Another story you won’t hear in Sunday School (from Genesis 34)…
When Jacob’s daughter Dinah was out visiting the women in her neighborhood, a young man named Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite (who was ruler of the area) decided to have his way with her and raped her.
Hamor, realizing what his son had done, went to Jacob to make marriage arrangements with Jacob.
Hamor told Jacob and his sons, “My son Shechem is head over heels in love with your daughter—give her to him as his wife. Intermarry with us. Give your daughters to us and we’ll give our daughters to you. Live together with us as one family. Settle down among us and make yourselves at home. Prosper among us.”
However, Jacob’s sons were furious — after all — their sister had been raped by Shechem and now he wanted to marry their sister?
So Simeon and Levi quickly devised a plan.
They told Shechem and Hamor, “This is impossible. We could never give our sister to a man who was uncircumcised. Why, we’d be disgraced. The only condition on which we can talk business is if all your men become circumcised like us. Then we will freely exchange daughters in marriage and make ourselves at home among you and become one big, happy family. But if this is not an acceptable condition, we will take our sister and leave.”
Shechem thought their deal was acceptable. One foreskin for one bride.
Shechem was so smitten with Dinah that he did exactly what was asked.
Then Hamor and Shechem went to the public square and spoke to the town council: “These men like us; they are our friends. Let them settle down here and make themselves at home; there’s plenty of room in the country for them. And, just think, we can even exchange our daughters in marriage. But these men will only accept our invitation to live with us and become one big family on one condition, that all our males become circumcised just as they themselves are. This is a very good deal for us—these people are very wealthy with great herds of livestock and we’re going to get our hands on it. So let’s do what they ask and have them settle down with us.”
For some reason, all the town folk agreed and all the men were circumcised.
But grown men don’t heal from circumcision to easily.
So three days after the men made their way from the chopping block, while the men were still recovering, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, walked into the town and killed every man there. Then Jacob’s other sons came and pillaged the entire town in retaliation for Dinah’s rape.
They took all the wives and children captive and ransacked their homes for anything valuable.
However, when Jacob heard the news of what his sons had done — he was furious.
Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You’ve made my name stink to high heaven among the people here, these Canaanites and Perizzites. If they decided to gang up on us and attack, as few as we are we wouldn’t stand a chance; they’d wipe me and my people right off the map.”
They said, “Nobody is going to treat our sister like a whore and get by with it.”
