Massacre at Shechem

Genesis 34

Directly following YHWH's transmission of the sixth commandment, Moses had his Levite relatives slaughter 3,000 Israelites for the crime of partying with the wrong god (Ex. 34). But for the Levite tribe - who would become the official temple priests - it was not the first instance of mass slaughter, nor even the most heinous deed in their history. 

THE STORY: Way back in Genesis 34, not long after his rebranding as "Israel," Jacob/Israel leads his extended family through the oft promised land. They camps in northern Israel near the large Canaanite town of Shechem (about forty miles north of Jerusalem).

It is important to record that at this point, both the locals at Shechem and Jacob's transient pastoralists are getting along just fine, to the point that the inhabitants graciously allow the sheep herders to hang out in their territory and conduct business. The Israelites are resident aliens.* 

Living just outside the city with her family, Jacob's daughter Dinah decides to visit some of the women in  the city of Shechem. She is checking out the social scene. Unlike her mother Dinah is apparently very attractive. Soon she is noticed by Prince Shechem, son of King Hamor the Hivite**.  This aristocrat bro is so taken by Dinah’s beauty that he rapes her.   

However, the young prince turns out to be a mensch (of sorts). He falls in love with Dinah and decides to marry her. He asks Dad to take care of it.

Shechem said to his father Hamor, “ And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife.”  - KJV

Israel and his sons hear about the incident, at which point Hamor the King meets with them to attempt a resolution. He suggests not only that Shechem and Dinah get married, but that the two peoples intermarry and become one. It's going to be a lovefest. For his part, Shechem sweetens the deal by offering to pay whatever the Israelites demand. He is in love and money is no object. 

Simeon and Levi appear to grudgingly accept the proposal, with a new caveat: Hamor, his son and all of the males of Shechem must be circumcised. Counter-intuitively, the men agree.

Three days later as the males of the city are still suffering with bruised genitalia, Simeon and Levi sneak into town and kill all the men with their swords, including Hamor and Shechem. The brothers take their sister home and soon Israel's other sons discover the corpses. They loot the city and steal all the livestock and crops. They enslave the women and children.  

Jacob/Israel's reaction to the massacre of innocent men in a manner consistent with the self-absorbed character we have seen elsewhere in Genesis: it's all about him.

 "Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house." 

The brothers don't care.

In a sense, the men who agreed to be circumcised have consented to becoming Jews. And yet Israel shows no concern for the "honor killing" slaughter of thousands of men who had no involvement with the crime and who furthermore abided by the terms of the agreement. 

YHWH has no comment, and the reader is not privy to Dinah's feelings about the rape or her brothers' murder of her besotted fiancé, his family and the entire city. Jacob's sons also have no remorse.***

As is the case with the fundamentalist versions of the Abrahamic religions, as well has Hinduism, the crime was committed against the men of the family, and not the woman who was raped.

This is why we need the Bible: to teach us the difference between right and wrong. 

NOTES:

* Contrary to the over the top negative portrayal of the Canaanites throughout the Hebrew Bible, the indigenous population behaves rather decently in most cases. In this particular tale we find echoes of  Gen 20:15  in which the Canaanite King Abimelech told Abraham, “Here, my land is before you; settle wherever you please.” Meanwhile Abraham was lying to him about his wife. LINK TO THAT STORY. 

** Hivites are a Canaanite people.

*** According to the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Book of Judith, YHWH approved of the massacre to the point that he provided Simeon with the sword that used to kill all the men of Shechem.