The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
The Defiling of Dinah
Genesis 34:1–12 — The Defiling of Dinah. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
1Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the daughters of the land.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḏî·nāh baṯ- lê·’āh ’ă·šer yā·lə·ḏāh lə·ya·‘ă·qōḇ wat·tê·ṣê lir·’ō·wṯ biḇ·nō·wṯ hā·’ā·reṣ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-went-out Dinah, daughter-of Leah whom she-bore to-Jacob, to-see among-the-daughters-of the-land.
Where the English smooths the original
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.
This example teaches us that too much liberty is not to be given to youth.The Geneva note is moralizing; the Hebrew narrates without verdict — the editorializing is the commentator's, not the text's.
Dinah, Jacob's daughter by Leah, went out one day to see, i.e., to make the acquaintance of the daughters of the land
It is probable that Dinah was in her thirteenth year when she went out to visit the daughters of the land.Barnes's age estimate rests on later rabbinic reckoning ("the Jewish doctors... fix the marriageable age of a female at twelve years and a day") and a chronology synchronizing Dinah with Joseph — a reconstruction, not a datum the text supplies.
2When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the region, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šə·ḵem ben- ḥă·mō·wr ha·ḥiw·wî nə·śî hā·’ā·reṣ way·yar ’ō·ṯāh way·yiq·qaḥ ’ō·ṯāh way·yiš·kaḇ ’ō·ṯāh way·‘an·ne·hā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-saw her Shechem son-of-Hamor the-Hivite, prince-of the-land, and-he-took her and-he-lay-with her and-he-humbled-her.
Where the English smooths the original
Shechem took her, and defiled her — Hebrew, humbled her. “The word,” says Bishop Kidder, “intimates his violence, as well as her dissent.”
And lay with her, and defiled her - literally, oppressed her , offered violence to her, whence humbled her
“Hamor,” as the name of an animal, means “he-ass.” the prince ] This word, in Heb. nasi , is used frequently by P
3And his soul was drawn to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young girl and spoke to her tenderly.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
nap̄·šōw wat·tiḏ·baq bə·ḏî·nāh baṯ- ya·‘ă·qōḇ way·ye·’ĕ·haḇ ’eṯ- han·na·‘ă·rā way·ḏab·bêr ‘al- lêḇ han·na·‘ă·rā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-clung his-soul to-Dinah daughter-of-Jacob, and-he-loved the-young-girl, and-he-spoke upon the-heart of-the-young-girl.
Where the English smooths the original
Perceiving her to be exceedingly enraged and perplexed at this horrid violence, he endeavours to appease and sweeten her, and to get her consent to marry him.
kindly , &c.] Heb. to the heart of the damsel . The same phrase, sometimes rendered “comfortably,” occurs in Genesis 50:21 ; 2 Samuel 19:7 ; Isaiah 40:2 ; Hosea 2:14 .
Shechem "loved the girl, and spoke to her heart;" i.e., he sought to comfort her by the promise of a happy marriage
4So Shechem told his father Hamor, “Get me this girl as a wife.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šə·ḵem ’el- way·yō·mer ’ā·ḇîw lê·mōr ḥă·mō·wr qaḥ- lî ’eṯ- haz·zōṯ hay·yal·dāh lə·’iš·šāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said Shechem to Hamor his-father, saying: Take for-me this girl for-a-wife.
Where the English smooths the original
This proves that the consent of parents is required in marriage, seeing that even the infidels observed it as a necessary thing.
He desires both his father’s consent and assistance herein.
by which he meant not only that he would give his consent that he might marry her, but that he would get her parents' consent unto it, and settle the matter with them
5Jacob heard that Shechem had defiled his daughter Dinah, but since his sons were with his livestock in the field, he remained silent about it until they returned.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ya·‘ă·qōḇ šā·ma‘ kî ṭim·mê ’eṯ- ḇit·tōw dî·nāh ū·ḇā·nāw hā·yū ’eṯ- miq·nê·hū baś·śā·ḏeh ya·‘ă·qōḇ wə·he·ḥĕ·riš ‘aḏ- bō·’ām
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-Jacob heard that he-had-defiled Dinah his-daughter, and-his-sons were with his-livestock in-the-field; and-Jacob kept-silent until their-coming.
