Genesis 34:8 Commentary and Bible Study

Hamor puts it very tenderly. ‘The soul of my son, Shechem, longeth for your daughter. I pray you, give her him to wife.’ His discussions with the sons seem to be taking place apart from his discussions with Jacob. He says, ‘Make ye marriages with us.’ Let our tribes fuse and join – the church and the world joined together. Of course he doesn't realise the implications – this local squire, this city-state king – of what he is saying: that they are under God's command to keep themselves apart and pure. He does not realise that the church and the world cannot be joined. Jacob’s family has received a commandment from the Lord to live apart from the Canaanites, and so there can be no marriage between them. In the same way the Lord’s people cannot be yoked together in marriage with unbelievers. He says nothing even now about his son having done anything wrong, or about any shame associated with the event. Shechem comes with the same message: ‘Shechem said unto her father [Dinah's father] and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes.’ He makes a great undertaking: ‘What ye shall say unto me, I will give. Ask me never so much dowry and gift.’ He was very wealthy he could pay his way out of trouble, he thought. He was the most honourable of all the young men in that town: the passage goes on to say so. And if he was the best, whatever were the others like? He had the attitude of a Saudi prince: I can do what I like, and pay my way out of it. ‘Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife.’