Dennis Tuuri

Scripture today is Genesis chapter 34. Genesis chapter 34. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Now Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. And when Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her and lay with her and violated her. His soul was strongly attracted to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. And he loved the young woman and spoke kindly to the young woman.

So Shechem spoke to his father Hamor, saying, “Get me this young woman as a wife.” And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah, his daughter. Now his sons were with his livestock in the field. So Jacob held his peace until they came. Then Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to speak with him. And the sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it. And the men were grieved and very angry because he had done a disgraceful thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, a thing which ought not to be done.

But Hamor spoke with them, saying, “The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him as a wife and make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us and take our daughters to yourselves. So you shall dwell with us, and the land shall be before you. Dwell and trade in it, and acquire possessions for yourselves in it.” Then Shechem said to her father and her brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you say to me, I will give.

Ask me ever so much dowry and gift, and I will give according to what you say to me, but give me the young woman as a wife.” But the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father, and spoke deceitfully because he had defiled Dinah their sister. And they said to them, “We cannot do this thing to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a reproach to us. But on this condition, we will consent to you.

If you will become as we are, if every male of you is circumcised, then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people. But if you will not heed us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and be gone.” And their words pleased Hamor and Shechem, Hamor’s son. So the young man did not delay to do the thing, because he delighted in Jacob’s daughter.

He was more honorable than all the household of his father. And Hamor and Shechem his son came to the gate of their city and spoke with the men of their city, saying, “These men are at peace with us. Therefore, let them dwell in the land and trade in it, for indeed the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters to us as wives, and let us give them our daughters. Only on this condition will the men consent to dwell with us to be one people.

If every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised, will not their livestock, their property, and every animal of theirs be ours? Only let us consent to them, and they will dwell with us.” And all who went out of the gate of his city hated Hamor and Shechem his son, every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city.

Now it came to pass on the third day when they were in pain that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and came boldly upon the city and killed all the males. And they killed Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword and took Dinah from Shechem’s house and went out. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city because their sister had been defiled. They took their sheep, their oxen, and their donkeys, which were in the city and what was in the field, and all their wealth, all their little ones, and their wives, they took captive, and they plundered all that was in the houses.

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have troubled me by making me obnoxious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites, and since I am few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and kill me. I shall be destroyed, my household and I.” But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a harlot?”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this portion of your holy word. We thank you, Lord God, that you have called us forward to give us life, to give us knowledge, to give us glory. And we pray, Father, you would help us to understand what this text says that we might indeed be encouraged and built up by your Holy Spirit to follow after our Savior, the way, the truth, and the life to the end that we might indeed reflect your glory in our lives. We pray then that your spirit would illuminate this text for understanding and press into us, Lord God, the qualities of the Lord Jesus Christ that we may reflect him in what we do and say this week.

In his name we pray. Amen.

Well, I bring you greetings in the Lord Jesus Christ from the saints in Psalm 9 in Bialystok in Poland. We had an excellent trip there. It was blessed by God in many ways, and I will have more details for you over the next few weeks. We do have slides and pictures that we’re developing, and as well, we took some videotape. We’ll see how that turned out. I think probably at camp, we’ll take a little bit of time to make some presentation and then have discussions informally during camp about the trip to Poland and what we can do for the two churches there and Marx’s work in them.

By way of prayer request, let me share with you that one of the two pastors, the one that I spent nearly all the time with, who’s an excellent guy, wonderful fellow—you would all love him deeply—he’s going to be in Tacoma on October 30th. His brother’s being married there at a church in Tacoma. And we’re trying to prevail upon him to come down here sometime during his trip, and we’re hoping maybe on October 31st, which would be Reformation Day, and maybe be able to speak with him at least informally about the Reformation in Poland in the 15th and 1600s and the Reformation that God seems to be beginning to affect in Poland now.

So if you could just pray about that, that he would be willing to come. He’s very intimidated by us. He sort of sees us as what they’re trying to do. So, but please pray about that.

In the providence of God, we come to a text today. Let me just explain that I did this a little out of order. Remember we moved into Exodus a couple of weeks ago, or a month ago when I was last in the pulpit, in dealing with going through the scriptures talking about the portions of the word that seem to focus on male-female relationships.

I mentioned then the one we didn’t really talk on from Genesis was the story of Dinah and Shechem, and it seemed good to go back and talk about it. So in the providence of God, that’s what we’re doing today. I’ve titled it “Dinah’s Dalliance and Its Disastrous Destination.”