Where the English smooths the original
But “he held his peace,” chiefly from his usual cautiousness, as being no match for the Hivites, but partly because Leah’s sons had the right to be the upholders of their sister’s honour.
When Jacob heard of the seduction of his daughter, "he was silent," i.e., he remained quiet, without taking any active proceedings
And Jacob held his peace - literally, acted as one dumb, i.e. maintained silence upon the painful subject, and took no measures to avenge Shechem s crime
He was a stranger in the land, and surrounded by a flourishing tribe, who were evidently unscrupulous in their conduct.Barnes reads Jacob's silence as the pragmatism of a vulnerable resident alien, not the deference-to-sons motive Ellicott and JFB stress — the commentators divide on the cause the Hebrew leaves unstated.
Being unable to punish the delinquent, and not knowing what to do, he waits for his sons’ coming and advice.
6Meanwhile, Shechem’s father Hamor came to speak with Jacob.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šə·ḵem ’el- ’ă·ḇî- ḥă·mō·wr way·yê·ṣê lə·ḏab·bêr ’it·tōw ya·‘ă·qōḇ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-went-out Shechem's-father Hamor to Jacob, to-speak with-him.
Where the English smooths the original
It seems that Jacob would have acted wisely if he had followed his own judgment in this affair, instead of consulting his sons, who were young, rash, and violent.
Hamor—that is, "ass"; and it is a striking proof of the very different ideas which, in the East, are associated with that animal
to talk with him about the affair of Dinah, to pacify him, and endeavour to gain his consent, that his son might marry her, and to settle the, terms and conditions of the marriage.
7When Jacob’s sons heard what had happened, they returned from the field. They were filled with grief and fury, because Shechem had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter—a thing that should not be done.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ya·‘ă·qōḇ ū·ḇə·nê kə·šā·mə·‘ām bā·’ū min- haś·śā·ḏeh mə·’ōḏ way·yiṯ·‘aṣ·ṣə·ḇū hā·’ă·nā·šîm way·yi·ḥar lā·hem kî- ‘ā·śāh nə·ḇā·lāh ḇə·yiś·rā·’êl liš·kaḇ ’eṯ- ya·‘ă·qōḇ baṯ- wə·ḵên lō yê·‘ā·śeh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-sons-of Jacob came from the-field when-they-heard, and-they-grieved, the-men, and-it-burned to-them exceedingly, because a-folly he-had-done in-Israel by-lying with daughter-of-Jacob — and-so it-is-not-to-be-done.
Where the English smooths the original
The use, however, of the term Israel to signify the family of Jacob as distinguished from his person belongs to the age of Moses, and is one of the proofs of the arrangement of these records having been his work.
Because he had wrought folly; that is, wickedness; which howsoever vain men many times esteem their wisdom, by the sentence of the all-wise God is accounted and commonly in Scripture called folly
The word nebâlah denotes “senseless wickedness,” an offence against honour and morality: cf. the use of the word in Deuteronomy 22:21 ; Joshua 7:15 ; Jdg 19:23-24 ; 2 Samuel 13:12 .
Good men in such a case could not but grieve; but it would have been well if their anger had been less
8But Hamor said to them, “My son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḥă·mō·wr way·ḏab·bêr ’it·tām lê·mōr bə·nî šə·ḵem ḥā·šə·qāh nap̄·šōw bə·ḇit·tə·ḵem nā tə·nū ’ō·ṯāh lōw lə·’iš·šāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-spoke Hamor with-them, saying: Shechem my-son — his-soul longs for-your-daughter; please give her to-him for-a-wife.
Where the English smooths the original
But their conduct was unjustifiable in neither expressing regret nor restoring Dinah to her family; and this great error was the true cause of the negotiations ending in so unhappy a manner.
signifies to join together, intrans., to be joined together, hence to cleave to another in love
Hamor communed with them — Not only with Jacob, but with his sons, to whom Jacob had imprudently referred him.
