Genesis 34

Dinah and the Men of Shechem

Shechem seizes Jacob’s daughter Dinah and then asks to marry her. Her brothers answer with a lie about circumcision, and on the third day Simeon and Levi kill every male in the city. Jacob fears for his house; his sons answer with a question about their sister.

Genesis chaptersChapter 34 of 50

While Jacob’s household lived beside Shechem, after his return from Paddan-aram and before the move to Beth-el (Gen. 33:18–19; Gen. 35:1). The text gives no year. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

Start reading

Background

After twenty years in Paddan-aram (Gen. 31:41) and a wary meeting with Esau (Gen. 33), Jacob came to Shechem.

After twenty years in Paddan-aram (Gen. 31:41) and a wary meeting with Esau (Gen. 33), Jacob came to Shechem. He “pitched his tent before the city,” bought a field from “the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father,” and built an altar (Gen. 33:18–20). Chapter 34 is what happened there. It is the only story told about Dinah, Leah’s daughter, who appears elsewhere only in her birth notice and in the list of Jacob’s household (Gen. 30:21; Gen. 46:15).

Later scripture comes back to the chapter through Dinah’s brothers rather than through Dinah: Jacob’s dying words curse the anger of Simeon and Levi (Gen. 49:5–7; see the note on verse 31). The Church’s current guidance on violence in the Old Testament cites this chapter among the accounts that are “clearly the result of mortal people making unrighteous choices and misusing their agency.”

The chapter has seven parts: Shechem and Dinah (verses 1–4), the family hears (5–7), the proposal (8–12), the sons’ answer (13–17), the city agrees (18–24), the killing and plunder (25–29), and Jacob’s rebuke with the brothers’ reply (30–31).

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 34 is full of speeches, and Dinah gives none of them. Shechem and Hamor speak (verses 4, 8–12, 20–23), her brothers speak (14–17, 31), and Jacob speaks once (30).

Genesis 34 is full of speeches, and Dinah gives none of them. Shechem and Hamor speak (verses 4, 8–12, 20–23), her brothers speak (14–17, 31), and Jacob speaks once (30). The narrator names her six times (verses 1, 3, 5, 13, 25, 26), and after the first verse she is never again the subject of a verb: she is seized, wanted, bargained over, and at the end “taken out.” The men name her by what she is to them: “the damsel” (Shechem, verses 4 and 12), “your daughter” (Hamor, verse 8), “our sister” (her brothers, verses 14 and 31).

The other silence is God’s. Neither Elohim (God) nor the divine name (the LORD) appears anywhere in the chapter, no one prays, and no one is told what to do. The one thing of His that does appear is the sign of His covenant, circumcision, which the brothers make a condition of peace (verses 14–16) and then a trap (verse 25). The sons of Jacob take what Shechem did for “folly in Israel” (verse 7), and the Hebrew word for how they answer him, “deceitfully” (verse 13), occurs in Genesis only here and in Isaac’s words about Jacob (Gen. 27:35).

The chapter ends with a question and no verdict (verse 31). Jacob gives his verdict at the end of his life, when he curses the anger of Simeon and Levi (Gen. 49:5–7), and the Church’s current guidance cites this very chapter for a plain statement: those who acted violently without divine direction were not following the will of God.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–4

Shechem and Dinah

In plain words

Dinah, the daughter Leah bore to Jacob, went out to visit the young women of the land. Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of the region, saw her, seized her, and violated her. Afterward he was drawn to her, loved the young woman, and spoke tenderly to her. He told his father Hamor, “Get me this girl as my wife.”

1 And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.

Context #

Dinah goes out, and the text does not blame her

Genesis gives Dinah one act in this chapter, going out, and does not count it as a fault.

Genesis gives Dinah one act in this chapter, going out, and does not count it as a fault. She is introduced by her mother, “the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob” (her birth is noted in Gen. 30:21), and she goes out “to see the daughters of the land.” What is done to her comes in the next verse, and Shechem is the subject of every verb: he saw her, took her, lay with her, and humbled her.

