The Massacre at Shechem

THE MASSACRE AT SHECHEM

An Exposition of Genesis 34:1-31

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: December 3, 2023

Series: The Book of Genesis

Note: Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Holy Scripture says:

¹ Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. ² And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her. ³ And his soul was drawn to Dinah the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. ⁴ So Shechem spoke to his father Hamor, saying, “Get me this girl for my wife.”

⁵ Now Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter Dinah. But his sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob held his peace until they came. ⁶ And Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to speak with him. ⁷ The sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they heard of it, and the men were indignant and very angry, because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing must not be done.

⁸ But Hamor spoke with them, saying, “The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him to be his wife.⁹ Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves. ¹⁰ You shall dwell with us, and the land shall be open to you. Dwell and trade in it, and get property in it.”¹¹ Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you say to me I will give. ¹² Ask me for as great a bride-price and gift as you will, and I will give whatever you say to me. Only give me the young woman to be my wife.”

¹³ The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, because he had defiled their sister Dinah. ¹⁴ They said to them, “We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a disgrace to us. ¹⁵ Only on this condition will we agree with you—that you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised. ¹⁶ Then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to ourselves, and we will dwell with you and become one people. ¹⁷ But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter, and we will be gone.”

¹⁸ Their words pleased Hamor and Hamor's son Shechem. ¹⁹ And the young man did not delay to do the thing, because he delighted in Jacob's daughter. Now he was the most honored of all his father's house. ²⁰ So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying, ²¹ “These men are at peace with us; let them dwell in the land and trade in it, 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 agree to dwell with us to become one people—when every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised. ²³ Will not their livestock, their property and all their beasts be ours? Only let us agree with them, and they will dwell with us.” ²⁴ And all who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city.

²⁵ On the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males. ²⁶ They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem's house and went away. 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, their donkeys, and whatever was in the city and in the field. ²⁹ All their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and plundered.

³⁰ Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. My numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.” ³¹ But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?” (Genesis 34:1-31)

INTRODUCTION

If you would remain in the peace that the Lord gives, then you must learn to respond rightly to other people’s sin. We often get very agitated, upset, and vindictive when other people sin against us or against our loved ones. If we don’t curb our anger quickly, then we will unleash trouble upon our community.

So often we operate on the assumption that our life and our family and our church would be a whole lot better if other people would stop their sinning against us. Well, that would be nice, wouldn’t it? But the fact of the matter is that people are going to sin against us and against our loved ones. We need to work a different angle: our life and our family and our church will be a whole lot better if we would respond justly to other people’s sin. Your children sin; your spouse sins; your neighbors sin; your fellow churchgoers sin. Unbelievers sin against us, and as believers we sin against one another. Welcome to sin-world, folks! The critical question is: are you learning to respond properly to sin? A righteous response to sin preserves the peace. An unjust response to sin disturbs the peace. Every single day our peace is put to the test: will we respond our way or God’s way to someone else’s sin?

At the end of Genesis 33, Jacob has safely and peacefully returned to the land of Canaan. He has returned to the land of Canaan in peace. He buys property and builds an altar to worship the Lord. Life is good. But at the end of Genesis 34, Jacob is troubled and ashamedand feels threatened. Something has changed. Peaceful waters have receded, and trouble has arisen and fear has returned. And why? Because his sons, especially Simeon and Levi, responded unjustly to a sin against their sister.

WALKING THROUGH THE TEXT

The Initial Sin (v. 1-2)

Turning to verse 1, we learn that Dinah “went out to see the women of the land.” With the recent history of Genesis 12-26 in mind, when Abraham and Isaac were so concerned upon visiting a foreign territory that their wife would be taken by a local man, which led them to lie by saying that their wife was their sister (and they said this only to save their own skin), it seems unwise on Dinah’s part to be exploring the land without protection. She is placing herself in a vulnerable position.

As it happens, Shechem, “the prince of the land” whose personal name was also the name of the city, saw and took Dinah for himself. In Genesis 3, Eve saw the forbidden fruit and took it. Here in Genesis 34, we have the same pair of Hebrew words: Shechem saw Dinah and took her. Although Bible translations and chapter headings often convey the idea that Shechem’s action constituted a violent rape, that is far from certain. If you take the four verbs at face value – Shechem saw, took, lay with, and thereby humbled or afflicted her – such a description would be accurate in any scenario in which a young man took the initiative to draw a virgin into sexual intercourse outside of marriage. The man has sinned against her and defiled her, even if she was a willing participant in the act.

Unlike the attempted gang rape in Genesis 19, the actual gang rape in Judges 19, and the rape of Tamar by Amnon in 2 Samuel 13, in which there was no love between perpetrator and victim, in Genesis 34 Shechem has a genuine love for Dinah.

