Hamor

Hamor (meaning an ass or clay) was a Hivite prince, the father of Shechem, from whom Jacob purchased a plot of ground at the city of Shechem for one hundred pieces of silver (Gen. 33:18–20; Acts 7:16). This plot became the burial site of Joseph's bones after the Exodus (Josh. 24:32). Hamor's son Shechem violated Jacob's daughter Dinah, then sought to marry her, leading to the negotiation in which Hamor proposed intermarriage between the Hivites and Israelites—a proposal Jacob's sons accepted deceitfully and then avenged by slaughtering the men of Shechem while they were recovering from circumcision (Gen. 34).

Hamor represents the Canaanite inhabitants of the central highlands with whom Israel's patriarchal ancestors had complex and often violent interactions. The land purchase at Shechem—parallel to Abraham's purchase of Machpelah—established an Israelite legal claim to a parcel in the heart of Canaan long before the conquest under Joshua.