The Defiling of Dinah

Following Jacob, the next major figure in Genesis is Joseph.  Joseph is famous for having a fabulous coat and being a really good dream interpreter, for being buddies with the Pharaoh and being portrayed by Donny Osmond on Broadway.  It's without a doubt the gentlest story in the first few books of the Bible, which is probably why it had to be preceded by the disturbing tale of his seldom-mentioned sister, Dinah.

This came up in my image search for "Dinah," so this is what we'll use for mental imagery.

Dinah drew the eye of a prince named Shechem, the son of a guy with the comic-strip worthy name of Hamor the Hivite.  Shechem was stricken by Dinah's ... beauty?  Charisma?  Razor-sharp wit?

Huge, soft, round ... uh, lips?

Genesis ain't tellin', so we'll just assume she had a nice ass or something.  As is typical of it, the Bible isn't much for romance, skipping over the foreplay to get right to the boning:

"And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the country, saw her; and he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.  And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel." - Genesis 34:2-3

So Shechem cleaved unto her and had a jolly old time with her.  If you're wondering what Dinah's thoughts on any of this are, by the way, prepare to be disappointed.  We never get to know, so don't even ask.  The Bible's view on women is mostly that they're big, meaty tanks for two ovaries and a uterus, and that if they're not birthing a son or pleasing their manfolk, they better damn well be making sammiches.

Anyway, because we don't know Dinah's stance, the above passage is popularly interpreted as meaning she'd been raped.  Personally, I don't feel that all the loving and gentle words set a very rapey atmosphere.  In fact, it looks to me as though the idea of Dinah being raped was put forth as a lame excuse for what comes next.  To me, and maybe this is just me here, it sounds like Dinah and Shechem were involved in a sexy, illicit love affair.

Illicit, you say?  Yes - you see, Dinah couldn't marry Shechem because Shechem hadn't been circumcised, and in the Bible that little flap of dick skin makes all the difference.  If Shechem wasn't circumcised, it meant he wasn't Hebrew, and if he wasn't Hebrew, well ... Dinah may as well be fucking a llama as far as God is concerned.  And we all know how God feels about llama-boinking.  (He hates it.  Although he also hates incest and polygamy and we've already seen that, so what does he know?)

So I'm sure by this point our ovaries are collectively bursting with the need to know what happens to these starcrossed lovers.  Obviously it's nothing good, but what is this tragedy that befalls them?  Do they take their own lives as a result of their families' hostility, ala Romeo and Juliet or Pyramus and Thisbe?  Are they sabotaged by a jealous rival, like Tristan and Isolde?  Perhaps some great, tragic violence tears them apart, like Abelard and Heloise.

The truth is ... weeeeeeeeeeell ...

Shechem, head over heels for this random Jewish chick with the presumably great ass, goes straight to his father and demands that he find a way for him and Dinah to be wed.  Hamor is surprisingly okay with this, and he toddles off to talk to Jacob about getting these lovebirds hitched:

"Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter: now his sons were with his cattle in the field: and Jacob held his peace until they were come.  And Hamor the father of Shechem went out unto Jacob to commune with him.  And the sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter: which thing ought not to be done." - Genesis 34:5-6

Oh, Jacob.  Did punching God in the face and raping genetics leave you with a big, empty void in your life?  You have nothing left to accomplish, so you've just become a bitter old man?  Or did the fact that you had to do fourteen years of hard labour to marry Rachel leave you with a skewed idea of what courtship should be?  Come on Jacob, I know it's in your nature but try not to be a dick.

At this point, Hamor and Shechem state their case.  Hamor explains that his son is in love with Dinah, and that such a match would mean the unification of their houses.  He invites Jacob and sons to live on his land, trade with his people, and - hell, why not? - marry all his daughters!  Why have one wedding when you can have dozens!  Champagne and cake for all!

