God made human beings in his image, and that means he made them with the capacity to do amazing things. We are not wrong to be impressed by the stunning creativity and achievements of our fellow man. Sometimes we forget this, especially because that same impressive capacity for good can also be leveraged for amazing capacity to do outrageous things.

Such outrageous things are highlighted for us in this regretful chapter in God’s Holy word. The Bible, in recounting something about the story of the real world in which we live is not afraid to tell it like it is. And in doing so, it also tells us how it ought to be. God has not retracted his plans for us as human beings to be his image in his world. To be as much like God as it is possible for a creature to be—that is how God has made us.

This story from the life of Jacob brings us into a consideration of the relationship between Israel (remember, that is now Jacob’s new name, signaling the beginning of God’s chosen nation) and the nations around them. It highlights the need for holiness among the people of God so that the world can flourish, and the atrocities of sinfulness which cause the world to groan. And it leaves us hungry for the holiness of God which alone can transform the sinfulness of the world without at the same time being polluted by it.

Let’s think about the message of this somber story in Genesis 34 by considering the defilement of the world, the response to the world, and the engagement with the world.

The Defilement of the World

First, the defilement of the world.

What Happened to Dinah

This story is about something that happens to Dinah. Dinah is the only daughter we know about among Jacob’s children, although, according to verse 9, it seems clear that she was not Jacob’s only daughter. The Bible comes to us from a certain time and place, a time and place in which it is not at all unusual for only a man’s sons to be named in his biographical account. We may judge that time and place to be unjustifiably patriarchal or even misogynistic, but that hardly means the Bible is guilty of the same. It is a book written in its own time.

At any rate, “Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob” (v. 1) is obviously a central person in this particular episode, although we note that we don’t hear her speak or even get a clear inclination about what she is thinking or how she is feeling.

The previous chapter ended with Jacob and his family arriving at “the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan” (Gen 33:18). Jacob purchased a piece of land there and built an altar. The name of the altar (El-Elohe-Israel) signifies Jacob’s allegiance to “El” (the Creator God) as the only God for him and his family.[1]

The next story begins when Dinah “went out to see the women of the land.” What is this, just a harmless “girls night out” on the town? Some have seen in these words some fault on the part of Dinah, but the narrator makes no such judgment, and seems rather to set up the story this way in order to create tension with what happened to Dinah in the very next verse: Dinah went out “to see” but instead she was herself seen—by a lustful and powerful young man. Verse 2 tells us what we might have feared would happen to a young lady in such a setting: “He seized her and lay with her and humiliated her” (v. 2).

I think there is no question that Dinah is raped by Shechem, that she is a victim in this story. Although the word translated “seize” isn’t always negative, and “lay with her” could be used for a consensual act, to say that Shechem “humiliated” her is rather clear that Shechem violated Dinah (see 2 Sam 13:12; Lam 5:11).

But the story gets even more complicated, because verse 3 says that after this crime was committed against Dinah, her rapist “was drawn to her.” The verb used here is the one used to describe God’s ideal for marriage in Genesis 2:24, that a man should “hold fast to his wife.” Shechem “loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her.” In verse 4, he states his desire to marry her. This is not how we expect the story to go. Shechem’s (apparently) genuine love for Dinah on the other side of his selfish act of lust against her “complicates the moral balance of the story.”[2] To make things even more complicated, as the story moves along, we find out that Dinah is being held in Shechem’s house the whole time (vv. 17, 26).

Moral Outrage

So, how do you feel about this story? Verse 5 tells us that when Jacob heard about what happened, he “held his peace” until his sons had come in from their day’s work. When his sons heard about it, they “were indignant.” The word indignant is better translated grieved or hurt. It is the word used in Genesis 6:6 to describe God’s reaction to the great wickedness of humanity: “it grieved him to his heart.”

So, naturally, Dinah’s brothers are also “very angry.” And surely we should be, too. “An outrageous thing” had taken place, something which “must not be done,” verse 7 reads. If God is grieved and angered by immoral and unjust acts, it is fitting that we, made in his image, should share the same feelings and emotions. Of course the problem we humans have is not that there is no sense of moral outrage anymore but that we don’t seem to agree what constitutes such outrageous acts.

Defilement in Israel

There’s something here in verse 7 that we ought to note. The sons of Jacob are grieved and angered because Shechem “had done an outrageous thing in Israel.” Remember that at this particular moment “Israel” does not refer to an entire nation but to Jacob himself. But the word translated “outrageous thing” will come to refer to “any shocking act that the collective ‘Israel’ deems reprehensible.”[3] What has been done to their sister is what has been done to them.

