Saturday, February 1, 2014

Was it Dinah's Fault?

In Genesis 34, Dinah, daughter of Jacob, is forced to have sex with Shechem. Shechem falls in love with her afterwards and goes and asks for her hand in marriage. Jacob agrees to the marriage on the condition that all of Shechem's men be circumcised. While all of the men are still in pain from circumcision, two of Dinah's brothers, Simeon and Levi, go and slaughter Shechem and all of his men. When Jacob confronts them about it, they reply: "Should [Shechem] have treated our sister like a prostitute?"(Gen 34:31).

The Bible leaves the question of whose fault it was that Dinah was raped open to interpretation.

The selection from Legends of the Jews, however, concludes that it was Jacob, Dinah, and Shechem were at fault. It is Jacob's fault for not allowing Esau, his brother, to marry her. It is Dinah's fault for going out and being seen by Shechem. It is Shechem's fault for not controlling himself and thus committing adultery.

In my opinion, it is purely Shechem's fault. If he wanted her so badly, he should have married her first. He was a grown man and needed to utilize self-control and, for lack of a better phrase, "keep it in his pants", especially since he knew the rules about committing adultery.

I also understand why Simeon and Levi slaughtered Shechem and his men. If anything like that happened to my sister, I would want justice. I would not want my dad to marry her off to the man who defiled her, because he would not be good for her. I would want the perpetrator dead. I think that Simeon and Levi were completely in the right.

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