"And Hamor communed with them, saying, The soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter: I pray you give her him to wife.  And make ye marriages with us, and give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you.  And ye shall dwell with us: and the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein." - Genesis 34:8-10

Shechem even steps in to tell Jacob he'll do literally anything for the crusty old fart's favour to win Dinah's hand.  Jacob's sons, however, refuse (wait - since when was it their decision?) and point out that Dinah can't marry a man who hasn't been circumcised.  Well, that's no problem for Shechem, is it?  He just promised he'd do anything for Dinah.  A quick snip-snip, a few days of recovery and - bam! - problem solved!  They can get married, and we can all move on with our li--

"But in this will we consent unto you: if ye will be as we be, that every male of you be circumcised; then will we give our daughters unto you, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people." - Genesis 34:15-16

Oh.  Well.  That is, um, quite the demand there, Jacob's sons-who-apparently-speak-as-one-entity.  So every male of the entire population has to be circumcised?  Why?  Just in case Dinah breaths some bad dick-skin air?  Just in case she's attacked by a passing foreskin?  Is that it?  Because seriously, what the fuck?  That's like if the American president's daughter wanted to marry an English prince, but couldn't until half of Britain had their appendixes removed, or some equally pointless and painful surgery.

What the fuck?

The only way I can justify this is that it's some kind of bizarrely elaborate bluff, an impossible demand that they know Shechem could never fulfill to spare them the embarrassment of outright saying no.  It's like when that friend you don't really like asks you to come to their thing, and you tell them you will just as soon as you're done counting the stars and convincing teenage girls that Edward Cullen is a creepy stalker.

And yet, likely to the huge fucking surprise of Jacob's sons, Hamor and Shechem just go, "eh, okay," and get to work.  They personally oversee the circumcision of every one of their male subjects.  No word on what the men themselves thought of this.

You want me to what because of why?

But my guess is that they probably didn't enjoy it.

Well, shit, guys.  What now?  Shechem actually went out and circumcised every dude under his regime.  The gig is up.  I think you might actually have to cave in and let your sister marry hi--

"And when it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren. took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males." - Genesis 34:25

...

...

...

What.

What.  Just - just - wait.  Wait.  So while ... all the circumcised dudes are resting ... two guys - two guys, like one more than one guy - sneak into the city and ... slaughter the entire male population in one day?  And they're just in too much dick-pain to defend themselves even a little?  From two guys in broad daylight?  I just ... what?

"And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son  with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went out." - Genesis 34:26.

I ... uh ...

"The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and spoiled the city, because they had defiled their sister." - Genesis 34:27

Hm ... well ...

"They took their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field.  And all their wealth, and all their little ones, and all their wives they took captive, and spoiled even all that was in the house."  - Genesis 34:28-29

Uh ... huh.  So I guess this counts as a tragic ending, then.  I might even call it overkill.  Though to be fair, combination deceit, genocide, plundering and enslavement is one way to take care of your sister's promiscuity.  Like how nuclear warheads are one way to take care of termites, or decapitation is one way to take care of a cavity.  Still, I can't shake the feeling it might be a little much.

The moral of the story seems to be, "do not piss off Israelites."  They will apparently fuck up you, your family, and literally everyone you know, enslave your women, kidnap your children, steal your sheep and anally rape all semblance of reason and sanity in the name of getting back at you.

Here's one of Jacob's sons and your wife after you tell him to keep his dog from crapping on your lawn.

Somehow I feel it makes them look a little ... unreasonable.  Jacob even says as much, chastising his sons for making him seem like a douchebag in front of all the other tribes (which really is going to far, Jacob.  I mean, what did you expect them to do?  Just let your daughter get married to a dedicated prince who beat insurmountable odds to win her hand like some kind of - oh, wait, that sounds kind of like you, doesn't it?  It does.  Yeah.  At least he could recognize the woman he was in love with and didn't marry someone else by mistake.  Dick.)  This is what really baffles me about this whole story.  Perhaps it was put there to illustrate the prowess of the Israelites.  But no - Jacob himself admits it was the wrong thing to do.  So what is it doing here?

Then, in the verse that puts the button on the whole thing, the brothers look at one another and ...

"And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?" - Genesis 34:31

And that's it.  That's where it ends.  They ponder whether they should stone their sister to death for running off with Shechem, and the story just ends.   It's like whatever sicko wrote this story was expecting everyone to have a good laugh and then the scene to fade to credits sitcom-style.  (As a side note, wouldn't it be so much worse if you take the point of view that Dinah was raped, and they're still considering giving her harlot treatment?)  Do we learn what happened to Dinah?  No.  Do we learn what she thought of all this?  No.  Is she ever mentioned again?  No.  Does God play an part in this story, or does this story add in any way to the Genesis narrative?  No and hell no, other than maybe to make it more disturbing.

