Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves.
Jacob's daughter Dinah has been wronged, and the father of the man who did it now comes with an offer. It reaches far past one wedding: trading daughters would blend the two families into one people.
A Proposal That Looked Generous
Hamor does not come as an enemy. He comes as a neighbour who thinks he is doing the decent thing by Dinah's family.
Leslie M. GrantHamor came at this time to tell them that Shechem had real affection for Dinah and wanted to marry her. At the same time he invited them to remain in the land and have their families intermarry. No doubt to the mind of Hamor this was the honorable way to meet the question. Shechem adds to this that he is willing to pay any dowry that they might ask of him for Dinah.
What "One People" Means
The offer is not only about Dinah. Give daughters and take daughters, and in a generation the two families are one. Commentators hear in it the same offer the world still makes.
G. C. WillisHamor also promised to give Jacob many things. He suggested that they might be one people, living in the land, trading, and marrying together. Just like the world of today; they want Christians to be one with them — no difference. O Christians, be careful! The Lord says, "Go out from their midst, and be separate from them" (2 Cor. 6:17). The world says, "We may be one."
Why the Offer Could Be Made at All
Nobody offers a merger to a man who is only passing through. Jacob had bought land at Shechem and settled on it, and that is what made Hamor's offer possible. The wall was already down, and Jacob had taken it down himself.
J. G. BellettIn self-will a man had been killed there, and a fence thrown down. But surely Jacob himself had dug down God's fence before. God's call had raised a wall between the clean and the unclean, between the circumcised and the Gentile. Jacob himself, in spirit, had broken that wall down when he settled at Shechem as a citizen and landowner on the estate he had bought.
Damage in the Next Generation
The cost of Jacob's settling did not fall on him first. It fell on his children.
F. B. HoleThe whole of Genesis 34 is taken up with the unhappy results that sprang from Jacob lowering his separation from the world... The world is just the same today. How often we have to hang our heads in shame and admit that a little living on the world's border, on our part as Christian parents, has led to sorrow and even disaster in our families.
A Refusal Worse Than the Offer
Jacob's sons answer Hamor with a condition of their own. Saying no to the world's terms is right; saying no by treachery is a second evil.
William KellyThen Jacob's sons stepped in with guile, making circumcision for every male their condition. They had not the smallest thought or wish of inviting 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 as they ignored their father. Shechem was guilty of a great wrong; but Dinah too was in fault. Neither their mothers nor their grandmother came from circumcised fathers, and no reverent or careful reluctance showed itself in their own marriages. The condition was a lying and cowardly pretext to carry out their resentment to the full.
The Way Back
The remedy is not a small repair at Shechem. God calls Jacob away from it, up to Bethel.
C. H. Mackintosh"God said to Jacob, 'Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there.'" When there is failure or decline, the Lord calls the soul back to Himself... The soul must be recalled to the very highest point; it must be brought back to the divine standard. The Lord does not say, "remember where you are"; no, but "remember the lofty position from which you have fallen."
Summary
- Fence. God's call drew a line between Jacob's family and Canaan. Jacob pulled it down himself when he bought land at Shechem and settled there.
- Offer. With the line gone, Hamor could propose marriage between the families, and any dowry they asked. By local custom it looked honourable.
- Merger. The real ask was not one wedding but "one people". The world still makes the same offer: let there be no difference left.
- Harvest. The cost fell on the children. Dinah was wronged, and her brothers turned circumcision into a lying pretext for massacre.
- Return. The answer is not damage control at Shechem. God calls Jacob up to Bethel — back to the highest point, not the nearest one.