It’s obvious from the title, I guess, that I think that Dinah’s dalliance, her flirtatiousness, her casual, leisurely approach to the daughters of the land is what the text wants us to focus on. So we’ll get to that.

But this text is another one of those texts—nearly all of them in the life of Jacob—where people, most modern commentators want to really crank on Jacob in this text. And before we get into the meat of it, I did want to read a quote from John Calvin that I think is more appropriate to take to this text about the person of Jacob, which is not really our focus, but I do want to just mention this in case you immediately have insights or observations about Jacob from the text.

We must be very careful that all the scriptures dictate to us what our perspective on Jacob is. And remember, we said when we dealt with the life of Jacob, that the beginning of his story is that he had become a righteously mature, a pure, holy man in God’s sight prior to all the events that then spill out in his life, which are very difficult ones. He’s the picture of wrestling with God in difficult times.

You know, over in Poland, they have lots of patron saints. We don’t believe in patron saints, but in the sense that Jacob certainly is a saint and certainly he is of great comfort and solace to saints who have many trials and tribulations in their lives—to know his story, to know his life, and to know how God blessed him in the context of all of that. Do you remember how Jacob ends his life? He ends his life well—at least at the age of 130 in his old age—saying his life had been troubled and his years few.

But he then blesses Pharaoh. In summary form, in this little vignette from later in the book of Genesis, we have this great patriarch who had suffered so many trials and tribulations, and yet God had produced such character in him that he is led at the near the end of the book of Genesis to bless Pharaoh, to minister grace to Pharaoh, to bring him, as it were, into the faith and its blessings, and to see the conversion of all of Egypt. It’s an astonishing story and a great success, but most of that is taken away by modern commentators who want to crank on Jacob all the time.

Well, here you’ll hear people saying, “Well, he wasn’t—you know, he didn’t get into action and take care of Dinah, etc.” But this is what Calvin says, and I think it’s closer to the point. He says, “This chapter records a severe contest with which God again exercised his servant Jacob. How precious the chastity of his daughter would be to him. We may readily conjecture from the propriety of his whole life, from the understanding of his whole life.”

When therefore he heard that she was violated, this disgrace would inflict the deepest wound of grief upon his mind. Yet soon his grief is trembled when he hears that his sons from the desire of revenge have committed a most dreadful crime.

See, Calvin correctly reads into Jacob’s character, not the silence of saying that he was sinful, but rather the earlier statements that this is a righteously mature man that God has blessed. Just two chapters previous at Peniel, God said, “You’ve prevailed with God and men. You’ve won. You’ve wrestled with God and men and have prevailed.” God’s stamp of maturity is on Jacob’s life. And when we come to a text like this that doesn’t tell us details of his response, we should read into it the godly response that such a man would give—whom the scriptures characterize as a righteously mature man and who has wrestled with God and man and prevailed by wrestling correctly in prayer and in reliance upon God. That’s how we should view Jacob in the context of this story.

Let’s look first at this story as an overview of the text and then we’ll make some observations on the text. I’ve given you a sevenfold outline of the overview of the text itself. There are different ways to divide this up. This is just a handy way for me to remember it as I studied it the last couple of weeks—a series of action events that actually occur in the flow of the text.

And the first thing that happens is verse one: Dinah’s dalliance. Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob—and that’s going to become later important in the story because the two brothers that avenge her, sons of Leah—went out to see the daughters of the land.

Now “dalliance” isn’t a word we use a lot these days. It means flirting, toying, trifling—to deal longingly lightly, rather, or carelessly with something or some event, to trifle or to toy, to waste time, to loiter. The original root word meant to converse or to trifle. So what I’m suggesting is immediately the text tells us that Dinah is out there doing what she probably shouldn’t be doing. She’s not staying at home. She’s out there seeing the daughters of the land. And as one commentator said, this action of Dinah’s loosened a stone that caused a landslide. A horrific series of events occurs as a result of the initial event of her dalliance into the countryside.

Secondly, we have Shechem’s seduction of her. Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite prince of the country, saw her, took her, lay with her, and violated her. Four-fold rapid action. And in my notes, I make a remark here: This is the way men are. They are driven by their own lusts apart from the grace of God. And this is what they do. They see, they take, they lie with her, and he violates her as a result of this action.

Now, I call it a seduction instead of a rape because in the case laws in Deuteronomy 22, there are a couple of different Hebrew words that are used. In verse 25, if a man takes a young woman and forces her and lies with her, then he shall die. This is what we would call rape. But later in Deuteronomy 22, in verses 28-29, we read of a woman who is not betrothed and a man seizes her and lies with her and then they are found out. The man is required to pay 50 shekels as a dower price and then the father of the girl can either say yes the marriage is on or yes or no the marriage is off. Either way he has to pay the money to the girl because he’s humbled her.

