Dinah

Genesis 34

The Bible doesn’t tell us much about Jacob’s daughter Dinah. I like to hope, that like her mother Leah, she eventually came to a place of contentment with an unhappy lot in life. Some Bible commentators believe she was raped. I think the narrative in Genesis 34 gives some hints otherwise. Shechem wronged her, but likely not without her consent. The much greater wrong was done by her brothers, Levi and Simeon, who of course painted Shechem’s behavior in the worst possible light in order to justify their own wicked course of action.

DINAH
I didn’t mean to cause such strife,
But just to get a social life,
A little fun with girls my age
To brighten up my pilgrimage.
With only brothers in the home,
It’s only natural I would roam
To see the daughters of the land—
Some girl-time’s all that I had planned.

Photo by Kyle Johnson on Unsplash

But Shechem met me in that place,
And I could not resist his face.
He whispered things that thrilled my heart,
My moral fabric fell apart.
I should have known it wasn’t right,
But all the girls shared my delight.
My worldly girlfriends turned my head
Before I fell to Shechem’s bed.

And now my situation’s worse.
My brothers’ violence brought my curse.
Their wild reaction smashed my dreams,
And nothing justifies their schemes,
But I could wish I’d been content
And so avoided this event!
If I had stayed where I belonged,
I never would have been so wronged.

Nita Brainard