Chapter 34
Drafted by Grok 4.7 on 8 October 2026. First draft. Not independently reviewed. Leningrad Codex, through the Open Scriptures Westminster Leningrad Codex. The written consonants are printed. A Masoretic reading is footnoted when it differs. No Dead Sea reading was substituted unless it was read from a fragment. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.
1Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land.
2Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the chief of the land, saw her. He took her, lay with her, and violated her.
Notes (1)Hide notes
- Translation
“Violated” is innah, the verb this codex uses when a woman is forced. It is not a mild word for dishonor alone.
3His whole self clung to Dinah, Jacob’s daughter. He loved the young woman and spoke to her heart.
Notes (1)Hide notes
- Translation
“Spoke to her heart” is the Hebrew. It means he spoke tenderly. The idiom is kept in plain English as speaking to her heart.
4Shechem said to Hamor his father, “Get me this girl as a wife.”
5Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter. His sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob kept silent until they came in.
6Hamor, Shechem’s father, went out to Jacob to speak with him.
7Jacob’s sons came in from the field when they heard. The men were wounded and very angry, because he had done a disgraceful thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, and such a thing is not done.
8Hamor spoke with them. He said, “My son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him as a wife.
9Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves.
10You will live with us, and the land will be open before you. Settle, move about in it, and acquire holdings in it.”
11Shechem said to her father and to her brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you tell me I will give.
12Raise the bride-price and the gift as high as you wish, and I will give whatever you tell me. Only give me the young woman as a wife.”
13Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and Hamor his father with deceit, because he had defiled Dinah their sister.
14They said to them, “We cannot do this, to give our sister to a man who still has a foreskin, for that would be a disgrace to us.
15Only on this condition will we agree with you: if you become like us, by circumcising every male among you.
16Then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters for ourselves, and we will live with you and become one people.
17But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, we will take our daughter and go.”
18Their words seemed good to Hamor and to Shechem, Hamor’s son.
19The young man did not delay to do the thing, because he delighted in Jacob’s daughter. He was the most honored in all his father’s house.
20Hamor and Shechem his son came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city.
21“These men are at peace with us. Let them live in the land and move about in it. The land is wide enough for them. We will take their daughters as wives, and we will give them our daughters.
22Only on this condition will the men agree to live with us and become one people: that every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised.
23Will not their livestock, their property, and all their animals be ours? Only let us agree with them, and they will live with us.”
24All who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and to Shechem his son, and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city.
25On the third day, when they were in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took each his sword, came against the city while it felt secure, and killed every male.
26They killed Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and went out.
27The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister.
28They took their flocks, their herds, and their donkeys, what was in the city and what was in the field.
29All their wealth, all their little ones, and their wives they took captive, and they plundered all that was in the houses.
30Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink among the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am few in number. If they gather against me and strike me, I will be destroyed, I and my household.”
31They said, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?”