constant apprehension of danger to himself or his family, and in the manifestation of an anxious, a cautious, timid, calculating spirit, utterly incompatible with a life of genuine faith in God.

It is not that Jacob was not, in the main, a man of faith; he assuredly was, and as such, gets a place amongst the “cloud of witnesses” in Hebrews 11:21. … [But] he ought to have known that not a hair of his head could be touched, and therefore, instead of looking at Simeon and Levi, or the consequences of their rash acting, he should have judged himself for being in such a position at all. If he had not settled at Shechem, Dinah would not have been dishonored, and the violence of his sons would not have been exhibited. — Mackintosh, page 307-308.

Including Wechsler’s quote (below) to show, that in his opinion, Jacob was in favor of the Shechemites’ circumcision, considered it a conversion to faith in the true God, and considered Dinah legally married.

As the Shechemite men are recovering in pain from their circumcision—with Dinah having already been taken to Shechem’s house (thus married), the two brothers go throughout the city and kill every male. — Wechsler, page 241.

This entry was posted in Genesis. Bookmark the permalink.