Text: Genesis 34 (ESV)
1Now 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?”
One way to read Genesis 34 is to read it as one big cautionary tale. Like God recorded it for us to say, “Don’t be like any of these characters here. Don’t be too curious and foolish like Dinah. Don’t be like lust-crazed Shechem. Don’t be like Hamor the spineless father who doesn’t correct his son but bows to his every whim. Don’t be like Jacob who is much to passive and fearful. Don’t be like Simeon and Levi who are much to aggressive and presumptuous and seek revenge instead of leaving vengeance to the Lord. The end.”
Another thought that often comes to my mind when reading texts like this is that if the Bible was just mythology to get people to believe a lie, stories that do not endear our heroes and fathers (i.e. Jacob, Simeon, Levi), would have no logical reason to be included.
I believe both of these thoughts are true enough. But still there must be more here than just a cautionary tale or abstract proof that the Bible is true. Genesis 34 is not just a teaching on why we should avoid sexual sin. Or why we should leave vengeance to the Lord. This story isn’t pointing us to moralism even though it may certainly communicate moral truths, and I believe it does however, more than that, this chapter, like every chapter, ultimately points us to Jesus and to His gospel. Which means this chapter calls us to trust in God.
If you struggle (and when you struggle) with seeing Jesus in all of Scripture, the first thing you must do is get on your face and beg your Heavenly Father to open up His word to you by the power of the Holy Spirit. Beg your God to show you His Son. And then get up open your Bible, read commentaries, read theology books, and listen to sermons.
When you do this you can be absolutely certain your Father will begin to show you Jesus. You will begin to see that there really is a gospel thread throughout the entire Bible. You will begin to see that the meta-narrative of the entire Bible is the defeat of a dragon and the divine redemption of a damsel in distress. The whole Bible summed up in one sentence is: How God sent His Son to kill the dragon and get the girl.
I freely grant that this is not alway easy to see. If you only read a little chunk of Scripture for 15 minutes in the morning you won’t necessarily alway immediately pick up on this overarching theme. It is not always easy when you are reading your Bible and it is not always easy when you are reading your own messy stories. And that is true but you must always keep in mind that you are still on the back side of a tapestry. We are seeing a bunch of loose ends that will ultimately culminate in Christ who has conquered sin and defeated death and the devil.
Genesis 34 points us to this Messiah and to His Gospel so lets pray that God would illuminate His word to us and that we would see.
Heavenly Father please show us Jesus. God search our hearts and take away those things that hinder us from seeing our Messiah in Your word. Open our eyes and ears and minds. For Christ’s sake we ask this. Amen.
Jacob comes to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, and here he camps before the city. Jacob buys from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, the piece of land where he is camping. At camp Jacob erects an alter and calls it El-Elohe-Israel, which means God, the God of Israel.
Dinah’s troubles begin when she goes out to “see the women of the land.” Shechem the Hivite, sees Dinah and takes her and has his way with her. He defiles and humiliates her.
We may assume this is portraying a violent rape, but the hebrew text apparently does not describe this as being that severe and more likely she was seduced. On one hand it is clear she is taken advantage of and Shechem acted sinfully. On the other hand, we are told that he has fallen madly in love with her.
Shechem tells his father, Hamor the Hivite, who is the prince of the city that is also named Shechem, that he must marry Dinah. So they go to make an offer to Jacob. It was customary in that day to let the older brothers be the negotiators for the marriages of their younger sisters, so Jacob holds his peace and waits for his sons to get back from their work. The sons of Jacob return and hear what has been done to their sister and they are, not surprisingly, furious.
In an effort to pacify Dinah’s brothers, Hamor tells them just how much his son wants to marry their sister. Shechem himself pledges his love for Dinah and in exchange for Dinah’s hand in marriage, he offers them a very great bride price as well as a whatever they wanted as a gift.
But notice that what we see from Hamor is not only a plea for this one particular marriage between Jacob’s daughter and his son, rather he is asking for God’s covenant people to intermarry with his people, the Hivites.