They take it personally. Verse 5 says that Shechem’s crime against Dinah has defiled her, and so it has also defiled them. The word defiled is an important word; it is used only here in Genesis, but it occurs over 100 times in Leviticus and Numbers. It refers to ritual impurity. The entire Mosaic Law is built upon this concept of defilement and what can be done about it. And the reason why defilement is a big deal is not because it keeps people from getting to God but because it keeps God from getting to people. Over and over again in the Mosaic code, God says that the problem with defilement has to do with the fact that God intends to dwell in the midst of his people. Numbers 35:34 is one example: “You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the LORD dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”

So to say that Dinah has been defiled by what Shechem has done to her is not to place some kind of blame upon Dinah; on the contrary, it shows that something must be done to rectify the wrong done to her. Defilement cannot go unanswered or things can only go from bad to worse.

Response to the World

What then can be done about the defilement that has been brought into Israel? Next we see how the people of God (Jacob and his sons) respond to the world.

Jacob Holds His Peace

Verse 5 says that when Jacob heard that his daughter had been raped, he “held his peace” until his sons came from the fields. When they arrive, they are furious, and we might assume that Jacob shares in their outrage. But does he?

We don’t hear Jacob say anything until the very end of the story. When Hamor and Shechem come to negotiate for Dinah to be married to Shechem, Jacob is there (v. 11), but it is his sons who negotiate the marriage terms. Perhaps that’s not unusual, as brothers were often very much involved in negotiations for the marriage of their sisters (Gen 24:50-51). Nevertheless, it is Shechem’s father who has come to negotiate, and we would expect Jacob to be his counterpart.

His silence is striking, as is the silence of some Christians today who seem to have lost their own moral compass. But again, we all tend to have something that can ignite moral outrage in us.

When Jacob does finally speak in verse 30, it seems he is also angry, but it’s not because of what has happened to his daughter. He says to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land.” He goes on to show that his main concern is about how he will be treated by the world around him. It is not about justice for his daughter but rather about concern for his own neck.[4]

The Reaction of Jacob’s Sons

Now Jacob’s sons, on the other hand, are anything but quiet. It seems they have quickly decided what they are going to do. When given the marriage proposal, their response is to be deceitful, we are told right from the start, in light of what had been done to their sister. “Only on this condition will we agree with you—that you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised” (v. 15).

The offer is accepted, but the third day after surgery, “when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males.” And then the rest of “the sons of Jacob” arrive in verse 27 and “plundered the city,” again with some sense of justification since “they had defiled their sister.”

Whatever justification we might wish to see in the revenge that Jacob’s sons carry out—they rescue Dinah from her enslavement in verse 26—there is no doubt that their act is disproportionate and disgusting in its own right.[5] A bad situation has not really been resolved. If anything, moral sensibilities have been downgraded even more. Jacob’s “voice of egocentricity and self-preservation finds itself opposed by the voice of idealism.”[6] Hey, look, if they’re going to do that to us, then we have to respond with a greater show of strength. Don’t we?

Which Way Is Right?

When we look at the responses of both Jacob and his sons to the moral outrage done to Dinah, it is difficult to tell which of the two is most commendable. That is to say, while Jacob’s passivity does not seem to be endorsed, neither is his son’s aggression against the Hivites. The narrator does give Jacob’s sons the final word in the story, but he also tells us that they acted deceitfully and that they plundered the city, even “taking” the wives of the Hivites—hardly an instance of remaining ceremonially clean. Gordon Wenham comments:

Within a firm moral framework sure of what constitutes right and wrong, the narrative hints at the multidimensional aspects of conduct, at the mixed motives that make it impossible either to condemn any of the actors absolutely or to exonerate them entirely.[7]

When this chapter is over, we are left wondering how justice and order can be restored when human responses are usually either too passive (like Jacob) or too aggressive (like his sons) to achieve the goal. And even if the outward response appears to be right and just, those “mixed motives” that Wenham mentioned leaves us at least suspicious that justice has not really been achieved.

Notice here that even though Israel prevails—indeed even prospers—from the whole account, nothing is said about resolving the defilement that has come upon the covenant family. Dinah is rescued, but at an enormous price of revenge, hardly sufficient to cleanse the defilement—they’ve brought more defilement into the family it seems. In responding to the world, the chosen family is itself being torn apart. While the previous account of Jacob’s life saw him making peace with his brother whom he had cheated since birth, now he finds himself divided from his own children who are more sinister tricksters than he has been.[8]

Engagement with the World

So, what is the way forward? Does the story give us any clues? Lastly, let’s consider this question: How ought the people of God respond to and properly engage with the world?

