Dinah

{{short description|Daughter of Jacob in Hebrew Bible}} {{about|the biblical figure}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2023}} {{Infobox person | name = Dinah | native_name = דִּינָה | native_name_lang = he | pronunciation = Dina | image = File:Dinah tissot.jpg | image_size = | caption = The abduction of Dinah, depicted by [[James Tissot]] | birth_date = 7 Tishrei | father = [[Jacob]] | spouse = unknown | mother = [[Leah]] | relatives = {{plainlist| *[[Reuben (son of Jacob)|Reuben]] (brother) *[[Simeon (son of Jacob)|Simeon]] (brother) *[[Levi]] (brother) *[[Judah (son of Jacob)|Judah]] (brother) *[[Dan (son of Jacob)|Dan]] (half brother) *[[Naphtali]] (half brother) *[[Gad (son of Jacob)|Gad]] (half brother) *[[Asher]] (half brother) *[[Issachar]] (brother) *[[Zebulun]] (brother) *[[Joseph (Genesis)|Joseph]] (half brother) *[[Benjamin]] (half brother) *[[Rachel]] (aunt/step-mother)}} }}

In the [[Book of Genesis]], '''Dinah''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|d|ai|n|ə}}; {{Hebrew Name|דִּינָה|Dīna|Dīnā|'judged'; 'vindicated'}}) was the seventh child and only named daughter of [[Leah]] and [[Jacob]]. The episode of her [[rape]] by Shechem, son of a [[Canaan]]ite or [[Hivite]] prince, and the subsequent [[revenge]] of her brothers [[Simeon (Hebrew Bible)|Simeon]] and [[Levi]], commonly referred to as ''the rape of Dinah'', is told in [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] 34.<ref>{{bibleverse|Genesis|34|HE}}</ref>

==In Genesis== {{Further|Rape in the Hebrew Bible#Genesis 34}}

Dinah is first mentioned in Genesis 30:21 of the [[Hebrew Bible]] as the daughter of Leah and Jacob, born to Leah after she bore six sons to Jacob. In Genesis 34, Dinah went out to visit the women of [[Shechem]], where her people had made camp and where her father Jacob had purchased the land where he had pitched his tent. Shechem (son of Hamor, the prince of the land) then took her and [[rape]]d her, but how this text is to be exactly translated and understood is the subject of scholarly controversy.<ref name="Scholz 2014">{{Cite book |last=Scholz |first=Susanne |date=2021 |title=Sacred Witness. Rape in the Hebrew Bible |url=https://www.bol.com/nl/p/sacred-witness/9300000031495453/ |publisher=Fortress Press |isbn=9781506482033}} (E-book edition)</ref>

Shechem asked his father to obtain Dinah for him as his wife. Hamor came to Jacob and asked for Dinah for his son: "Make marriages with us; give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves. You shall dwell with us; and the land shall be open to you." Shechem offered Jacob and his sons any bride-price they named. But "the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, because he had defiled their sister Dinah"; they said they would accept the offer if the men of the city agreed to be [[Circumcision|circumcised]] [[Brit milah|like the Hebrews]].

So the men of Shechem were deceived, and were circumcised. On the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob and Leah, [[Simeon (son of Jacob)|Simeon]] and [[Levi]], led their army and massacred all the Shechemite men, including Hamor and Shechem, by sword, freed Dinah from Shechem's house, and stole the women and treasures.

"Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, 'You have brought trouble on me by making me odious to the inhabitants of the land, the [[Canaanites]] and the [[Perizzites]]; my numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.' But they said, 'Should he treat our sister as a harlot?{{'"}} (Genesis 34:31).

===Last mention of Dinah in the Bible=== When Jacob's family prepares to descend to Egypt, Genesis lists the 70 family members who went down together (Genesis 46:8–27).<ref>{{bibleverse|Genesis|46:8-27|JPS}}</ref> Dinah is specifically listed, in verse 15 ("These are the sons of Leah, that she bore to Jacob in Padan Aram, and Dinah his daughter"). Dovid Rosenfeld states that "That is it. The [[Torah]] does not tell us anything about what happened to her for the remainder of her life, nor if she ever married and raised a family".<ref>{{cite web |last= Rosenfeld |first= Dovid |title= What Happened to Dinah After Her Abduction? |series= Ask the Rabbi |website= [[Aish HaTorah|Aish.com]] |date= 13 April 2018 |access-date= 2022-01-08 |url= https://www.aish.com/atr/What-Happened-to-Dinah-After-Her-Abduction.html}}</ref>

