NEEDS RE-DUEING

THE STORY OF DINAH

The bible narrates clearly the story of Dinah. Dinah was the daughter to Jacob and Leah. We can recall evidently that Leah was the first wife of Jacob. However, Jacob did not love Leah that much. Jacob later married Rachel whom he loved very much. The Bible says that Shechem who is the son of Hamor, took Dinah and while laying with her, he had violated her as well.

Lessons learnt from the story

The Bible does not clearly tell us whether Dinah and Shechem were in love. I therefore believe that Dinah was raped by Shechem son of Hamor. The fact that Shechem forced himself on Dinah then automatically this becomes a rape story. Jacob’s sons who were also Dinah’s brothers were very angry with Shechem for defiling their sister. After Shechem forced himself on Dinah, the Bible explains clearly that Shechem’s, “soul cleaves unto Dinah”. We later see that Shechem pleads with his father, Hamor to get Dinah for him. The story goes on where Jacob’s sons become reluctant to marry off their sister to a person who is not circumcised like them. Shechem was not circumcised and so he was forced to be circumcised so that he (Shechem) could get Dinah. Jacob’s sons asked Hamor and Shechem to exchange their daughters. They both agreed. We learn from this story that Jacob’s sons were not bargaining in good faith.” Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and Hamor his father, because he had defiled their sister”. Jacob finally admonishes his sons only for making him look bad. Genesis 34:30 “you have brought trouble on me; now the Canaanites, the Perizzites and everybody else will hate me”. In Verse 31, Jacob’s sons answered, “we cannot let our sister be treated like a common whore”.