Israel intermarrying with other nations was frowned upon and commands would later be included in the law of Moses it. So the brothers were right in not giving in to Hamor’s request for God’s people to intermarry with the Hivites which would have meant forsaking their distinct identity and assimilating into this pagan culture. However it is clear that Jacob’s sons were not concerned with God’s glory but instead they are fixated on revenge.
They devise a plan. Jacob, the deceiver, is reaping, in his children, what he himself had sown. His sons tell Shechem and Hamor that they would agree to allow Dinah, and their daughters to marry the Hivites, and that they would take their daughters to wife as well, if all the men of Shechem would become like them and be circumcised.
But they never intend to give them Dinah or their daughters to the men of Shechem, but to kill them all while they are recovering and incapable of fighting back. And on the third day, this is exactly what they do.
Their plan works. The men agree. Shechem is so in love with Dinah, and Hamor obviously likes the idea of peace with this great and wealthy people and in a display of their considerable power and influence, Shechem and Hamor convince the men of their city to take God’s sign of the covenant and be circumcised.
While the men of Shechem are recovering from the painful procedure, Simeon and Levi, who were Dinah’s full brothers by Leah, take swords and attack. They kill Hamor and Shechem and take their sister out of his house. They kill all the men and then the sons of Jacob, consumed with revenge, plunder the city taking sheep and oxen and their donkeys, all their wealth, all their little ones, their wives, and all that is in their houses.
Afterward Jacob says 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.” And instead of being repentant for their own sin, the sons justify themselves to their father.
Remember, Jacob comes to this land and builds an alter pointing to God. Jacob’s worship of God—his devotion to God—is a visible sign and a testimony to the surrounding gentiles. Jacob was light in a dark land. He was a sent witness of the one true God.
This is why it was a problem for Israel to intermarry with other nations. They were to stand apart as distinct, holy, sanctified. They were to bear witness to the otherness and superiority of their God over and against all the many gods of the nations.
Abraham made it clear Isaac was not to take a wife of the daughters of the Canaanites (Gen. 24:3). Isaac when he had blessed Jacob, charged him that he should not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan (Gen. 28:1). Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan did not please Isaac (Gen. 28:8). The reason for this, at least in part, was a matter of covenant.
In other words, it isn’t right for two different kinds to be joined together—to covenant together. This is why the law forbad Israel to plant two different kinds of grape seeds in a vineyard (Deut. 22:9), or to yoke an ox and a donkey together to plow (Deut. 22:10), or wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together (Deut. 22:11). This is why, if we are to have fellowship with God, if we are to be in everlasting covenant with God, we must be born again. We must be changed.
In 2 Corinthians 6:14 and following Paul says,
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,
says the Lord Almighty”
So God called Abraham out from his father’s house and from his country, to follow God by faith; to be a witness and to bring about the blessing of all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:3). God’s people were and are to live distinct lives, as those who have been set free and set apart by and to a holy God—who have been called out of darkness into light. Out of slavery into freedom. Out of death into life.
Hopefully we can all see that what Simeon and Levi did here was not justice, it was not right by any calculation. Even if we assume that Dinah suffered the most severe violence, Shechem’s private and personal sin does not warrant the destruction of every male of that city. This is vengeance. This is a massacre. This is pure hatred.
But this is not all. Not only are Simeon and Levi guilty of murder, vengeance, and hatred, they vainly and falsely use God as the pretext for this slaughter, and in the process, they are completely perverting and disregarding the meaning and significance of circumcision.
Circumcision was the sign that God gave to Abraham to identify His people. Circumcision, as a sign of God’s covenant, signaled freedom from a yoke of bondage. It was a sign that the old man has been put off, that the bondage of the flesh had been removed. Consequently, the actual cutting away of the foreskin, which was obviously only applicable to males, was itself pointing to the cutting away that necessarily had to take place in the hearts of all of God’s sons and daughters both in the old and in the new covenant.
