Dinah's Folly - NCCG.ORG Ning Network Archive 2008-10

Thought for the Week
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)

Commentary

Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the daughters of the land. (Genesis 34:1)
Our social circles are important. We become like the people we hang around with. We absorb their values and begin to imitate their behavior. In all innocence, Dinah the daughter of Jacob wanted to spend time with the teenage girls of Shechem. It was the wrong place for her. She did not belong with the Canaanite teenagers.

She caught the eye of a young Canaanite nobleman who was named Shechem, just like the city. He fell in love with her and violated her. The Hebrew does not say he raped her. It is possible that Dinah was just as smitten with the important, handsome young man as he was with her. They wanted to get married. He didn't want to wait for marriage though.

If we want to keep our children on a moral path, we cannot place them in the midst of immoral children. No matter how godly and upright our sons and daughters are, regardless of how well we have raised them, we cannot expect them to prevail over the laws of sociology. When we allow them to socialize with a peer group that holds a different set of values, our children will inevitably begin to adopt those values. It's not even a conscious thing. Many families have seen years of godly training suddenly vanish after sending their children to school or allowing them to interact with worldly peers.

The same principle applies to all of us. Though we are to be a light to the world, we are not to be of the world. The people of God are supposed to be a different type of people altogether. In order to be different, we need to maintain strong boundaries.

This means missing out on lots of opportunities the world has to offer. Had Jacob said, "No Dinah, I don't want you hanging out with those Canaanite girls," she probably would have felt like she was being cheated out of fun and adventure. "But Dad," she would have complained, "It's not fair."

Being chosen by God to be a holy people isn't fair either. It is a privilege.

Shechem slept with Dinah. The Torah comments saying that he committed a "disgraceful thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing ought not to be done" (Genesis 34:7). The Bible is pretty firm on the question of sex out of wedlock. It is a disgraceful thing. Such a thing ought not to be done.

Reply by Lev/Christopher on December 14, 2008 at 2:10am

This is a difficult one requiring the right balance. (I did not write the article, btw - it's from another ministry). There's much we don't know about the circumstances of Dinah's seduction - I have seen one film interpretation (which is pure guesswork) in which the whole family are guests at a Shechem party and Dinah gets drugged and raped - Hollywood always will add its own spice. I can't believe that Jacob could have been so careless but who knows. The two-by-two principle is definitely sound. On the other hand, you have not been exposed to the hyper-promiscuous culture out here in Sweden - if you think things are bad in North America you haven't seen what it's like here. Still, I know what you mean.

Reply by Lev/Christopher on December 14, 2008 at 5:36am

There are plusses and minuses in all nations and there are some things I like about Sweden more than I do about America, and vice verse. I think much the same kind of brainwashing goes on here as in America but it's done with more smiles and in such a way that without a careful examination of what's really going on you'd be fooled into thinking this was paradise.

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