===Origin of Genesis 34=== [[File:Shechem seizes Dinah.jpg|thumb|right|220px|17th-century depiction of the rape of Dinah.]] Chapter 34 of the Book of Genesis deals primarily with the family of [[Abraham]] and his descendants, including Dinah, her father Jacob, and her brothers. The traditional view is that [[Moses]] wrote Genesis as well as almost all the rest of the Torah, doubtlessly drawing on varied sources but synthesizing them into a written history of the Hebrews' ancestors. This view, which has been held for the past several thousand years, although it is not explicitly mentioned in either the Hebrew Bible or the [[Christian Bible]], holds that Moses included this story in the Torah primarily because it happened and he considered it significant. It foreshadows later events and [[Prophecy|prophecies]] in Genesis and the Torah concerning the two violent brothers.{{citation needed|date=January 2015}}

[[Source criticism|Source-critical]] scholars speculate that Genesis combines separate literary strands with different values and concerns and does not predate the 1st millennium [[BCE]] as a unified account.<ref>{{cite web |author=Barry L. Bandstra|url=http://www.hope.edu/academic/religion/bandstra/RTOT/PART1/PT1_TBD.HTM |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010217052156/http://www.hope.edu/academic/religion/bandstra/RTOT/PART1/PT1_TBD.HTM |archive-date=17 February 2001 |title=Table D Source Analysis: Revisions and Alternatives |work=Reading the Old Testament}}</ref> Within Genesis 34 itself, they suggest two layers of narrative: an older account ascribing the killing of Shechem to Simeon and Levi alone, and a later addition (verses 27 to 29) involving all the sons of Jacob.<ref>{{cite book |first=John |last=Van Seters |author-link=John Van Seters |year=2001 |chapter=The Silence of Dinah (Genesis 34) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=he2ueEIqZQAC&pg=PA239 |editor=Jean-Daniel Macchi and Thomas Römer |title=Jacob: Commentaire à Plusieurs Voix de Gen. 25–36. Mélanges Offerts à [[Albert de Pury]] |location=[[Geneva]] |publisher=Labor et Fides |pages=239–247 |isbn=2-8309-0987-9 |oclc=248784525}}</ref> [[Jonathan Kirsch]] argues that the narrative combines a [[Yahwist]] narrator describing a rape, and an [[Elohist]] speaker describing a seduction.<ref>Kirsch, Jonathan. [https://books.google.com/books?id=focAQMezvSYC&dq=dinah+bible+story&pg=PT120 ''Harlot by the Side of the Road''], Random House, 2009.</ref>

On the other hand, another critical scholar, [[Alexander Rofé]], assumes that the earlier authors would not have considered rape to be defilement in and of itself and posits that the verb describing Dinah as "defiled" was added later (elsewhere in the Bible, only married or betrothed women are "defiled" by rape). He instead says that such a description reflected a "late, post-exilic notion that the idolatrous [[gentile]]s are impure [and supports] the prohibition of [[Exogamy|intermarriage]] and intercourse with them." Such a supposed preoccupation with [[Ethnic purification|ethnic purity]] must therefore indicate a late date for Genesis in the 5th or 4th centuries BCE, when the restored Jewish community in Jerusalem was similarly preoccupied with anti-[[Samaritan]] polemics. In Rofé's analysis, the "defilement" refers to [[interracial sex]] rather than rape.<ref name="rofe2005">{{cite journal|last=Rofé|first=Alexander|year=2005|title=Defilement of Virgins in Biblical Law and the Case of Dinah (Genesis 34)|url=http://www.bsw.org/project/biblica/bibl86/Bib86Ani04.pdf|journal=[[Biblica (journal)|Biblica]]|volume=86|issue=3|pages=369–375|quote=The Hebrew verb [...](to defile) applied to married or betrothed women only. The case of Dinah is an exception. In Genesis 34, it is stated three times that Jacob's daughter was defiled by Shechem (vv. 5.13.27). A plausible explanation of this state of affairs is that Genesis 34 reflects the late, postexilic notion that the idolatrous gentiles are impure which implies the prohibition of intermarriage and intercourse with them (Ezra 9, 11-12). The concept of the impurity of idolaters persisted in post-biblical literature. Thus, the assertion that Dinah was defiled by Shechem betrays a late date of composition in respect of this story. This confirms Kuenen's hypothesis that Genesis 34 in its present form is a late chapter, containing an anti-Samaritan polemic which originated in the Restoration Community of the Fifth-Fourth centuries BCE.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061004094918/http://www.bsw.org/project/biblica/bibl86/Bib86Ani04.pdf|archive-date=4 October 2006}}</ref>

==In rabbinic literature== [[Midrash]]ic literature contains a series of proposed explanations of the Bible by [[rabbi]]s. It provides further hypotheses of the story of Dinah, suggesting answers to questions such as her offspring: Osnat a daughter<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6uK5pa3R4d8C&q=osnat+dinah+bible&pg=PA62|title=Codex Judaica: Chronological Index of Jewish History, Covering 5,764 Years of Biblical, Talmudic & Post-Talmudic History|last=Kantor|first=Máttis|date=2005-01-01|publisher=Zichron Press|isbn=9780967037837|language=en}}</ref> from Shechem, and links to later incidents and characters.

