January 28, 2018: Day 34 – Genesis 34

So when we get to Joseph we can’t lose sight of this story of Dinah and her brothers.  Remember, Joseph was also one of her brothers, but he does not figure in at all in this story.  Notice how Jacob gets so upset with his sons because they brought trouble upon their house because of their act of vengeance.  We assume in the Joseph story when Joseph goes to find his brothers they seem to be pretty far away, and it could be because they were not well received at all locally.

So the story is one of rape.  Even if the king’s son ends up falling in love with Dinah, the story is about rape.  There is no getting around that, and Shechem and his father try to get around that, but they would not allow it to happen.  It is interesting to track the reaction of Jacob, Dinah’s father, and the brothers of Dinah.  We only hear a couple things about Jacob and his reaction to his daughter’s rape.  He waits until his sons get home to try to figure out what to do next.  By then Hamor had come to him to try to win his daughter away and somehow the brothers must have overheard that their sister was raped.  We don’t hear anything more about Jacob until after  the brothers have completely decimated the city and the king and his son.  Now Jacob actually speaks and he is chastising the sons because he is worried that as a result of this conquest the nations around him will gang up on him and wipe him out.  Didn’t I mention last chapter that Jacob was a bit of a coward?  His sons answer by saying: Yeah, we know, but no one lays hands on our sister.  We need to keep this in mind as Joseph is about to come into the picture.  Remember Joseph’s brothers and their tendencies.  In this story the leaders of this plot are Simeon and Levi.  See if their names come up at all in the Joseph story.