• Please see License for Copyright notice and Licensing information.

1 And Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she bore to 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 did cleave to Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spoke kindly unto the damsel.

4 And Shechem spoke to his father Hamor, saying, “Get me this damsel for a wife.”

5 Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter; and his sons were with his cattle in the field: but Jacob held his peace until they came.

6 And Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to talk with him.

7 And the sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard what happened; and the men were grieved, and they were very angry, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob’s daughter; which thing ought not to be done.

8 And Hamor spoke with them, saying, “The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter: I pray you, give her to him as wife.”

9 And make marriages with us; give your daughters to us, and take our daughters unto you.

10 And dwell with us: the land shall be before you; dwell and trade here, and have your possessions therein.”

11 And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you shall ask from me, I will give.”

12 Ask me any dowry and gift, and I will give it to you; but give me the damsel as wife.

13 And the sons of Jacob patronized Shechem and Hamor his father with guile, because he had defiled Dinah their sister,

14 and said to them, “We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised; for that is against our custom.

15 Only on that condition will we agree; if you become like us, that every male among you be circumcised;

16 then we will 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.

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

18 And their words pleased Hamor, and Shechem Hamor’s son.

19 And the young man did not hesitate to do it, because he had delight in Jacob’s daughter, and he was honored above all the house of his father.

20 And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the gate of their city, and spoke with the men of their city, saying,

21 “These men are peaceful to us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade therein; for behold, the land is large enough for them; let us take their daughters as wives, and let us give them our daughters.

22 Only on this condition will the men consent to dwell with us, to become one people, if every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised.

23 Shall not their cattle and their wealth and all their animals be ours? only let us consent to this, and they will dwell with us.”

24 And all that went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and to Shechem his son; and every male was circumcised, all that went out of the gate of his city.

25 And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took their swords, and snuck into city unawares, and killed every man.

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

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

28 They took their flocks and their herds and their animals, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field;

29 and all their wealth, and all their little ones and their wives, took they captive and made a prey, even all that was in the house.

30 And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have troubled me, to make me hated to the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and, I being few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and attack; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.”

31 And they said, “Should he deal with our sister as with a harlot?”

[30] See 49:7

Selected commentary

h. בת לאה THE DAUGHTER OF LEAH — so Scripture calls her why not the daughter of Jacob? But just because she “went out” she is called Leah’s daughter, since she, too, was fond “of going out” (Genesis Rabbah 80:1), as it is said (30:16) “and Leah went out to meet him”. With an allusion to her they formulated the proverb: “Like mother, like daughter”.

h.על לב הנערה [AND SPAKE] LOVINGLY TO THE DAMSEL (literally, he spoke to the heart of the maiden) words that would appeal to her heart: See how much money your father has lavished for a small plot of field. I will marry you and you will then possess the city and all its fields (Genesis Rabbah 80:7).

h.וכן לא יעשה AND THUS IT OUGHT NOT TO BE DONE — viz., to do violence to a maiden, for even the heathens have trained themselves (literally, have fenced themselves round) against unchastity as a consequence of the Flood which had come upon the world as a punishment for this sin (Genesis Rabbah 80:6).

h.חשקה means desires.

h.מהר DOWRY, refers to the Ketuba (the sum settled by the husband on his wife as set forth in the Ketuba — the marriage contract (Genesis Rabbah 80:7).

h.במרמה WITH GUILE — cleverly

h.אשר טמא BECAUSE HE HAD DEFILED — Scripture (the Sacred Historian) says that there was no deception (מרמה) in this because he had defiled Dinah their sister (Genesis Rabbah 80:8).

h.חרפה הוא THAT WERE A DISGRACE — Amongst us it is somewhat of a blot on our pedigree, for if one wishes to revile another, he says to him: “You are an uncircumcised person”, or “the son of an uncircumcised person”. The word חרפה always means “reviling”.

h.נאות לכם means WE WILL CONSENT UNTO YOU: it has the same meaning as (2 Kings 12:9) ויאותו “and they consented”.