One midrash states that Dinah was conceived as a male in Leah's womb but miraculously changed to a female, lest the maid-servants ([[Bilhah]] and [[Zilpah]]) be associated with more of the Israelite tribes than [[Rachel]].<ref>''Berakhot'' 60a</ref>

Another midrash implicates Jacob in Dinah's misfortune: when he went to meet [[Esau]], he locked Dinah in a box, for fear that Esau would wish to marry her,<ref name="JewishEncyclopedia.com - DINAH">[http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=364&letter=D&search=dinah#1 "Dinah"], ''JewishEncyclopedia.com''</ref> but God rebuked him in these words: "If thou hadst married off thy daughter in time she would not have been tempted to sin, and might, moreover, have exerted a beneficial influence upon her husband".<ref>Gen. R. lxxx.</ref> Her brother Simeon promised to find a husband for her, but she did not wish to leave Shechem, fearing that, after her disgrace, no one would take her to wife.<ref>Gen. R. l.c.</ref><ref name="JewishEncyclopedia.com - DINAH" /> However, she was later married to [[Job (Bible)|Job]].<ref>[[Bava Batra]] 15b; Gen. R. l.c.</ref><ref name="JewishEncyclopedia.com - DINAH" /> When she died, Simeon buried her in the land of [[Canaan]]. She is therefore referred to as "the Canaanitish woman" (Genesis 46:10).<ref>{{bibleverse|Genesis|46:10|HE}}</ref><ref name="JewishEncyclopedia.com - DINAH" /> Joseph's wife [[Asenath]] (ib.) was her daughter by Shechem.<ref>Gen. R. l.c.</ref><ref name="JewishEncyclopedia.com - DINAH" /><ref name="JewishEncyclopedia.com - ASENATH">[http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1904-asenath "Asenath"], ''JewishEncyclopedia.com''</ref>{{efn|In the [[Midrash]] and [[Targum Pseudo-Jonathan]], she is said to be the daughter of Dinah, Joseph's sister, and [[Shechem (biblical figure)|Shechem]], born of an illicit union, described as either premarital sex or rape, depending on the narrative.<ref>See [https://web.archive.org/web/20100408121125/http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/asenath-bible |title=Asenath: Bible {{!}} Jewish Women's Archive|website=jwa.org|access-date=2019-09-05][https://web.archive.org/web/20020627193444/http://www.pseudepigrapha.com/jubilees/40.htm |title=Jubilees 40|website=www.pseudepigrapha.com|access-date=2019-09-05]''[[Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer]]'', chapter 38.</ref> A later date [[Apocrypha|apocryphal]] publication, written in Greek, believed to be a Christian document, called ''[[Joseph and Aseneth]]'', supposedly details their relationship and their 48-year long reign over Egypt; in it, Asenath weds Joseph, whose brothers [[Dan (son of Jacob)|Dan]] and [[Gad (son of Jacob)|Gad]] plot to kill him for the sake of Pharaoh's son, who wants Asenath to be his wife, only for their efforts to be thwarted by Joseph's younger brother [[Benjamin]].}}

Early Christian commentators such as [[Jerome]] likewise assign some of the responsibility to Dinah, in venturing out to visit the women of Shechem. This story was used to demonstrate the danger to women in the public sphere as contrasted with the relative security of remaining in private.<ref>Shemesh, Yael. [http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/6216_6662.pdf "Review of Joy A. Schroeder's ''Dinah’s Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation''"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224102321/http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/6216_6662.pdf |date=24 December 2013 }}, ''Review of Biblical Literature'', July 2008, Society of Biblical Literature.</ref>

