Dinah and the Violence That Follows

Dinah is introduced as “the daughter of Leah” before she is Jacob’s, which makes Simeon and Levi, Leah’s second and third sons, her full brothers; verse 25 will call them “Dinah’s brethren”. Born after Leah’s sixth son, she was probably still in her teens; that is an inference from the chronology.

The Hivites are listed among the peoples of Canaan in 10:17. “Defiled” here is innah, to humble or force, the verb used when Amnon forces his half-sister Tamar in 2 Samuel 13:14, and in the law of Deuteronomy 22:29. The man bears the city’s name, Shechem, and his father rules it.

“Clave” is davaq, the verb of 2:24, a man shall “cleave unto his wife”. “Spake kindly” is literally “spoke to the heart”, the idiom Ruth uses of Boaz (Ruth 2:13). Amnon, after forcing Tamar, hated her (2 Samuel 13:15); Shechem’s attachment runs the other way, and it does not undo verse 2.

“This damsel” is yaldah, girl, a word that stresses youth. The demand “get me” is like Samson’s to his parents, “get her for me to wife” (Judges 14:2). Shechem arranges a marriage for a woman who is already in his house.

The Hebrew word for “defiled” changes here to timme, to make unclean, the vocabulary of ritual impurity in Leviticus 18. It comes three times in the chapter (verses 5, 13, 27), always from the family’s side. Jacob “held his peace”, and his silence runs through most of the chapter.

Hamor means donkey. Judges 9:28 speaks of “the men of Hamor the father of Shechem” as the ruling clan of the city generations later. Texts from Mari use “killing a donkey” for making a treaty, and some scholars connect the clan’s name to that custom; the link is a conjecture.

“Wrought folly in Israel” is the phrase Tamar uses to Amnon (2 Samuel 13:12) and the Levite uses of Gibeah (Judges 20:6). It is the language of Israel’s later law, applied to a family that has only just received the name Israel. “Grieved” is atsav, the word for the pain and toil of 3:16–17.

“Longeth” is chashqah, to be bound to in desire, the verb Deuteronomy 7:7 uses of God setting his love on Israel. Hamor addresses the brothers as the family, “your daughter”, speaking to them as if they had the father’s authority.

“Make ye marriages with us” is exactly the practice Deuteronomy 7:3 forbids with the peoples of Canaan: “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them.” Hamor’s offer widens a single marriage into a merger of the two peoples.

“The land shall be before you” is what Abimelech said to Abraham in 20:15: “my land is before thee: dwell where it pleaseth thee.” “Get you possessions” uses achaz, the root of the burial “possession” Abraham had to buy in chapter 23. Hamor offers freely what Abraham had to pay for.

“Let me find grace in your eyes” is the phrase Jacob kept using to Esau in the previous chapter (33:8, 10, 15). Now a Canaanite prince says it to Jacob’s family, and he speaks to “her father and her brethren”, the men who will decide.

Mohar, dowry, is the bride-price paid to the family, and mattan is a gift to the bride. The later law covers a similar case: a man who seduces a girl “shall surely endow her to be his wife”, but “if her father utterly refuse to give her”, he pays the price anyway (Exodus 22:16–17).

The reason stands in the middle of the Hebrew sentence: they answered deceitfully, and spoke, because he had defiled Dinah their sister. Genesis gives the motive before the offer, so that no one hears the offer as sincere.

“Reproach” is cherpah. When Joshua circumcises the generation born in the wilderness, God says “This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you” (Joshua 5:9), so uncircumcision and reproach belong together. The brothers’ objection sounds religious and is meant to.

“Every male of you be circumcised” repeats the words God gave Abraham in 17:10, himmol lakhem kol zakhar. The covenant’s own wording becomes the brothers’ terms of trade.

“We will become one people”, am echad, is the phrase of Babel: “the people is one” (11:6). The brothers promise the thing Babel attempted and the covenant family was set apart from.

The brothers call Dinah “our daughter”, speaking in the role of her father while Jacob stays silent. “We will take our daughter” assumes she can be taken, though she is inside Shechem’s house (verse 26).

Literally, their words were good in the eyes of Hamor and of Shechem. The phrase “good in the eyes” is the language of judgment by appearance, and the chapter has already told the reader that appearance is all it is.

“Deferred not” means he did not delay; Shechem submits to circumcision himself, as an adult, before the city is asked. “More honourable” is nikhbad, weightiest, most respected: because he was the most esteemed man in his father’s house, the city would follow him.

At the city gate, the place of public decision, father and son never mention Dinah or Shechem’s desire. The assembly hears about “these men” and about daughters in general, and nothing about the one daughter the whole matter concerns.

“Peaceable” is shelemim, whole, at peace, from the root of shalem, the word that describes Jacob’s safe arrival at the city in 33:18. “Large enough” is literally “wide of hands”, broad on both sides, the idiom of Judges 18:10, “the land is large”.

“Only herein” repeats the brothers’ “in this” from verse 15, as if the terms were being read back from a contract. The city is told that circumcision is the only condition; the reason for it is left out.

“Cattle” and “substance” are miqneh and qinyan, the very words for the property Jacob had gathered in Padan-aram (31:18). Twenty years of Jacob’s earnings are offered to the city as the prize for consenting.

“All that went out of the gate of his city” is said twice. It most likely means the men of fighting age, those who went out to war, as distinct from “all that went in at the gate” for business in 23:10. It is exactly the men who could defend the city who are circumcised.

The third day was thought to be the worst for the pain of a wound, and the Mishnah uses this verse to allow a circumcised infant to be bathed on the Sabbath on its third day (Mishnah Shabbat 9:3). “Boldly” is betach, securely: either the brothers came confidently or the city lay unsuspecting, and the Hebrew allows both.

“The edge of the sword” is literally “the mouth of the sword”, the idiom of war used when Jericho falls (Joshua 6:21). Dinah is taken out of Shechem’s house, and she does not appear again except as a name in the list of Jacob’s family going down to Egypt (46:15).

“The sons of Jacob” widens the act from two brothers to all of them. The reason is given with a plural, “because they had defiled their sister”: the offence of one man is now charged to the whole city.

Sheep, oxen and asses: the same animals Jacob listed as his wealth when he sent to Esau (32:5). What is in the city and what is in the field are both taken, the whole of Shechem’s holdings.

“Little ones” is taf, children too young to march. The list runs in the order of the spoil after the war on Midian in Numbers 31:9: women taken captive, little ones, cattle, and goods. The chapter that began with one woman taken ends with all the city’s women taken.

“Troubled” is akhar, the word behind the valley of Achor, where Achan was put to death as the one who “troubled” Israel (Joshua 7:25), and Ahab calls Elijah “he that troubleth Israel” (1 Kings 18:17). “Make me to stink” is the idiom of Exodus 5:21: to make one’s name odious.

“Harlot” is zonah, and the brothers’ question is the last word in the chapter; Jacob gives no answer here. His answer comes on his deathbed in 49:5–7: “Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations... Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce.”