What Does Genesis 34:20 Mean?

They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem's house and went away. The killing of Hamor and Shechem is described simply and without dramatic elaboration. The two men most responsible for the situation are dead: Shechem who violated Dinah, and Hamor who negotiated to legitimize the violation without moral redress. Their deaths are not separately mourned or commented upon by the narrator; they are part of the larger killing of verse 25.

The retrieval of Dinah "from Shechem's house" is the moment that makes explicit what the narrative had implied: she had been in his house throughout the negotiations. The entire negotiation process of verses 8-24 happened while Dinah was held in Shechem's house. Her retrieval is the act of liberation that the violence enabled; she was not free to leave before the massacre. The fact that she could only be retrieved through violence speaks to the power dynamics of the situation.

The phrase "went away" after taking Dinah completes Simeon and Levi's action within this verse. The retrieval of their sister is the stated purpose that motivated the killing; having retrieved her, they depart. The economy of the narration, killing and retrieval in a single verse, emphasizes the purposeful character of the action: it was not random violence but targeted violence with a specific goal, the recovery of Dinah from the household of the man who violated her.