Jacob’s household was camped beside a Canaanite city (Gen. 33:18–19), so she was going out to people who lived there. The text gives her no age. Reckoned from the years between Jacob’s return and Joseph’s sale, she was “probably between 13 and 15 at the time”; that is an inference from the chronology, not a statement of the text.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2 And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.

Language #

What “defiled” hides

The verse describes sexual violence, and the KJV’s “defiled” blurs it.

The verse describes sexual violence, and the KJV’s “defiled” blurs it. Three Hebrew verbs carry the sentence: laqach, “took”; shakav, “lay with” her; and ‘innah, which the lexicon defines as “humble, a woman by cohabitation.” The same verb is used of a man who has “humbled” a woman in the later law (Deut. 22:29) and of Amnon, who “forced” Tamar (2 Sam. 13:14). Translators say it in plain words: “by force” (NRSVUE), “raped her” (NIV), “seized her … and humiliated her” (ESV). Read with verse 3, the passage makes it evident “that there had been no consent on the part of Dinah, that the whole was an act of violence, and that she was now detained by force in the house of Shechem.” Verse 26 says her brothers took her “out of Shechem’s house.”

Where the KJV has “defiled” in verses 5, 13, and 27, the Hebrew has a different word, tame’, “make unclean,” which the lexicon lists as “defile: 1 sexually.” That is the word the narrator uses for how Jacob and his sons took the news. Verse 2 names what was done to Dinah; the word for what it meant to her family comes after.

Verse 3 then reports Shechem’s feelings: his soul “clave” to Dinah, he “loved the damsel,” and “spake kindly,” which in Hebrew is “spoke to her heart” (dibber ‘al-lev), the phrase for comfort in Isa. 40:2 and Gen. 50:21. The chapter tells what Shechem felt and said. It never tells what Dinah felt or said.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway. English Standard Version, Crossway, 2016; on BibleGateway. Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible … with a Commentary and Critical Notes, Online at Bible Hub (Clarke's Commentary). Genesis 24–36: The Covenant Line Continues with Isaac and Jacob, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Context #

A city beside Jacob’s tents

Shechem is a man in this verse and a city in the verses around it, and Jacob’s tents stand “before the city.”

Shechem is a man in this verse and a city in the verses around it, and Jacob’s tents stand “before the city.” The Hivites were one of the Canaanite peoples, descended from Canaan (Gen. 10:15–17); they were “a Canaanitish race.” Hamor, Shechem’s father, was “prince of the country,” and Jacob had already dealt with his family: he “pitched his tent before the city” and bought a field from “the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for an hundred pieces of money” (Gen. 33:18–19).

In the world of Israel’s ancestors, Shechem was among the “preeminent sites” of the Middle Bronze Age, a time of “cities with massive fortifications complete with gates and ramparts,” and a pastoralist such as Abraham “would have been on the margins of Canaanite society.” That is the setting for Jacob’s words in verse 30, “I being few in number,” and for a question the chapter raises: how could two men overcome such a city? The note on verse 25 gives the circumstance the text supplies.

Sources: “Hivites”, Bible Dictionary. George A. Pierce, “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 163–92. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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.

Verses 5–7

The family hears

In plain words

Jacob heard that Shechem had violated his daughter Dinah. His sons were out in the field with his livestock, so he kept silent until they came home. Meanwhile Hamor, Shechem’s father, came out to speak with Jacob. When Jacob’s sons heard what had happened, they came in from the field, grieved and very angry, because Shechem had done a shameful thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, a thing that must not be done.

5 And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter: now his sons were with his cattle in the field: and Jacob held his peace until they were come.

Language #

Jacob’s silence

Jacob says nothing from verse 5 until verse 30, and the text gives no reason.

