Ge. 34: Rape and Pillage. You rape. I pillage, deal?

Chapter 34 is like, dang. Mass hysteria and rowdiness comparable only to Abram going all Leonidas against the valley kings.

Here's how it goes down.

Basically, Dinah, whom we met back in Gen. 30:21, only remarkable because female births aren't
getting the press coverage in the Bible that male births are, goes out to visit the women of the land...maybe she had some Canaanite friends that she hung out with, had a sewing circle, went rock climbing, whatever. The point is, the king's son Shechem saw her and thought..."Oh snap, she's tasty." And proceeded to rape her. He took a sort of executive privilege, if you will. Then he goes and tells his dad, Hamor (descendent of the cursed Hamites from Gen. 10:17, you remember) that he wants Dinah to be his wife. Nice guy, to want to marry his victim. That marriage would be off on the right foot.

Jacob finds out about the rape through the grapevine, and wisely chooses not to go and run and tell his sons about it out in the field. He waited until they got home. When they heard, it was like anyone who finds out that little sister got raped. Grief and fury. To say the least, they all agreed that a disgraceful thing such as an outsider bumping uglies with their sister was something that should not be done. It went beyond rape. Hamor and Shechem stop by that evening to ... I guess, be as diplomatic about the whole ordeal as possible.

I amazed by this brazenness...as if it happens all the time. That these two would just go to a rape victim's father's home, and ask for her to be given over as a daughter. Token gestures, such as marrying the city of Shechem's women or buying its land, are offered in exchange. L-A-M-E. Basically then Shechem offers to pay anything.

The brothers aren't buying it, ok? They've probably all had plenty of time to come up with what they are going to do. I suggest you read it for yourself. It's just too genius. Or horrifying. At the very least, well thought-out.

Pretty amazing that they cite adhering to their custom and covenant as the only way Shechem could marry Dinah. Then while the entire male population of the city is...recovering, Simeon and Levi, Leah's second and third oldest, go in and do some Van Dammage?

They took this defiling very seriously. And I wonder if the goings on in this passage served to unite the brothers together. After all, they were from four different mothers, and it wasn't exactly all shiny-happy. Isaac and Ishmael split up. Jacob and Esau went their separate ways.

Jacob wasn't too pleased with the situation. It was already a touchy situation with Esau, and now two of his boys go and loot and pillage an entire city. The Canaanites and Perizzites would soon know about this, and they outnumbered Jacob and his clan hardcore.

Simeon and Levi, thinking only about the immediate future (like Uncle Esau), could only reply, "He shouldn't have treated out sister like a prostitute." I'm sure they thought what they did was just. Time will tell.

This is another example of Ham's descendants dealing with a curse. God's curses can be carried out by men.