Jacob-The "Dinah Jacobs” Story Series

Introduction: Remember the old TV Western, “Wagon Train’? Every episode was called “the So-and-So story”, featuring one character who had some kind of impact or another on the wagon train’s journey to California or wherever. Sometimes the “guest” would impact one of the train’s leaders, too—but that’s another story.

This story features a young woman named Dinah. She was the daughter of Jacob and Leah. She had six full brothers and five half-brothers, so what she had to put up with must have been something for the books! As far as I know she is the only “Dinah” mentioned in the Bible.

Dinah is only mentioned in a few places, and this chapter has the main story. May all of us, regardless of our ages, learn from this story of her life and never let what happened to her happen to us or any of our children.

1 She left, she looked, she was taken

Text: Genesis 34:1-7, KJV: 1 And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. 2 And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her. 3 And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel. 4 And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife. 5 And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter: now his sons were with his cattle in the field: and Jacob held his peace until they were come. 6 And Hamor the father of Shechem went out unto Jacob to commune with him. 7 And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter; which thing ought not to be done.

Without any intent to cause conflict, it’s probably fair to say that some people are more outgoing and desirous of interaction than others. We don’t know how long Jacob and his family had been living near Shalem “a city of Shechem (Gen.33:18)” but Jacob had built an altar to the God of Israel there. The reaction, if any, to this altar by the Shalemites or the local people isn’t known. Chances are they either didn’t know what to think, or didn’t care, at least at the time.

But there was a certain time when Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, decided she wanted to “see the daughters of the land.” Some Bible commentators believe Dinah was around 12-15 years of age at this time, and some have offered possible explanations why she left her home, such as a festival or other occasion. It could simply be that Dinah guessed her family would be living in the area for a while and since her brothers would be away for various lengths of time, she wanted some female companionship.

For whatever reason why she left her home, even for what she thought might be a short time, it was the most disastrous choice she ever made. Nothing would ever be the same for her.

Verses 2 and 3 contain a brief summary of what happened to Dinah once she got close to the people, if not the city itself. The prince of the city was a (young?) man named Shechem, son of Hamor; these were Hivites, descended from Ham (Gen. 10:17) so definitely not closely related to Israel at all. This “Shechem” saw Dinah, then took her, and “lay with her, and defiled her” or, as is stated today, assaulted her sexually. There are other terms to describe this action by Shechem, none justifiable in the least. We should be reminded that evil usually starts with a thought or a look before it proceeds into a deed or act. Many years later, King David would have done well to think before he kept looking at Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11).

But now, something seems to have changed. Shechem is now madly in love with Dinah and he “[spoke] kindly to the damsel”. One wonders what he was saying or trying to say to this young girl whom he had just violated or assaulted sexually. Was his “love” genuine, or was it just some “passing fancy”?

Whatever Shechem’s motive or reason, he at least tried to put an honorable spin on this. He asked his father, Hamor, to arrange it so that Dinah would become Shechem’s wife. If Hamor himself knew about just how a Hebrew girl was now in the grip of a Hivite prince, he didn’t let on or act as if he knew anything about it.

Jacob knew something about it, all right, and he was facing any number of emotions, it seems. He must have felt anger over his daughter being taken, and he might have been upset with Leah for not watching Dinah better (notice Leah is not mentioned at all in this story except as Dinah’s mother). Definitely he was in anguish over what had happened, as well all adding up to a genuine sense of frustration. Dinah was gone and Jacob couldn’t do anything about it at the time. So, Jacob “held his peace” until his sons came back from their work.