Introduction
14. The rape of Dinah and the revenge of Simeon and Levi ch. 34
After Shechem the Canaanite raped Dinah, Simeon and Levi gained revenge by deceiving the Shechemites into being circumcised as the condition for Dinah’s marriage. Then they murdered the incapacitated men of the city.
"Once again, as in the birth of his sons (Genesis 29:31 to Genesis 30:24), Jacob’s household is dysfunctional because of his passivity. His sons are rash and unbridled, and he is passive. No one in this story escapes censure." [Note: Waltke, Genesis, p. 458.]
"The story is a tangled skein of good and evil, as are all the patriarchal narratives." [Note: Ross, "Genesis," p. 83.]
Dinah must have been a teenager at this time. Keil and Delitzsch calculated from other references in Genesis that she was between 13 and 15, and Davis wrote that she was 15 or 16. [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, 1:311; Davis, p. 256.]
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