Genesis 34

Notes

1. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 74

   "Went out" is the verb of Leah in 30:16, who "went out to meet" Jacob with the mandrakes. Genesis Rabbah 80:1 sets mother and daughter side by side ("as the mother, so her daughter," Ezek 16:44) and blames the going out. The narrative lays the verbs of the wrong on Shechem (vv. 2, 5, 13) and on the city (v. 27). רָאָה בְּ "to see among" is to look at with interest, the construction of 29:32 and 21:16.

2. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 18

   Hamor's name is the noun "donkey" (חֲמוֹר), and the donkeys of the city are taken in v. 28. His son bears the city's name, שְׁכֶם, which is also the word "shoulder" (H7926). Jacob later gives Joseph "one shoulder (שְׁכֶם) above your brothers" (48:22), taken "with my sword and my bow."

3. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "lay with her" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 6, 2

   The Masoretic vowels read אֹתָהּ, the mark of the object, not אִתָּהּ "with her": "and he lay her." So also 2 Sam 13:14, of Amnon and Tamar, and Ezek 23:8. Gen 19:32–35 and 30:15–16 use עִם "with." English "lay her" is coarse in a way the Hebrew is not, so the settled gloss "lie with" is printed, and this note marks the object construction it covers (6).

4. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "defiled her" (KJV) / "humbled her" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 37

   The piel of עָנָה is "afflict," the verb of Sarai with Hagar (16:6) and of Egypt with Israel (15:13; Exod 1:11–12). Of a woman forced it is the word of the law (Deut 22:24, 29, "because he afflicted her"), of the Levite's concubine (Judg 19:24; 20:5), of Tamar (2 Sam 13:12, 14, 22, 32) and of Lam 5:11. The verb names what is done to her. The KJV's "defiled" is the family's word, טִמֵּא (vv. 5, 13, 27). The chain of "afflict" is held (37).

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 19, 2

   "Spoke on the heart" is the speech of comfort and wooing: Joseph to his brothers (50:21), the Levite to his concubine (Judg 19:3), Boaz to Ruth (Ruth 2:13), "speak on the heart of Jerusalem" (Isa 40:2), "I will speak on her heart" (Hos 2:16). "Clung" is the verb of 2:24, "he shall cling to his woman." In the Torah נַעֲרָה is written נער and read "girl," a standing qere (19).

6. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "damsel" (KJV) / "maiden" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 95

   יַלְדָּה is the feminine of יֶלֶד "child" (33:1–14): the girl sold for wine (Joel 4:3), "boys and girl-children playing in its streets" (Zech 8:5). The narrator calls Dinah "girl" (נַעֲרָה, vv. 3, 12). Shechem, speaking to his father, calls her a child of the root of "bear." "Girl-child" keeps that root (95).

7. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "folly" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 57, 3

   נְבָלָה is the deed that breaks the bonds of a people. It is used of a bride found not a virgin (Deut 22:21, "she has done an outrage in Israel"), of the Levite's concubine (Judg 19:23–24; 20:6, 10), of Achan (Josh 7:15), and of Amnon (2 Sam 13:12–13): "do not do this outrage… and you will be like one of the fools in Israel." Its root is that of נָבָל "fool" (1 Sam 25:25; Ps 14:1), who scorns what binds. In current English "folly" is a lapse of judgment, too slight for the deed, a false sense (57). "Outrage" keeps the scale, and the fool is kept in this note.

8. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 18

   Jacob's new name (32:29) is used here for the first time of a people: "an outrage in Israel" is the formula of Deut 22:21, Judg 20:6, 10 and Jer 29:23, spoken when Israel is one household. "And thus it is not done" echoes Laban: "it is not done thus in our place" (29:26).

9. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "the soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter" (KJV) / "longs for your daughter" (RSV)

   Rulings 39, 2, 6

   חָשַׁק is to fasten on, to be bound to: of the captive woman in the law, "and you fasten on her and take her for a woman" (Deut 21:11); of Adonai, "not because you were many did Adonai fasten on you" (Deut 7:7; 10:15); also 1 Kgs 9:19; Ps 91:14. Its noun names the bands (חֲשֻׁקִים) that join the pillars of the court (Exod 27:10–11; 38:10–19). "Longing" is תְּשׁוּקָה's (3:16; 4:7) and "desire" חָמַד's. Hamor varies the narrator's "clung" (v. 3), and the variation is kept (6).

10. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 6

    The hithpael of חָתַן is to become kin by marriage: "you shall not become in-laws with them" (Deut 7:3; Josh 23:12); David "becoming in-law to the king" for a bride-price of foreskins (1 Sam 18:21–27). Its noun is חָתָן, Lot's "sons-in-law" (19:12, 14). Each speech orders the giving and the taking its own way. Hamor here has "give… take," the sons in v. 16 "give… take," and Hamor to his city in v. 21 "take… give." The orders are kept (6).

11. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "get you possessions therein" (KJV) / "get property in it" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 57

    The niphal of אָחַז with a land is to get a hold in it: Israel in Goshen (47:27), Num 32:30; Josh 22:9, 19. Its noun is אֲחֻזָּה "tenure" (17:8; 23:4, 9, 20). The row gives the niphal "be caught" (22:13), which here would put a trap in Hamor's offer that he does not mean (57), so "take hold" is printed, keeping the "hold" of the qal. The reader may still hear the catch: the men who offer the land are taken in vv. 25–29.

12. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 95

    מֹהַר is the bride-price paid by the man to the woman's family: "he shall weigh out silver as the bride-price of virgins" (Exod 22:15–16), the law of the seduced girl. Saul asks of David "no bride-price but a hundred foreskins" (1 Sam 18:25). מַתָּן "present" is of the root of נָתַן "give," and the verse turns on it: "present… and I will give… and give me." It is the same noun as מַתָּנָה "present" (25:6) (95).

13. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 128

    בְּמִרְמָה "with deceit" is Isaac's word to Esau, "your brother came with deceit" (27:35), and the root is Jacob's word to Laban, "why have you deceived me?" (29:25). The pair is one root (128a). The deceiver's sons now deceive, and the narrator names the deceit before the words are spoken. אֲשֶׁר is "because" (as 30:18).

14. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 25

    The niphal of אוּת "consent" occurs only in this chapter (vv. 15, 22, 23) and at 2 Kgs 12:9, where the priests consent to take no more silver. The sons use it to the father and son, and the father and son use it to their city.

15. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 2

    "Our daughter": the brothers speak of Dinah as the household's daughter, as Hamor spoke of "your daughter" to the family (v. 8). The home gloss holds.

16. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "he was more honourable than all the house of his father" (KJV) / "he was the most honored of all his family" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 20

    This is the niphal of כָּבֵד, whose row gives the qal "be heavy" and the piel "honor." The niphal is the passive of the piel, "be honored": the seer is "honored" (1 Sam 9:6), David "honored in your house" (1 Sam 22:14), Jabez "honored above his brothers" (1 Chr 4:9), with the same מִן of comparison as here. The weight of the root stays under it: he was the man of weight in his father's house.

17. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "these men are peaceable with us" (KJV) / "these men are friendly with us" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 37

    שְׁלֵמִים is "complete," the word of Jacob's arrival, "Jacob came complete to the city of Shechem" (33:18). A people complete with another is whole with it, at peace: "let your heart be complete with Adonai" (1 Kgs 8:61; 11:4). The chain is held (37). The city's word for the strangers is the word for the strangers' arrival.

18. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 39

    "Broad of hands" is a land with room on every side, the idiom of the scouts at Laish, "a land broad of hands" with a people "secure" (Judg 18:10; compare v. 25), and of Isa 22:18, Ps 104:25, Neh 7:4 and 1 Chr 4:40. The body idiom is kept (39).

19. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 6

    Hamor's two speeches differ. To Jacob's family (vv. 8–10) he speaks of his son's soul, of intermarriage, of the land open before them and of holdings in it. To his city (vv. 21–23) he speaks of the strangers' peace, of a land with room, of their daughters, and of their livestock and goods becoming "ours." He does not mention his son's desire or Dinah. The two are kept apart, each in its own words (6).

20. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 6

    "All who go out of the gate of his city" are the city's men, those who go out to war or to the fields. When Abraham bought the cave, the witnesses were "all who come in at the gate of his city" (23:10, 18). The phrase is repeated here, as the Hebrew repeats it.

21. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "came upon the city boldly" (KJV) / "came upon the city unawares" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 2

    בֶּטַח is security, and the text does not say whose. The KJV gives it to the brothers ("boldly"), the RSV to the city ("unawares"). Elsewhere it is a people or camp that suspects nothing: the camp that "was security" when Gideon struck it (Judg 8:11), Laish "quiet and secure," struck with the sword (Judg 18:7, 27), and the land "dwelling in security" (Ezek 38:8, 11, 14). Rashi takes it of the city, secure because its men were in pain. "In security" holds both readings, as the Hebrew does (1).

22. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "the slain" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 39, 2

    חָלָל is from חָלַל "pierce," "my heart is pierced within me" (Ps 109:22). The pierced lie dead (Num 19:16, 18; Deut 21:1) or dying, "the soul of the pierced cries out" (Job 24:12); "better the pierced of the sword than the pierced of hunger" (Lam 4:9). "Slain" names only the outcome. The concrete word is kept (39).

23. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 8

    The verb "had defiled" is plural (טִמְּאוּ), where vv. 5 and 13 have the singular: the sons hold the city guilty for Shechem's deed, and the subject of the plural is the city's men. "The sons of Jacob" here follow "two of the sons of Jacob" (v. 25), and the text does not say whether the others join the plunder. Jacob's last words lay the killing on Simeon and Levi (49:5–7).

24. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "all their wealth" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 39

    חַיִל is strength, and the goods that strength gains: "my power and the might of my hand made me this strength" (Deut 8:17–18). It is also an army (Exod 14:4) and valour, "a woman of strength" (Ruth 3:11). Here it is the goods carried off, listed beside the little ones and the women. The WPRB has "wealth."

25. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 2

    עָכַר "trouble" is the verb of Achan, who troubled Israel and gave his name to the valley of Achor (Josh 6:18; 7:25), of Ahab, "the troubler of Israel" (1 Kgs 18:17–18), and of Jephthah to his daughter, "you have troubled me" (Judg 11:35).

26. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "to make me to stink" (KJV) / "making me odious" (RSV)

    Ruling 39

    The hiphil of בָּאַשׁ is to make stink: "you have made our scent stink in the eyes of Pharaoh" (Exod 5:21); also 1 Sam 13:4; 2 Sam 10:6; 16:21. The qal is the stink of the dead fish of the Nile (Exod 7:18, 21) and of the kept manna (Exod 16:20). The KJV keeps the smell and the RSV abstracts it. The concrete word is kept (39).

27. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "I being few in number" (KJV) / "my numbers are few" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 39

    מְתֵי מִסְפָּר is "menfolk of number," men who can be counted, that is, few: Deut 4:27; 33:6; Jer 44:28; and of the patriarchs themselves, "when they were menfolk of number, a few, and sojourners in it" (Ps 105:12; 1 Chr 16:19). מַת occurs only in the plural, "men" (Deut 2:34; 3:6; Isa 3:25). "Man" is אִישׁ's and "mortal" אֱנוֹשׁ's, so it takes its own word. Jacob says "I" for his household.

28. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 2

    זוֹנָה is the participle of זָנָה, the woman who sells herself: Tamar taken for one (38:15, 24), Rahab (Josh 2:1), Lev 21:7, 14. The verb is also Israel's going after other gods (Exod 34:15–16). The brothers have the last word in the chapter. Jacob answers them only at the end of his life (49:5–7).

29. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?" (KJV) / "Should he treat our sister as a harlot?" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 20, 57

    עָשָׂה with a person as object is to do to someone, to treat them. The home gloss "do" with "our sister" as object would make a false sense in English (57), so "treat" is printed (2, 20). The verb is a yiqtol, "should he treat," which asks about the deed done and whether it should stand. Its subject is Shechem, or anyone ("should one").