All who went out of the gate of his city: see also 23.10. There are two interpretations of this expression:
(1) That it refers to the men capable of defending the town.
(2) That it refers to all the men (Good News Translation “citizens”) of the town.

Anchor Bible argues for the former meaning, saying that the verb translated went out is military usage. Accordingly he and others translate “all the able-bodied men.” There is little if any difference between these two understandings.

Hearkened to Hamor: in the Hebrew this clause comes before “all who went out….” Hearkened means “listened to” and in this context has the sense of “agreed with” or “accepted what Hamor wanted them to do.” In some languages this may be more naturally expressed in direct speech: “… said, ‘Yes. We agree with your words.’ ”

And every male was circumcised: all who went out of the gate of his city is parallel to every male and means “all the males in the city.” In verse 25 all the males regardless of age are killed, as Revised Standard Version says.

All who went out of the gate of his city (as repeated at the end of verse 24) is not repeated in some modern translations. See Good News Translation. Westermann considers it a scribal error.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .