GENESIS
JACOB
The Abduction of Dinah
and the Conclusion of the Jacob Stories
Genesis 33:17-35:29
INTRODUCTION
It's been 30 years since Jacob fled the land of Canaan to head north to find a wife for himself from among his mother's relatives. God's revelation to him at Bethel though changed him as he was on his way out of Canaan. God had made specific promises to Jacob, to bless him and to bring him back safely to this land. Jacob, on the other hand, had promised to return to Bethel and worship God, specifically by rendering to the Lord the tithe, a tenth of ALL his possessions.
Well, Jacob has been back in the region for the past 10+ years. He lived for an extended period of time just to the east of the Jordan River in a place called "Succoth." Later he moved northwest across the Jordan near the city of Shechem. Because Jacob delays in returning to Bethel and procrastinates in paying his vow to the Lord, the following harrowing incident occurs.
THE RAPE OF DINAH (34:1-7)
Dinah who is the only daughter of Jacob mentioned in Genesis goes out one day to mingle with the women of that land, that is, Canaanite women. While she is out with the women, Shechem, who is the son of the leader of the city of Shechem, sees Dinah and instantaneously is infatuated with her. In fact he is so infatuated with her, that he abducts her, rapes her, and retains her in his father's home in the city of Shechem.
News reaches Jacob. What is stunning about Jacob's response is that he does NOTHING. His daughter has been abducted and raped, and he does nothing. At first the reason for this seems to be that his 11 sons who by this time are grown men (at least in their 20's) have gone out to pasture the flocks. Jacob would definitely have been unwise if he had confronted Shechem and his city alone. Later events will show though that Jacob is practically passive in this episode. Whatever would explain his passivity? It might just be that during the past 30 years the struggles with his father, brother, uncle, and then later brother again have worn him down. Whatever the reason, Jacob remains passive throughout this entire episode, until the very end.
News reaches the brothers about what has happened to Dinah. Because events move so swiftly once the brothers return home, the brothers most likely have been plotting and scheming while they are on their way home.
NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN SHECHEM AND JACOB'S FAMILY (34:8-24)
When the brothers arrive home, they lead out in dealing with the situation. (This was probably customary in that part of the world; earlier we saw Laban leading out in negotiating with Abraham's servant the marriage of his sister Rebekah to Isaac. Sons/brothers played significant roles in ancient times.) Hamor, Shechem's father who is also the leader of the city of Shechem, approaches the family and proposes terms which he hopes Jacob's family will accept so that Shechem can marry Dinah. The father proposes an alliance between his city and the house of Jacob: the daughters and sons of his people will intermarry with Jacob's sons and daughters. According to Hamor the result should be an economic boon for the family of Jacob since now all the pastures and trade of the land will be made available to them once the marriage has been finalized.
According to the account Shechem has fallen madly in love with Dinah. At this point Shechem makes a fatal mistake. Instead of allowing his father to negotiate fully, he jumps in and sweetens the deal. He informs Dinah's brothers that not only will they benefit materially and commercially by attaching themselves to him and his family by marriage, he will also do whatever they ask in exchange for Dinah's hand in marriage.
This was probably exactly what Jacob's sons were waiting for. The brothers claims that because they are the chosen seed of Abraham, they and all those aligned with them must submit themselves to the rite of circumcision. If they allowed Dinah to marry an uncircumcised man, they would be violating the very reason for their existence as God's people. They existed to be God's chosen people, and since circumcision was the mark of God's choosing them, they could never allow her to marry one uncircumcised. They propose that if Shechem is serious about their sister, then not only he but also all the inhabitants of his city, including his father Hamor, must submit to circumcision.
Circumcision at that time was not that uncommon, especially among the priesthood in Egypt. Although Shechem most surely realized that this will cause some pain, he gladly accepts their terms.
It is one thing for Shechem to accept the terms of circumcision, it is quite another for the city itself to accept these terms. Hamor and Shechem propose the terms of the alliance to the men of the city at the city's gate, the place of local government in ancient times. Although the 2 probably realized that circumcision could be a hard sale, they convince the men of Shechem to accept the deal because once the alliance is made "will not their livestock and their property and all their animals be ours?" Shechem had promised the family of Jacob that all he and his people had would be theirs; now that the Jacobites are not present, the truth comes out: by entering into this alliance everything Jacob and his family has will be Shechem's and his people's.
That is the ultimate price of Christians compromising with the world. Christians think they gain whenever they water down the Christian message in order to be politically correct or socially acceptable. All these gains though are temporary. When a person running for public office claims that he believes in Jesus but that there are other ways to God, he has compromised and ceased to act like the Christian he claims to be. He has gutted Christianity. Whenever a Christian parent O.K.’s his son or daughter engaging in immoral or unethical behavior because it will help their status at school, that parent has ceased to act like the Christian he claims to be. I cannot say specifically what Christians lose whenever they compromise; Jesus though does say: "What does it profit a man to gain the world but to lose his soul?" (Matt. 16:26). Assimilation into the Canaanite tribes would have resulted in the house of Jacob losing its identity as the people of God.