"Shekem, my son." These words are a nominative pendent, for which "his soul" is substituted.
9Intermarry with us; give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·hiṯ·ḥat·tə·nū ’ō·ṯā·nū tit·tə·nū- lā·nū wə·’eṯ- bə·nō·ṯê·ḵem tiq·ḥū bə·nō·ṯê·nū lā·ḵem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-intermarry with-us: your-daughters you-shall-give to-us, and our-daughters you-shall-take for-yourselves.
Where the English smooths the original
Hamor’s proposition is to the effect that the Israelites and the Shechemites should be amalgamated on the basis of (1) intermarriage, (2) trading rights, (3) rights of occupation of land.
Abraham's servant was charged by him not to take a wife of the Canaanites to his son Isaac; and the same charge was given Jacob by Isaac, Genesis 24:3 ; and therefore Jacob would never agree that his children should marry any of that nation
10You may settle among us, and the land will be open to you. Live here, move about freely, and acquire your own property.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
tê·šê·ḇū wə·’it·tā·nū wə·hā·’ā·reṣ tih·yeh lip̄·nê·ḵem šə·ḇū ū·sə·ḥā·rū·hā wə·hê·’ā·ḥă·zū bāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-with-us you-shall-dwell, and-the-land shall-be before-you; dwell and-trade-in-it and-take-possession in-it.
Where the English smooths the original
Hamor proposes that Jacob’s family shall abandon their nomad life, and settle among the Hivites. and trade with them, and get possessions, not merely of cattle and movable goods, but of immovable property. He wished the two clans to coalesce into one community.
Before you, i.e. in your power, to dwell where you please, and to have the same rights and privileges in it which we enjoy.
these are the arguments used by Hamor to gain the consent of Jacob and his family that his son might marry Dinah; and the proposals are honourable and generous.
11Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and brothers, “Grant me this favor, and I will give you whatever you ask.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šə·ḵem way·yō·mer ’el- ʾå̄·ḇīh wə·’el- ’a·ḥe·hā ’em·ṣā- ḥên bə·‘ê·nê·ḵem ’et·tên wa·’ă·šer tō·mə·rū ’ê·lay
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said Shechem to her-father and-to her-brothers: Let-me-find favor in-your-eyes, and-whatever you-say to-me I-will-give.
Where the English smooths the original
And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren (speaking with becoming deference and earnestness, and manifestly prompted by fervent and sincere love), Let me find grace in your eyes
The consideration of the proposal for marriage belonged to Jacob, and he certainly showed great weakness in yielding so much to the fiery impetuosity of his sons.
let what will be fixed, shall be given; which showed great affection for her, and that he was willing to do any thing to make amends for the injury done
12Demand a high dowry and an expensive gift, and I will give you whatever you ask. Only give me the girl as my wife!”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
har·bū ‘ā·lay mə·’ōḏ mō·har ū·mat·tān wə·’et·tə·nāh ka·’ă·šer tō·mə·rū ’ê·lāy ū·ṯə·nū- lî ’eṯ- han·na·‘ă·rā lə·’iš·šāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Multiply upon-me exceedingly bride-price and-gift, and-I-will-give as you-say to-me; only give to-me the-girl for-a-wife.
Where the English smooths the original
The word rendered dowry (mohar) is the price paid to the parents and relatives of the bride, though taking the form of a present. The gift (matthan) was the present made by the bridegroom to the bride herself.
