What Does Genesis 34:18 Mean?
And their words were good in the eyes of Hamor, and in the eyes of Shechem, son of Hamor.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And their words pleased Hamor, and Shechem Hamor’s son.THE KEY
The Hebrew says their words were “good in the eyes” of Hamor and Shechem: approval records the hearers’ judgment, not an impartial verdict.
THE MEANING
Words can seem good to the people hearing them because they fit what those people want; their approval alone does not establish that the terms are good. Here, the surrounding account makes the gap brutal: this accepted agreement leads into deceit and slaughter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If the other side agrees, the bargain must be good.
THE ROOT
וַיִּיטְבוּ
wayyiṭəḇū
GROWS FROM
יטב
y-ṭ-b
Be good, go well, or be pleasing.
“were good in the eyes of” in this verse is wayyiṭəḇū. The Hebrew literally says their words “were good in the eyes” of both men. The root places that goodness in the hearers’ judgment; it does not certify the proposal as just.
ALSO GROWS
heṭiv: Do good; deal well.
הֵיטִיב
The same root can describe doing well, while here it describes how the words land with their hearers.
yitav: Be well; go well.
יִיטַב
This form appears in Genesis 12:13, where Abram seeks that things go well for him, showing how the root can name someone’s welfare rather than a moral verdict.
דִּבְרֵיהֶם
divrehem
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak; as davar, a word, matter, or affair.
“words” in this verse is divrehem. The root keeps speech joined to the matter being discussed: these are the brothers’ terms, not merely pleasing sounds. The named hearers are concrete too: Hamor (חֲמוֹר, Ḥămôr, “donkey”) and Shechem (שְׁכֶם, Šəḵem, “shoulder”) are the ones whose eyes receive those terms.
ALSO GROWS
dāḇār: Word, matter, or affair.
דָּבָר
It shows how “their words” can also mean the substance of the proposal they accept.
dibber: Speak.
דִּבֵּר
The spoken terms are an act within the unfolding matter, not something detached from its consequences.
THE PATTERN
What seems right or pleasing to a hearer can reveal that hearer’s perspective without proving the path is good.
There is a way straight before a man, but its latter end is the ways of death.In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did what was straight in his own eyes.For a time will come when they will not bear healthy teaching, but according to their own desires they will heap up teachers for themselves, having itching ears.THE THREAD
Say, please, that you are my sister, so that it may go well with me for your sake, and my living soul will live because of you.The phrase “it may be well” uses the same root, יטב (y-ṭ-b), as “pleased” here. In both verses, what is good or goes well is bound to someone’s interests, so the root itself does not guarantee moral goodness.
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