Open Bible Data Home  About  News  OET Key

OETOET-RVOET-LVULTUSTBSBBLBAICNTOEBWEBBEWMBBNETLSVFBVTCNTT4TLEBBBEMoffJPSWymthASVDRAYLTDrbyRVWbstrKJB-1769KJB-1611BshpsGnvaCvdlTNTWyclSR-GNTUHBBrLXXBrTrRelatedTopicsParallelInterlinearReferenceDictionarySearch

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

IntroIndex©

DINAH

Daughter born to Jacob and Leah (Gn 30:21), whose name means “judgment.” Living with her family at Shechem, a Canaanite city (33:18), Dinah went in to visit some neighboring pagan women (34:1). Shechem, the Hivite prince of the area, saw her and, while Dinah’s brothers were away in the fields tending their herds, he raped her. Shechem then requested Dinah from Jacob as a wife.

Jacob’s sons, enraged at the dishonor done to their sister, plotted revenge. They agreed to the marriage on the terms that all the Hivite males be circumcised. Hamor, Shechem’s father, consented. While the Canaanite men were still incapacitated from their surgery, Dinah’s brothers Levi and Simeon led a massacre in the city and killed every male. Dinah was retrieved and the city plundered. The brothers excused their action as a just retribution for one of the Canaanites having treated their sister as a harlot (Gn 34:27-31). For their use of weapons of violence (49:5), Simeon and Levi were later cursed by Jacob.