Di´nah, a daughter of Jacob by Leah (), and therefore full sister of Simeon and Levi. While Jacob's camp was in the neighborhood of Shechem, Dinah was seduced by Shechem, the son of Hamor, the Hivite chief or head-man of the town. Partly from dread of the consequences of his misconduct, and partly, it would seem, out of love for the damsel, he solicited a marriage with her, leaving the 'marriage price' (see Marriage) to be fixed by her family. To this Dinah's brothers would only consent on the further condition that all the inhabitants of the place should be circumcised. Even this was yielded; and Simeon and Levi took a most barbarous advantage of the compliance by falling upon the town on the third day, when the people were disabled by the effects of the operation, and slew them all (Genesis 34). For this act of truly Oriental vindictiveness no excuse can be offered, and Jacob himself repeatedly alludes to it with abhorrence and regret (; ). To understand the act at all, however, it is necessary to remember, that any stain upon the honor of a sister, and especially of an only sister, is even at this day considered as an insupportable disgrace and inexpiable offence among all the nomad tribes of Western Asia. If the woman be single, her brothers more than her father, if she be married, her brothers more than her husband, are aggrieved, and are considered bound to avenge the wrong. Hence the active vengeance of Dinah's full brothers, and the comparative passiveness of her father in these transactions. Of Dinah's subsequent lot nothing is known.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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