20 So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the public square and spoke to the town council: 21 "These men like us; they are our friends. Let them settle down here and make themselves at home; there's plenty of room in the country for them. And, just think, we can even exchange our daughters in marriage. 22 But these men will only accept our invitation to live with us and become one big family on one condition, that all our males become circumcised just as they themselves are. 23 This is a very good deal for us - these people are very wealthy with great herds of livestock and we're going to get our hands on it. So let's do what they ask and have them settle down with us." 24 Everyone who was anyone in the city agreed with Hamor and his son, Shechem; every male was circumcised.
25 Three days after the circumcision, while all the men were still very sore, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, each with his sword in hand, walked into the city as if they owned the place and murdered every man there. 26 They also killed Hamor and his son Shechem, rescued Dinah from Shechem's house, and left. 27 When the rest of Jacob's sons came on the scene of slaughter, they looted the entire city in retaliation for Dinah's rape. 28 Flocks, herds, donkeys, belongings - everything, whether in the city or the fields - they took. 29 And then they took all the wives and children captive and ransacked their homes for anything valuable. 30 Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You've made my name stink to high heaven among the people here, these Canaanites and Perizzites. If they decided to gang up on us and attack, as few as we are we wouldn't stand a chance; they'd wipe me and my people right off the map." 31 They said, "Nobody is going to treat our sister like a whore and get by with it."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Genesis 34:20-31
Commentary on Genesis 34:20-31
(Read Genesis 34:20-31)
The Shechemites submitted to the sacred rite, only to serve a turn, to please their prince, and to enrich themselves, and it was just with God to bring punishment upon them. As nothing secures us better than true religion, so nothing exposes us more than religion only pretended to. But Simeon and Levi were most unrighteous. Those who act wickedly, under the pretext of religion, are the worst enemies of the truth, and harden the hearts of many to destruction. The crimes of others form no excuse for us. Alas! how one sin leads on to another, and, like flames of fire, spread desolation in every direction! Foolish pleasures lead to seduction; seduction produces wrath; wrath thirsts for revenge; the thirst of revenge has recourse to treachery; treachery issues in murder; and murder is followed by other lawless actions. Were we to trace the history of unlawful commerce between the sexes, we should find it, more than any other sin, ending in blood.