2024_05_27 Insight Post- Kim Feld
This week’s reading- Genesis 34
Today is Memorial Day, and before I begin my post, I invite each of us to take a moment to remember its significance. It’s not about a day off, opening pools, or cookouts. Instead, it’s a day to remember those who have given their lives for our freedoms. May God bless those who have lost loved ones in service to our country. We recognize and thank you for your sacrifice today.
Dinah is at the center of the story we focus on this week, although we never hear her words or thoughts. If you look at any commentaries written about Genesis 34, you will see a wide range of thoughts on the chapter. One that I read said that Dinah felt safe going out alone to visit the other women. In contrast, another said she was irresponsible and thrill-seeking. Culture should be considered to the best of our ability when reading scripture. Still, I don’t believe God intends us to dismiss any of His Word because of it. This was a time of arranged marriages and different norms around relationships than today, but rape is rape. It meant to forcibly violate another then just as it does today.
Dinah was the daughter of Jacob and Leah. Leah gave birth to six of Jacob’s twelve sons, so Dinah had six full brothers and six half-brothers. Jacob did not favor Leah, but I would like to think that Dinah, being his only daughter, would have had a special place in her father’s heart. However, scripture tells us that Jacob was silent when he heard what had happened. Take a look:
5 When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with his livestock; so he did nothing about it until they came home. (Genesis 34:5, NIV)
In contrast, verse 7 tells us that when the brothers heard, they came in from the field and were shocked and furious. Jacob remains silent, and the brothers take the lead in discussing the situation with Hamor and his son Shechem, the perpetrator. Fast forward to after the massacre has occurred, Jacob is furious with Simeon and Levi, who had taken the lead in the slaughter. This has long-lasting implications, which I’ll get to in a second, but there is one final detail that is interesting in the story. At the very end of the chapter, after Jacob has spoken against their action, look at the brother’s reply:
31 But they replied, “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?”
Their words indicate concern for their sister’s honor as the motivator for their actions; using “our sister” instead of “your daughter” also stood out to me. Could the whole thing have been avoided if Jacob had defended his daughter?
On Jacob’s deathbed years later, after the story of Joseph and the whole family’s move to Egypt, he cursed Simeon and Levi for their actions. Take a look at Genesis 49:5-7:
5 “Simeon and Levi are brothers—their swords are weapons of violence. 6Let me not enter their council, let me not join their assembly, for they have killed men in their anger and hamstrung oxen as they pleased. 7Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel! I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel.
On Jacob’s deathbed, his blessing passed to Judah, the fourth of his sons. And from this blessed line came Jesus.
I want to know more about Dinah, but unfortunately, we only have speculation about the remainder of her life. According to Lockyer (2005), Jewish tradition held that Shaul, listed as the son of Simeon, was actually Dinah’s child who had been adopted by her brother. This is believed because of the way Genesis 46:10 and Exodus 6:15 read:
10 The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman. (Genesis 46:10)
15 The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman. These were the clans of Simeon. (Exodus 6:15) (It’s interesting to note that the KJV refers to a “Canaanitish woman.”)
There is so much to unpack in this dysfunctional family, but one thing that stands out is the role of a father in the lives of his children. I wanted to see Jacob comfort his daughter, and I wanted to see him lead and guide his sons. But from what we read, he did neither. Yet, God is still at work in this family, giving them a pivotal role in history. God is the real hero, always at work, taking our mess and making something beautiful out of it
Kim Feld
Executive Director of Education and Outreach
Reference: Lockyer, H. (2005). All the Men/All the Women Compilation. Zondervan.