This latter case law is the word that’s used here relative to Shechem. He did not force her in the sense of the case law that would have demanded his death. Rather, it’s a seduction. Now, there’s still a sense to the term both in the case law and in our story with Shechem that puts the onus on the man. After all, the girl has become humbled. She’s not resisted much. But still, the man has taken advantage of a woman. And we would think of it that way today as well.

Usually—I mean, unless a girl is just really loose—it’s easy for girls to be seduced by men and to be overpowered, at least in an emotional sense. So the burden of the responsibility in the case law is placed upon the man even though it’s not in a violent rape. Well, that’s the kind of situation here that happens with Shechem. He seduces Dinah.

Following this though, something that we don’t expect in the text begins to occur. He begins to fall in love with Dinah. He doesn’t just—the lust has now taken place and he’s used his deceitful ways to get her into bed, but now he actually begins to fall in love with her. We read that his soul was strongly attracted to Dinah. This is the same terminology as in marriage when a man should cleave to his wife. His soul is cleaving, sticking like glue to Dinah. He is now in a position of love toward her.

And he loved the young woman and he spoke kindly to the young woman. This means he spoke to her heart—is the literal translation. He used words persuasively to overcome difficulty in her to minister love to her. He speaks to her heart, to her affections, and they make connection that is other than just an intellectual exchange of ideas because of his love.

Now he saw her and then he took her, lay with her, and humbled her. Three-fold action. And here his love is pictured in the same way. It says that his soul is attracted. He loves the young woman and he speaks kindly to her. A three-fold repetition on a positive side now relative to Shechem’s character.

And Shechem then doesn’t just pursue the wife apart from parental oversight. He goes to his father and says, “Secure this girl for me as a wife.” So we see a little better picture of Shechem portrayed for us here, and we’ll see it even increasingly in the rest of the story. Later on the text will say that he was more noble than all the people of his country, of his area, the Shechmites. And I think it points out, kind of puts Shechem in a more positive light, to show up even in sharper contrast the evil that Levi and Simeon, the sons of Jacob, participate in this story.

Okay, so we’ve moved from Dinah’s dalliance and then Shechem’s seduction and then Shechem’s smittedness with Dinah. And I think at the center of the tale is this series of negotiations and dialogue back and forth between Shechem and his father and Jacob and his sons over the state of the relationship of Dinah and Shechem. And I call it “serpent speech” here because both parties are really engaging to a certain degree in deceit.

Now we read that Jacob heard that Shechem had defiled Dinah his daughter. Now it’s worth pointing out here. Calvin comments on this. He says that if Dinah is said to have been polluted or defiled—whom Shechem had forcibly violated, seduced—what must be said of voluntary adulterers and fornicators? You see, the onus is on Shechem with the terminology that’s used. He seduces her, but still she’s defiled. And so, what about people that engage in sexual sin, not because of their being fooled by the young man, not because of their falling into deception, but willfully going for it?

What a tremendous defilement and pollution such sexual sin must be to us if it calls Dinah being defiled as a result of this activity. Then Hamor comes to speak to Jacob. Again here, by the way, Jacob—I think we shouldn’t see this as Jacob’s passivity, that he doesn’t care about Dinah. He wouldn’t be righteously mature if he didn’t care about his kids. What we should read in this is a caution, a restraint on Jacob’s part from taking matters into his own hands too quickly. He’s waiting on God. He’s waiting for his sons to come back. They can take counsel together, can make strategies and plans and decide what must be done. So I don’t think we should read a negative connotation to Jacob’s inaction at this point in time.

Then Jacob’s sons hear about this and they get exceedingly angry. They are grieved and very angry, the text tells us, and they come back and enter into this discussion with Shechem and his father, and Jacob and his sons. Again, notice here that Shechem is going through the authority of the father. And this reinforces to us the idea that even in pagan lands people knew that they shouldn’t enter into contractual marriage without the authority or without the permission of the father. A reinforcement to us in that truth.

Additionally, Shechem says, “Ask soever much dowry and gift you want and I will give it.” Again we see here a reinforcement of the biblical idea of the dowry and a gift to the girl’s parents or family, but the dowry going to the girl. And so Shechem says, “Whatever you want, I will give.” He doesn’t expect to receive a dowry from his wife. He brings a dowry to the family to give to the wife for the establishment of the marriage. So it reinforces what all the scriptures say about dowry.