Stories like this are probably the strangest part about reading the Bible.  They fly out of left field, seem to cut off in the middle, have nothing to add or establish for later stories and are just generally twisted.  The most bizarre part, I think, is that somebody had to put them there.  When a bunch of Romans sat around and decided what was going in the very first Bible from the original Hebrew text, somebody among them must have pointed to the story of Dinah and said, "That!  That is certainly relevant and not at all deserving of being cut!  We can definitely benefit as a religion and a culture by preserving this story in our holy book!"  And everyone else there must have agreed with him.

Of course, the fact that they were Romans couldn't have had anything to do with it.

Jacob's Insane Life Story

And so we come to Jacob, the most badass motherfucker Genesis has to offer.

Here he is about to either kill or rape this angel.

Jacob is part of a select pantheon of Biblical "heroes" who just do not give a fuck what anyone thinks, proving themselves to be as awesome as they are utterly insane.  Along with such probable psychopaths as Joshua, Ehud and Samson, Jacob belongs to the club that takes the Old Testament to the level of crazy that kept Alex from A Clockwork Orange entertained in prison.  He's a shit-distuber on such an epic level that throughout the course of his story he tells genetics they can fuck themselves and, oh yeah, wrestles God to the ground.

Booyah.

It all begins with the story of Jacob and his freakishly hairy twin brother, Esau.  One day, Esau came in from the fields literally dying of hunger.  Why he didn't pack a granola bar or something before leaving that morning, who knows, but one day he came in and begged:

"Feed me, I pray thee, with some of that red pottage; for I am faint." - Genesis 25:30.

Pottage is like a vegetable stew, so I'm told, and it so happened that Jacob was fucking awesome at making it.  It should also be noted that Esau was literally about to die if he didn't get something to eat, like, right now.  So what did Jacob do?  He told Esau he could take his starvation and shove it, unless he gave Jacob his inheritance:

"And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright." - Genesis 25:31.

Yes, he refused to save his brother's life until Esau coughed up everything he would inherit upon the death of their father, Isaac.  Jacob is that kind of person (you know - a hero!).  Don't think that Esau is some kind of villain or anything, either.  He's done nothing to warrant this kind of treatment whatsoever.  His only fault is that he ended up with a raging dickwad for a brother.  Esau, not seeing any other option here, begrudgingly sold his birthright to Jacob so that he could, you know, not die.

Believe it or not, that's not even the worst thing Jacob did to his poor brother.  Genesis 27 tells the story of how Jacob also swindled Esau out of their father's blessing, which he was supposed to bestow on the elder twin from his deathbed.  That may not seem like much, but to Biblical characters receiving a blessing is a big fucking deal, and it's not like they can just give blessings out like Halloween candy - there's a limited supply of these things and having it stolen is like having some jerk steal your inheritance or someth--oh, wait.

And yet, the fact that Jacob does steal his brother's blessing isn't nearly as terrible as how he does it.  Remember that Esau was born a freakshow attraction on account of his being extremely fucking hairy.

Pictured: only known photograph of Esau.

So Jacob, on the suggestion of his mother, Rebekah, covered himself in goat skins to mimic Esau's cuddly softness.  Then he approached his blind, dying father, Isaac, served him soup and had him touch the goat skins to confirm that yes, this is my freakishly hairy child.  Then he blessed him, just in time for Esau to walk in and freak the fuck out that Jacob had not only stolen his blessing, but had also deceived their father.  (Did I mention he was fucking blind and dying?)  Isaac, in turn, freaked the hell out that he had just inadvertently made his younger, likely psychopathic younger son lord and master over the sane elder one.

But those are just Jacob's early years, and people in the Bible live for freaking ever (like, centuries), so he had plenty of time to rack up more crazy points.  When it came time for him to marry, Jacob set his sights on Rachel, the beautiful daughter of a chieftain-type dude named Laban.  Laban decided that he would allow Jacob to marry Rachel after he had worked for him for seven years.  And that Jacob did, slaving away seven years to finally marry the woman he loved.  Awww, what a beautiful tale of undying love and devotion.

Oh, wait, no.  We just haven't had our prescribed dose of batshit insanity yet.  The marriage went ahead as planned and the wedding night passed, but in the morning Jacob rolled over (presumably very hung-over) and realized that it wasn't Rachel beside him at all.

"And it came to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was Leah." - Genesis 29:25.

It was her sister.  Oh, shit.

You see, Leah was Rachel's elder, and it was a custom in Labanland (that is, it was his family's rule) that siblings marry in order of their ages.  So after slaving away all this time, Rachel couldn't marry Jacob at all.  Because Leah hadn't yet gotten hitched.

