Women with a Story to Tell 12.

 Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, had a voice that was never heard. The text has silenced her. As the story unfolds, it is the men who have their say. 

 Shechem speaks to his father saying, “Get me this girl to be my wife.” So the version of the story that Shechem tells his father is that he loves this girl.

 When Jacob hears the story, he hears a different version: “Jacob heard that Shechem had defiled his daughter Dinah.” Instead of seeking out his daughter who might be hurting, Jacob is silent in the face of what is apparently public humiliation, though perhaps for the family of Jacob but not the family of Shechem. 

 When Jacob’s sons came in from the fields, Shechem’s father was there to make a marriage proposal. Then, “when they heard of it, they were very indignant and very angry, because he had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, for such a thing ought not to be done” (Genesis 34: 7).

 That’s an interesting sentence. The first part is descriptive of the sons. However, the second part, everything after “because” looks like an explanatory statement written by the author of Genesis. What does the author mean by “committed an outrage in Israel”? Notice first that this was written long after the event in a time when Israel was a nation not a person. The text does not say an ‘outrage in Jacob’. Second, the reminder that “such a thing ought not to be done” again raises the question of the nature of the event and whether at this time in Jewish history the issue is pre-marital sex or rape or something else. 

 That is a hint that this story is actually not about Dinah as much as we would like to know her thoughts and feelings on the matter. Why is such a violent theme with rape, deception, and murder even in the Bible? We have to look at other themes in Genesis that might be emphasized here.  

 First, there is the call on Abraham and Sarah where God promises their descendants will become a great nation. That did not include information about who their descendants should marry, so that issue had to be worked out. 

 Abraham and Sarah were concerned about the purity of their family line. Abraham sent back to his brother’s family to find Rebekah for Isaac. They were cousins. Then, Isaac sent Jacob to Aram to find a wife, and he found Rebekah’s nieces, and so Rachel and Leah were also cousins. 

On the other hand, Abraham’s son Ishmael took an Egyptian wife. Isaac and Rebekah’s other son, Esau, took wives who were Canaanites. Rebekah was miserable with Esau’s wives (Genesis 27:46). 

 So, the issue with the Dinah story that is not about Dinah is really about marriage across clan lines. In a larger sense, as Bill Arnold points out, it is also a matter of covenant and faith (Genesis, 2009. Page 293-298). If Jacob had agreed to ally with the Hivites through intermarriage, then his descendants, though mixed, would have secured part of the Promised Land. At the same time, they would have been in danger of losing their exclusive identity as God’s chosen people. Both the nation and the land have been promised to Jacob, so why should he bargain for just a part of it? 

 Jacob was searching for a solution, but Jacob’s sons Levi and Simeon took the lead in drawing up a deceitful plan (Genesis 34: 25-31). They proposed to Shechem and his whole clan that if the males circumcised themselves, then marriages could take place. On the third day, when the men were too sore to move, these two entered the town and killed all the males. The other brothers then joined in plundering the town, taking everything, including the women. Not a good story. Jacob was so outraged and afraid of revenge that he moved away, back to Bethel. 

 Protecting the purity of the clan is admirable, but violence is not the answer. Jacob is not pleased, and it shows up in his final blessings for his sons before he died. To these two he said: 

“Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. May I never come into their council; may I not be joined to their company–for in their anger they killed men, and at their whim they hamstrung oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath for it is cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel” (Genesis 49: 5-7).

Accordingly, centuries later when Israel came into the Promised Land, the descendants of Levi were made priests. They received no land of their own, and they were scattered among the towns so they could serve all the people. Likewise, the descendants of Simeon were not given a region of land, but rather they were scattered in certain villages within the province of Judah. Against all odds the Israelites preserved an identity, and Jesus’ genealogical links go directly back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The Bible may not say what we want to hear, but we do have to hear what the Bible says.