Notice here that in this speech back and forth, Shechem’s father Hamor does not apologize. There’s no confession of sin against Dinah. All they say is, “My son now is in love with your daughter. Let’s work it out because after all you’ll be financially advanced if we have intermarriage between the two groups.” So there’s an appeal to monetary interests in the reasoning of Hamor and Shechem’s father.

Now we read, later on drop down to verse 23. Now verse 23 occurs in the next scene of this story. We’re now in the middle of the story. We have this scene where Hamor and Shechem and Jacob and his two sons are talking and discussing. But the next scene will be Hamor and Shechem convincing the young men of their village to all get circumcised. Okay?

And in that scene, verse 23 reads. In their deliberations with the men of the village, they say this: “Will not their livestock, their property, and every animal of theirs be ours? Only let us consent to them, and they will dwell with us.” You see, Hamor and Shechem had a hidden motivation behind the negotiations with Jacob and his sons for Dinah’s hand.

What they were not telling Jacob was that they expected to be increased monetarily by somehow getting control of the possessions of Jacob and his family. So that’s why I say that Hamor and Shechem are deceitful in their speech. They tell a different story to the men in their village from the story they tell to Jacob and his sons. They do not reveal their intent to take over possession of the possessions of Jacob and his sons. They’re deceitful.

But even more deceitful, of course, are the sons of Jacob. We read explicitly that they spoke deceitfully to Hamor and Shechem. And in verse 13, we read, “The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father and spoke deceitfully because he had defiled Dinah their sister. And they said, ‘Well, you know, you can marry our sister. That’s okay with us.’—Which it wasn’t. But you’re going to have to be circumcised because if you’re not circumcised, it’s a reproach to our people to have one of us marry somebody that’s not circumcised.”

They were deceitful. The text tells us from the beginning of this speech. They didn’t just happen into this little plot that ended up being hatched. It appears that they had premeditately in a determinate manner spoken deceitfully to get these men to circumcise themselves. So they’re deceitful from the get-go. And in that deceit, of course, they actually use the ordinance of God, the holy ordinance of circumcision, the sacrament of God’s covenant people in the Old Testament of covenant initiation for their own personal purposes of revenge.

So in these negotiations, we have what I call “serpent speech.” Hamor and Shechem are concealing their hidden motivation to get the possessions of Jacob and his children. And Jacob’s sons are hiding rather their underlying motivation which is to kill all the men of Shechem. Serpent speech is going on.

Now the next part of the story is the circumcision—verses 18-24. Lo and behold, Shechem’s love is so deep for Dinah. He says, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” And Hamor says, “I’ll do it and we’ll try to get all the men of our village to do it.” And they go and talk to the men of their village and they do it, too. They all agree to get circumcised.

Now, this kind of matches up with Shechem’s smittedness, doesn’t it? He’s so smitten that he himself becomes circumcised as an adult, and he convinces the men of his village and his father to be circumcised as well. So the circumcision is the next scene here, and their discussion of this with the men at the village to get them to be circumcised as well.

Now, notice again here the reasoning is consistent on the part of the pagan Shechem and Hamor. To Israel, to Jacob, they said, “Let us this marriage happen and you’ll be financially blessed by it.” Here they tell the men in the village, “Get circumcised and you’ll be financially blessed by it.” They’re what?—fanatics is what they are. Their overriding interest is possessions and material gain. And in the sovereign providence of God, all that they have will be taken away from them.

Now it’s an evil thing that Simeon and Levi do. But still, God works through crooked sticks to strike straight blows, and he will strike at their idolatry of possessions by removing everything from them. Calvin says that among the vulgar, utility carries almost every point. And here utility is the overriding factor in these men changing their religion or at least changing the external side of their religion to adopt circumcision. It is utility. It’s pragmatism. It’s material possessions and well-being. There is hypocrisy as well because when Shechem and Hamor talk to the men of their village, they don’t mention Shechem’s desire to marry Dinah.

They’re like most civil rulers, unfortunately, in our day and age. There’s hypocrisy. There are wheels within wheels, agendas within agendas, and hidden motivation for what they talk about publicly. They talk publicly in terms of financial rapport with Jacob and his people. But privately, what they really want is this marriage to happen because Shechem has a personal interest. And so it is today that many civil rulers use their public office to achieve their own personal desires and goals. And in doing this, they use hypocrisy and they use appeals to pragmatism. May we not be such as those.

