Genesis 12:6-7
Unto thy seed will I give this land
The first altar in Canaan goes up here, and the narrator notes in the same breath that the Canaanite was then in the land.
Places of the Bible
Shechem
The first place the promise was spoken aloud in the land, and the first place the family disgraced itself in it.
Abram passes through the land as far as the place of Shechem, unto the plain of Moreh, and there the LORD appears to him and says unto thy seed will I give this land. It is the first recorded word spoken to him inside Canaan, and he builds an altar on the spot. Two generations later Jacob comes back from Haran, buys a parcel of a field at the hand of the children of Hamor for a hundred pieces of money, and erects an altar of his own.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Shechem
- 01
- 02
Genesis 33:18-20
He bought a parcel of a field
Jacob comes back safe from Haran and buys ground rather than camping on it. He calls the altar God, the God of Israel.
- 03
Genesis 34:1-12
Dinah went out to see the daughters of the land
A visit becomes an assault, and the assault is followed by a marriage proposal and a trade agreement offered to her family.
- 04
Genesis 34:25-31
Simeon and Levi took each man his sword
The reply is made on the third day, when the men of the city are sore. Jacob speaks about reputation; his sons speak about their sister.
- 05
Genesis 49:5-7
Cursed be their anger
Fifty years later the deathbed blessing returns to this town and divides the two brothers in Israel for it.
Why it matters
Then Genesis 34 happens in the same town. Dinah goes out to see the daughters of the land, Shechem the son of Hamor takes her, and Simeon and Levi answer a proposed marriage alliance with circumcision, three days, and swords. Jacob’s objection is that they have made him to stink among the inhabitants of the land, and their answer is a question: should he deal with our sister as with a harlot. The chapter closes without settling it, and Jacob is still bitter about it on his deathbed.
1 song
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
