Only on this condition will we agree with you — that you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised.
Shechem wants to marry Dinah, and his father Hamor has asked Jacob's family to join with his people as one. The sons answer with a single condition — circumcision — and the chapter shows what happens when people use a holy sign for an unholy purpose.
The trap inside the condition
The terms sound like an invitation into the covenant. They were nothing of the kind.
William KellyThen Jacob's sons stepped in with guile, setting the condition that every male be circumcised. They had not the smallest thought or wish of bringing the Shechemites into the covenant. It was the basest treachery, meant to trap and massacre them. Jacob had nothing to do with the cruel secret. Their pride and revenge ignored God just as it ignored their father. … The condition was a lying and cowardly pretext to carry their resentment to the limit.
The sons' offer came with a promise and a threat.
Leslie M. GrantNo doubt Jacob did not suspect their motives at all. But their words to Shechem and Hamor were cruel deceit. They said they could only agree to Hamor's suggestion if all the males of the land were circumcised. They even promised that if the men were circumcised, they would live together as one people, willing to marry the local people. If the men would not agree to be circumcised, the brothers said they would take Dinah with them and leave the country.
What the sign meant
They offered God's own mark on His people as an entry fee. That mark meant the opposite of the merger on the table.
Morrish Bible DictionaryCircumcision was the rite appointed by God as a token of the covenant that He made with Abraham and his descendants. It was also the seal of the righteousness of his faith… It signified the separation of a people from the world to God… Against God's design, circumcision became a mere formal act when the covenant itself was ignored.
So they offered the sign of separation as the price of mixing. They kept the form and emptied out the meaning.
The pull to be one with the world
Hamor wanted the merger too, and he made it sound attractive. One writer sees the same pressure on Christians today.
G C WillisJacob and his sons all knew they should not agree, but they spoke deceitfully. Hamor also promised to give Jacob many things, and suggested they might be one people and live in the land and trade and marry together. Just like the world of today; they want Christians to be one with them — no difference. Christians, be careful! The Lord says, "Go out from their midst, and be separate" (2 Corinthians 6:17). The world says, "We may be one." The Lord says, "Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity" (2 Timothy 2:19).
Where the trouble began
The trouble started before any of this. Jacob had settled at Shechem.
F. B. HoleThe whole of Genesis 34 is filled with the unhappy results that sprang from the lowering of Jacob's separation from the world. Its effects for evil were not seen in Jacob himself, but in his family. The tide of evil runs in two broad channels: violence and corruption… The world is just the same today. How often we have to hang our heads in shame and confess that a little compromise with the world on our part, as Christian parents, has led to sorrow and even disaster in our families.
When the trouble came, Jacob looked at his sons rather than at himself.
C. H. MackintoshInstead of looking at Simeon and Levi, or at the consequences of their rash action, he should have judged himself for being in such a position at all. If he had not settled at Shechem, no one would have dishonoured Dinah, and his sons would never have shown their violence. We constantly see Christians getting into deep sorrow and trouble through their own unfaithfulness. Then, instead of judging themselves, they look at their circumstances and blame them.
God's verdict on the bargain
The bargain did not buy Jacob peace.
Numerical Bible NotesThen comes the slaughter of the Shechemites. It was a judgment so cruel, and with so much deceit in it, that the Spirit of God later pronounced it accursed through Jacob himself. And now Jacob is shaken out of his ease and security, and plunged into distress and fear once more. God's grace will not comfort those who refuse to use it in a holy way.
The revenge outran the wrong it punished: "their dealings with the city were far worse than was Shechem's sin" (Leslie M. Grant).
Summary
- Compromise. The chapter's disasters trace back to one step: Jacob settled at Shechem and lowered his separation from the world. The damage showed up in his children, not in himself.
- Cover. His sons named the covenant sign as their one condition. They had no wish to bring anyone into the covenant. It was a pretext to trap and kill.
- Contradiction. Circumcision stood for a people separated to God. Offering it as the entry fee for intermarriage emptied the sign of the very thing it signified.
- Consequence. Revenge dressed in religion ended worse than the sin it punished. Jacob himself later called it accursed.
- Correction. Jacob blamed his circumstances rather than himself. The lesson is self-judgment: grace does not comfort those who refuse to use it in a holy way.