Dinah and the Shechemites, 1-31

34:1 Now Dinah, Leah’s daughter whom she bore to Jacob, went to meet the young women of the land. 34:2 When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, who ruled that area, saw her, he grabbed her, forced himself on her, and sexually assaulted her. 34:3 Then he became very attached to Dinah, Jacob’s daughter. He fell in love with the young woman and spoke romantically to her.

Dinah…went to met the yougn women of the land – The significance of this is debated.  Claude Mariottini comments:

‘One Jewish commentator said that her going out was evidence of immodesty, as though her movement through public space implicitly invited the violence that followed.

‘Such interpretations, however, reflect the anxieties of a patriarchal culture far more than they illuminate the text itself. The Hebrew verb “to go out” is a perfectly ordinary word for movement and carries no intrinsic moral connotation. The phrase “to visit” or “to see” the women of the land describes nothing more than a young woman seeking social connection with her female contemporaries. Jacob’s family had recently settled near the city of Shechem (Gen 33:18–20), and Dinah, living in a newly established household in an unfamiliar territory, would have had every natural reason to seek out the company of other women. Her action was not reckless; it was simply human.’

What this verse does reveal, according to Mariottini, is the vulnerability of young women in the ancient world.

The young woman – LXX parthenos (even though she is referred to as such after she has been sexually assaulted).

Shechem fell in love with Dinah.  Of course, this does not retrospectively excuse the rape.

It appears the Dinah remained in Shechem’s house until her brothers remove her (v26).  The reasons for this are not stated.  Mariottini suggests three possible explanations:

1. She was kept there against her will.
2. Having been shamefully violated, she had nowhere else to go.
3. Despite having been raped by Shechem, she had developed an emotional bond with him.

But we are not given any direct insight into Dinah’s feelings in this whole matter.  Mariottini:

‘Dinah’s inner life is inaccessible not because the narrator forgot to include it, but because in the world the narrative reflects, Dinah’s inner life was socially irrelevant. What mattered was not what Dinah thought or felt or wanted, but what the men around her decided to do. Her silence in the text is not an accidental omission; it is a faithful representation of her social invisibility in the world of ancient Israel.’

4:4 Shechem said to his father Hamor, “Acquire this young girl as my wife.” 34:5 When Jacob heard that Shechem had violated his daughter Dinah, his sons were with the livestock in the field. So Jacob remained silent until they came in.

“Aquire this young girl as my wife” – Dinah is not consulted, nor her interests taken into account.  She has no right to accept of refuse.

Aside from Shechem’s apparently sincere expressions of love for Dinah, in ANE culture a man who had thus violated a woman was bound to pay a bride price and marry her.  This requirement was not intended to protect the victim, but rather to compensate the father, whose economic interests had been damaged by his daughter’s loss of her virginity.

34:6 Then Shechem’s father Hamor went to speak with Jacob about Dinah. 34:7 Now Jacob’s sons had come in from the field when they heard the news. They were offended and very angry because Shechem had disgraced Israel by sexually assaulting Jacob’s daughter, a crime that should not be committed.

The brothers were offended and very angry, not because their sister had been abused, but because Shechem had disgraced Israel.

34:8 But Hamor made this appeal to them: “My son Shechem is in love with your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. 34:9 Intermarry with us. Let us marry your daughters, and take our daughters as wives for yourselves. 34:10 You may live among us, and the land will be open to you. Live in it, travel freely in it, and acquire property in it.”

34:11 Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and brothers, “Let me find favor in your sight, and whatever you require of me I’ll give. 34:12 You can make the bride price and the gift I must bring very expensive, and I’ll give whatever you ask of me. Just give me the young woman as my wife!”
34:13 Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully when they spoke because Shechem had violated their sister Dinah. 34:14 They said to them, “We cannot give our sister to a man who is not circumcised, for it would be a disgrace to us. 34:15 We will give you our consent on this one condition: You must become like us by circumcising all your males. 34:16 Then we will give you our daughters to marry, and we will take your daughters as wives for ourselves, and we will live among you and become one people. 34:17 But if you do not agree to our terms by being circumcised, then we will take our sister and depart.”

34:18 Their offer pleased Hamor and his son Shechem. 34:19 The young man did not delay in doing what they asked because he wanted Jacob’s daughter Dinah badly. (Now he was more important than anyone in his father’s household.) 34:20 So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, 34:21 “These men are at peace with us. So let them live in the land and travel freely in it, for the land is wide enough for them. We will take their daughters for wives, and we will give them our daughters to marry. 34:22 Only on this one condition will these men consent to live with us and become one people: They demand that every male among us be circumcised just as they are circumcised. 34:23 If we do so, won’t their livestock, their property, and all their animals become ours? So let’s consent to their demand, so they will live among us.”

34:24 All the men who assembled at the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem. Every male who assembled at the city gate was circumcised. 34:25 In three days, when they were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and went to the unsuspecting city and slaughtered every male. 34:26 They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword, took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and left. 34:27 Jacob’s sons killed them and looted the city because their sister had been violated. 34:28 They took their flocks, herds, and donkeys, as well as everything in the city and in the surrounding fields. 34:29 They captured as plunder all their wealth, all their little ones, and their wives, including everything in the houses.

They…took Dinah from Shechem’s house – without asking her if she wished to be ‘rescued’.

They captured as plunder all their wealth, all their little ones, and their wives – And so the cycle of violence continues.  An act of violence against one woman leads to violence against multiple voiceless and powerless children and women.

34:30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought ruin on me by making me a foul odor among the inhabitants of the land—among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am few in number; they will join forces against me and attack me, and both I and my family will be destroyed!” 34:31 But Simeon and Levi replied, “Should he treat our sister like a common prostitute?”

Mariottini comments on this story in the context of a culture of honour and shame:

‘The entire social logic of Genesis 34 is related to the ancient concept of honor and shame system. In this system, honor was a public, social reality that attached to families and to male household heads, and shame was the consequence of acts that violated the community’s expectations of proper social behavior. A woman’s sexual purity was not conceived primarily as her own personal asset; it was a component of her family’s honor, managed by the male household head and transferred intact to a husband upon marriage.

‘When Shechem violated Dinah, the harm that the text registers most explicitly is not the harm to Dinah but the harm to the brothers’ sense of honor. Verse 7 states that the brothers were “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.”’

[…]

‘The negotiations between Hamor and the brothers proceed entirely on the terrain of economic and social exchange. Hamor proposes intermarriage between the two peoples and mutual sharing of the land (vv. 9–10). Shechem offers an unlimited bride price (vv. 11–12). The brothers counter with the demand for circumcision (vv. 14–17). Nowhere in this extended negotiation does Dinah’s welfare, her desires, or her emotional state appear as a consideration. She is the occasion for the negotiation, not a participant in it. She has been reduced, in the logic of the honor-shame economy, to a unit of social currency.’