Genesis 34:18

Summary

Genesis 34:18 reports the reaction of Hamor and his son Shechem to the proposal just made by Jacob's sons: their words were considered good, pleasing to both parties. It is a narrative transition verse marking the acceptance of a preceding condition.

Key words

• va-yitevu ("and they were good", H3190) — qal verb with narrative vav; opens the sequence indicating a direct consequence of what precedes: the words "were good" in the eyes of someone.
• divreihem ("their words", H1697) — masculine plural noun in construct with the possessive suffix "their"; refers to what Jacob's sons had proposed (the demand of circumcision mentioned in previous verses).
• be'einei ("in the eyes of", H5869) — feminine dual noun in construct, used idiomatically to express someone's subjective judgment or opinion, not literal physical vision.
• Chamor ("Hamor", H2544) — proper name, appears twice: first as direct recipient of the judgment, second identifying Shechem as "son of Hamor".
• Shechem ("Shechem", H7927) — proper name of the son, introduced with the construct ben ("son of", H1121) that links him genealogically to Hamor.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure follows a verb-subject-complement pattern: the verb yitevu ("were good") agrees in plural with the subject divreihem ("their words"), followed by two parallel prepositional phrases with be'einei ("in the eyes of") — first Hamor, then Shechem. This repeated construction with be'einei creates a rhetorical parallelism reinforcing that the approval was individual and explicit from both figures, not merely a family group decision.

The double use of the "eyes of" idiom in Biblical Hebrew is a formula for expressing evaluation or opinion — an action or word "is good in the eyes of" someone means that person approves or considers it valid. The apposition of Shechem with ben-Chamor ("son of Hamor") at the end of the verse formally repeats data already known from the narrative, functioning as an identifying reminder within Semitic narrative style, which does not require pronominal contraction to reference persons already introduced.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders be'einei ("in the eyes of") with the Greek preposition ἐναντίον ("before"/"in the presence of"), which shifts the idiom's optical nuance toward a positional or "presential" sense of approval, rather than explicitly opinion-based. The Vulgate uses placuit ("it pleased"), a Latin verb that condenses the idea of "being good in the eyes of" into a single verb of pleasure/satisfaction, losing the visual/idiomatic image the Hebrew construction preserves. Both versions retain the double structure naming Hamor and Shechem, though the Vulgate identifies Shechem simply as "filio ejus" ("his son") without repeating the proper name Hamor as the Hebrew text does.