What Does Genesis 34:4 Mean in the King James?
And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The word “get” makes the violence legible: Shechem asks his father to obtain Dinah as a wife after he has violated her.
THE MEANING
Shechem tells his father to obtain Dinah as his wife, while the preceding verse names his sexual violence against her. You hear a person made into the object of an arrangement between men; the word “wife” does not make that violence mutual. Dinah’s voice is absent from this exchange.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that calling a demand a marriage arrangement makes it mutual: Shechem speaks to his father, while Dinah is neither consulted nor heard.
THE ROOT
קַח
qaḥ
GROWS FROM
לקח
take, receive, acquire
“get / take” in this verse is qaḥ. The command’s root also yields לֶקַח (leqaḥ, “instruction, learning”) and לָקוּחַ (lāqūaḥ, “taken, acquired”), holding receiving and acquisition in one word family. Here Dinah is grammatically what is to be obtained, even as the preceding verse names the violence already done to her.
ALSO GROWS
leqaḥ: Instruction, learning; a lesson received.
לֶקַח
This branch carries the root’s sense of receiving into the realm of what is taken in as teaching.
lāqūaḥ: Taken, acquired.
לָקוּחַ
This form makes explicit the state implied by Shechem’s command: someone is treated as what another can obtain.
וַיֹּאמֶר
vayyomer
GROWS FROM
אמר
say, speak, utter
“spake” in this verse is vayyomer. The speech is directed to Hamor, not to Dinah; what Shechem says is a command for his father to carry out. The root’s family of saying makes the exchange’s structure audible: the men speak about her, while she has no line of speech here.
ALSO GROWS
imrah: Utterance, saying.
אִמְרָה
This noun makes speech itself visible as the means through which Shechem voices his demand.
le'mor: Saying, to say.
לֵאמֹר
This form introduces spoken words; here the speech it introduces directs the father to obtain Dinah.
הַיַלְדָּה
hayaldah
GROWS FROM
ילד
beget, bear, give birth
“damsel” in this verse is hayaldah. The word names a girl or young woman within the family of ילד (yalad, “beget, bear”), alongside יֶלֶד (yeled, “child”) and הוֹלִיד (holid, “beget”). That family carries kinship and generation into the line, while the conversation about Dinah remains between men.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child, boy.
יֶלֶד
This noun shares the birth-and-kinship family that underlies the word used for Dinah.
holid: Beget, father.
הוֹלִיד
This verb extends the same root into the act of bringing forth a child.
THE PATTERN
Desire spoken in the language of acquisition turns another person into an object to possess.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house.But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.THE THREAD
And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house.The Hebrew root לקח (laqaḥ, “take”) also underlies the taking in this verse. Its repetition lets you hear how desire becomes an act of possession, carried out through messengers and power.
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