In Exodus 22:16 , as in the present passage, the “dowry” is a payment to the parents as “compensation” for wrong, as well as “purchase-money” for the wife; cf. Deuteronomy 22:28-29 .
the "dowry" was what a man gave to a woman at her marriage; for in those times and countries, instead of a man having a portion with his wife, as with us in our times, he gave one to his wife, or to her parents for her
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The unit opens on a single verb. Dinah went out (wattēṣēʾ, H3318) "to see" (lirʾôt, H7200) among the daughters of the land — and in the next breath Shechem saw her (wayyarʾ, the same root H7200) and took her. Matthew Henry hears the doubled seeing exactly: "she went to see, yet that was not all, she went to be seen too." Keil & Delitzsch render the going out neutrally — she went "to make the acquaintance of the daughters of the land" — and the Hebrew indeed withholds blame; the verdict the commentators supply (Henry, Geneva's "too much liberty") is theirs, not the narrator's. Then the staccato of v.2 falls: took, lay, humbled (wayʿannehā, H6031). Joseph Benson, citing Bishop Kidder, weighs the word: it "intimates his violence, as well as her dissent"; the Pulpit Commentary backs this with the LXX's ἐταπείνωσεν and the Vulgate's vi opprimens. The verb is not courtship but abasement.
Verse 3 layers tenderness over violence in a way the Hebrew makes deliberately unsettling. Shechem's soul clave (wattidbaq, H1692 dābaq) to Dinah — the cleaving-verb of Genesis 2:24, marriage's one-flesh word — and he "spoke upon her heart" (dibber ʿal-lēb), the idiom Cambridge tracks through Genesis 50:21, Isaiah 40:2, and Hosea 2:14 — words of comfort and wooing. Matthew Poole reads it plainly: he sought "to appease and sweeten her, and to get her consent." Yet when Jacob hears (v.5) the narrator's own word for the act is sharper than "humbled": Shechem had defiled her (ṭimmēʾ, H2930), the priestly term for pollution. Keil & Delitzsch: "to defile equals to dishonour, disgrace, because it was an uncircumcised man who had seduced her." Jacob "held his peace" (heḥĕriš, H2790) — the Pulpit Commentary's "acted as one dumb" — and Ellicott reads the silence as caution plus deference: "Leah's sons had the right to be the upholders of their sister's honour."
The hinge of the unit is one word: nəḇālâ (H5039), "folly," the rare and grave term (13 verses in all) that the sons fling at Shechem's deed. Cambridge defines it as "senseless wickedness, an offence against honour and morality," and lists its kin — Deuteronomy 22:21, Joshua 7:15, Judges 19, 2 Samuel 13:12. Matthew Poole presses the paradox: what "vain men many times esteem their wisdom... by the sentence of the all-wise God is accounted and commonly in Scripture called folly." The deed is "folly in Israel" (bəyiśrāʾēl) — and here the honest reader stumbles, for "Israel" names a people that does not yet exist. Ellicott takes this as a Mosaic fingerprint on the record: the term "belongs to the age of Moses, and is one of the proofs of the arrangement of these records having been his work." The closing formula — and so it is not done (lōʾ yēʿāśeh) — is the very sentence Tamar will speak to Amnon (2 Sam 13:12), a verbal seam stitching Israel's two violation-narratives together.
Hamor and then Shechem make their offer in a cascade of give (nātan, H5414): give your daughters, settle, trade, possess, take any mōhar you name. The vocabulary is the vocabulary of love and alliance — the Pulpit Commentary notes the soul that "longeth" (ḥāšaq, H2836) is the cleaving-in-love verb, kin to v.3's dābaq. Ellicott sees the ambition behind it: Hamor "wished the two clans to coalesce into one community." John Gill exposes the covenant problem — intermarriage with Canaan was the very thing Abraham and Isaac had forbidden (Gen 24:3). And JFB names the fatal omission with great precision: the offer was "unjustifiable in neither expressing regret nor restoring Dinah to her family; and this great error was the true cause of the negotiations ending in so unhappy a manner." Shechem's final plea — "let me find favor (ḥēn) in your eyes" — is the suppliant's word; Cambridge notes the mōhar he offers without limit is the same payment Exodus 22:16 and Deuteronomy 22:28-29 will fix as compensation for exactly this crime. The law's later remedy hovers, unstated, over a generous offer that still refuses the one thing owed.
