Genesis 34:7 - Exposition

And the sons of Jacob ( i.e. Leah's children, Dinah's full brothers, for certain, though perhaps also her half brothers) came out of the field when they heard it (Jacob having probably sent them word): and the men were grieved ,—literally, grieved themselves, or became pained with anger, the verb being the hithpael of צָעַב , to toil or labor with pain. The LXX . connect this with the preceding clause, ὡς δὲ ἤκουσαν , κατενύγησαν οἱ ἅνδρες , implying that they did not learn of their sister's seduction till they came home— and they were very wroth,— literally, it burned to them greatly (cf. Genesis 31:36 ; 1 Samuel 15:11 ; 2 Samuel 19:4 :3). Michaelis mentions an opinion still entertained in the East which explains the excessive indignation kindled in the breasts of Dinah's brothers, vie; that "in those countries it is thought that a brother is more dishonored by the seduction of his sister than a man by the infidelity of his wife; for, say the Arabs, a man may divorce his wife, and then she is no longer his; while a sister and daughter remain always sister and daughter" (vide Kurtz, 'Hist. of Old Covenant,' (82)— because he ( i.e. Shechem)— had wrought folly .—the term folly easily passes into the idea of wickedness of a shameful character ( 1 Samuel 25:25 ; 2 Samuel 13:12 ), since from the standpoint of Scripture sin is the height of unreason ( Psalms 74:22 ; Jeremiah 17:11 ), and holiness the sublimest act of wisdom ( Psalms 111:10 ; Proverbs 1:4 )—in (or against) Israel —the word, here applied for the first time to Jacob's household, afterwards became the usual national designation of Jacob's descendants; and the phrase here employed for the first time afterwards passed into a standing expression for acts done against the sacred character which belonged to Israel as a separated and covenanted community, especially for sins of the flesh ( Deuteronomy 22:21 ; 20:10 ; Jeremiah 29:23 ), but also for other crimes ( Joshua 7:15 )— in lying with Jacob's daughter . The special wickedness of Shechem consisted in dishonoring a daughter of one who was the head of the theocratic line, and therefore under peculiar obligations to lead's holy life. Which thing ought not to be done —literally, and so is it not done (cf. Genesis 29:26 ). Assigned to the historian ('Speaker's Commentary'), or to the hand of a late redactor (Davidson, Colenso, Alford), there is no reason why these words should not have been spoken by Jacob's sons (Keil, Murphy, and others)' to indicate their sense of the new and higher morality that had come in with the name of Israel (Lange).