Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“When they heard of it, the men were indignant and very angry, because he had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, for such a thing ought not to be done.”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, September 26, 2020
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
This is one of those stories we rarely hear. It’s certainly never been part of any Sunday School curriculum I’ve ever taught. I haven’t heard it read in church, much less preached on. The Bible stories we learn are so fixated on Jacob’s sons that most of us don’t even know he had daughters.
Yet here is Dinah, Leah and Jacob’s daughter, who catches the attention of someone outside of the Israelite community, and is raped as a result. Then her rapist says he’s in love with her and wants her father to give her to him as a wife. Dinah herself never speaks in this story, nor does Leah. Only the men.
Her brothers avenge her, but in so doing, commit the same crimes, taking all the village’s women as slaves (which, it must be assumed based on social mores in Genesis, means they will themselves be used sexually). Then their father, Jacob, scolds them for their actions, not because they were wrong, but because he is worried it will damage his reputation in the land.
Ugh. Sometimes Genesis can be so hard to read. I know I just quoted this the other day, but Wilda Gafney’s wisdom applies again: “Our sacred texts do not proclaim or even envision a world without slavery and the subordination of women, but they lay a foundation for us to transcend them and their limitations…” (p.84) As you read Genesis, pray for all the women victims of sexual violence who are still voiceless, and pray for the willingness to act on their behalf for, as Dinah’s brothers said, “such a thing ought not to be done.”
God of Justice, inspire me to speak out against the victimization of women, and take action to change attitudes and systems. Amen.
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