===Simeon and Levi=== {{further|Simeon in rabbinic literature}} On his deathbed, their father Jacob curses Simeon and Levi's "anger" (Genesis 49).<ref>{{bibleverse|Genesis|49}}</ref> Their tribal portions in the [[land of Israel]] are dispersed so that they would not be able to regroup and fight arbitrarily. According to the Midrash, Simeon and Levi were only 14 and 13 years old, respectively, at the time of the rape of Dinah. They possessed great moral zealousness (later, in the episode of the [[Golden Calf]], the [[Tribe of Levi]] would demonstrate their absolute commitment to Moses' leadership by killing all the people involved in idol worship), but their anger was misdirected here.{{citation needed|date=January 2015}} [[File:Simeon Levi Slay Sichemites (5752777).jpg|thumb|[[Gerard Hoet]]: "Simeon and Levi slay the people of Shechem"]] One midrash told how Jacob later tried to restrain their hot tempers by dividing their portions in the land of Israel, and neither had lands of their own. Therefore, Dinah's son by Shechem was counted among Simeon's progeny and received a portion of land in Israel, Dinah herself being "the Canaanite woman" mentioned among those who went down into Egypt with Jacob and his sons (Genesis 46:10).<ref>{{bibleverse|Genesis|46:10}}</ref><ref name="JewishEncyclopedia.com - DINAH" /> When she died, Simeon buried her in the land of Canaan. (According to another tradition, her child from her rape by Shechem was [[Asenath]], the wife of [[Joseph (Hebrew Bible)|Joseph]], and she herself later married the prophet Job.<ref>''Bava Batra'' 15b; Gen. R. l.c.</ref><ref name="JewishEncyclopedia.com - DINAH" />) The [[Tribe of Simeon]] received land within the territory of [[Tribe of Judah|Judah]] and served as itinerant teachers in Israel, traveling from place to place to earn a living.{{citation needed|date=January 2015}}

In the Hebrew Bible, the tribe of Levi received a few [[Cities of Refuge]] spread out over Israel, and relied for their sustenance on the priestly gifts that the Children of Israel gave them.

In medieval rabbinic literature, there were efforts to justify the killing, not merely of Shechem and Hamor, but of all the townsmen. [[Maimonides]] argued that the killing was understandable because the townsmen had failed to uphold the seventh [[Noachide laws|Noachide law]] ({{transliteration|hbo|denim}}) to establish a criminal justice system. However, [[Nachmanides]] disagreed, partly because he viewed the seventh law as a [[positive commandment]] that was not punishable by death. Instead, Nachmanides said that the townsmen presumably violated other Noachide laws, such as idolatry or sexual immorality. Later, the [[Maharal]] reframed the issue—not as sin, but rather as a war. That is, he argued that Simeon and Levi acted lawfully insofar as they carried out a military operation as an act of vengeance or retribution for the rape of Dinah.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = BIBLICAL NARRATIVES AND THE STATUS OF ENEMY CIVILIANS IN WARTIME|last = Blau|first = Yitzkhak|date = 2006|journal = Tradition |volume=39 |pages=4}}</ref>

===Travel to Egypt=== The Torah lists the 70 members of Jacob's family who went down together into Egypt (Genesis 46:8–27).<ref>{{bibleverse|Genesis|46:8-27|JPS}}</ref> Simeon's children include "Shaul the son of a Canaanitish woman" (verse 10).<ref name="Bereishit - Chapter 46 - Genesis">[http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=8241&showrashi=true Bereishit - Chapter 46 - Genesis] at chabad.org</ref> The medieval French rabbi [[Rashi]] hypothesized that this Shaul was Dinah's son by Shechem.<ref name="Bereishit - Chapter 46 - Genesis"/> He suggests that after the brothers killed all the men in the city, including Shechem and his father, Dinah refused to leave the palace unless Simeon agreed to marry her<ref name="Bereishit - Chapter 46 - Genesis"/> and remove her shame (according to [[Nachmanides]], she only lived in his house and did not have sex with him). Therefore, Shaul is counted among Simeon's progeny, and he received a portion of land in Israel in the time of [[Joshua]]. The list of the names of the families of Israel in Egypt is repeated in Exodus 6:14–25<ref>{{bibleverse|Exodus|6:14-25|JPS}}</ref> (including "Shaul the son of a Canaanitish woman", verse 15).

==In apocryphical literature== In the apocryphal book ''[[Testament of Job]]'', Dinah is said to have been Job's second wife after the death of [[Job's wife|his first wife]], who is referred to as "Sitidos".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/wife-of-job-apocrypha#:~:text=Unique%20to%20the%20apocryphal%20account,of%20people%27s%20contempt%20and%20pity | title=Wife of Job: Apocrypha }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.vestibularfamaz.com.br/hotsite/divrei-iyov-transforms-the-spouse-as-a-main-6/ | title=Divrei Iyov transforms the spouse as a main character regarding the plot that is entire | UNIFAMAZ }}</ref>

