Knowing The Word in Genesis 34:25-31, Revenge by the Knife

25 On the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords [as Shechem took Dinah] and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males. 26 They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem's house and went away. 27 The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister. 28 They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys, and whatever was in the city and in the field. 29 All their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and plundered. [Where Jacob would not act, Simeon and Levi did. Jacob had not loved Leah or Dinah, but they did. They had been negotiating under duress because Dinah had been held captive, and now the reader finally finds out about this fact. However, the massacre of all the men for the sin of one man is as shocking to the narrator as it is to us. On another note, it was primarily the sexual offenses of Canaan that were to lead to its conquest by Israel. See Gen. 19 and Lev 18:3 and 20:23.]

30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. My numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.” 31 But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?” [The heated exchange between Jacob and Simeon and Levi brings this story to an end. Jacob does not condemn his sons for the massacre for abusing the rite of circumcision or for breaching the agreement, but that they have made him unpopular and feeling less secure. They in effect have wrestled Dinah from their father’s guardianship, and suggest he has treated her like a whore. He would have accepted material gain from Hamor and Schechem as a pimp does from his prostitute.]