Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 3. Spake kindly unto the damsel.] Literally, he spake to the heart of the damsel - endeavoured to gain her affections, and to reconcile her to her disgrace. It appears sufficiently evident from this and the preceding verse that there had been no consent on the part of Dinah, that the whole was an act of violence, and that she was now detained by force in the house of Shechem. Here she was found when Simeon and Levi sacked the city, ver. 26.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-19 - Young persons, especially females, are never so safe and well off a under the care of pious parents. Their own ignorance, and the flatter and artifices of designing, wicked people, who are ever laying snare for them, expose them to great danger. They are their own enemies in they desire to go abroad, especially alone, among strangers to tru religion. Those parents are very wrong who do not hinder their children from needlessly exposing themselves to danger. Indulged children, lik Dinah, often become a grief and shame to their families. Her pretenc was, to see the daughters of the land, to see how they dressed, and ho they danced, and what was fashionable among them; she went to see, ye that was not all, she went to be seen too. She went to get acquaintanc with the Canaanites, and to learn their ways. See what came of Dinah' gadding. The beginning of sin is as the letting forth of water. Ho great a matter does a little fire kindle! We should carefully avoid all occasions of sin and approaches to it.
Original Hebrew ותדבק1692 נפשׁו5315 בדינה1783 בת1323 יעקב3290 ויאהב157 את853 הנער5291 וידבר1696 על5921 לב3820 הנער׃5291