Jacob says nothing from verse 5 until verse 30, and the text gives no reason. The Hebrew verb (hecherish) means “be silent,” “almost always of men”; Abraham’s servant “held his peace” in the same way while he watched Rebekah at the well (Gen. 24:21). Read plainly, he “remained quiet, without taking any active proceedings,” until his sons came from the field, and the sons “had the chief voice in the question of their sister’s marriage,” as Laban and Bethuel did when Rebekah’s marriage was settled (Gen. 24:50; Gen. 24:55). Here Shechem speaks to “her father and… her brethren” together (verse 11), and in the event it is the sons who answer (verse 13).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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

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

Language #

“Folly in Israel”

“Folly” here is a strong moral word, and “in Israel” marks the act as a disgrace by the covenant people’s standard.

“Folly” here is a strong moral word, and “in Israel” marks the act as a disgrace by the covenant people’s standard. The expression recurs in the law (Deut. 22:21), in Judges (Judg. 20:6), and in Tamar’s plea to Amnon, “no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly” (2 Sam. 13:12), which echoes the end of this verse, “which thing ought not to be done.” The Hebrew is nevalah, which the lexicon defines as “senselessness (as shewn in disregard of moral and religious claims), especially of disgraceful sins,” and for the sense here as “disgraceful folly, especially of sins of un-chastity.” For “wrought folly in Israel” it gives “do a thing disgraceful according to Israel’s standard.”

Who is “Israel” here, before there was a nation of that name? One reading takes it of Jacob himself, who had just been given the name (Gen. 32:28): because “Jacob had become Israel,” the wrong done to his daughter “was a crime against Israel.” “To work folly” “was a standing phrase for crimes against the honour and calling of Israel as the people of God.” So the verse measures Shechem’s act by Israel’s standard, and not only as an injury to a sister.

Verses 8–12

Hamor’s proposal

In plain words

Hamor said to them, “My son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. Let us intermarry: give us your daughters and take ours for yourselves. Live among us; the land is open to you. Settle here, trade, and acquire property.” Shechem said to her father and brothers, “Let me find favor with you, and I will give whatever you ask. Name any bride-price and gift, however high, and I will pay it, only give me the girl as my wife.”

8 And Hamor communed with them, saying, The soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter: I pray you give her him to wife.

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

Context #

What Hamor offers

Hamor and Shechem offer a great deal, and what they offer would end Jacob’s family as a separate people.

Hamor and Shechem offer a great deal, and what they offer would end Jacob’s family as a separate people. Hamor proposes intermarriage (“give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you”), a place to live, trading rights, and land (verses 9–10). Shechem adds a payment at any figure Jacob names (verse 12). The “dowry” (mohar) is the “purchase-price of wife,” a payment to the bride’s family, and here, as in the law, it is also “‘compensation’ for wrong.” The later law has a man who lays hold of an unbetrothed virgin pay and marry her, and “he may not put her away all his days” (Deut. 22:28–29; compare Ex. 22:16–17). Shechem’s offer resembles what that law would later require.

But the proposal asks for the one thing Abraham and Isaac had guarded against. Abraham made his servant swear not to take a wife for Isaac “of the daughters of the Canaanites” (Gen. 24:3), and Isaac forbade it to Jacob (Gen. 28:1). Hamor’s plan is that the two peoples “should be amalgamated on the basis of (1) intermarriage, (2) trading rights, (3) rights of occupation of land.” The sons’ stated reason for refusing, in verse 14, is the covenant sign.

10 And ye shall dwell with us: and the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein.

11 And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give.

12 Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife.

Verses 13–17

The sons’ answer

In plain words

Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, because Shechem had defiled their sister Dinah. They said, “We cannot give our sister to an uncircumcised man; that would be a disgrace to us. We will agree only on this condition: if you become like us and every male among you is circumcised, then we will give you our daughters, take yours, live among you, and become one people. But if you will not listen and be circumcised, we will take our daughter and go.”