Read under Sola Scriptura, Genesis 34:1-12 is a study in vocabulary refusing to settle. The narrator gives us three names for one act — Shechem humbled her (v.2, ʿānâ), his soul clave to her in marriage-language (v.3, dābaq), and Jacob hears that he defiled her (v.5, ṭimmēʾ) — and never reconciles them. That irreconcilability is the point. Genuine affection and genuine atrocity occupy the same man, and the text will not let either cancel the other: Shechem is not a cartoon villain (he loves, he pleads, he offers everything), nor is he excused (the deed is nəḇālâ, folly in Israel, a thing "not done"). Scripture here does what it does so often — it reports without flattening, and trusts the reader to hold the tension God holds. The unit also quietly does theology: by calling the crime "folly in Israel" before Israel is a nation, the text reads Jacob's household as already the covenant people, already bearing a holiness that makes a sexual wrong against a daughter an offence against the whole people of God. The justice the chapter then pursues will go terribly wrong (vv.13-31) — but that is the next unit's grief. Here the question is only whether desire, however sincere, can purchase what it has already broken. The Hebrew's answer, withheld but unmistakable, is no.
Three words for one wound — humbled, cleaved, defiled — and Scripture reconciles none of them, because the man held all three at once.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
Dinah is named in only eight verses of the whole Hebrew Bible, and the Verifier binds Genesis 34:1 to the two that frame her life. Her birth-notice (Genesis 30:21) and the genealogy that totals Leah's children (Genesis 46:15) share with this unit the rare proper name H1783 Dîynâh (only 8 verses) together with the kin-words H1323 bath ("daughter") and H3205 yâlad ("bore") — in 46:15 the maternal triad H3812 Lêʼâh and H3290 Yaʻăqôb as well. The narrator brackets the violation with her birth and her remembrance: "the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob" (34:1) echoes "she bore Dinah" (30:21) and is gathered up in "and Dinah his daughter" (46:15). The same maternal anchoring that Gill noted — why Leah's sons avenge her — is built into the lexical thread. Her name, the parses note, is the feminine of dîn ("to judge"), so that a chapter ending in disputed, bloody vindication opens on a daughter whose very name is "judgment" — an irony the Hebrew lets stand without comment.
Genesis 30:21 · Genesis 46:15
basis: shared rare proper name H1783 Dîynâh (only 8 vv) with kin-words H1323 bath, H3205 yâlad (and in 46:15 H3812 Lêʼâh, H3290 Yaʻăqôb). The Verifier flags it 'verbal' on lexeme rarity, but we DOWNGRADE to structural: a proper name recurring across one person's own birth/violation/burial-list is name-recurrence within a single biography, not a verbal quotation or allusion — there is no borrowed phrase, only the same name re-used by the same narrator
The most haunting echo in this unit is verbal as well as moral. The brothers say Shechem "had committed a nəḇālâ in Israel... and so it is not to be done" (34:7). Generations later Tamar pleads with Amnon in nearly the same words: "do not this folly (nəḇālâ)... for no such thing ought to be done in Israel" (2 Samuel 13:12). The Verifier confirms the shared rare lexeme H5039 nᵉbâlâh (only 13 verses) plus the negated formula built on H3651 kên and H3808 lôʼ — the same idiom kēn lōʾ yēʿāśeh. The wider family of the phrase — Deuteronomy 22:21, Joshua 7:15, Judges 19:23-24 — is exactly the cluster Cambridge and Keil & Delitzsch cite. Both narratives are accounts of a covenant daughter violated and avenged by her full brother(s); the shared sentence makes the kinship deliberate, not accidental.
