CHAPTER 34 Jan. 20 
Shechem Sleeps with Dinah 
Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. 2Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her. He took her, lay with her, and humbled her. 3His soul joined to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the young lady, and spoke kindly to the young lady. 4Shechem spoke to his father, Hamor, saying, Get me this young lady as a wife. 5Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah, his daughter; and his sons were with his livestock in the field. Jacob held his peace until they came. 6Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to talk with him. 7The sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it. The men were grieved, and they were very angry, because he had done folly in Israel in lying with Jacob’s daughter; a thing which ought not to be done. 8Hamor talked with them, saying, The soul of my son, Shechem, longs for your daughter. Please give her to him as a wife. 9Make marriages with us, give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves. 10You shall dwell with us, and the land will be before you. Live and trade in it, and get possessions in it. 11Shechem said to her father and to her brothers, Let me find favour in your eyes, and whatever you will tell me I will give. 12Ask me a great amount for a dowry, and I will give whatever you ask of me, but give me the young lady as a wife.
Jacob’s Sons Take Revenge 
13The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father with deceit, and spoke, because he had defiled Dinah their sister, 14and said to them, We can’t do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised; for that is a reproach to us. 15Only on this condition will we consent to you. If you will be as we are, that every male of you be circumcised; 16then will we 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. 17But if you will not listen to us, to be circumcised, then we will take our sister, and we will be gone. 18Their words pleased Hamor and Shechem, Hamor’s son. 19The young man didn’t wait to do this thing, because he had delight in Jacob’s daughter, and he was honoured above all the house of his father. 20Hamor and Shechem, his son, came to the gate of their city, and talked with the men of their city, saying, 21These men are peaceful with us. Therefore let them live in the land and trade in it. For behold, the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters. 22Only on this condition will the men consent to us to live with us, to become one people, if every male among us is circumcised, as they are circumcised. 23Won’t their livestock and their possessions and all their animals be ours? Only let us give our consent to them, and they will dwell with us. 24All who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor, and to Shechem his son; and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city. 25It happened on the third day, when they were sore, that two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword, came upon the unsuspecting city, and killed all the males. 26They killed Hamor and Shechem, his son, with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house, and went away. 27Jacob’s sons came on the dead, and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister. 28They took their flocks, their herds, their donkeys, that which was in the city, that which was in the field, 29and all their wealth. They took captive all their little ones and their wives, and took as plunder everything that was in the house. 30Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, You have troubled me, to make me odious to the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me and slay me, and I shall be destroyed, I and my house. 31They said, Should he deal with our sister as with a prostitute?

Commentary

34:2 The story clearly shows the danger of young people from believing families mixing with unbelievers in an uncontrolled environment- what begins as curiosity can very quickly descend into serious failure with lifelong consequences.
34:16 Marriage out of the Faith reflects a lack of appreciation of covenant relationship. If Dinah had married Hamor, this would have been a covenant relationship which would have resulted in the people of God and the surrounding world becoming “one people” (Gen. 34:16,22).  Through baptism, we are the seed of Abraham, we are the people of God, we have been selected to undergo a few years preparation now, so that when the Lord comes we may enter His Kingdom.
34:30 So true to our experience, even after the night of wrestling Jacob slipped back at times into the old way of thinking. His pathetic bleating of 34:30 is a case of this: “I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house”. Just note all those personal pronouns. God had promised to go with him, and the whole tenor of all the promises was that there would come a singular seed from the line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who would become a great house, or nation. But in the heat of the moment, all this went out of the window. Our faith in the implications of God’s promises to us- we who through baptism have the same Abrahamic promises made to us- can likewise easily become obscured by the immediate pressures of this world.