13 And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully, and said, because he had defiled Dinah their sister:

Language #

The word Isaac used of Jacob

The Hebrew word for “deceitfully,” mirmah, occurs in Genesis in only one other place: Isaac’s words to Esau about Jacob, “Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy…

The Hebrew word for “deceitfully,” mirmah, occurs in Genesis in only one other place: Isaac’s words to Esau about Jacob, “Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing” (Gen. 27:35). The lexicon lists the two together under “treachery, craftiness.” The text does not comment on the echo, and it should not be pressed far: one deceit was a man’s, for a blessing, and the other a family’s, for a sister. But the narrator uses of Jacob’s sons the word Isaac used of their father. The verse gives their stated reason right after it: “because he had defiled Dinah their sister.”

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:

Context #

The covenant sign as bait

Circumcision was “the token of the Abrahamic covenant,” and the brothers make it the price of the marriage.

Circumcision was “the token of the Abrahamic covenant,” and the brothers make it the price of the marriage. It symbolized separation “from the world, the uncircumcised with whom Israel might not mix,” and “the various Canaanite tribes appear to have been uncircumcised,” with this chapter cited. So the first half of the demand fits the covenant: Jacob’s family could not give a daughter to a man still outside it (verse 14).

The second half is what makes the offer believable. The covenant did let outsiders in. Abraham circumcised all “born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger” (Gen. 17:12–13; Gen. 17:23), and a stranger who wished to keep the Passover could do so once “all his males be circumcised” (Ex. 12:48). The brothers’ “If ye will be as we be” (verse 15) therefore offered what looked like a way into the covenant people, and Hamor repeats it to his city: “to be one people” (verse 22). The text calls the answer deceitful (verse 13), and the treachery “is made to turn upon their insistence on the sacred national rite of circumcision.” Those who received the sign “enjoyed the privileges and undertook the responsibilities of the covenant,” but to set up a whole town for slaughter “on the pretext of bringing them into the covenant was an evil and wicked thing.”

Sources: “Circumcision”, Bible Dictionary. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Genesis 24–36: The Covenant Line Continues with Isaac and Jacob, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

15 But in this will we consent unto you: If ye will be as we be, that every male of you be circumcised;

16 Then will we give our daughters unto 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.

Verses 18–24

The city agrees

In plain words

Their words pleased Hamor and Shechem. The young man did not delay, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter, and he was the most honored man in his father’s house. Hamor and Shechem went to the gate of their city and said to the men there, “These men are friendly toward us. Let them live in the land and trade in it; the land is wide enough for them. We can take their daughters as wives and give them ours. But the men will agree to live with us as one people only on this condition: that every male among us be circumcised, as they are. Will not their livestock, their property, and all their animals be ours? Only let us agree to their terms, and they will stay with us.” All who went out of the city gate listened to Hamor and Shechem, and every male was circumcised.

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

19 And the young man deferred not to do the thing, because he had delight in Jacob’s daughter: and he was more honourable than all the house of his father.

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

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

22 Only herein will the men consent unto us for to dwell with us, to be one people, if every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised.

23 Shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours? only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us.

Context #

What Hamor told the town

Hamor tells his city something different from what he told Jacob. To Jacob he spoke of Shechem’s longing for Dinah (verse 8).

Hamor tells his city something different from what he told Jacob. To Jacob he spoke of Shechem’s longing for Dinah (verse 8). At “the gate of their city,” the city gate being “often a place for public business,” he does not mention Dinah at all. He argues from the guests’ peacefulness (“These men are peaceable with us”), the room in the land, marriage, and last, profit: “Shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours?” The men of the gate agree, and every male is circumcised (verse 24).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Gate”, Bible Dictionary.

