The rape story in the Bible-Dinah’s rape
Rape is first mentioned in Genesis chapter 34. Jacob’s daughter Dinah was raped by Hamor’s son Shechem as she was leaving his uncle Raban’s house with wealth and family. Here’s how the Bible explains it.
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. 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.”
NIV, Genesis 34:1-4
Jacob’s family stayed in the area for a while, so Leah’s daughter Dinah went out to see the women. Maybe there was a festival nearby. Trying to make friends with the women of the city, Dinah hung out at the town feast.
Shechem tried to hug Dinah as he stared at her. However, Dinah rejected Shechem’s gesture. Eventually, Shechem raped Dinah. Dinah sobbed with shame and fear after the work was done. Maybe Shechem said that to make Dinah feel better.
“I don’t rape on impulse. I fell in love with you as soon as I saw you. I want you as my wife.”
Shechem’s words couldn’t comfort Dinah at all. Jacob was furious when he heard his daughter had been raped. He wanted to run to Shechem right away with a knife. However, his sons hadn’t come back from cattle farming yet, and he didn’t know what would happen if he ran alone.
Until his sons return, Jacob doesn’t talk at all. Dinah gets to hear what happened. Jacob’s sons and other family members were constantly worried, angry, and upset.
At that time, Hamor, Shechem’s father, came to Jacob’s house and asked his son Shechem to marry Dinah. He said Jacob and his party could stay in the area and make a living that way.
They even got married and asked us to mix blood. He said he would accept any request and send him any gift if he followed his father and made Dinah his wife.
No matter how good the conditions were, Jacob couldn’t make his daughter’s rapist his son-in-law.
Hamor and Shechem tried to negotiate with Jacob’s sons after hearing Jacob’s answer. They pretended to grant Shechem’s wish as a condition. Shechem men would give Dinah if they were circumcised like Jacob.
Genocide
Shechem and Hamor naively believed Jacob’s sons and circumcised everyone.
At a time when medicine wasn’t developed, cutting off the man’s penis’ epidermis caused a lot of pain. Until the wound healed, the men couldn’t even walk.
After all the men had been circumcised and lying down for three days, Jacob’s sons stormed the city with knives and killed everyone.
Jacob’s sons entered a castle full of bodies, plundering as fast as they could, taking wealth and capturing women.
Though it’s not specific in the Bible, it’s possible Jacob’s sons retaliated by raping women in the city. A tribal war erupted after a chief raped a woman.
People say Dinah was raped because she loved the world without overcoming her lust when she went to see Shechem City women with excessive curiosity about the world.
It’s like Dinah’s to blame. They say Dinah instigated Shechem’s lust.
In this way, any Bible commentary is male-focused, so the general public must be aware of it. It’s even been suggested that women want to be raped unconsciously.
In his 1937 diary, Anas Nin wrote, “The idea of being sexually assaulted is perhaps what women secretly desire.”
Helen Deutsch says women dream about rape, which is evidence of their unconscious rape fantasies.
Even in Egypt, there’s a strange proverb that says, ‘A woman screams for her life only after being raped ten times.’
Were Jacob’s sons retaliating so cruelly because they knew how much Dinah had suffered?
They’d have been more aware that their family was humiliated. They might’ve scolded Dinah out loud.
