Genesis 34 - The Rape of Dinah - Part 1

I’ve been kind of putting off this next chapter because the content is so heavy and is personal for me on so many levels, that I not only wanted to do it justice, but I also wanted to do some more background research before I got into it and I’m so glad that I did because I got some amazing information. The first reason why this is such a significant chapter for me is because of the location, Shechem, or as later is known Samaria, as in the woman at the well in Samaria that Jesus speaks to. While doing the writing for the chapter of Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well in Samaria, I came across an article that reminded us that this is the same place where Dinah was raped. This is when I started making my own connections, and I know that I’ve talked about it here, but I’m going to do it again. The Samaritan woman had been married 5 times and was currently living with a man who was not her husband, this caused her to be made an outcast in her society, thus why she was drawing water from the well in the middle of the day when it was the hottest.

I started thinking, why had this woman been married 5+ times when ancient culture was so conservative? It lead me to think about different research that I had read regarding promiscuity and the correlation between childhood sexual abuse and risky sexual behaviors later on as coping mechanisms. I deduced, perhaps incorrectly, that this woman had probably been sexually abused as a child thus her multiple marriages as she tried to heal herself. This lead me to study what Jesus told her was the solution to her problems, repentance. Obviously, she didn’t have to repent for being abused because it wasn’t her fault, but she, like all of us, had issues, sins, habits, etc that kept us from the peace, comfort, love and joy that comes with the gospel.

This was significant to me because I can’t think of anything more heinous or damaging that sexual abuse of a child. I’ve heard it referred to as “unfinished murder” and I think that that is an accurate description. Because this specific act is so outrageously egregious to me, I always thought that there was some sort of special healing process, meaning that healing from your own sins and general abuse, etc. would be one specific method, but because sexual abuse is so horrible, there was a special method used for healing of that specifically, and I’ve spent my whole life trying to find that one special way. What I learned when studying this the first time in John, was that there is no special method to heal from the most horrific of abuses, healing from that trauma comes the same way as healing from anything else, personal repentance. It doesn’t matter what happens to us, the only way for healing to come is to turn to Jesus and work toward moving closer to him.

This was both comforting and alarming to me, because on the one hand, it gave a clear and definite route toward healing, but on the other hand, it seemed to trivialize the worst thing possible that could happen to someone. It took me a while to come to terms with it, but now this lesson is only a comfort to me, it makes it easy, moving your personal life in line with the gospel of Jesus Christ is the way toward healing, there is no other way. It’s not a race, it’s not perfection, it’s working from where you are living in your trauma response and slowly just doing your best, and so often it is woefully lacking in efficiency, but that’s where the atonement makes it enough, our efforts are accepted regardless of how inadequate. I finally understood that sexual abuse was healed in the same way as everything else. This was my opinion from that point until today when I was doing some reading about this Shechem connection.

I had assumed that the Samaritan woman had married and divorced her husbands 5 times and was currently living in sin with another man, and all of this was driven by her trauma response. What I got wrong about this whole thing is that this lifestyle couldn’t have been perpetuated by the woman because women were property and had absolutely no rights. The only option left is that she had been 5 times widowed and that living with a man who wouldn’t give her legal status as a wife was the best support and protection that she could get to sustain herself and whatever children she probably had. This places her situation in a much more depressing light. She was not making reckless life choices as a trauma response, she was repeatedly being absolutely screwed over by the society in which she lived and couldn’t leave. Her ostracization didn’t come because of any crazy choice that she made, it came because she had endured the death of 5 husbands, was being disrespected by a 6th man, and was then left with no friends or support, that makes this so much worse.

One point that was made in one of the articles I read was that in this ancient culture, when something bad happened to you, it was considered by those around you to be the judgments of God punishing you for your sins. This means that a woman who loses her husband might be seen as unfortunate if not suspect, but a woman who loses 5 husbands is surely being punished for something that she did that was so bad only God knows what it was. This changed my perspective on whole issue, the Samaritan woman wasn’t some free agent, trying to heal from her trauma in a way that was unhealthy, the was a current victim of oppression in an unforgiving patriarchal society, and all the trauma that come with being viewed as a non-human.

Pulling back a bit and looking at Shechem on a larger scale, this land, this place wasn’t just the setting of two scriptural events, the rape of Dinah and a woman at the well, but a host of other events that occurred in between these two main occurrences. This is also the place where Simeon and Levi massacred and kidnapped the whole population of the main city. This is the place where Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, where numerous kings ruled over various peoples in blood and horror throughout the intervening centuries. Shechem might be the physical representation of all the absolute evil that befalls humanity during our lives here, rape, murder, genocide, human trafficking, etc.

This begs the question, does Jesus’ counsel to the woman at the well still lead to healing, even if the coverage isn’t as specific to just sexual trauma as I thought initially? Is it possible that sexual trauma can be just as debilitating as other sorts of violence and oppression? Can they all go hand in hand in a horrific existence that only Jesus can heal us from? There is an excellent article that I found today that was one of the best and most faith affirming articles that I’ve read in a long time.

The author sums up her conclusion in words far better than I could, saying, “metaphorically speaking, I think God is showing us what he can do with our Shechem-like places. No longer will silence about rape be tolerated here. No longer will we tolerate abusive men in positions of power. It ends with Jesus. He enters into our broken places like he owns them- and he redeems them. No place is too broken, no person too far gone for Jesus to change the narrative with his presence. Maybe you think the hardships or the trauma you’ve suffered feel like ancient history still haunting your present and hindering your future. Well, I have good news for you: Jesus specializes in redeeming broken places. What he did for Shechem, I know he can do for you.”