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

Verses 25–29

Simeon and Levi

In plain words

On the third day, while the men were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword, attacked the unsuspecting city, and killed every male. They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword, took Dinah out of Shechem’s house, and left. Then Jacob’s sons came over the dead and plundered the city, because their sister had been defiled. They took the flocks, herds, and donkeys, and everything in the city and the fields. They carried off all the wealth, all the children, and the wives, and plundered everything in the houses.

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 each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males.

Language #

Boldly, or unawares?

The KJV makes the attack sound brave, but the Hebrew says the city felt safe.

The KJV makes the attack sound brave, but the Hebrew says the city felt safe. The word, betach, means “security”: the lexicon lists this verse first among its uses, and the Septuagint translates it “securely.” Modern versions follow: “unawares” (NRSVUE), “while it felt secure” (ESV), “the unsuspecting city” (NIV). The preceding “when they were sore” is ko’avim, “be in pain, physical… as result of circumcision.” So the verse does not say Simeon and Levi were courageous. It says that on the third day, when the men were in pain and the city trusted the agreement it had made, two men with swords came in. The text gives this as the circumstance of the attack.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. English Standard Version, Crossway, 2016; on BibleGateway. New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Context #

Two brothers, or all of them?

Verses 25–26 name two killers, but the verses around them speak of all the sons.

Verses 25–26 name two killers, but the verses around them speak of all the sons. “The sons of Jacob” answer deceitfully (verse 13); “Simeon and Levi” kill the males and take Dinah from Shechem’s house (verses 25–26); “the sons of Jacob” plunder the city (verse 27); and Jacob rebukes only “Simeon and Levi” (verse 30). Both were Leah’s sons, full brothers of Dinah (Gen. 29:33–34), as verse 25 says (“Dinah’s brethren”). The Septuagint ties the speech to them as well: in verse 14 it is “Symeon and Levi, the brothers of Dina” who say that they cannot give their sister to an uncircumcised man.

Read as it stands, the text has the two do the killing, while “the sons of Jacob” in verse 27 are all of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi included, who shared the plunder. One scholarly view explains the unevenness otherwise, as two accounts of the event combined, one blaming all the sons and the other Simeon and Levi alone. The Bible Dictionary allows that Moses “used several documentary sources from which he compiled the book of Genesis,” but does not assign verses to them.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. “Pentateuch”, Bible Dictionary.

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

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

28 They took their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, 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 spoiled even all that was in the house.

Verses 30–31

Jacob and his sons

In plain words

Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me odious to the people of this land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. We are few in number; if they gather against me and attack, I and my household will be destroyed.” They answered, “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?”

30 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.

Language #

What Jacob objects to

Jacob’s one speech in the chapter is about danger more than about right and wrong: his rebuke turns “not so much upon the dastardly treachery and cruelty of his sons, as upon the…

Jacob’s one speech in the chapter is about danger more than about right and wrong: his rebuke turns “not so much upon the dastardly treachery and cruelty of his sons, as upon the evil effects it will produce.” “Troubled” (‘akar, “stir up, disturb, trouble”) is the verb Joshua uses of Achan, whose theft brought trouble on all Israel: “Why hast thou troubled us?” (Josh. 7:25). “To make me to stink” is “a common Heb. metaphor” for being made hateful; the NRSVUE has “making me odious.” Jacob’s fear is that “I being few in number,” the neighboring peoples will unite against his house.

The fear did not come true. When the household set out for Beth-el, “the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob” (Gen. 35:5). God speaks and acts in the story only afterward: He commands Jacob to go up to Beth-el (Gen. 35:1), and His “terror” protects the household.

Jacob’s moral judgment comes in his dying words (see the note on verse 31), but even this response “indicates that their recourse was less than honorable as well, even if it was culturally appropriate.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. George A. Pierce, “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 163–92. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

31 And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?

Related Scriptures #

The chapter ends on a question

The brothers’ last word is a question, and the chapter does not answer it.

The brothers’ last word is a question, and the chapter does not answer it. It is a fair question about what Shechem did, and nothing in the chapter denies the wrong to Dinah; verse 7 has already called it “folly.” But the question does not settle whether what the brothers did in answer was right.

