Genesis 34:14

_AND THEY SAID UNTO THEM, WE CANNOT DO THIS THING, TO GIVE OUR SISTER TO ONE THAT IS UNCIRCUMCISED; FOR THAT WERE A REPROACH UNTO US:_ No JFB commentary on these verses....

1-19 Young persons, especially females, are never so safe and well off as under the care of pious parents. Their own ignorance, and the flattery and artifices of designing, wicked people, who are ever laying snares for them, expose them to great danger. They are their own enemies if they desire to go abroad, especially alone, among strangers to true religion. Those parents are very wrong who do not hinder their children from needlessly exposing themselves to danger. Indulged children, like Dinah, often become a grief and shame to their families. Her pretence was, to see the daughters of the land, to see how they dressed, and how they danced, and what was fashionable among them; she went to see, yet that was not all, she went to be seen too. She went to get acquaintance with the Canaanites, and to learn their ways. See what came of Dinah's gadding. The beginning of sin is as the letting...

Verse Genesis 34:14. _THAT WERE A REPROACH UNTO US_] Because the uncircumcised were not in the covenant of God; and to have given an heiress of the promise to one who had no kind of right to its spiritual blessings, from whom might spring children who would naturally walk in the way of their father would have been _absurd,_ _reproachful_ and _wicked_. Thus far they were perfectly right; but to make this holy principle a cloak for their deceitful and murderous purposes, was the full sum of all wickedness....

- Dinah’s Dishonor This chapter records the rape of Dinah and the revenge of her brothers. Genesis 34:1 Dinah went out to see the daughters of the land. The Jewish doctors of a later period fix the marriageable age of a female at twelve years and a day. It is probable that Dinah was in her thirteenth year when she went out to visit the daughters of the land. Six or seven years, therefore, must have been spent by Jacob between Sukkoth, where he abode some time, and the neighborhood of Shekerm, where he had purchased a piece of ground. If we suppose Dinah to have been born in the same year with Joseph, who was in his seventeenth year at the time of his being sold as a bondslave Genesis 37:2, the events of this chapter must have occurred in the interval between the completion of her twelfth and th

EXPOSITION GENESIS 34:1 AND DINAH THE DAUGHTER OF LEAH, WHICH SHE BARE UNTO JACOB,—if Dinah was born before Joseph (Genesis 30:21) she was probably in her seventh year when Jacob reached Succoth (Genesis 33:17); but it does not follow that she was only six or seven years of age when the incident about to be described occurred (Tuch, Bohlen). If Jacob stayed two years at Succoth and eight in Shechem (Petavius), and if, as is probable, his residence in Shechem terminated with his daughter's dishonor (Lange), and if, moreover, Joseph's sale into Egypt happened soon after (Hengstenberg), Dinah may at this time have been in her sixteenth or seventeenth year (Kurtz). Yet th

AND THEY SAID UNTO THEM,.... Levi and Simeon, to Hamor and Shechem: WE CANNOT DO THIS THING, TO GIVE OUR SISTER TO ONE THAT IS UNCIRCUMCISED; not that there was any law against it at that time; and there were, on the other hand, precedents for it both in Isaac and Jacob, who had married the daughters of uncircumcised persons; nor indeed do they plead any law, only that it was not becoming their character, nor agreeably to their religion, nor honourable in their esteem: FOR THAT [WERE] A REPROACH UNTO US; and they should be reflected upon for slighting the institution of circumcision, which was of God: so they pretend it might be interpreted, should they enter into affinity with uncircumcised persons....

CHAPTER 34 DEFILEMENT OF DINAH _ 1. The defilement (Genesis 34:1)_ 2. Hamor's proposal (Genesis 34:4) 3. The deceitful answer of Jacob's sons (Genesis 34:13) 4. The males of Shechem slain (Genesis 34:25) 5. Jacob's shame and grief (Genesis 34:30) If Jacob after the Peniel experience had gone to Bethel instead of building a house at Succoth and buying a parcel of a field, perhaps this sad event might never have occurred. God permitted it for the humiliation of His servant Jacob. Again he reaps what

GENESIS 34. SHECHEM'S OUTRAGE ON DINAH AVENGED. It is generally agreed that two sources have been used, but much uncertainty prevails as to their identity and extent, while in view of the priestly phraseology in one of the narratives, it is probable that the compiler has left his mark rather deeply upon it, unless we assign it directly to P, who may have employed an earlier story. According to one story, perhaps J, Shechem seduces Dinah and keeps her in his house. Jacob announces the news to his sons on their return from the field, and they are greatly angered. Shechem offers to accept any financial terms they may impose if only he may marry her. They reply that his uncircumcision is a fatal barrier. He accepts their conditions (not now recorded). Simeon and Levi, however, enter the city, kill him, plunder the house, and take Dinah away. This action arouses Jacob's consternation as to th...

_uncircumcised_ The passage contains the interesting and early tradition, that circumcision was not practised by the Canaanite dwellers in Shechem. On the widespread prevalence of this rite, see note on ch. 15. In J and E, Israelite circumcision is specially connected with the names of Moses and Joshua (Exodus 4:25; Joshua 5:2). The peculiar treachery of Jacob's sons is made to turn upon their insistence on the sacred national rite of circumcision. The condition which Shechem, in Genesis 34:19 (J), undertakes to satisfy, is not explained, in view of E's account (Genesis 34:13). _a reproach_ Compare the similar expression in...

PART FORTY-THREE THE STORY OF JACOB: INCIDENTS IN CANAAN (Genesis 34:1 to Genesis 35:28) The Biblical Account 1 And Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she bare unto Jacob went out to see the daughters of the land. 2 And Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her; and he took her, and lay with her, and humbled her. 3 And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel. 4 And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife, 5 Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter; and his sons were with his cattle in the field: and Jacob held his peace until they came. 6 And Hamor the father of Shechem went out unto Jacob to commune with him. 7 And the sons of Jacob came in from th