34:1-19 Young persons, especially females, are never so safe and well off as under the care of pious parents. Their own ignorance, and the flattery and artifices of designing, wicked people, who are ever laying snares for them, expose them to great danger. They are their own enemies if they desire to go abroad, especially alone, among strangers to true religion. Those parents are very wrong who do not hinder their children from needlessly exposing themselves to danger. Indulged children, like Dinah, often become a grief and shame to their families. Her pretence was, to see the daughters of the land, to see how they dressed, and how they danced, and what was fashionable among them; she went to see, yet that was not all, she went to be seen too. She went to get acquaintance with the Canaanites, and to learn their ways. See what came of Dinah's gadding. The beginning of sin is as the letting forth of water. How great a matter does a little fire kindle! We should carefully avoid all occasions of sin and approaches to it.
Then will we give our daughters unto you,.... Meaning Dinah, whom they call their daughter, Genesis 34:17; because she was the daughter of their family, and because they were entreating in the name of their father, and in conformity to the language used by those they were treating with, Genesis 34:9,
and we will take your daughters to us; in marriage for wives:
and we will dwell with you; not as sojourners but as fellow citizens:
and we will become one people; being so nearly related by marriage, and professing one religion, alike submitting to circumcision, which was the distinguished badge of Abraham's seed.
and we will take your daughters to us; in marriage for wives:
and we will dwell with you; not as sojourners but as fellow citizens:
and we will become one people; being so nearly related by marriage, and professing one religion, alike submitting to circumcision, which was the distinguished badge of Abraham's seed.