Good Desire: Becoming One People

Let’s begin here by noting the good desire that is present in the chapter. When Shechem’s father, Hamor, comes to negotiate for his son to marry Dinah, we see that he wants more than just this one marriage arrangement. The desire of the Hivites, expressed in verses 8-12, is to become intertwined with the family of Jacob. This will benefit Jacob and his family, as verse 10 says. But it will also benefit the Hivites, as Hamor explains to his fellow-citizens in verses 21-23. We might be inclined to not trust these people, “But the general picture the narrative gives us of the Shechemites,” says one commentator, “is that they negotiate fairly while Jacob’s sons do not.”[9]

In other words, while the rape of Dinah was indeed “an outrageous thing,” nothing else in the narrative paints the Hivites in a negative light. They may be naïve, but their fair negotiations with Jacob and his family, along with the “name your price” offer they give shows a certain kind of integrity that is missing among the covenant family. They want not merely peace with Jacob but unity with him, and they are willing to pay whatever price is necessary to have it. And since we know that the covenant family does indeed carry with them the blessing of God, who can say that the Hivites desire for union with Israel is wrong? This is what the mission of God is all about, that the nations of the world come together and become as one people. When Psalm 47 celebrates the fact that “God reigns over the nations,” it goes on to say that “the princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham” (Psa 47:8-9). That the nations of the world would be together as one? That is goal, the mission of God, and it ought to be ours as well.

I conclude then that the holiness that God requires of his people cannot be one that insists on hard lines of separation from the world around them. Many Christians, afraid of the defilement of the world, take more or less this approach. But such efforts toward personal holiness usually ends in a self-righteousness that alienates the world from the covenant family of God, and this runs counter to the Christian mission.

Become As We Are

It is true that there are warnings in the Old Testament about the people of God engaging with the world. Previously we’ve seen the nations make peace treaties with Israel, but this is different. The Hivites are seeking consolidation with Israel, we might even say incorporation into Israel.

Is that a request that can be entertained?

“Only on this condition will we agree with you,” Jacob’s sons reply in verse 15, “that you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised.” For Israel to agree to the request, the Hivites have to become incorporated into Israel, not the other way around. The Hivites have to meet Israel’s demands, not vice versa. “But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised,” they threaten in verse 17, “then we will take our daughter, and we will be gone.” There is no compromise made here. This is a full-on offer of union so long as these Gentiles are willing to “become as we are.”

But what are they, exactly? Well, they are circumcised. They carry on their bodies the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. And they are no doubt right that this is the way forward, the way toward the grand goal of God, the unity of the nations within the Abrahamic covenant.

But talk about moral outrage! The sons of Jacob here hold out the holy sacrament with their fingers crossed behind their backs. In this case, to “become as we are” means to go on with some form of religious devotion devoid of any real transformative power. For the Hivites to “become as we are” in this case means “be circumcised” and then to go on being even better cheats and tricksters afterward.

After reading Genesis 34, why would anyone want to join the family of faith? Is it any surprise then if the world today wants nothing to do with Christianity when they see what kinds of things we who are baptized support? The greatest outrage in the world is not the lack of holiness in the world but the lack of holiness in the church.

The Circumcision of Christ

Such genuine holiness is what the world needs, but we must never forget how much we need it ourselves. What the sons of Jacob here require of the Hivites is appropriate enough, but to be circumcised is not merely to have a particular surgical procedure done. The Israelites here say more than they know. The Apostle Paul speaks of “a circumcision made without hands” which is what can truly set us free. It is what everyone needs. Paul calls is “the circumcision of Christ” and it consists in the true meaning of baptism: being “buried with him” and “also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col 2:11-12).

Paul draws this connection between circumcision and baptism not simply because the latter has replaced the former but also because the latter reminds us of a very essential point made by the former. There is no solution to the atrocities of human sinfulness that doesn’t involve a scalpel, a real “cutting off.” The good news that comes to us in Jesus, the one who was cut off for us.

But that is definitively not the end of the story. One cannot be “cut off” with Christ and not also be “made alive” together with him. Baptism necessarily means both. And those who are truly baptized are those who do not simply assent to facts about Jesus but who recognize a profound truth about God: that believers in Jesus are those who have both died “to the old solidarities and habits” and have come “alive to the new family of God and its new life-style.”[10]

Yes, of course this is what the unbelieving world needs, but only because it is what you and I need most of all. There simply must be some power that is stronger than the vengeance of sinful humans, a power which can right all wrongs and bring an end to the madness we perpetuate upon ourselves.

That power is in the cross and in the empty tomb. Let us keep our eyes fixed there and find ourselves marked by that power which overcomes all sin and offers the one condition that brings unity to the world.

_____

[1] Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 2, ed. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, and Glenn W. Barker (Dallas: Word Books, 1994), 301.

[2] Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), 190.

[3] Alter, Genesis, 190.

[4] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 316.

[5] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 315.

[6] M. Sternberg, cited in Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 316.

[7] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 317.

[8] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 318.

[9] Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27–50:26, The New American Commentary, vol. 1B, ed. E. Ray Clendenen (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005), 604.

[10] N. T. Wright, Colossians and Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, vol. 12, ed. Leon Morris (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 112-113.