Great Moments in Bible History
Number 38
Mingling with the Wrong People
When we read the Bible, every so often we come across a story that is really shocking—so shocking that we recognize it is not an appropriate one to read to our children. Now, I understand that the average American today watches television shows and movies that “entertain” people with worse than these. That saddens me. But these Bible stories are not there to entertain. They are meant to instruct and to warn. When we understand that purpose, they can be quite helpful to us, but they are not pleasant stories to read. Genesis 34 records such a story.
After Jacob’s emotional reunion with his brother Esau, the two went their separate ways. Esau returned to Seir (also called Edom). Jacob moved to the city of Shechem, bought some land, and set up camp. (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had always led Bedouin lives, living in tents.) He built an altar there, just like Abraham had done in a number of places. So far, the story is nice and peaceful. We are hardly prepared for what comes next.
“Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her” (Genesis 34:1-2).
Our hearts go out to poor Dinah. The man who raped her was able to get away with such behavior because he was the son of the ruler of the city, while the victim was just a daughter of a Bedouin. In our own society we have seen similar things where men who are respected businessmen, entertainers or politicians commit this same crime (often multiple times), avoiding prosecution (at least for a time) because of their high position in society.
To Shechem’s credit, he did not simply discard Dinah after his abuse. “And his soul was drawn to Dinah the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. So Shechem spoke to his father Hamor, saying, ‘Get me this girl for my wife.’” In our day we have seen far worse behavior. Indeed, in the Bible, King David’s oldest son behaved far worse than this (2 Samuel 13). But that certainly does not justify Shechem’s crime.
In that society (as in some societies still today) a marriage was normally arranged by the parents. So Shechem’s father Hamor paid a visit to Dinah’s father Jacob to arrange a marriage. In the negotiations, Jacob did not appear to have any objections. Hamor indicated that he had a bigger goal in mind. “Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves. You shall dwell with us, and the land shall be open to you. Dwell and trade in it, and get property in it” (verses 9-10).
This reminds us of what had happened some years earlier to Lot. He had moved his family to the city of Sodom. The people of Sodom were sexually immoral, like the people of Shechem. God destroyed Sodom after rescuing Lot and his family. But Lot’s family had lived too long among those wicked people. It had ruined the morals of his wife and daughters (Genesis 19).
Although the city of Shechem (where Jacob was camped) was not as bad as Sodom, it was headed in that direction. In a few hundred more years God would send Jacob’s descendants in to destroy those wicked people—the descendants of the people of Shechem, among others. God had foretold this to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham back in Genesis 15. But if Jacob’s family intermarried with those people, they would soon lose their identity as they became just as bad as the Canaanites around them. They would cease to be the separate people that God intended them to be.
Christians today face the same challenge to keep from becoming like the world around us. Who we marry is a major issue in that regard. “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14) “ A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39).
God really does want us to be a separate people.
Not what we expect from God’s people
A Dirty Trick
I don’t know why Jacob did not seem upset about what was done to his daughter. Some have suggested it was because she was not the daughter of his favorite wife. That is possible. Whatever the reason, he did not respond as a father should.
Dinah’s brothers did not have the same blindness. “The sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they heard of it, and the men were indignant and very angry, because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, for such a thing must not be done” (Genesis 34:7). So, while their father’s reaction was too mild, they compensated with a reaction that was way over the top. They pretended to be willing to allow Shechem to marry their sister while actually plotting a violent revenge. They told him that the only way they would allow Dinah to marry Shechem was if he and all the other males in his city were circumcised like they were.
Amazingly, Shechem agreed. He really wanted to marry the girl. And because of his father’s position in the town, they were able to convince all the other men of the town to get circumcised too.
“On the third day, 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. They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and went away. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister” (verses 25-27).
It would be difficult to say whose behavior was worse—Shechem’s rape of Dinah or Simeon and Levi’s slaughter of the males of the city. Indeed, no one in the story comes out looking very good. Many years later when Jacob was near death, he gave a blessing to each of his sons. But to Simeon and Levi he gave a curse because of their violent revenge on the city of Shechem. (See Genesis 49:5-7.)
In the end, this tragic story kept Jacob’s family from getting absorbed by the sinful people of the land. Instead of intermarrying with the people of Shechem, they packed up their tents and moved on.
God Works in Mysterious Ways
This story raises some serious questions in our minds. We can see how God used the sin of Shechem and the sin of Simeon and Levi to keep His chosen people separate from the sinful Canaanites. He had not done that for Lot’s family. They were not part of His chosen people, though they were relatives of Abraham. Yet the means that God used to accomplish this separation raises all kinds of questions. God is holy. It is impossible for God to lie. He does not tempt anyone to sin. Would a holy God really use sins like rape, trickery, and murder to accomplish His purposes? And if so, how could He still be a holy God?
Probably the best way for us to understand God in this story is to look at how God used the very worst crime ever committed in the history of the world. That crime was the crucifixion of His Son Jesus. There has never been a worse crime committed than when Pilate and those who were urging him on sentenced the one man who had never sinned to a horrible death on the cross. Leading up to that crime was the worst betrayal in history. Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ trusted inner circle, offered to use his position of trust to betray Jesus in return for 30 pieces of silver. Those sins were not just accidents that happened to all come together at one time. God had predicted them in His word centuries earlier. Beginning with the first prediction in Genesis 3:15 in which God announced what He would do (not just what would happen), God made it clear that the sacrifice of His Son was His doing. Speaking to God, Peter said that what those evil people did to Jesus was “whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28).
The Bible nowhere explains how God is able to do this. How can He predestine what evil people will do without being responsible for their sins? No one knows how, but we do know it is true. God really can use sinful behavior (like Dinah’s rape) to accomplish His goals without being responsible for sins.
This understanding is very helpful for Christians. We see bad things happening all around us—sometimes happening to us. It is very helpful to know that none of it can stop God’s plans. In fact, God may well be using those bad things right now to accomplish the good He intends to do in this world. Instead of worrying about the bad things, my job is to behave with faith, patience, and love to those around me while letting God deal with the big picture.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible.