15 But in this will we consent unto you: If ye will be as we be, that every male of you be circumcised;
15 We will enter into an agreement with you on one condition only: that you become like us by circumcising all your males.
15 Only on this condition will we agree with you--that you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised.
15 The only condition on which we can talk business is if all your men become circumcised like us.
15 But on this condition we will consent to you: If you will become as we are, if every male of you is circumcised,
15 But here is a solution. If every man among you will be circumcised like we are,
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Genesis 34:15
Commentary on Genesis 34:1-19
(Read Genesis 34:1-19)
Young persons, especially females, are never so safe and well off as under the care of pious parents. Their own ignorance, and the flattery and artifices of designing, wicked people, who are ever laying snares for them, expose them to great danger. They are their own enemies if they desire to go abroad, especially alone, among strangers to true religion. Those parents are very wrong who do not hinder their children from needlessly exposing themselves to danger. Indulged children, like Dinah, often become a grief and shame to their families. Her pretence was, to see the daughters of the land, to see how they dressed, and how they danced, and what was fashionable among them; she went to see, yet that was not all, she went to be seen too. She went to get acquaintance with the Canaanites, and to learn their ways. See what came of Dinah's gadding. The beginning of sin is as the letting forth of water. How great a matter does a little fire kindle! We should carefully avoid all occasions of sin and approaches to it.