Circumcision was given as a sign that God’s people have passed from death to life; that we have been shown favor and grace by the covenant keeping God. Yet here in Genesis 34 the sons of Jacob are completely unmoved by the fact that the very pagans who they are a witness to and that Jacob was a witness to, have actually accepted the sign of the covenant of the God of Israel!
Did not they remember that through Abraham, and his mighty nation God was going to bless all the families of the earth? Did not they remember that it was to Abraham that God gave this calling and the sign of this calling was circumcision?
The argument can be made that these Hivites were only vainly agreeing to be circumcised for selfish gain but regardless we should recognize the work of the Holy Spirit here. We should recognize the effectual promise of God to bless the nations at work here in this tragic mess that is Genesis 34.
Think about this, here we have a young Levi, the namesake of the Priests and mediators between men and God, saying to these Hivites, obey God, the God of Israel and we will become one people. Levi is lying and deceiving, but God is not. Proverbs 16:1 says, “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.”
So instead of rejoicing at the repentance of Shechem (Gen. 34:11) and the unbelievable willingness of the Hivites to come into the kingdom of God—into the covenant of God, Simeon and Levi kill their covenant brothers and they hamstring their father in his ability to witness to the surrounding gentiles.
In Genesis 49:5-7, as Jacob is preparing to die, he blesses his sons. And when he comes to Simeon and Levi, Jacob’s words to them are regarding the events of Genesis 34. Toward the end of the blessing Jacob says they hamstrung an ox. This is odd because if you remember, we are told they took their flocks and their herds; their sheep and oxen and donkeys. So what then is Jacob talking about?
If you compare the hebrew texts of Genesis 49:6, “Hamstrung an ox” with Genesis 34:30, “You have troubled me” you would notice a pun. The hebrew word for hamstrung is`aqar while the hebrew word for troubled is`akar. This could be a coincidence but I don’t believe that. I believe that Jacob is talking about himself as an ox and his own witness that was hamstrung by his sons. His labors among the nations were troubled by his sons. They made Jacob to “stink” to the nations.
It is interesting then to note, if Jacob identifies himself as an ox (hamstrung ox), the name Hamor means donkey. Again maybe that is a coincidence. Or perhaps this event is in view later when the law was given prohibiting yoking an ox and donkey together. Regardless, it at least reminds us that those gentiles had to be transformed into a different kind by grace through faith. At the very least this is a picture to us that we must be born-again.
So remember, we are to look through the window of these chapters and verses to Christ, who is our life. Amazingly, this slaughter isn’t the end of the story of Jacob, as we go on in Genesis we will see God continues to bless him and use him. Simeon was scattered which became a blessing to them as they united with the tribe of Judah through the conquest of the promised land. The tribe of Levi was also scattered throughout Israel as a result of their sin, but again this turned out to be a blessing as they were the priestly tribe who’s inheritance was the Lord.
And then there are the Hivites. Their story doesn’t end here either. Besides being mentioned in lists and in passing a few times, there is one other story in the Bible specifically about Hivites. It is found in Joshua 9.
Hivites from Gibeon hear a report of God and all that He did in Egypt and what He did to other kings, and what He commanded Moses to do to the nations in the promised land, so they load up their donkeys and go to Joshua. These Hivites say we’ve come because of the name of the Lord your God.
In Joshua 10:2 we learn that Gibeon is a great city and all it’s men are warriors. So that means, instead of trusting in their own strength to save them they come to believe that the God of Israel is true and that His command to Moses, to destroy all of His enemies, was true. And so these great and mighty Hivites from Gibeon humble themselves and fear God. They leave their home, they forsake their strength, and they turn to Yeshua to save them.
These gentiles are in an impossible situation, they see Israel, they see Israel’s God who fights for them and they know they are staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. So they devise a cunning plan to covenant with God’s people through Joshua in order to be saved. They turn to Yeshua to save them from their inevitable demise, and he does.
Joshua and the elders, without consulting God, make peace with these gentiles. They covenant together and just like before, a covenant is made between these two people under less than ideal circumstances. Both times one party was deceiving the other. Both times the Israelites went to their new covenant brothers after three days. The difference is that this time after three days, God’s people keep covenant with their brothers instead of breaking covenant with them.