2 Samuel 13:12 · Deuteronomy 22:21 · Joshua 7:15
basis: shared lexeme H5039 nᵉbâlâh (13 vv) plus the negated norm-formula H3651 kên + H3808 lôʼ (kēn lōʾ yēʿāśeh); the Verifier ranks it structural/thematic rather than verbal because nᵉbâlâh, though rare, recurs as a standing phrase rather than a one-off quotation
Shechem offers to "multiply" the mōhar without limit (34:12). The word is rare — H4119 môhar appears in only three verses — and the Verifier links all three: Genesis 34:12, Exodus 22:17, and 1 Samuel 18:25. The connection is not merely lexical but legal. Exodus 22:16-17 fixes a mōhar precisely for the man who seduces an unbetrothed virgin; Cambridge reads our verse against it: the mōhar is "a payment to the parents as 'compensation' for wrong, as well as 'purchase-money' for the wife; cf. Deuteronomy 22:28-29." The Law that Israel will receive answers, in the same rare word, the very crime Genesis 34 narrates. (David's gruesome mōhar of a hundred foreskins in 1 Samuel 18:25 shows the word's range — bride-price as deadly bargain.)
Exodus 22:17 · 1 Samuel 18:25 · Deuteronomy 22:29
basis: shared rare lexeme H4119 môhar (only 3 vv: Gen 34:12, Ex 22:17, 1 Sam 18:25); Deut 22:29 added thematically (H5291 naʻărâ + H802 ʼishshâh + H5414 nâthan) as the parallel seduction-statute
When Shechem tells his father "get me this girl" (34:4), the word is not the naʿărâ ("young woman") of vv.3 and 12 but H3207 yaldâh — a tender diminutive, "a lass / female child," found in only three verses of the Hebrew Bible. The Verifier links all three by the single rare lexeme: Genesis 34:4, Zechariah 8:5, and Joel 3:3. The company the word keeps is stark. In Zechariah's vision of restored Jerusalem the streets are "full of boys and girls (yəlāḏôt) playing" in safety (Zech 8:5); in Joel the enemy "sold a girl (yaldâh) for wine" (Joel 3:3). Across its tiny range the word swings between a child playing securely in a redeemed city and a child traded as a commodity — and on Shechem's lips, "this little girl," it slides toward the second. The diminutive that should mark her preciousness instead marks her as an object to be "gotten."
Zechariah 8:5 · Joel 3:3
basis: shared rare lexeme H3207 yaldâh (only 3 vv: Gen 34:4, Zech 8:5, Joel 3:3) — a genuinely rare word; not a quotation between the texts but a verbal link on a low-frequency lexeme, which the tier rule admits
The names Shᵉkem (H7927) and Chămôwr (H2544) bind this unit to two passages about the same plot of land. In Genesis 33:19 Jacob buys "a parcel of ground... from the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father" — the very purchase that places his camp at the city gate as this chapter opens. In Joshua 24:32 Joseph's bones are buried in "the parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem." The Verifier confirms the shared proper names H7927 Shᵉkem and H2544 Chămôwr (the latter in only 12 verses). The land Hamor offers Jacob "to settle" in (34:10) is the land Jacob had just bought from Hamor's own house (33:19) — and where Israel will one day lay Joseph to rest. The thread runs from purchase, through violation, to burial.
Genesis 33:19 · Joshua 24:32
basis: shared proper names H7927 Shᵉkem and H2544 Chămôwr (12 vv) tying the same locale across purchase (33:19) and burial (Josh 24:32); names recur narratively, so structural rather than a verbal quotation
In his Sanhedrin speech, Stephen says the patriarchs were carried over and laid "in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem" (Acts 7:16). "Emmor" and "Sychem" are the Greek forms of Hamor and Shechem from this very chapter — yet the Genesis record has Jacob, not Abraham, buy the Shechem plot from Hamor's sons (Gen 33:19), while Abraham's purchase was the cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite (Gen 23). Because this is a cross-Testament link — Greek (Ἐμμώρ, Συχέμ) against Hebrew (Ḥămôr, Šᵉkem) — it cannot rest on a shared Strong's number, and the Verifier returns no shared original-language lexeme. The connection is real (Stephen is plainly recalling the Shechem transaction of Gen 33:19 / Josh 24:32) but its harmonization is genuinely disputed among interpreters. It is flagged accordingly.
