This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[337]
HEREUPON Jacob came to the place, till this day called Tents (Succoth);
from whence he went to Shechem, which is a city of the Canaanites. Now
as the Shechemites were keeping a festival Dina, who was the only daughter
of Jacob, went into the city to see the finery of the women of that
country. But when Shechem, the son of Hamor the king, saw her, he defiled
her by violence; and being greatly in love with her, desired of his father
that he would procure the damsel to him for a wife. To which desire he
condescended, and came to Jacob, desiring him to give leave that his son
Shechem might, according to law, marry Dina. But Jacob, not knowing how
to deny the desire of one of such great dignity, and yet not thinking it
lawful to marry his daughter to a stranger, entreated him to give him leave
to have a consultation about what he desired him to do. So the king went
away, in hopes that Jacob would grant him this marriage. But Jacob informed
his sons of the defilement of their sister, and of the address of Hamor;
and desired them to give their advice what they should do. Upon fills,
the greatest part said nothing, not knowing what advice to give. But Simeon
and Levi, the brethren of the damsel by the same mother, agreed between
themselves upon the action following: It being now the time of a festival,
when the Shechemites were employed in ease and feasting, they fell upon
the watch when they were asleep, and, coming into the city, slew all the
males 1
as also the king, and his son, with them; but spared the women. And when
they had done this without their father's consent, they brought away their
sister.
1 Of this slaughter of the Shechemites by Simeon and Levi, see Authent. Rec. Part I. p. 309, 418, 432-439. But why Josephus has omitted the circumcision of these Shechemites, as the occasion of their death; and of Jacob's great grief, as in the Testament of Levi, sect. 5; I cannot tell.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.