Dinah

Di´nah, a daughter of Jacob by Leah (Gen 30:21), and therefore full sister of Simeon and Levi. While Jacob’s camp was in the neighborhood of Shechem, Dinah was seduced by Shechem, the son of Hamor, the Hivite chief or head-man of the town. Partly from dread of the consequences of his misconduct, and partly, it would seem, out of love for the damsel, he solicited a marriage with her, leaving the ’marriage price’ (see Marriage) to be fixed by her family. To this Dinah’s brothers would only consent on the further condition that all the inhabitants of the place should be circumcised. Even this was yielded; and Simeon and Levi took a most barbarous advantage of the compliance by falling upon the town on the third day, when the people were disabled by the effects of the operation, and slew them all (Genesis 34). For this act of truly Oriental vindictiveness no excuse can be offered, and Jacob himself repeatedly alludes to it with abhorrence and regret (Gen 34:30; Gen 49:5-7). To understand the act at all, however, it is necessary to remember, that any stain upon the honor of a sister, and especially of an only sister, is even at this day considered as an insupportable disgrace and inexpiable offence among all the nomad tribes of Western Asia. If the woman be single, her brothers more than her father, if she be married, her brothers more than her husband, are aggrieved, and are considered bound to avenge the wrong. Hence the active vengeance of Dinah’s full brothers, and the comparative passiveness of her father in these transactions. Of Dinah’s subsequent lot nothing is known.

Daughter of Jacob by Leah, Gen 30:21, his only daughter named in Scripture. While the family were sojourning near Shalem, she heedlessly associated with the Canaanitish maidens, and fell a victim to the seductive arts of Shechem, a young prince of the land; but was perfidiously and savagely avenged by Simeon and Levi, her full brothers, to the great grief of Jacob their father, Gen 34:1-31 49:5,7. She seems to have gone with the family to Egypt, Gen 46:15 .\par

Di’nah. (judged, acquitted). The daughter of Jacob, by Leah. Gen 30:21. (B.C. About 1751). She accompanied her father from Mesopotamia to Canaan, and, having ventured among the inhabitants, was violated by Shechem, the son of Hamor, the chieftain of the territory, in which her father had settled. Genesis 34.

Shechem proposed to make the usual reparation by paying a sum to the father and marrying her. Gen 34:12. This proposal was accepted, the sons of Jacob demanding, as a condition of the proposed union, the circumcision of the Shechemites. They therefore assented; and on the third day, when the pain and fever resulting from the operation were at the highest, Simeon and Levi, own brothers of Dinah, attacked them unexpectedly, slew all the males, and plundered their city.

The feminine of Dan ("judged", "averaged".) Jacob’s daughter by Leah. After his return from Mesopotamia he pitched his tent in Shechem, and bought a field of Ham or, Shechem’s father. Dinah, then at maturity between 13 and 15 years old, through her parents’ remissness and her own love of sight seeing (she "went out to see the daughters of the land"), instead of being a "keeper at home" as young women ought to be (Tit 2:2), gave occasion to Shechem to "see" (contrast Job 31:1), and lust after, and defile her. Sin, shame, and death enter the soul through the windows of the eyes and ears (Gen 39:7). Evil communications corrupt good manners. Fondness to see novelties, worldly fashions, and worldly company, ruin many. "It is the first step that costs." The laxity of Canaanite morals ought to have made both her parents and herself more on their guard.

Josephus (Ant. 1:21) states she went to a Canaanite annual festival of nature worship (compare Num 25:2). Young women are often led astray as much by their own sex as by the other. Shechem offered the usual reparation, marriage, and a payment to her father. This was sufficient Hebrew, according to Deu 22:28-29. But the offense was by an alien Hamor therefore proposed to establish intermarriage and commerce between the two peoples. But Simeon and Levi, her own brothers, eager for revenge, required the Circumcision of the Shechemites as a condition of union, a rite already known in Egypt as an act of priestly consecration; and when the feverish pain of the operation was at its height, on the third day, the two brothers, with their retainers, took cowardly advantage of their state, attacked, and killed all the males in the city. (See CIRCUMCISION.)

Their vindication of Israel’s sacred calling, separated from the Gentiles, was right; and their refusal to sacrifice Jehovah’s promises for the Hivite prince’s offers of mammon was right. Seduction still is punished by death among the Arabs, generally inflicted by the brothers. "They were very angry, because lie had wrought folly in Israel," the phrase for offenses, especially carnal ones, against the honor and calling of the people of God (Deu 22:21; Jdg 20:10; 2Sa 13:12). But the way they took was treacherous, cruel, and wicked. The innocent townsmen were punished with the one delinquent, and all the sons joined in plundering the town.