The men accept the terms and submit to circumcision, apparently all at the same time.
THE SLAUGHTER OF THE CITY OF SHECHEM (34:25-31)
On the third day after the men of Shechem had been circumcised, 2 of Dinah's full brothers, Levi and Simeon, enter the city by stealth and put to the sword all the men of that city. Because the pain from circumcision would have been the severest on the third day, the men of Shechem are incapacitated and unable to defend themselves. They enter the house of Hamor, kill both Hamor and Shechem, and then rescue Dinah who has been held there since the time of her abduction.
The other 9 brothers join in after the slaughter and abduct the women, children, and cattle of the city of Shechem. The ironic thing is that the very thing which the prince Shechem promised Jacob's family indeed comes to pass, just not the way he had envisioned it. Jacob's family did prosper greatly because of their dealings with the city of Shechem.
When Jacob discovers what his sons has done, he is outraged--at last. He didn't seem outraged whenever his daughter was violated. He was only outraged whenever his sons took the law into their own hands. Why was he upset? Because he now feared that the Canaanites would band together and annihilate him and his family. He's not thinking of right and wrong, only of security. The brothers though respond by saying for a second time: "Such a thing should not have been done in Israel. Moreover, Shechem treated our sister like a prostitute." (As if to show that the brothers actually were right, Moses later writes that instead of attacking Jacob's family, the Canaanites steered clear of them because of what they had done to the city of Shechem.)
PERSPECTIVES ON THIS STORY
At this point a moral dilemma faces most readers of the story: were Dinah's brothers wrong for what they did to the men of Shechem and for what eventually happened to the women and children of Shechem? The commentator of the New American Commentary on Genesis is almost beside himself because of what Jacob's sons did. Is that commentator justified in his outrage?
When I pitched this story to a group of young people, they raised several very good issues. First, they raised the issue of the extremity of the brothers' response. Shechem to be sure needed to be punished, but this seemed to go beyond the pale. Second, they raised the issue of why the men of the city and ultimately their families suffered because of Shechem's sin. Put Shechem to death maybe, but why the rest of the men of the city? Why did the women and children have to suffer because of this one man's sin?
In response to the first issue, maybe this was an extreme consequence; however, one thing we all need to remember is that whereas I do get to choose to do the wrong thing, I don't have the right to choose my consequences. Shechem chose to violate Dinah; he did not have the right to choose his consequences.
Second, we do not live in a vacuum. Rather we all live in a pond which experiences ripple effects. You throw the stone into the pond, and it produces ripples. In the same way, whatever I do, good or bad, I cause ripples. Shechem being the prince of the city made bigger ripples than just an ordinary citizen of that city would have done. This should have motivated him to live better than he lived. In the same way our next president is going to affect us whether we vote for him or not in the November election. That is the rule of life, and we had better appreciate it, or else it is going to destroy us.
One thing very interesting happened whenever I pitched this out to a group of young people. At first half of them jumped in immediately and said that the brothers were off base in their response. Then before the other half spoke up, a young black man from Cameroon, fully Christian, said: "This was justice." You could have heard a pin drop at that moment. The other young people had not looked at it in that way at all; they had only seen it as revenge.
I then told the rest of the young people that Cameroon had not been quite affected by our "political correctness" as we had. Several lines of thought have really affected our society today, 2 of which are Darwinism and Relativism. Darwinism or godless evolution basically says that people are just basically animals. There's no real value to human life if a godless evolution is true. Relativism teaches that all morals are relative. In that case maybe Shechem did something wrong but not all that bad. Well, Cameroon has not been infected with these 2 lines of thought like our American culture has been. There was a purity to the young man black's response than there was to the other kids' response.
Maybe the young man from Cameroon was naive. All I know is that Newman McLarry was one of the finest Christians I have ever met in my life. At one point in time he had been the pastor of the 9th largest Southern Baptist Church in the convention. When he preached, your spirit truly soared to heaven. At all times he acted with great kindness, charisma, and goodness. One day he told me that if any man ever did something to one of his 2 granddaughters, under the cover of night he would take them out and do it in such a way that no one would ever be able to pin it on him. (He would have been able to do it since one he was an Aggie and two he had been a captain in the army during WW2.) It was a sobering moment.
Newman's was a different generation than the one I had grown up in and one in which the young people had grown up in. His was a generation which valued honor and dignity, especially that of a young woman. Before we completely trash the 11 brothers, we need to realize we are part of a generation which does NOT value honor and dignity. The contemporary reaction against this story may say more about our society than it does about the 11 brothers.
CONCLUSION OF THE JACOB STORIES (35:1-29)
The stories about Jacob are coming swiftly to an end. After this chapter the focus will shift from Jacob to Joseph. In rapid succession Moses lists the final major events of Jacob's life.
