Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #11 of Genesis 34, and we will read Genesis 34:11-19:

And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give. Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife. And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully, and said, because he had defiled Dinah their sister: And they said unto them, We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised; for that were a reproach unto us: But in this will we consent unto you: If ye will be as we be, that every male of you be circumcised; Then will we give our daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people. But if ye will not hearken unto us, to be circumcised; then will we take our daughter, and we will be gone. And their words pleased Hamor, and Shechem Hamor's son. And the young man deferred not to do the thing, because he had delight in Jacob's daughter: and he was more honourable than all the house of his father.

In our last study, we were looking at the Shechem, and the fact that he conducted himself in an upright manner after he had taken Dinah  and lay with her, which was against the Law of God.  But afterwards, he loved her, and he wanted to do the right thing concerning her and marry her.  So he and his father went to Jacob and the sons of Jacob, the sons of Israel, and he besought them that he might find grace in their eyes.  He also said in Genesis 34:12:

Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife.

Of course this was happening in a time period before the Word of God was written.  It would still have been many hundreds of years before the exodus.  Israel had not yet entered into the land of Egypt.  Jacob was about 100, or 101, and he would enter into Egypt when he was 130, so it was still 30 years away from his entrance into Egypt.  And then it would have been 430 years from then before the exodus and deliverance from Egypt.  We know that it was after the deliverance from Egypt during the wilderness sojourn that God wrote the Ten Commandments, and He also gave Moses an abundance of divine revelation wherein he would write the first five book of the Bible, as well as Psalm 90.  And that would begin the compiling of the Scriptures with the “book of the Law,” the Pentateuch, or first five books.  And in those five books these kinds of Law would be stipulated, written out in a similar manner.  It is not that the Law was following the history, but God was operating in the history of the patriarchs, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by operating within their spirits in order that they would maintain proper obedience to the Law that had not yet been written down on paper.  So it is incredible, and we will see that, for example, when we look up the word “dowry.”

This word “dowry” is Strong’s #4119, and it is only found three times in the Old Testament, once here in verse 12; and a second time in Exodus 22, which is part of the Pentateuch that the Lord moved Moses to write.  We read in Exodus 22:16:

And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife.

The word “endow” is the related word for “dowry.”  This is #4117 in the Hebrew concordance, and it is found twice in this verse – it is doubled.  “He shall surely endow,” or “he shall endow endow.”    This is to emphasize that it was to be done.  Again, it says in Exodus 22:16:

And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.

The word “dowry” here is our word from Genesis 34:12.  So this is further confirmation that Dinah was a virgin, and Shechem’s willingness to pay a dowry is in accord with what God says here concerning a maid that is not betrothed.  If the maid were betrothed, then it would be a different matter.  To be betrothed is sort of like being engaged, but in Biblical times it was equal to marriage.  Remember what we read in the New Testament regarding Joseph and Mary.  It is not the word “betrothed” but the word “espoused,” but it is the same idea.  It says in Matthew 1:18-19:

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.

He was a just man, and he did not want to make Mary a public example.  You see, the Law of God indicated that if there had been adultery, or a sexual act toward a damsel that had been betrothed but still a virgin, just as Mary had not yet “known” Joseph.  Joseph was looking to “put her away,” or divorce her, because they were married, but without the consummation of the marriage.  In Deuteronomy 22, a chapter that we looked at before regarding a man who had married a virgin, and then brought “occasion of speech” against her claiming she was not a maid, we read in the same chapter in Deuteronomy 22:23-24:

If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.

There is another Scripture that mentions an occasion of a betrothed damsel being forced and she did cry, but no one was around to hear her, and the Law of God does take that into account.   But in this case, notice that it says in verse 23: “If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband…”  So he is already called her husband.  Then if another man find her and lie with her, then they were both to be stoned to death.

In our case, it is not along those lines.  In our case, it is a damsel that is not betrothed, as we saw in Exodus 22.  Also, we see a little further along in Deuteronomy 22:28:

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;

Now that was the case in Genesis 34 regarding Shechem and Dinah.  It was discovered, and one reason is that Dinah stayed in his house throughout this whole ordeal, so this certainly applies.  Then it goes on to say in Deuteronomy 22:29:

Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.

