9 Intermarry with us; give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves.
9 And make ye marriages with us, and give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you.
9 Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves.
9 Intermarry with us. Give your daughters to us and we'll give our daughters to you.
9 And make marriages with us; give your daughters to us, and take our daughters to yourselves.
9 In fact, let's arrange other marriages, too. You give us your daughters for our sons, and we will give you our daughters for your sons.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Genesis 34:9
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.