James B. Jordan points out, “It is often assumed that Yahweh would have told Joshua not to covenant with the Gibeonites but to exterminate them. But would He have? He might have enlightened Joshua about who they really were, but also welcomed them as He welcomed Rahab.”
When these Hivites from Gibeon come to Joshua, even though they are lying and deceiving, they are doing so as a means of identifying with the people of Israel (but also with the individual Israel who at one time was too a deceiver). This is ultimately a means of submitting to Joshua and to His God.
Another surprise is that while the covenant with the the Hivites at Shechem was related to Levi, now these Hivites from Gibeon come into the covenant as servants to the Levites. They are tasked with supplying the wood and water that was so integral to the mechanics of the levitical priesthood.
Now keep in mind, the Hivites deceived Joshua and Joshua made peace with them without consulting the Lord. And yet, this was divine providence. In other words, God did not say afterward, well they got me on a technicality.
No! We see in Joshua 10 God sends Joshua up to fight along side their new covenant brothers. In fact we see God Himself fights for them by throwing large stones from Heaven on the enemies. This is the battle where God made the sun stand still until His enemies are defeated.
If this covenant was simply held together by a technicality, Israel could have exploited their own loop-hole by simply not helping them and letting someone else destroy them. But when these Hivites from Gibeon were attacked, God fought for them. This was a bona fide, God-sanctioned covenant.
Much later in history when David is king, there is a famine in the land for three years and so David inquires of the Lord why this was happening. God tells David it is because Saul, acting just like Simeon and Levi, put the Gibeonites to death (2 Sam. 21:1). When Saul was king before David, in a reckless display of his nationalistic zeal, Saul massacred the Gibeonites even though, as we see in Joshua 9, Israel had sworn to spare them. So God tells David this is why He sent the famine to Israel, for the sake of these gentiles who had been brought into the covenant.
Do you see? God’s covenant is everlasting. His promise is true. In Revelation 5 John’s vision gives us a glimpse into the throne room of Heaven where four living creatures and twenty-four elders fall down before the Lamb that is standing as though it had been slain, and they sing a new song, saying,
“Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on the earth.”
Men lie. Men break covenants. Israelites lie. Hivites lie. But God does not lie. God does not break His promise.
The words of Joseph, although from a different context, speaking even to the same Simeon and Levi, couldn’t be more true, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”
Martin Luther and many men since have correctly pointed out, “God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick.”
We will fail. We will fall. We will sin. We will sin big. People we love will fail us in cruel and sinful ways. But rest assured that you cannot—they cannot—thwart God’s perfect and precious providence.
You may be a Hivite, you may feel invisible or irrelevant or abandoned by God. You may feel like He is their God but He is not my God. You may feel like you are staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. But today, if you will have Him, He is yours!
Today, you can come to an even better Yeshua for a sure and eternal promise. You are not beyond hope. Whether you are Dinah who has been wronged or Shechem who had done wrong; whether you are the men of Shechem who are caught up in someone else’s mess; whether you are an Israelite or a Hivite, you are not beyond hope. You are not beyond hope because after three days, our Yeshua, our covenant brother, kept His promise and He stands to save you. After three days, the One who is the better Joshua—the One who is the better Levi—kept His promise and He stands to save you. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for sending the true and better Joshua to save us who once were not a people, but now are Your people, who once had not received mercy, but now have received mercy. Gracious God we thank you. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
This is your charge: Hope in God who keeps His promise, when all you can see is the mess right in front of you. Remember that as long as you are wearing this skin, your vantage point is the back of the tapestry. Trust your Father’s perfect and precious providence. When all you see are the loose ends, remember that when you get to the other side you will see a completed masterpiece and it will be beautiful. On the other side, you will see Christ as bright and clear as you see the noon-time sun.
May the Lord bless you and keep you and may He make His face to shine upon you. Amen.
(This sermon is from Christ Fellowship Church in Taylor, Texas on 4/26/15.)
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