Texts in Conversation
In Genesis 34, Shechem's offer to pay any marriage price shares Yarih's eagerness to secure a bride in the Ugaritic poem of Nikkal and Yarih, showing how wealth and a father's consent shaped marriage negotiations.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.24:19
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
Look, a young woman will bear a son […] […] […] […] like a bride […] Listen, goddesses, Kotharat, […] […] to his lord […] Dagan […] […] to the Kotharat, to the daughters of Hilal, [the swallows]. Yarih, lamp of heaven, sends to Hirhibi, king of summer: "Give Nikkal; Yarih will pay the bride-price for Ib. Let her enter his house, and I will give her bride-price to her father: a thousand of silver and ten thousand of gold; I will send gleaming lapis lazuli; I will make her fields into vineyards, the field of her love […]." Then Hirhibi, king of summer, answered: "O most gracious of the gods, become a son-in-law to Baal; marry Pidray, [his] daughter. I will bring you near to her father Baal.
Genesis 34:12
Hebrew Bible
8 But Hamor made this appeal to them: “My son Shechem is in love with your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. 9 Intermarry with us. Let us marry your daughters, and take our daughters as wives for yourselves. 10 You may live among us, and the land will be open to you. Live in it, travel freely in it, and acquire property in it.” 11 Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and brothers, “Let me find favor in your sight, and whatever you require of me I’ll give. 12 You can make the bride price and the gift I must bring very expensive, and I’ll give whatever you ask of me. Just give me the young woman as my wife!” 13 Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully when they spoke because Shechem had violated their sister Dinah.
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Notes and References
“... 1.24 R 20
And I shall give her dowry15 to her father,
a thousand (shekels) of silver
and ten thousand of gold!
I shall send gems of lapis lazuli!
I shall tum her steppelands into vineyards,
the steppeland of her love into orchards! 16'
But Harhab king of circumcision replied,
1.24 R 25
'0 most gracious of the gods,
lower edge
become son-in-law to Baal;
wed Pidray his daughterl7.
12. For a very different estimate of II. 7-10 see Margalit (1979: 556 §6.2).
13. Text II [ ]mml2nh 'her bowels'? Or read perhaps [ ]mm[.]<'>nh:' ... her
vulva ... ' (so above) as in I. 8. De Moor (1987: 143), 'the waters of her "well'" (sc.
vulva). The n at the beginning of I. 12 may be 'n: the tablet surface is damaged.
14. The town of Tuttul on the Euphrates was an imponant cult-centre of Dagan.
He is also invoked in KTU 1.100.15.
15. Ug. mhrh. The dowry is a financial settlement her father sets aside for the
bride. In addition to paying the bride-price (trb), Yarih is so insistent that he offers
to pay the dowry as well. Cf. Shechem's eagerness at Gen. 34.12.
16. An agricultural metaphor for the consummation and fruitful outcome of a
marriage. ...”
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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