Free The Harlot by The Side of The Road: Forbidden Tales of The Bible by Jonathan Kirsch Page A

and only then will we take your women to be our wives. Only then will we dwell with you throughout the land, and become one people.”
    If Shechem heard the sniggers among the other sons of Jacob, he did not show any sign of it, but Hamor could not suppress a grin.
    Simeon grinned, too, as if he had suddenly understood what game his brother was playing. Now it was Simeon’s turn to join in the game.
    “But if you refuse to do what we ask,” he lectured Shechem, “then we will take our lovely sister—such a pretty one!—and we will be gone.”
    “Done!” said Shechem in a voice that seemed to quaver, as if fear and longing were struggling within his throat as he spoke.
    And the young man deferred not to do the thing, because he had delight in Jacob’s daughter. And he was honoured above all the house of his father. And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the gate of their city, and spoke with the men of their city, saying: “These men are peaceable with us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade therein; for, behold, the land is large enough for them; let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters. Only on this condition will the men consent unto us to dwell with us, to become one people, if every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised. Shall not their cattle and their substance and all their beasts be ours? Only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us.”
    — GENESIS 34-19-23    
     
    Simeon laughed out loud as Dinah’s handmaiden recounted the scene she had witnessed the day before when Hamor and the court physician appeared in the marketplace and addressed the crowd.
    “ ‘You all know of the stranger called Jacob and his people, they are our
friends,’
” the young woman recited, reciting Hamor’s words and mimicking his gravelly voice. “ ‘Let them live with us and move freely around the country—the land is big enough for all of us.’”
    “Yes,” Simeon urged, “and then what?”
    “Well, the prince saw that the crowd was not ready to riot—so far, so good!—and so he said: ‘Let us marry their daughters, and let them marry our daughters.’ Some of the men in the crowd began to hoot a bit—I suppose they fancy our women, too. And then the prince gave them the bad news: ‘But these people will agree to live with us and become one people with us on one condition only: Every man among us must be circumcised like them.’”
    “And what happened when they heard?” demanded Levi.
    “Oh, they did not like the sound of it at all! They began to grumble, and Hamor’s voice was not quite so deep now.”
    The girl raised her voice to a shrill squeak and mocked the way Hamor pleaded with his people: “ ‘If we marry with these strangers, their livestock will be ours! Their goods will be ours! All we have to do is consent to be circumcised, here and now.’”
    And unto Hamor and unto Shechem his son hearkened all that went out of the gate of his city; and every male was circumcised, all that went out of the gate of his city
.
    — GENESIS 34:24    
     
    Now all of the brothers were laughing out loud as the young woman brazenly imitated the shocked expressions that she had seen on the faces of Hamor’s people, and demonstrated how some of the men in the crowd had covered their private parts with their hands as if to protect themselves from the circumciser’s knife. And she pointed out how the prince had taken the precaution of stationing his guards around the crowded marketplace so the menfolk might better understand that they had no real choice in the matter.
    “And so,” the handmaiden continued, “all of the strong and able-bodied men ended up in perfect agreement with the good prince, and every single one of them was circumcised right then and there.”
    “Every one?” Simeon asked, betraying a touch of anxiety because, as he knew but did not say, everything depended on it. “Every able-bodied man went under