Dinah's Tragedy

Jacob was Abraham's grandson and son of Isaac. If you recall, Isaac was the kid who almost got torched that I wrote about in the last blog. Leah was Rachel's sister and both of those lovelies were married to Jacob - don't freak out, that was an okay thing back then. You know, world population and all... Leah had 6 boys and one girl, named Dinah. The entire family with all their herds had just traveled to this place called Shalem in the land of Canaan. In a nut-shell, they traveled a bit and found a new plot of land to buy and pitched some tents. I imagine them looking something like this but a wee bit less fancy.

There was a guy named Hamor in this land of Canaan who had some kids. Dinah ventured out to meet some of the other daughters of the land. I love her spirit of adventure. Shechem was one of Hamor's sons and seemed to be a bit of an arrogant Prince of the land. I feel like he was full of himself and thought he could do and take whatever he wanted. Because of this next thing he did....

He seemed to be one of those self-righteous and entitled folks, believing he could do and take what he wanted. When he saw sweet innocent Dinah, he took her. He forced himself upon her and defiled her. He raped her. He claims to have "loved" her. What about respecting her? What about asking for consent and properly courting her? I could go on and on here.

This bold-faced jerk proceeded to go to his father, Hamor, and ask for Dinah to be his wife. Jacob heard the news that Dinah was raped by this guy and held himself together until his sons came back from working the fields. Hamor chatted up Jacob asking if Jacob would allow his son to have Dinah for his wife. In the meantime, Dinah's brothers came in from the fields and heard the news. They were SOOOOO angry!! (I love them - thank you dear brothers) Hamor wanted to trade daughters with Jacob. You know, you give my sons your daughters and we'll give your sons our daughters. Makes sense I guess. A bit of bargaining for daughters between the fathers.

Here's the thing, even back then, a gazillion years ago, there was this thing called consent. You maybe didn't actually ask the girl back in the day, but you still were supposed to ask the father and properly make a trade for the gal. Even then, this was supposed to all go down BEFORE defiling the girl. Consent. It meant something then too.

Dinah's brothers answered for their father - I love their answer here. They basically said, sure, you can have our sister as your wife if all the men in your city become circumcised. Basically, all the men had to cut off a piece of their penises. I feel like that's an appropriate punishment. Good call brothers. I love how they used their brains on this one. They had to have been raging in anger about their sister's wrongful mistreatment. She was grossly hurt and embarrassed. So yeah, cut off thy penises or we leave with all the daughters and never return.

The announcement was made and all the men of the city were circumcised. When Shechem wants something, he goes for it and nothing will stop him - - clearly. The Prince gave the orders and the deed was done throughout the city. That had to have been a very interesting day in the city.

Dinah's brothers, Simeon and Levi, waited three days when they knew all the men would be really sore from their recent injuries. They took swords into the city where all the men were recovering and killed every last one of them. They even killed Hamor and Shechem and rescued Dinah from that wretched evil house. They took all their herds, children and wives as well. (Perhaps that was a little too far) Clearly, these two were really angry.

When Jacob saw what his sons had done, he got a wee bit scared. Wait a minute, you slaughtered a whole city? His immediate thought was something to the effect of 'what if the remaining people in neighboring cities join together and rise up against us?' Fear - I sense some fear in Jacob here.

The brothers simply stated the facts. Why should these people be allowed to treat our sister as a prostitute and get away with it? Will she ever heal emotionally or internally from this wrongful act? Do you ever heal from such an act?

Her brothers had their sister's heart, body and soul in mind. They had good intentions. They were trying to right a wrong, but there's really nothing that can make such a wrong right again. A broken china plate may be glued back together but the reality is the cracks always remain. Permanent scars last a lifetime.

I love the passion and fierce protection the brothers had for their sister. They felt they needed to seek justice for her. They had to have been close siblings and had a bond that no city could break. They stood up for their sister and tried to protect her the only way they knew how. It may not have been the best option, but it was the only option they could see at the time.

Even this early in history, way before Jesus came along, there were innate internal senses of right and wrong stirring within the souls of some people. Maybe it stems from God breathing life into mankind in the very beginning? My question is, why do some people have a strong sense of right and wrong and others don't? How do some get so far off the tracks of civilization?

Kindness. Love. Respect. For everyone. Always. If those things resonated at the forefront of all humankind, we'd have such a better world around us.

(Genesis 34)

#consent #dinah #slayingacity #benice #brotherlylove #jacob #donttakewhatisntyours