Jacob has not yet gone home to his relatives as the Lord instructed him but has lodged in Shechem and has even bought a plot of land there. Choosing to live in this godless city is going to bring terrible trouble on Jacob and his family.
"Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women in the land." (Genesis 34:1) By this time Dinah is old enough to be considered a woman and is of marriageable age, as we will see shortly. Naturally she wants to make friends in this new location. She probably misses the friends she had in her old hometown and wants to get to know the other young ladies in Shechem. While Dinah lived on her grandfather's estate on the outskirts of Ur she likely never had to worry about visiting her friends without a protector along. She and her family assume she doesn't need a guardian to accompany her as she visits friends in Shechem. But Shechem isn't like the sophisticated (but sinful) city of Ur. Shechem is like an old west town that's rough and tough, a town where a person can have anything he wants if he's able to take it. A young man sees the attractive Dinah and wants her and decides to take her.
"When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and raped her." (Genesis 34:2) This young man is named after the city he inhabits. Or maybe the city was named for him since he is the son of a prominent man; the Bible doesn't say why this man and the city both have the same name. But he thinks that because of who he is he can do anything he pleases. As a woman, it pains me to know that sexual violence toward women has been happening ever since the beginning of man's sojourn on earth. Even here in 2020 it's not always safe for a woman to be out alone anywhere she pleases. It should be safe, and no woman ought to have to fear being assaulted, but we still have to be on the alert even in these modern times.
"His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob; he loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. And Shechem said to his father Hamor, 'Get me this girl as my wife.'" (Genesis 34:3-4) Shechem thinks he's fallen in love with the woman he's violated. I think maybe, now that he's done this deed, he feels possessive of her. He doesn't want any other man to ever have her and decides he must marry her to prevent that from happening. To him this possessive feeling is love. Due to his heathen, lawless background he doesn't know what real love is. Real love doesn't force itself on anyone. Real love doesn't physically attack and violate anyone. The Bible defines love like this: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
If Shechem really was in love with Dinah, he should have never laid a hand on her but should have courted her and had his father speak with her father about arranging a marriage. He's like the type of person who says, "It's better to ask forgiveness than to get permission." He goes ahead and takes what he wants and assumes Dinah's family will gladly and hastily arrange the marriage for a couple of reasons. One reason is that it will be difficult to find a husband for her now that she is no longer a virgin. In those times a man expected his wife to be a virgin unless she had been previously married and widowed. The other reason is that within a few weeks it might turn out that Dinah is pregnant. The family wouldn't want her to be an unwed mother. Shechem, the spoiled son of a high official who is used to getting what he wants, thinks there will be no problem in having his father arrange the marriage, especially now that Shechem has already slept with Dinah.
We don't know exactly what happened next. Perhaps poor Dinah went tearfully home and told her mother what had happened and then her mother brought the sad news to Jacob. Some scholars suggest that Shechem may have held Dinah hostage while his father attempted to arrange the marriage for him, so it may have been a messenger from Hamor's household who brought the shocking news to Jacob. "When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with his livestock; so he did nothing about it until they came home." (Genesis 34:5)
Why does Jacob sit still and do nothing until his sons come home from work? Is he in shock? Is he grief-stricken and unable to think clearly? Does he feel guilty for not making sure his daughter was kept safe wherever she went? We would expect a loving father to be outraged and to either appeal to the authorities or to take matters into his own hands. I'm trying to think what my own father would have done in a situation like this. I know he'd have been beside himself with rage and grief. I think he'd have gone to the young man's house to confront him and his father or else I think he'd have called the police to have the young man arrested.
I'll give you an example of my dad's outrage when something a lot less happened to me than what happened to Jacob's daughter. I started having boyfriends at the age of fourteen but I wasn't allowed to go out in cars with boys until I turned sixteen. The winter that I was sixteen I was unceremoniously and rudely invited to get out of a young man's car in my driveway because I refused to have sexual relations with him after the school Christmas dance. This young man couldn't have been more gentlemanly prior to the dance (coming to the door to meet my parents, holding the passenger door open for me to get into his car, making sure the hemline of my long formal dress was all the way inside the car before shutting the door, and so on). But when he dropped me back off he couldn't get me out of his car fast enough. He pulled up at the end of my driveway, not even near the steps to my house, and slammed the brakes on and waited angrily for me to get out. I had barely managed to get the car door closed behind me when he tried to peel loudly away, but we had a gravel driveway and some slushy snow was on the ground so he didn't make a very dramatic exit. His tires just kind of spun uselessly and wetly for a minute until he was able to pull slowly away. I slogged up the long driveway in the snow with much difficulty in my high heeled shoes. My mother had waited up for me but my father didn't hear about how I was treated until the next day and he angrily stated that if "that boy" ever called me again or showed up at our house again he was going to do some really bad things to him. I won't quote what my father actually said because in his anger he added some curse words to the threats he was making. He also threatened to call the young man's father and tell him how I'd been treated and the only reason he didn't is because I pleaded with embarrassed tears for him to let it go and leave this behind us. If my father was this angry over a young man who just verbally tried to coerce me into sexual relations with him, I can only imagine what my father might have done if this young man had physically tried to force himself on me. This is why it's hard to figure out why Jacob doesn't show any reaction at all.
It might have been better if Jacob had done something himself instead of waiting for his sons to get home. As an older man Jacob would have dealt more calmly with the situation than his sons will. Jacob's sons are are going to show all the outrage Jacob does not. They are young and tough and impulsive and strong. They are not going to stand for what has been done for their sister. They are going to avenge her and the troubles of Jacob are going to go from bad to worse.
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