The word “humbled” is Strong’s #6031, and it that same word that was translated as “defiled” in Genesis 34:2.  Shechem defiled Dinah.  He humbled her.  So this is very specific and appropriate, and it fits everything we are reading in Genesis 34.  The Law of God says that if this were to happen, this is what the man must do.  He is to pay the damsel’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she will be his wife, and he can never put her away.

It says in Exodus 22:17:

If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.

So the paying of money is the dowry, and it is specifically fifty shekels of silver, and the number “50” is “5 x 10,” and the number “5” points to “atonement.”  It comes from what we read concerning the atonement money, which is “half a shekel.”  Let us take a look at that to make sure we get it right.  It says in Exodus 30:12-13:

When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto JEHOVAH, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them. This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs:) an half shekel shall be the offering of JEHOVAH.

A “half shekel” is “.5,” and that is where the number of “atonement” comes in, and we see that number pop up repeatedly in the Bible, like the five wise virgins.  The five wise virgins had the atonement of Christ paid on their behalf. 

But here in Exodus 22, fifty shekels is the dowry.  That is the amount the Lord said the man should pay.  But again, there is a problem in Genesis 34 in that Shechem is not a Jew.  He is not a descendant of Abraham, but that does not mean that he could not become a “Jew” or an Israelite.  He could become part of the people of God and dwell in Israel if he simply became circumcised.  That is what God commanded in Genesis 17 concerning the “law of circumcision.”  Abraham was to circumcise every male in his household, even the servants, as it says in Genesis 17:11-13:

And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

Those who were born in the house and those bought with his money “must needs be circumcised.”  That is why it was accurate what the sons of Jacob told Shechem regarding their need to be circumcised, as well as all of the men of the village, if there were going to be this closeness between them, if they would take their daughters, and if the sons of Israel would take their daughters.  It would be as though they were annexed to become part of Israel.  And Israel was the outward representation of God’s kingdom on the earth. 

The spiritual picture is that you must be circumcised spiritually in order to enter into the kingdom of God, and then there would be no problem.  It would be as if all were like-minded, as the New Testament says regarding the fact that if a man marries, he is to marry in the Lord.  We are to find someone who is a like-minded child of God, insomuch as we can determine that to be the case, and then we can marry that person.  You see, it is really prefiguring God’s evangelization of the earth and the Gentiles, as the Gentiles would come in.  What does the book of Romans say?  It says that in this manner “all Israel shall be saved.”  (Romans 11:25-26)  The Gentiles would be counted as part of spiritual Israel (if they were elect) because the book of Romans also tells us in Romans 2:28:29:

For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

That is true salvation. 

We do not know Shechem’s actual spiritual condition, but as he was saying these things, and as God wrote them down in His Word, the Bible, Shechem certainly gave every appearance of someone that is coming to the Word of God, and to God Himself therefore, and he is doing so in a humble manner and in an honorable way, seeking to do God’s will: “Let me find grace in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give. Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me.”  Then they could have said, “We desire fifty shekels of silver, and when you marry her, you may never put her away.”  They could have stipulated the Law of God, and that would have been honorable on their part, but they did not do so because they were being deceitful.

The word “dowry” gets more interesting when we go to the third place this word is used.  Again, remember that this word is found here in Genesis 34; once in Exodus 22; and it is used a third place in the book of 1Samuel, where it involves David and the idea of marrying the king’s daughter.  David did not have money for a dowry, but the king let it be known that he did not seek a dowry other than “one hundred foreskins of the Philistines.”  Think about that because the word “foreskin” is the word we read in Genesis 17 regarding the foreskin being cut off.  It is a word that is translated a couple of times as “uncircumcised.”  And David carried out this request, and he actually doubled what was required.  But for David and his men to obtain the foreskins of the Philistines, they had to circumcise them, and that means that King Saul was substituting circumcision for “dowry.”  And that is exactly what happened here in Genesis 34.  Instead of saying, “You can pay us fifty shekels of silver,” they made a substitution, and that substitution was “circumcision,” or the cutting off of the foreskins.  Again, that is curious that this was the case, but we will look at that in our next Bible study, Lord willing.  We will do our best, although God does not make it easy.  But we will do our best to understand what we can.