Shame In Shechem Series

Where is Jacob’s voice in all this? His sons are taking the lead, and they want revenge. Now, in this day and age, the proposal of circumcision was not an unusual request, because at times it was seen as an initiation into marriageable status. So…

Genesis 34:18-20 Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem. The young man, who was the most honored of all his father’s household, lost no time in doing what they said, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter. So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city to speak to their fellow townsmen. (NIV)

The gate of the city was where all public transactions took place.

Genesis 34:21-23 “These men are friendly toward us,” they said. “Let them live in our land and trade in it; the land has plenty of room for them. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours. But the men will consent to live with us as one people only on the condition that our males be circumcised, as they themselves are. Won’t their livestock, their property and all their other animals become ours? So let us give our consent to them, and they will settle among us.” (NIV)

Through marriage, the men of Shechem hope to gain access to all of Jacob’s wealth. So…

Genesis 34:24 All the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male in the city was circumcised. (NIV)

Ouch!

Genesis 34:25-29 Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male. They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took Dinah from Shechem’s house and left. The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where their sister had been defiled. They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields. They carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses. (NIV)

Because of Jacob’s silence, his sons completely overreact. And in their anger, they slaughter an entire city and loot its wealth. They themselves become murderers and thieves, much worse than the men of Shechem ever were.

Genesis 34:30-31 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me a stench to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land. We are few in number, and if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.” But they replied, “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?” (NIV)

Jacob finally says something, but it is too little too late. The culture has corrupted his family, and now Jacob fears for their very lives. But that’s what compromise does to people and their families. It leads to indecision and indignation. It destroys integrity. It corrupts families, and it breeds fear.

Now, when Moses writes this account in the life of Jacob hundreds of years later, he is writing it to a generation of Israelites getting ready to conquer the land of Canaan. In essence, he is describing the kind of corruption the Canaanites can bring to the people of Israel, and he is warning Israel not to intermarry with the Canaanites after they enter the land.