Genesis 34:2-3
And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her. And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel.

This is a strange and deeply disturbing passage to read. Shechem saw Dinah, took Dinah, violated Dinah, and then afterward spoke kindly to her. That is hard to even process.

And I think that is part of the point.

Sin is never sane. The flesh is never logical. It can do something violent, selfish, and defiling, and then in the next breath act as though it is tender, sincere, and affectionate. That is what makes this scene so dark. Shechem does not merely sin against Dinah. He then seems to persuade himself that what he feels afterward is somehow love.

Evidently, in the frenzy of lust, he developed feelings for her. But whatever emotion he felt, it was not love in any pure or holy sense. Love does not begin by violating. Love does not take by force. Love does not defile and then try to soften the horror of what it has done with gentle words.

That is not love.

That is lust showing its true nature. Lust takes. Lust consumes. Lust treats a person like an object in the moment, and then afterward wants to wrap itself in the language of affection. But kind words after cruelty do not change the nature of the act. Soft speech does not erase hard wickedness.

That is why this passage feels so twisted. Shechem’s heart seems attached, but it is an attachment born out of sin, not sanctity. He wants closeness after causing devastation. He speaks kindly after acting cruelly. He calls it love, perhaps, but the whole thing is polluted from the start.

And that is how the flesh always works. It blurs lines. It renames evil. It makes a man think that because he feels deeply, he must therefore feel rightly. But depth of feeling is not the same thing as purity of love. A man can feel intensely and still be completely wrong.

What is also heartbreaking is that this did not happen in isolation. Jacob had pitched his tent near Shechem, and now the spirit of Shechem is invading his home. What first looked like a questionable choice of location now becomes painful consequence. The compromise of chapter 33 opens the door to the sorrow of chapter 34.

That is a sobering reminder.

When a man lives too close to carnality, eventually carnality touches the people he loves.