==In culture== ===Symbol of black womanhood=== [[File:Eastman Johnson - Dinah, Portrait of a Negress - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''Dinah, Portrait of a Negress'' by [[Eastman Johnson]]]] In 19th-century America, "Dinah" became a generic name for an [[Slavery|enslaved]] African woman.<ref name = "wom">[http://www.assumption.edu/whw/old/NY_HeraldII.html Footnote 3] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120806144555/http://www.assumption.edu/whw/old/NY_HeraldII.html |date=6 August 2012 }} to "Women's Rights Convention", ''New York Herald'', 26 October 1850; U.S. Women's History Workshop.</ref> At the 1850 Woman's Rights Convention in New York, a speech by [[Sojourner Truth]] was reported on in the ''[[New York Herald]]'', which used the name "Dinah" to symbolize black womanhood as represented by Truth:

{{blockquote|In a convention where sex and color are mingled together in the common rights of humanity, Dinah, and [[Charles Burleigh|Burleigh]], and [[Lucretia]], and [[Frederick Douglass|Frederick Douglas]] [sic], are all spiritually of one color and one sex, and all on a perfect footing of reciprocity. Most assuredly, Dinah was well posted up on the rights of woman, and with something of the ardor and the odor of her native Africa, she contended for her right to vote, to hold office, to practice medicine and the law, and to wear the breeches with the best white man that walks upon God's earth.<ref name = "wom"/>}}

Lizzie McCloud, a slave on a [[Tennessee]] [[plantations in the American South|plantation]] during the [[American Civil War]], recalled that [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] soldiers called all enslaved women "Dinah". Describing her fear when the Union army arrived, she said: "We was so scared we run under the house and the Yankees called 'Come out Dinah' (didn't call none of us anything but Dinah). They said 'Dinah, we're fightin' to free you and get you out from under bondage'."<ref>[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11544/11544-h/11544-h.htm ''Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves''], The Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938. Library of Congress, 1941.</ref> After the end of the war in 1865 ''[[The New York Times]]'' exhorted the newly liberated slaves to demonstrate that they had the moral values to use their freedom effectively, using the names "[[Sambo (racial term)|Sambo]]" and "Dinah" to represent male and female former slaves: "You are free Sambo, but you must work. Be virtuous too, oh Dinah!"<ref>Gutmann, Herbert. "Persistent Myths about the Afro-American Family" in ''The Slavery Reader'', Psychology Press, 2003, p. 263.</ref>

The name Dinah was subsequently used for dolls and other images of black women.<ref>Husfloen, Kyle. ''Black Americana'', Krause Publications, 2005, p. 64.</ref>

===In literature=== The novel ''[[The Red Tent (Anita Diamant novel)|The Red Tent]]'' by [[Anita Diamant]] is a fictional autobiography of the biblical Dinah. In Diamant's version, Dinah falls in love with Shalem, the Canaanite prince, and goes to bed with him in preparation for marriage. Simeon and Levi, Jacob's sons, instigate the discord between Jacob and the men of the King of Shechem out of fear for their own prosperity, even though Dinah tells them the truth.

A fictionalized account of Dinah's life is included as one of the stories in the short story collection ''[[Sarah and After]]'' by [[Lynne Reid Banks]].

== See also == *[[Rape in the Hebrew Bible]]

==Notes== {{notelist}}

== References == {{Reflist}}

== Further reading == * Schroeder, Joy A. ''Dinah's Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation'' Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0800638436}} * {{cite journal|last=Shemesh| first=Yael| title=Rape is Rape is Rape: The story of Dinah and Shechem (Genesis 34)| journal= Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft| volume= 119| issue= 1| pages= 2–21|issn=0044-2526| doi= 10.1515/ZAW.2007.002| date=August 2007| s2cid=170947440}}

== External links == {{sister project links|d=Q122035|wikt=Dinah|c=Category:Dinah|n=no|b=no|v=no|voy=no|m=no|mw=no|s=no|species=no|q=yes}} * [http://www.chabad.org/k1651 Dinah's Abduction from a Jewish perspective] at [[Chabad.org]] * {{cite journal |doi=10.1177/0309089208094457 |title=Redeemed by His Love? The Characterization of Shechem in Genesis 34 |year=2008 |last=Blyth| first= C. |journal=[[Journal for the Study of the Old Testament]] |volume=33 |pages=3–18|s2cid=170966566 |hdl=2292/12408 |hdl-access=free }}

[[Category:Book of Genesis people]] [[Category:Mythological kidnapped people]] [[Category:Massacres in the Bible]] [[Category:Violence against women in Israel]] [[Category:Women in the Hebrew Bible]] [[Category:Mythological rape victims]] [[Category:Children of Jacob]] [[Category:Sexuality in the Bible]] [[Category:Shechem]] [[Category:Asenath]]