Kind of a fitting punishment for a trickster like Jacob, isn't it?  It would probably be a little awkward to be Leah (okay, maybe horrifyingly awkward), but for the guy who destroyed his own brother's life to have worked all this time to marry the wrong woman?  Priceless.  Though it does raise a few questions.  How did Jacob not notice he had married (and had sex with) someone who definitely was not Rachel?  Did Laban think Jacob wouldn't notice, or was he just hoping that once he was married to her, Jacob would just go "eh, close enough!" and keep her around?  What did Leah think about marrying a man who clearly wanted her little sister instead of her?

If you think any of these questions are going to be answered, clearly this is your first time here.

So instead of divorcing her, "accidentally" handing her off to Pharaoh ala Abraham, or, I dunno, demanding Laban to let him marry the woman he was damn-well working to marry, Jacob keeps Leah around and gets back to work.  His mission: marry fucking Rachel.  There are no more sisters in the way, so it should work this time around.  Another seven years pass (that's fourteen freaking years of hard labour, for those of you who are really bad at math) and finally, finally, Jacob and Rachel marry.

This might be romantic.  I mean, fourteen years is a really freaking long time to work to bone someone.  That shows some massive dedication (or insanity, I suppose) on Jacob's part.  Except that, you know, Jacob kept Leah as a second wife.  Yay, polygamy, which is expressly forbidden in Leviticus just two books from now!  Oh well, if there's one thing the religious right has taught me it's that we only listen to Leviticus when we want to anyway!  Hooray!

So Jacob and Leah and Rachel get it on, presumably in the kinds of kinky threesomes that we ignore are forbidden, getting into a baby-making contest that eventually culminates in the birth of ...

He was born this way.

But that's another story.

Before Joseph could prove himself to be Jacob's most fabulous son, Jacob had two more things to punch in the face: genetics and God.  (And, I suppose, logic in general.  So kind of three things.)

Laban, it seems, was a pretty rotten guy all around (in case pawning his older daughter off on Jacob wasn't a hint in that regard).  Jacob's flocks, you see, had grown rather large at Laban's expense, and so Laban decided to go through and take all of Jacob's striped cattle.  Jacob, for some reason, had major beef with plain-coloured cattle (pun totally intended).  He wanted striped ones instead.  So ...

"And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree, and piled white strakes in them, and made the white appear chich was in the rods.  And he set the rods which he had piled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink." - Genesis 30:37-38.

He took a bunch of stripey sticks and stuck them in the ground where his cattle were fucking, thus birthing ... striped cattle.  Now, one would expect this to fail miserably and for Jacob to learn some valuable lesson about how, I dunno, only God can decide what happens when animals fuck or something.  After all, ancient people may not have known about the nitty-gritty of genetic engineering, but they must have figured out that showing a cow a striped stick while it mated wouldn't produce a striped calf any more than standing in front of a mating cow would produce a baby minotaur.

But no.

"And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled and spotted." - Genesis 30:39.

It totally worked.  Instead of a lesson or something of value, we get misleading insanity.  (I can't help but wonder how many people tried to do this after hearing this story and wondered what the hell was wrong with their stripey sticks and/or cows).  Believe it or not, this isn't the only time this happens in the Bible.  I know, it's shocking.

Last, but certainly not least, we have the story that really puts the cherry on top of all Jacob's earlier madness: his wrestling match against God, which I believe qualifies as "Match of the Entire History of Everything."    It should probably be noted that the Bible doesn't come out and say that this is literally God Jacob is wrestling.  It could just be an angel or some other celestial being just representing God, but Jacob hints immediately afterward that he's just seen God "face to face" (Genesis 32:30), which is evidence enough for me.

Technicalities aside, Jacob totally kicked this being's celestial butt over the course of an entire goddamn night, and he absolutely refused to let the poor thing go until it blessed him:

"And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of day.  And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.  And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh.  And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." - Genesis 32:24-26.


And he did.  Thing-That's-Probably-God admitted that Jacob had gained power over the Lord himself, who it turns out is the endboss before you officially Win at Life.  Probably-God changed Jacob's name to Israel, the name all his ancestors would use to refer to themselves from this point on, and finally everyone got down to this whole "making a nation" thing that had been promised a few generations back.  That is, until Joseph had to go and move everyone down to Egypt where they all ended up enslaved.

Thanks, jerk.

But that's another story.