Was it right for Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi to massacre the Shechemites because the prince of Shechem had raped their sister? Or was their act of vengeance massive overkill? When, in my early days as a professor I taught both Old and New Testament, I asked my students what they thought. Their answers were divided, and for understandable reasons. Rape is a serious offense, and when nobody else punished it, a brother sometimes took matters into his hands (2 Sam 13:32-33).

But to kill all the males in Shechem (34:25)? Naturally, Simeon and Levi risked retaliation from Shechemites if they slew only the guilty prince; their strategy protected them. Their strong hand may have helped strike fear into their enemies (cf. 35:5). Yet the people they slew were people who welcomed them, and Genesis’s ultimate verdict on their rash anger is a curse (49:5-7).

Jacob’s people would be welcome in the land God had promised if they intermarried with the local people (34:9-10). Clearly this was not God’s plan for them in the land, lest they go after other gods (Deut 7:3-4). But what if the others were willing to join Israel? Later, the Torah welcomed foreigners who were willing to be circumcised and so join God’s people (Exod 12:48-49); this tradition was consistent with what Jacob’s grandfather Abraham had heard from God (Gen 17:12, 27).

Jacob’s sons, however, cite custom and deceitfully invite the Shechemites to be circumcised as a condition to becoming one people (Gen 34:14-16). (Even today, at least some women in cultures that practice male circumcision report as revolting the thought of intercourse with an uncircumcised man.) Circumcision was the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham’s descendants. Ironically, as already noted, God did welcome foreigners into his covenant who would be circumcised (Gen 17:12; Exod 12:48-49). There is no mention here of theological conversion, and Israel’s prosperity alone was sufficient to invite the Shechemites’ economic interest (34:23). Nevertheless, the willingness of the Shechemite men to endure the pain of adult circumcision raises the possibility that they would have been open to making Israel’s God their own chief deity. This action might have eliminated the primary divine objection to intermarriage, and some subsequent history might have gone differently.

Joseph marrying the daughter of the priest of On (41:45; arranged by Pharaoh, but emphasized again in 41:50), Moses’s ties with the household of Jethro/Reuel (Exod 2:21; 3:1; 18:10-12; Num 10:29), and Abram’s relationship with Melchizedek (Gen 14:18-20) all reveal a different way of relating to Gentiles. These examples offer positive models for relating to other peoples, as well as for relating to those who are initially outsiders to our faith. These models are quite different from the behavior of Simeon and Levi.

Unfortunately, the chief concern of Simeon and Levi was not these Hivites’ conversion, but their destruction. At this point, it is questionable whether Simeon and Levi were “converted” (or, more accurately, serving the God of Israel) themselves. Some of Jacob’s family members themselves were serving foreign gods, something that Jacob may have addressed fully only after matters had gone so far (35:2).

The narrator does not envision their slaughter of male Shechemites as holy war prefiguring Israel’s later invasion of Canaan. Jacob later restricts the blessings of Simeon and Levi because of their cruel anger and killing in 49:5-7, where he describes their behavior as killing “a man,” perhaps an allusion to Lamech’s words in 4:23, and/or perhaps alluding to the prohibition of shedding a “man’s” blood in 9:6. The violence is not a precursor of later Israel conquering Canaan (see http://www.craigkeener.org/slaughtering-the-canaanites-part-i-limiting-factors/; http://www.craigkeener.org/slaughtering-the-canaanites-part-ii-switching-sides/; http://www.craigkeenerhttp://www.craigkeener.org/slaughtering-the-canaanites-part-iii-gods-ideal/.com/slaughtering-the-canaanites-part-iii-gods-ideal/). It is the equivalent instead of slaughtering converts who came to the side of Israel, such as the family of Rahab, something later Israel knew better than to do. (When Saul slaughters Gibeonites, who merely had a treaty with Israel, God was angry; see 2 Sam 21:1-2. Similarly, the slaughter of Benjamites in Judges 20—21 expressed the sorry moral state of Israel at that time; see http://www.craigkeener.org/slaughtering-the-benjamites-i-benjamins-depravity-judges-191-2028/; http://www.craigkeener.org/slaughtering-the-benjamites-ii-merciless-anarchy-judges-2029-2125/.)

Whereas the Hivites hoped to share Israel’s prosperity (34:23), Jacob’s sons plunder all that belonged to these Hivites (34:28), including their wives and children (34:29), presumably for slaves. Simeon and Levi undoubtedly had help in carrying out their genocide. (Jacob’s household also included many men in addition to his sons [30:43; 32:5, 7], although Genesis naturally spotlights mainly his sons [e.g., 42:3], and it is possible that hired workers later returned to northern Syria during the famine of Gen 43:1.) Nevertheless, Simeon and Levi organized the attack and were most responsible for it (34:25, 30; 49:5-7). Jacob’s sons, probably more than just these two, plundered the city (34:27).

On reason that Jacob complains about their action is because of fear (34:30-31). Even after that fear is resolved (35:5), Jacob condemns their violence in his inspired blessings (49:5-7). They had made him stink to the residents of the land (34:30), an expression that, when used figuratively, was sometimes used of someone making their entire group detestable to someone more powerful (Exod 5:21; 1 Sam 13:4; though one could also make oneself detestable, as in 1 Sam 27:12; 2 Sam 10:6; 16:21).

Abraham’s descendants were to be a blessing to the nations, but Simeon and Levi proved to be instead a curse. Jacob’s son Joseph, however, would soon become a blessing to Egypt, Canaan, and many others (Gen 45:5, 7; 50:20). More of the promised blessing to the nations was on the way.