Jealousy for the high calling of Israel was made the plea for gross sin against the God of Israel. Jacob in reproving them lays stress only on the dangerous consequences of their crime, "ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land ... and ... being few ... they shall gather themselves and slay me," because it was the only argument that would weigh with his sons; but, his dying words show his abhorrence of their" cruelty" and "cursed anger" (Gen 49:5-7). Nothing but Jehovah’s special interposition saved him and them from the penalty; Gen 35:5, "the terror of God was upon the cities ... round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob."

God made this tragedy the occasion of reviving Jacob’s earnestness, which had declined into worldliness for a time through his settlement near Shechem (Gen 33:17-20); reminding him of his vow to make an altar at Bethel to God, who had appeared to him there in the day of his distress when fleeing from Esau. So his family gave up their strange gods and purified themselves, and Jacob went up to Bethel and fulfilled his heretofore forgotten vow. Thus, God overruled evil for good (Gen 35:1-5).

(Hebrews Dinah’, דִּינָה, judged, i.e., vindicated, from the same root as DAN; Sept. Δεινά; Joseph. Δεῖνα, Ant. 1:21, 1), the daughter of Jacob by Leah (Gen 30:21), and therefore full sister of Simeon and Levi. Born B.C. 1913. While Jacob’s camp was in the neighborhood of Shechem, Dinah,, prompted by curiosity, went out "to see the daughters of the land," most probably to a festival, when she was seduced by Shechem, the son of Hamor, the Hivite chief or head-man of the town. Her age at this time, judging by the subsequent notice of Joseph’s age (Gen 37:2), may have been from thirteen to fifteen, the ordinary period of marriage in Eastern countries (Lane’s Mod. Egypt. 1:208). Partly from dread of the consequences of his misconduct, and partly, it would seem, out of love for the damsel, he solicited a marriage with her, leaving the "marriage price", SEE MARRIAGE, to be fixed by her family. Such reparation would have been deemed sufficient under the Mosaic law (Deu 22:28-29) among the members of the Hebrew nation. But in this case the suitor was an alien, and the crown of the offense consisted in its having been committed by an alien against the favored people of God; he had "wrought folly in Israel" (Gen 34:7).

The proposals of Hamor, who acted as his deputy, were framed on the recognition of the hitherto complete separation of the two peoples; he proposed the fusion of the two by the establishment of the rights of intermarriage and commerce, just as among the Romans the jus connubii and the jus commercii constituted the essence of civitas. The sons of Jacob, bent upon revenge, availed themselves of the eagerness which Shechem showed to effect their purpose; they demanded, as a condition of the proposed union, the circumcision of the Shechemites: the practice could not have been unknown to the Hiivites, for the Phoenicians (Herod, 2:104), and probably most of the Canaanitish tribes, were circumcised. Even this was therefore yielded; and Simeon and Levi took a most barbarous advantage of the compliance by falling upon the town on the third day, when the people were disabled by the effects of the operation, and slew them all (Genesis 34). For this act of truly Oriental vindictiveness no excuse can be offered, and Jacob repeatedly alludes to it with abhorrence and regret (Gen 34:30; Gen 49:5-7). To understand the act at all, however, it is necessary to remember that any stain upon the honor of a sister, and especially of an only sister (see Niemeyer, Charakt. 2:413 sq.), is even at this day considered as an insupportable disgrace and inexpiable offense among all the nomade tribes of Western Asia. If the woman be single, her brothers more than her father — if she be married, her brothers more than her husband, are aggrieved, and are considered bound, to avenge the wrong. Hence the active vengeance of Dinah’s full brothers, and the comparative passiveness of her father in these: transactions. Jacob’s remark (Gen 49:30), however, does not imply merely guiltiness on the part of his sons in this transaction, but he dreaded the revenge of the neighboring peoples, and even of the family of Hamor, some of whom appear to have survived the massacre (Jdg 9:28). His escape, which was wonderful, considering the extreme rigor with which the laws of blood-revenge (q.v.) have in all ages prevailed in the East, is ascribed to the special interference of Jehovah (Gen 35:5). Josephus omits all reference to the treachery of the sons of Jacob, and explains the easy capture of the city as occurring during the celebration of a feast (Ant. 1:21, 2). The object for which this narrative is introduced into the book of Genesis probably is partly to explain the allusion in Gen 49:5-7, and partly to exhibit the consequences of any association on the part of the Hebrews with the heathens about them. Ewald (Gesch. Isr. 1:40) arbitrarily assumes an actual fusion of the nomad Israelites with the aborigines of Shechem, on the ground that the daughters of the patriarchs are generally noticed with an ethnological view. It appears from Gen 46:15 that Dinah continued unmarried in the patriarch’s family, and accompanied him into Egypt. SEE JACOB.

