Difference between revisions of "Dinah"

<p> 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 (&nbsp;Titus 2:2), gave occasion to [[Shechem]] to "see" (contrast &nbsp;Job 31:1), and lust after, and defile her. Sin, shame, and death enter the soul through the windows of the eyes and ears (&nbsp;Genesis 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. </p> <p> [[Josephus]] (Ant. 1:21) states she went to a Canaanite annual festival of nature worship (compare &nbsp;Numbers 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 &nbsp;Deuteronomy 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.) </p> <p> 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 (&nbsp;Deuteronomy 22:21; &nbsp;Judges 20:10; &nbsp;2 Samuel 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. </p> <p> [[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" (&nbsp;Genesis 49:5-7). Nothing but Jehovah's special interposition saved him and them from the penalty; &nbsp;Genesis 35:5, "the terror of God was upon the cities ... round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob." </p> <p> God made this tragedy the occasion of reviving Jacob's earnestness, which had declined into worldliness for a time through his settlement near Shechem (&nbsp;Genesis 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 (&nbsp;Genesis 35:1-5). </p>

<p> '''Di'nah.''' (judged, acquitted). The daughter of Jacob, by Leah. &nbsp;Genesis 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. </p> <p> Shechem proposed to make the usual reparation by paying a sum to the father and marrying her. &nbsp;Genesis 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. </p>

<p> '''Dinah''' (dî'nah), judged, acquitted, or avenged. The daughter of Jacob and Leah. &nbsp;Genesis 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 &nbsp;Genesis 34:1-31. Nothing more is certainly known of her; she probably accompanied her family into Egypt. &nbsp;Genesis 46:15. </p>

<p> (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]] (&nbsp;Genesis 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 (&nbsp;Genesis 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 (&nbsp;Deuteronomy 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" (&nbsp;Genesis 34:7). </p> <p> 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 (&nbsp;Genesis 34:30; &nbsp;Genesis 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 (&nbsp;Genesis 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 (&nbsp;Judges 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]] (&nbsp;Genesis 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 &nbsp;Genesis 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 &nbsp;Genesis 46:15 that Dinah continued unmarried in the patriarch's family, and accompanied him into Egypt. (See [[Jacob]]). </p>

<p> '''''dı̄´na''''' ( דּינה , <i> '''''dı̄nāh''''' </i> , "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 &nbsp;Genesis 34:21-23 and &nbsp; Genesis 34:30 ) suggest a tribal rather than a personal significance for the narrative. </p>