h.להמול means TO BE CIRCUMCISED — It is not an active infinitive (Kal), but a passive infinitive (Niphal).

h.וְנָתַנּוּ THEN WILL WE GIVE — The second נ has a Dagesh because it serves the purpose of two -נs - וְנָתַנְנוּ (cf. Rashi on Genesis חנני 33:11).

h.ואת בנותיכם נקח לנו AND WE WILL TAKE YOUR DAUGHTERS TO US — You will find that in the proposition which Hamor made to Jacob (Genesis 33:9) and in the reply of Jacob’s sons to Hamor (in this verse) they (both parties to the proposition) regarded the sons of Jacob as being the more important — that they should take of the daughters of Shechem whomsoever they would select for themselves and that they should give their daughters to them (the men of Shechem) as they (Jacob’s sons) would think fit, as it is written, “and we will give our daughters’’ — as we think fit — “and we will take your daughters unto us” — whomsoever we please. When, however, Hamor and his son spoke to the inhabitants of their city (v. 21) they reversed the matter, saying, “their daughters we will take to us for wives, and our daughters we will give unto them“, instead of saying “they will give their daughters to us, and they will take our daughters to themselves”, in order to induce them to consent to be circumcised.

h.שלמים means peaceable and whole hearted.

h.והארץ הנה רחבת ידים FOR THE LAND, BEHOLD, IT IS LARGE ENOUGH (literally, wide-handed) — the metaphor is that of a man whose hand is large and generous, and the idea is: “You will lose nothing if they dwell and trade in the land, for much merchandise is brought here and there are no buyers for it”.

h.בהמול means by every male of us being circumcised (infinitive Niphal).

h.אך נאותה להם LET US CONSENT UNTO THEM in this matter, and because of this they will dwell with us.

h.שני בני יעקב TWO OF THE SONS OF JACOB — They were his sons (the sons of Jacob, a wise and clever man), but they acted as any man named Simeon and Levi would do — as other people would do who were not his sons — for they did not take counsel with him (Genesis Rabbah 80:10).

h.אחי דינה DINAH’S BROTHERS — because they risked their lives for her they are designated as her brothers (Genesis Rabbah 80:10)

h.בטח IN SECURITY — because they (the men of Shechom) were ill. The Midrashic explanation, taking בטח in the sense of confident, is: that they relied upon the strength (i.e. the merits) of the old man (Jacob) (Genesis Rabbah 80:10).

h.על החללים UPON THE SLAIN — to strip the slain.

h.חילם means THEIR WEALTH. Examples are: (Deuteronomy 8:17) “hath gotten me this (חיל) wealth”; (Numbers [19]:18) “and Israel acquireth (חיל) wealth”; (Psalms 49:11) “and they leave (חילם) their wealth to others”.

h.שבו has the meaning of taking captive (i.e. it is the Kal. perfect, 3rd pl. of the root שבה and means “they took captive”), and therefore it is accented on the last syllable (whereas שָׁבוּ, accented on the first syllable, is the same form of the verb שוב and means “they returned”).

h.עכרתם YE HAVE TROUBLED ME — This has the same meaning as (Berakhot 25b) “troubled (עכורים) waters” (i.e. waters that are disturbed, not clear). He meant “Now my mind will never be clear (without worry)”. There is an Agada, (Genesis Rabbah 80:12) “He said: the wine in the cask was clear but you have troubled it”. The Canaanites had a tradition that they would fall by the hands of the sons of Jacob, but they thought that this would happen only when the condition was fulfilled as expressed in the verse (Exodus 23:30) “when thou shalt in-crease, then shalt thou inherit the land”; consequently they had been silent until now (i.e. they had not attacked them).

h.מתי מספר means A FEW MEN.

h.הכזונה implies as one unprotected.

h.אחותנו The Targum renders it as an accusative — ית אחתנא “our sister”,) so that the meaning is: Should one (be permitted to) make our sister become as a woman who has no-one to protect her (Genesis Rabbah 80:12).