"And they journeyed from thence, offering praise and prayer before the Lord. And there was a tremor from before the Lord upon the people of the cities round about them, and they pursued not after the sons of Jacob." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 35:5) records the miracle that followed the purge.
The cities of Canaan had every reason to pursue Jacob. Simeon and Levi had just sacked Shekem. A coalition of Canaanite and Perizzite towns could have overrun Jacob's camp easily — Jacob himself had feared exactly this (Genesis 34:30). But no pursuit came. The Targum says why: a tremor from the Lord fell upon the surrounding peoples.
Not steel, but terror
The rabbis noticed that God did not send angels with swords. God sent fear. The Canaanite armies felt a shudder, an irrational dread, and they stayed in their cities. The protection was invisible but total.
There is a theology here about how God guards His people. Sometimes deliverance comes through miracles of power — seas parting, walls falling. But more often it comes through miracles of perception — enemies who lose their nerve, plans that quietly unravel, pursuits that never begin. You do not see the miracle because the miracle is the thing that did not happen.
And notice what preceded the tremor: praise and prayer. Jacob's household, newly cleansed of idols, left Shechem offering thanks. The song went up, and a wall of fear went out.
The takeaway: sometimes the best miracles are the chases that never leave the gate.