It should be noted, however, that pinpointing the exact nature of Shechem’s sin is not essential to the main point of the passage. But we can say this much: sin has been committed, Shechem has prevailed upon Dinah in an unlawful sexual relation, and Dinah’s virginity has been taken away.

It is also important to understand that Shechem is a Hivite – a Canaanite. In verse 7, Shechem is said to have done “an outrageous thing in Israel” – and what is likely in view is the fact that Shechem is a Canaanite. The first readers of the Book of Genesis would have been the Israelites who had been rescued from the land of Egypt, and they would have heard Genesis 34 alongside the instruction of Deuteronomy 7:3 – “You shall not intermarry with them [the seven nations of Canaan, including the Hivites], giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons”. So, the big problem of the Shechem-Dinah affair is the Canaanite incursion into the Israelite community.

That said, we need to understand is that the purpose of Genesis 34 is not to analyze and assess Shechem’s sin. Instead, Shechem’s sin is the background to another question: how will Jacob and Jacob’s sons respond to Shechem’s sin?  

An Almost Reasonable Response is Proposed (v. 3-12)

Before we get to their response, it is important to note that one almost reasonable response to Shechem’s sin is proposed by Shechem himself in verses 3-12. Although Shechem has acted with indiscretion toward Dinah, he is not just a ball of lustful desire. Shechem’s soul was “drawn to Dinah” – the “drawn to” language is the same terminology as Genesis 2:24, where a man should cling to his wife. He seems to have had the same great love for Dinah as Jacob had had for Rachel back in Genesis 29. Whether or not Shechem saw his conduct as sinful, he did propose a solution to the fact that he had already lay with Dinah: “Get me this girl for my wife.” (v. 4) That is the request he makes of his father Hamor in verse 4. Then Hamor makes this request to Jacob and Jacob’s sons in verse 8: “Please give her to him to be his wife.” And finally Shechem makes this appeal directly to Jacob and Jacob’s sons in verse 12: “Only give me the young woman to be my wife.”

Now you may be thinking to yourself: Is this really a reasonable solution? A man sees and takes a vulnerable young woman and takes advantage of her, and then professes love for her and appeals to the woman’s father and brothers to give the woman to him as his wife. You might be feeling: Get out of here, son! But when I say that Shechem’s solution is a reasonable one, I’m not telling you that on the basis of my own sense. Although the details of the law hadn’t been given yet, there is a law in the Book of Deuteronomy that addresses this sort of situation. God’s Law says:

“If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.” (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)

Of course, the instruction of Deuteronomy 22:28-29 was for members of the Israelite community. But it is worth noting that with respect to male-female relations in general, Shechem’s proposed solution is in line with God’s Law – thus the reasonable part of his solution. However, since Shechem is a Canaanite, his Canaanite status renders his proposed solution only almost reasonable. If Shechem was a Hebrew, his proposed solution would have been spot on. But since he is a Canaanite, his proposed solution would be ‘dead on arrival’ if Jacob’s family was prepared to hold the line on no intermarriage with the Canaanites, in accordance with the tradition of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Regarding Jacob’s response to this situation, I wonder if Jacob felt any sympathy for Shechem. He heard about the defilement, but remained quiet until his sons returned from the field (v. 5). Jacob might have seen in Shechem’s love for Dinah a reminder of his own ardent affection for Rachel back in Genesis 28. Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, and yet they seemed like a few days because of his great love for her – and here Shechem is willing to pay a great price for Dinah. Further, Shechem asks, “Let me find favor in your eyes” (v. 11). In Genesis 33, Jacob had desired and found favor in Esau’s eyes (Genesis 33:8, 10, 15). Now a young man wants to find favor in Jacob’s eyes. Unfortunately, we never get Jacob’s perspective on a proper course of action. He doesn’t speak until the end of the chapter.

Meanwhile, Jacob’s sons are getting stirred up: they “were indignant and very angry” (v. 7) at what Shechem had done. Although it is good and right that they feel devoted to the honor of their family and of their sister, their anger sets the stage for what happens next. Although sin is despicable and it defiles, and although righteous anger is to be commended, the important question is: is our response to sin going to be governed by God’s righteousness, or is it going to be governed by our emotions? If our exceeding anger isn’t quickly checked and submitted to God’s will, that anger will create far greater problems than the problem of the initial offense.

An Unrighteous Response is Pursued (v. 13-29)

So, in verses 13-29, Jacob’s very angry sons pursue an unrighteous response to Shechem’s sin. Their whole plan is framed with deceit (v. 13). They propose a covenant with the Shechemites: the Shechemites were required to be circumcised, then there would be the uniting of Israel and Shechem through intermarriage (v. 14-17). Although it would have been unwise for Israel to enter into such a covenant with the Shechemites, at this particular moment in time Jacob’s family should have been neighborly toward them. And yet, Jacob’s sons are engaged in treachery. The description of the treacherous one of Psalm 55:21 seems apropos: “His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.” (Psalm 55:21) And Proverbs 3:29 says, “Do not plan evil against your neighbor, who dwells trustingly beside you.”

The Shechemites did dwell trustingly beside Jacob’s family. Shechem and his father trusted Jacob’s sons. Shechem and Hamor told the men of the city, “These men are at peace with us” (v. 21). Shechem also told them that forming a covenant and pursuing intermarriage with Jacob’s family would be beneficial and enriching to them. And so, the men of the city agreed to the terms, “and every male was circumcised” (v. 24).

Afterward, when the Shechemite men were sore and weakened from the circumcision, Simeon and Levi massacred the Shechemites (v. 25-26). They “killed all the males” (v. 25), including Hamor and Shechem (v. 26), and they “took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and went away” (v. 26). It is important to note that Simeon and Levi were sons of Leah, and thus they were full brothers to Dinah, and so they would have cared more deeply about this whole situation than Dinah’s half-brothers. After Simeon and Levi concluded the massacre, other sons of Jacob “plundered the city” (v. 27) and captured the livestock, the women, and the children of the city (v. 28-29).

The Result is Trouble (v. 30-31)

As far as Jacob was concerned, the actions of Simeon and Levi only succeeded at bringing trouble and shame upon Jacob, and at threating the safety of Jacob and Jacob’s household. To put it simply: Simeon’s and Levi’s unrighteous response to sin brought trouble upon their household.

We should know and understand for certain that the actions of Jacob’s sons, especially the murderous actions of Simeon and Levi, were exceedingly wrong. There are a number of pointers for us:

• First, Jacob’s sons act deceitfully (v. 13). Apparently deceit runs deeply in this family! Actually, deceit runs deeply in the entire human race (Romans 3:13).

• Second, in accordance with the biblical principle that the punishment should fit the crime, the massacre of the entire adult male population, the destruction of the male head of every family, and the plundering of their property and the enslavement of the women and children, is wildly disproportionate to Shechem’s sin – and this is true whether Shechem’s specific sin was the sin of consensual premarital sex, seduction, or rape.

• Third, an article from Ligonier Ministries makes an insightful observation: “they [Simeon and Levi] use the ceremony of circumcision, in which God pledges to keep His covenant promises faithfully (17:1–14), in order to deceive Hamor and his subjects (34:13).”[1] It would be like utilizing the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper or the ordinance of Baptism as a trap to lure and then massacre people who had sinned against us. It is a sacrilege. It empties the Lord’s covenant of its proper meaning. If the Shechemites were truly receiving the covenant of circumcision as an act of conversion to the God of Israel, that would have been an entirely different matter. God always welcomes those who repent and believe. But as it happened, the circumcision was part of a ploy to feign peace-making in order to make war.

• Fourth, Jacob expresses his displeasure at the conduct of Simeon and Levi in verse 30: “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. My numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.” (v. 30) Simeon and Levi protest: “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?” (v. 31) That question just sort of hangs in the air as the account comes to a close. Obviously it is not right for Shechem to treat Dinah like a prostitute. But it is also not right for Simeon and Levi to treat all the men of Shechem like enemy combatants. Looking ahead, Simeon’s and Levi’s question “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?” hangs uncomfortably in the air because in the next chapter, their full brother Reuben is going to lay with Jacob’s concubine Bilhah, and then in Genesis 38 their full brother Judah is going to marry a Canaanite woman, and later in Genesis 38 Judah literally treats his daughter-in-law Tamar like a prostitute and sleeps with her. Verses 30-31 are a window through which we see that Jacob’s family is a mess!

• Fifth, and most decisively, when Jacob makes pronouncements over his sons at the end of his life, Jacob – no doubt being led by the Spirit of God – imposes punishment upon Simeon and Levi for their conduct in Genesis 34. Jacob says in Genesis 49:

“Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. Let my soul come not into their council; O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen. Cursed by their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.” (Genesis 49:5-7)

However you may assess Shechem’s sin, the point of the text is obvious: Jacob’s sons, especially Simeon and Levi, responded unjustly to Shechem’s sin against Dinah, and as a result they brought trouble upon their father and their father’s house, and ultimately upon their own house.

And this same dynamic will play out in big ways and small ways in our lives. Husbands, your unrighteous response to sin will bring trouble upon your household. Wives, your unrighteous response to sin will bring trouble upon your household. Men and women of the church: your unrighteous response to sin will bring trouble upon your church family. Instead of being the aroma of life to the pagans of the land, you will stink! Instead of abiding in peace, you will feel weakened and threatened! All because you didn’t response to sin righteously.

TWO IMPORTANT LESSONS FROM GENESIS 34

In light of this passage, I desire to leave you with two important lessons: first, a moral exhortation; and second, a spiritual encouragement.