The answer comes near the end of Genesis. Jacob, blessing his sons, says: “Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.” He refuses to be joined to their council, and says: “Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel” (Gen. 49:5–7). The reference to Simeon and Levi’s violence “appears, at first, to refer to Genesis 34,” and the dividing and scattering are explained by where their tribes later lived (below). The Church’s current guidance gives this chapter and Jacob’s words as its example for a plain statement: “Those who acted violently without divine direction were not following the will of God.” It adds that “we should not think that examples of violence in the Old Testament would ever be justification for committing violence today.”

The tribes bear the sentence out in their inheritance. Simeon’s land lay “within the inheritance of the children of Judah” (Josh. 19:1), and the Levites received forty-eight cities “within the possession of the children of Israel” (Josh. 21:41): the cities of Simeon “are scattered throughout the southern part of Israelite territory, intermixed with the cities of Judah,” and those of the Levites “are similarly scattered across all of Israelite territory.”

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Appendix: Violence and Destruction in the Old Testament, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). Scripture Central, “Why is Judah Blessed with a Scepter Until Shiloh Comes?”, KnoWhy #843, Mar. 10, 2026.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 34

Jacob’s last words pass over his three oldest sons in turn, Reuben (Gen. 49:3–4), then Simeon and Levi, and the leading blessing goes to Judah: “Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise… The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come” (Gen. 49:8–10). The blessings on Simeon and Levi “help to explain the third blessing, the blessing of Judah,” who is “something of an ‘honorary’ firstborn after Reuben, Simeon, and Levi were passed over.” The name Shiloh in that verse “has been regarded by many biblical scholars as a prophecy of the coming of Messiah,” and was “fulfilled in Jesus Christ’s being literally of the lineage.” The New Testament says it in plain words: “our Lord sprang out of Juda” (Heb. 7:14), and Matthew’s genealogy runs from “Jacob begat Judas and his brethren” (Matt. 1:2). On that reading, Genesis 34 is the violence behind the blessing on Simeon and Levi, and so part of the background to the blessing of Judah.

Worth exploring next

A brother’s answer to a sister’s wrong. 2 Sam. 13:11–29 tells of Tamar and Amnon, where the same words, “no such thing ought to be done in Israel,” are used, and where a brother, Absalom, answers after two full years at a feast to which Amnon is invited (verses 23–29).
Jacob’s last words, and their fulfillment. Gen. 49:1–10; Josh. 19:1–9; Josh. 21:1–8. KnoWhy #843 (Scripture Central), “Why is Judah Blessed with a Scepter Until Shiloh Comes?”, sets the blessings on Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah side by side.
Shechem later. Gen. 37:12–14 (the brothers pasture their flocks at Shechem again), Josh. 21:21 (a city of refuge), and Josh. 24:32 (Joseph’s bones buried in the field Jacob bought).
The Church’s statement on violence in the Old Testament. The appendix “Violence and Destruction in the Old Testament” in Scripture Helps: Old Testament is the Church’s current guidance on reading chapters like this one.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway.
English Standard Version, Crossway, 2016; on BibleGateway.
New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway.
“Dinah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Hivites”, Bible Dictionary.
“Circumcision”, Bible Dictionary.
“Gate”, Bible Dictionary.
“Pentateuch”, Bible Dictionary.
“Shiloh”, Bible Dictionary.
Genesis 24–36: The Covenant Line Continues with Isaac and Jacob, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
Appendix: Violence and Destruction in the Old Testament, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Scripture Central, “Why is Judah Blessed with a Scepter Until Shiloh Comes?”, KnoWhy #843, Mar. 10, 2026.
George A. Pierce, “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 163–92.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.
Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible … with a Commentary and Critical Notes, Online at Bible Hub (Clarke's Commentary).

I’ve studied Genesis 34