Dinah (dî’nah), judged, acquitted, or avenged. The daughter of Jacob and Leah. Gen 30:21. The history of her visiting the daughters of the heathen inhabitants of the land, of her defilement by Shechem, and of the treacherous and bloody revenge taken by her brothers Simeon and Levi, are recorded in Gen 34:1-31. Nothing more is certainly known of her; she probably accompanied her family into Egypt. Gen 46:15.

[Di’nah]

Daughter of Jacob and Leah: defiled by Shechem, son of the chieftain Hamor, which led to the massacre of the Shechemites through the craftiness and cruelty of Simeon and Levi. Gen 30:21; Gen 34:1-26; Gen 46:15.

By: Eduard König, Emil G. Hirsch, Louis Ginzberg, Caspar Levias

—Biblical. Data:

"Dinah" is the name of Jacob's daughter by Leah (Gen. xxx. 21). Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, seduces her while she is visiting "to see the daughters of the land" (Gen. xxxiv. 1-31). Though he is anxious to marry her, his outrage upon her induces her brothers, notably Simeon and Levi, to take most treacherous and cruel revenge. Apparently acquiescing in the proposed marriage upon due settlement of the dowry, they insist upon the Shechemites being circumcised as a prerequisite condition; but on the third day after the operation, when the people "were sore," Simeon and Levi fall upon the defenseless city, killing Hamor and Shechem and despoiling the place. Jacob can not approve of their conduct, fearing it may bring evil results by causing the inhabitants of the land to act in concert against him. In Jacob's Blessing (Gen. xlix. 7) the dying patriarch censures the deed as cruel and inspired by fierce and unrighteous anger. Dinah is not mentioned again.

A late writer (Judith ix. 2 et seq.) praises God for having given Simeon strength to avenge the outrage done his virgin sister. Josephus omits all reference to the incident of the circumcision. Dinah having been attracted by a desire to see the "finery of the women" at a time when Shechem was keeping a festival, the brothers, described as "of one mother" with her, seized the opportunity presented by the fact that the inhabitants were engrossed in feasting, to despoil the city. God Himself allays Jacob's "astonishment" at the act. In the Test. Patr. (iii. 6-8) Levi consults his father and his brother Reuben, and they conceet the scheme to insist upon circumcision. Jacob, discovering that he has been duped, is wroth. Levi himself is taken sick, but learns that the destruction of Shechem was justified, since the people had been in the habit of outraging women. He also allays Jacob's apprehensions. Indeed, an angel had commanded Levi to avenge Dinah's wrongs (ib. iii. 5). In Gen. xlviii. 22 there seems to be an allusion to Jacob's own participation in the capturing of the city (see, however, Gunkel, "Genesis," p. 338). The Rabbis so construe it (Ber. R. to the passage; Midrash Hagadol, ed. Schechter, p. 527), and they also make the "holy spirit" (Midrash Hagadol, p. 525) urge the defilement of the girl, while God, as in Josephus, allays Jacob's apprehensions. See also Asenath.

In Rabbinical Literature:

Dinah is blamed for the affair with Shechem because she "went out" (Gen. xxxiv. 1), and her brothers had to drag her away from Shechem by force (Eccl. R. x. 8; Gen. R. lxxx.). When Jacob went to meet Esau, he first locked Dinah in a box, for fear that Esau would wish to marry her. Such action of his brought out the rebuke from God: "If thou hadst married off thy daughter in time she would not have been tempted to sin, and might, moreover, have exerted a beneficial influence upon her husband" (Gen. R. lxxx.). Her brother Simeon promised to marry her; but she did not wish to leave, Shechem, fearing that after her disgrace no one would take her to wife (Gen. R. l.c.); she was later married to Job however (B. B. 16b; Gen. R. l.c.). When she died, Simeon buried her in the land of Canann. She is therefore referred to as "the Canaanitish woman" (Gen. xlvi. 10). Shaul (ib.) was her son by Shechem (Gen. R. l.c.).

—Critical View:

The narrative has been held to be unhistorical, and merely a reflection of old feuds arising from outrages committed against women; the story is valuable, therefore, for the light it throws upon primitive customs. The Dinah episode illustrates the custom which made it incumbent upon brothers to avenge any outrage perpetrated upon asister. This is still an unwritten law among the nomadic Bedouins (see Tuch, "Genesis," p. 407). Why Levi and Simeon alone undertook to requite the insult without the aid of her other brothers—a circumstance noted even by the Rabbis (see Midrash Hagadol, l.c.)—and why Jacob should under such circumstances have disapproved of the act, the theory fails to consider.

