Genesis 34: Dinah is raped

Synopsis:

Dinah, the daughter of Leah is out and about when she is raped by Sechem the son of Hamor the Hivite prince of the country.   He decides he likes her so much he wants to marry her.  So Sechem and his father go to Jacob to ask for an arrangement. They tell them you can live here peacefully and trade. We will give you anything you want. Jacob’s sons are very upset that Sechem had raped their sister. So they tell him he can only marry her if he agrees to be circumcised. Not only that, but everyone in your land be circumcised too.  The men agree to this excited to have such wealthy individuals such as Jacob’s family marry into their family.  3 days after the mass circumcision when everyone was sore and therefore unable to fight back properly, the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levin took up swords and killed everyone in the city to avenge the rape of Dinah.  Then they stole their sheep, cattle and all their belongings.   Jacob worries that their reputation is going to be ruined by this and that no one will let them leave in peace after what they just did.

In other words:

Dinah is raped by a Hivite prince. He wants to marry her. Her brothers avenge her death by killing everyone in the town.

Favorite bit:

That they were able to con the Hivites into a mass circumcision so that they would not physically be able to fight back. Pretty crafty. (Genesis 34:25)

Weirdest bit:

The section where the rape is described and how Sechem falls in love with Dinah is both poetic and scary all at the same time.  Pretty sure Dinah wasn’t in favor of it, but you never know, she isn’t consulted and her opinion isn’t apparently important. (Genesis 34: 1-3)

Moral Lessons Learned:

Rape is bad (Genesis 24)

Just because you genuinely like someone doesn’t mean you are allowed to rape them (Genesis 24)