Acts 7:16 · Genesis 33:19
basis: cross-Testament (Greek Ἐμμώρ/Συχέμ vs Hebrew Ḥămôr/Šᵉkem) — no shared Strong's lexeme is possible across languages; Verifier found none. The link is by name/event to Gen 33:19, but Stephen attributes the purchase to Abraham where Genesis attributes it to Jacob — a long-disputed crux, so flagged, never tiered verbal
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
Genesis 34 turns on a stain: Shechem defiled (ṭimmēʾ, v.5) a daughter of the covenant, and no mōhar Shechem can name will un-defile her. The trajectory of Scripture answers this wound in the gospel's image of the bride: where here a violation cannot be undone by any price, Christ "loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse it... that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle... but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:25-27). The very thing Genesis 34 shows to be impossible by human payment — the restoration of a defiled bride — is what the cross accomplishes by the Bridegroom's own self-gift. This is a typological reading of the wider canon, not a claim that Genesis 34 predicts it; the figure is the church's, drawn by analogy of defilement and cleansing.
Genesis 34:5 · Ephesians 5:25
The keyword nəḇālâ ("folly," v.7) frames Shechem's deed as the supreme unreason: Matthew Poole notes that what "vain men... esteem their wisdom" God "accounted and commonly in Scripture called folly." Scripture sets against this folly a person, not merely a virtue: Christ "is made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30), the wisdom of God answering the folly of man. Where Israel's history records folly committed against the covenant people, the New Testament names the covenant's wisdom incarnate — and the cross, "foolishness" to the world, as the true reversal of nəḇālâ. This is a widely-held reading in the church's tradition that sin is folly and Christ is wisdom; the application to this specific verse is interpretive, drawn by the shared category of folly/wisdom rather than by quotation.
Genesis 34:7 · 1 Corinthians 1:30
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
Several honesty notes specific to this unit. (1) Anachronism, openly admitted. The phrase "folly in Israel" (v.7) names a people who do not yet exist; Ellicott and Cambridge both treat this as a later (Mosaic or redactional) shaping of the record. We report this as the commentators state it and do not adjudicate the composition question. (2) One act, three verbs. The Hebrew uses ʿānâ ("humbled," v.2), dābaq ("clave," v.3), and ṭimmēʾ ("defiled," v.5) for Shechem's deed and its aftermath. Keil & Delitzsch render the act "seduced"; the morphology of ʿānâ (Piel) and the canonical parallel in 2 Samuel 13 press toward violation. We have flagged the ambiguity in the divergences rather than resolving it against the parses, which gloss wayʿannehā simply as "by force." (3) The Acts 7:16 thread is flagged, not verbal. It is a cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew) link that cannot share a Strong's number, and Stephen's attribution of the Shechem purchase to Abraham (vs. Jacob in Gen 33:19) is a long-standing interpretive crux. We did not manufacture a harmonization. (4) The 2 Samuel 13:12 link shares both the rare word nəḇālâ and the near-identical formula "such a thing is not done in Israel." The Verifier classes it structural/thematic rather than verbal because nəḇālâ functions as a recurring standing phrase (13 verses) rather than a unique citation; we have under-claimed accordingly. (5) The mōhar thread (v.12 → Ex 22:17 / 1 Sam 18:25) and the yaldâh thread (v.4 → Zech 8:5 / Joel 3:3) each rest on a genuinely rare lexeme (3 verses) and are the strongest verbal links in the unit. (6) Dinah-name thread, downgraded. The Verifier returns "verbal" for the Dinah cluster (30:21 / 46:15) on the rarity of H1783, but we have DOWNGRADED it to structural/thematic: a proper name re-used by the same narrator across one person's own biography is name-recurrence, not a verbal quotation or allusion — there is no borrowed phrase, so "verbal/quotation" would over-claim. (7) All voice excerpts are verbatim contiguous substrings of the supplied voices_raw; the Geneva and JFB "Hamor = ass" notes are reported as period observations, not endorsed etymological claims. Albert Barnes's thirteenth-year age estimate (v.1) is flagged in its editorial_note as a rabbinic-plus-chronological reconstruction, not a textual datum.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)