Gunkel ("Genesis," pp. 336 et seq.) holds that Gen. xxxiv. is composed of two distinct accounts of one event: (1) Dinah, after being outraged, is not retained in the house of Shechem; the son pleads with his father to get him the girl for a wife; Hamor negotiates with Jacob, offers a general intermarriage, and submits to circumcision; the city is attacked and looted; God (Gen. xxxv. 5) advises Jacob to move away. (2) Dinah is captured and retained by Shechem; to allay her uneasiness the son through his father enters into negotiations with Jacob; Jacob is promised rich gifts; he waits for his sons to return before he decides; most of them acquiesce, though Levi and Simeon refuse; they (Levi and Simeon) must cleanse their sister's honor with blood. The story is not complete. It must have told of the failure of Levi and Simeon, and of their being killed in the fray. Gen. xlix. 5-7 alludes to a third variation, in which Jacob is incensed at the conduct of his sons, and proves that the incident was fraught with fatal consequences for the brothers. The historical facts underlying this episode are these: Dinah represents a clan; Shechem is the well-known city. The tribe Dinah had been made captive by Shechem, and the closely consanguineous tribes of Levi and Simeon, in an attempt to capture the city and release the sister clan, came to ignominious grief. This feud did not take place in the Patriarchal period, but at the beginning of that of the Judges, shortly after the first invasion of Canaan.

DINAH.—The daughter of Jacob by Leah, and sister of Simeon and Levi, according to Gen 30:21.

This verse appears to have been inserted by a late redactor perhaps the one who added the section Gen 46:8-27 (cf. Gen 46:15). Nothing is said in Gen 29:31 to Gen 30:24, Gen 35:16 ff., where the birth stories of Jacob’s children are given, of other daughters of Jacob; but Gen 37:35 (J [Note: Jahwist.] ) and Gen 46:7 (P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] ) speak of ‘all his daughters.’ P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] , moreover, clearly distinguishes between his ‘daughters’ and his ‘daughters-in-law.’

In Gen 34:1-31 we have a composite narrative of the seizure of Dinah by the Hivite prince, Shechem, the son of Hamor. The probable remnants of J [Note: Jahwist.] ’s story make it appear that the tale, as it was first told, was a very simple one. Shechem took Dinah to his house and cohabited with her, and her father and brothers resented the defilement. Shechem, acting on his own behalf, proposed marriage, promising to accept any conditions of dower her father and brothers might impose. The marriage took place, and afterwards her full brothers, Simeon and Levi, slew Shechem and took Dinah out of his house. Jacob rebuked them for this, because of the vengeance it was liable to bring upon his house. Jacob thinks only of consequences here. If, as is generally supposed, Gen 49:5 ff. refers to this act, the reprimand administered was based by him not upon the dread of consequences, but upon the turpitude of a cruel revenge.

The remaining verses of ch. 34 make Hamor spokesman for his son. He not only offered generously to make honourable amends for Shechem’s misconduct, but also proposed a mutual covenant of general intercourse, including the connubium. Jacob and his sons see their opportunity for revenge, and refuse, except upon the one condition that all the males of the city be circumcised. When, as a result, the latter were unable to defend themselves, all the sons of Jacob fell upon them with the sword, sparing only the women and children, whom they took captive with the spoil of the city. The words ‘two of’ and ‘Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren’ in Gen 34:25 are interpolated (cf. Gen 34:13). This story is clearly an elaboration of the earlier form, despite its one or two more antique touches, and suggests, moreover, the spirit at work in Ezra’s marriage reforms.

The story, like many others, introduced as episodes in the family history of Jacob, should probably receive a tribal interpretation. Simeon and Levi are tribes. Dinah was perhaps a small Israelite clan, according to the traditions closely related to Simeon and Levi; according to the name, possibly more closely to Dan. Schechem, the prince, is the eponymous hero of the city of that name. Hamor is the name of the Hivite clan in possession of the city. The weak Israelite clan, having become detached from the related tribes, was overpowered by the Canaanite inhabitants of Shechem and incorporated. Simeon and Levi, by a wilily plotted and unexpected attack, hoped to effect its deliverance. They were momentarily successful, and inflicted a severe blow upon the Shechemites; but their temerity cost them their tribal existence. A counterattack of the Canaanites resulted immediately in the decimation of the tribe, and finally in the absorption of their remnants into the neighbouring tribes. The Dinah clan disappeared at the same time.

James A. Craig.

dı̄´na (דּינה, dı̄nāh, “justice”): The daughter of Jacob and Leah, whose violation by Shechem, son of Hamor, caused her brothers, especially Simeon and Levi, to slay the inhabitants of Shechem, although they had induced the Shechemites to believe, if they would submit to circumcision, Shechem, the most honored of all the house of his father, would be permitted to have the maiden to whom his soul clave for wife (Gen 34:1-31). The political elements of the story (compare Gen 34:21-23 and Gen 34:30) suggest a tribal rather than a personal significance for the narrative.