Genesis 34:1-5

Dinah Defiled

v. 1. And Dinah, the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. Dinah had probably been born in the fourteenth year of Jacob's service in Mesopotamia. She was, like Simeon and Levi, who are so prominent in this story, a child of Jacob and Leah. About ten years had now elapsed since the family had come, first to Succoth and then to Shechem, and Dinah was a young woman, the girls in the Orient reaching maturity at an early age. Dissatisfied, perhaps, with the supposed curbing of her personal liberty in her father's house, Dinah went out to make the acquaintance of the Canaanitish girls and to visit with them.

v. 2. And when Shechem, the son of Hamor, the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her, humbled her by robbing her of her virginity.

v. 3. And his soul clave unto Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel. The fact that Shechem really loved Dinah and did not reject her after his sinful act places him in a somewhat better light, but it does not excuse him. To seek her love after deflowering her was not honorable.

v. 4. And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife. This attempt to atone for the sin by an honorable marriage was to the credit of Shechem, but it does not change the fact that he had seduced Dinah in the first place. Nor is Dinah wholly without fault. She knew that it was a dangerous thing for her to leave the protection of her father's encampment and to seek the friendship of the heathen women; and we are not told that she offered a determined resistance when Shechem seduced her. Her example, therefore, is written as an earnest warning to all Christian young women, especially such as feel the lure of the world and are tempted to yield to the lust of the flesh.

v. 5. And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah, his daughter, for news of that kind usually travels quickly; now his sons were with his cattle in the field; and Jacob held his peace until they were come. Jacob did not act alone in this important matter, partly because the brothers of Dinah had a voice in all serious concerns relating to her, partly because he had to deal with the proud and insolent prince of the region, the old sheik's successor. That is usually the first consequence of a sin of this kind, to bring grief and anguish to the hearts of the parents.