Moral Exhortation

First, the moral exhortation: by God’s grace, eagerly pursue just and righteous responses to other people’s sin. ‘Just and righteous’ encompasses not only honesty and truthfulness and correction, but also humility and gentleness and graciousness. Do your very best to make sure that your responses to other people’s sin are in accordance with God’s character and God’s instruction as revealed in Scripture. Swallow your pride, and rid yourself of vindictiveness. Open up your Bible, or get together with other Bible-saturated people, and find out what is pleasing to the Lord.

One of the interesting things about Genesis 34 is that it doesn’t tell us what a righteous response would have been. What it does tell us is that the response of Jacob’s sons was not righteous. And unrighteous responses are what happen when sinful human beings attempt to handle difficulties in their own wisdom. There is no prayer in Genesis 34. God hears and answers the prayers of His people. Jacob had prayed for deliverance from Esau in Genesis 32:11, and God answered that prayer. In Genesis 35 Jacob refers to God as “the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” (Genesis 35:3) And in Genesis 35:5 God goes before them and brings “terror… upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.” (Genesis 35:5) But in Genesis 34, Jacob’s sons ‘jump the gun’. There is no seeking of God’s will. They act in accordance with their sinful flesh. Jacob’s sons given over to anger, deceit, malice, and greed. So, take heed. It is exceedingly foolish to attempt to address other people’s sins in your own wisdom and strength. You must put sinful responses to death. Put away fierce anger and cruel wrath! Biblical responses to other people’s sin include: prayer and petition, confrontation and correction, forbearance and forgiveness, no slander and no malicious gossip and no belittling the other person, no personal vengeance, no bitterness. Remember what Jesus taught us to pray: “Our Father in heaven… forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:9, 12-13).

Don’t be fooled. The sign of a healthy church is not the absence of sin. You will never find a church community this side of heaven in which sin doesn’t happen on a regular basis. The sign of a healthy church is not the absence of sin. The sign of a healthy family is not the absence of sin. In fact, we should expect sin to come at us from the outside world (Matthew 5:10-12), and we should also expect sin to take place from within the body of believers (Colossians 3:12-13). So remember this: the sign of a healthy church – the sign of a healthy family – is that when there is sin, when there is conflict, when there is a problem, we deal with it biblically, humbly, and graciously.

Spiritual Encouragement

Second, I don’t want to leave you with only a moral exhortation, as important as it is. I want to leave you with a massive encouragement that there is a firm foundation beneath your feet, even after you have responded to sin unrighteously. As human beings, our circumstances change: Jacob dwelt in safety at the end of Genesis 33 but had turbulence at the end of Genesis 34. As human beings, we ourselves are unreliable: sometimes we do the right thing, and sometimes we don’t. But we need to understand that God does not change and His plan for His people doesn’t change. Just think about God’s plan for Jacob: God’s plan is to bless Jacob with a large family-nation and then through Jacob’s family to bless every family on earth (Genesis 28:14). Then you turn to Genesis 34 and things look ugly. Jacob’s family is a mess: his sons are unprincipled men, and we’re going to keep learning about their unprincipled ways in the upcoming chapters. Jacob’s family is a mess, and instead of being a blessing to the city of Shechem, they massacre the city. If Jacob’s family is ever going to embody God’s righteousness and bring blessing to the whole world, then some serious transformation is needed!

But here’s the beautiful thing: in Genesis 32, God changes Jacob’s name to Israel and God blesses Jacob. Do you know what happens in Genesis 35? God blesses Jacob again and reaffirms Jacob’s name change to Israel and reaffirms the promise (see v. 11). So here’s the lesson: God is determined to bless Jacob’s family and make Jacob’s family a blessing to every family, even though Jacob’s family and frankly every other family is really messed up! I really hope that this encourages you and your family and our congregation. By all means let’s pursue righteousness, but at the end of the day let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that the fulfillment of God’s plan depends on our performance. God is determined to bring blessing to us and through us, in spite of our sinfulness.

Shechem, the most honored son of his father’s house, was willing to pay anything in order to obtain Dinah as his bride. But Shechem was a sinner among sinners, and things went sideways. Jesus, however, is the one and only honored and beloved son of the Father in heaven, and He paid everything in order to obtain the church as His bride. 

The legacy of Genesis 34 is that Simeon and Levi addressed sin unrighteously by murdering other sinners. By contrast, the truth of the gospel is that Jesus, the prince of glory and great high priest, addressed sin righteously by being sacrificed in our place. And His great mercy must shape the way that we respond to other people’s sin.

ENDNOTES

[1] Ligonier Ministries, “Simeon and Levi Attack (Genesis 34:25-29).” May 14, 2007. Available online at https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/simeon-and-levi-attack.