Matthew Henry said that self-love is blind and we are drawn without judgment to the hope of gain. If we don’t consider, if we’re not self-controlled, if we do not think wise and discerningly, financial gain will move us toward particular actions the way it moved these men of Shechem to circumcise themselves. Again, to quote Henry, “The Shechmites will embrace the religion of Jacob’s family only in hopes of interesting themselves thereby in the riches of the family. Thus, there are many with whom gain is godliness and who are more governed and influenced by their secular interest than by any principle of their religion.”

Covetousness is a great sin underlying this, a failure of control all the way around that marks man in his fallen state.

Then we come to the son’s slaughter. And this matches up in the chiastic structure I’ve given you to the seduction of Dinah. The seduction of Dinah, the small, comparatively small sin of Shechem, is matched with a horrific genocide, a wiping out of a people here on the part of Jacob’s two sons, Simeon and Levi.

That’s interesting because verse 25 says, “It came to pass on the third day when they were in pain that this happens.” The third day is to be the day of resurrection, the day of victory. And what’s going on here is it seems like if Jacob, if Simeon and Levi had been telling the truth, that actually the circumcision is coming into reconciliation with Jacob and his family, that these people are becoming God-fearers—then the third day should be a day of resurrection and joint union and the marriage should go on, etc. But of course that’s not what’s really happening here.

So the third day instead of being a day of resurrection is a day of judgment. God coming to bring judgment on all parties. It’s the day of his appearance. And on that third day they take the sword and come upon the city and kill all the men. And then they violate the city the way Dinah was violated. They then violate the city. They plunder it and take away all the goods and the women and the children and kill all the men with the sword.

As I said, there is a bit of poetic justice in this. Those who unjustly grasp at that which is another’s justly lose that which is their own. Matthew Henry said that. So here the Shechmites were unjustly grasping at Dinah. And then all the men unjustly desiring to grasp the wealth of Jacob and his family, and instead they are justly deprived of all their wise and of all their prosperity. Matthew Henry said that when sin is in the house there is reason to fear ruin at the door. Sexual sin, loss of sexual control, is the beginning of this matter. When that enters into a household, great ruin comes shortly after it. When we have sin in our house, we have good reason to fear ruin at the door. And that’s what happened here.

In contrast to this, we have Jacob. He is an admirable example of patient endurance. For they were afflicted with so many evils, yet did not faint under them, nor did he take up the sword himself to avenge his daughter. This is his son’s doing. Jacob speaks of these sons and this action in Genesis 49:5-7. Turn there if you will. Genesis 49:5-7.

Jacob gives his last words, which are pronouncement of blessings upon his children. But for Simeon Levi there is no blessing. Verses 5-7 of Genesis 49. “Simeon and Levi are brothers. Instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place. Let not my soul enter their counsel. Let not my honor be united with their assembly. For in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they hamstrung an ox. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce. And their wrath, for it is cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.”

Jacob, based on this incident in which their anger used the covenant sign of God—they used deceit, they broke the covenant of peace they had made with the Shechmites, they engaged in mass murder against Shechem and all the men of his area—Jacob in response to that disinherits them from the promised land. They’ll go into the promised land, but they’ll go in mixed into the other tribes. They won’t have their separate dwelling place.

Children should be a blessing to parents. But here we have a picture of Jacob greatly troubled and distressed by his children. Children are to be a joy to parents, but wicked children are their trouble. They sadden their hearts. They break their spirits and make them go mourning day after day. Children in this congregation, are you a joy to your parents or are you a heaviness to your parents?

Now, I know you’re probably a little of both—mostly a joy. But let us see this example of these children and see what tremendous grief they brought upon their father’s heads. You know, Simeon and Levi are not all that old at this point. Dinah’s probably 15 or 16. Simeon and Levi are probably in their 20s, maybe 30s. A young guy still. They’re as old as some of our children are now getting to be. And you see what horrific trouble they brought upon their father’s head.

And that becomes their trouble as he pronounces the curse upon them in what is supposed to be his last blessings upon these two children. What a sad state of affairs this text tells us of when children and father are estranged.

And finally, we have Jacob’s jeopardy. Now, Jacob is fearful of his position in the context of the land. Dinah went out to see the daughters of the land. At the end of the story, Jacob is worried about his status with the tribes of the land, with the men of the land, and he’s convinced they’re going to come and kill him because of this terrible thing that Levi and Simeon had done.

We really were not thinking very well here because there’s a lot more Hivites and Perizzites and Canaanites in the land and just this little group that they just killed. And this is going to get out—things always do. That trick is only going to work once, okay? And the next time the Canaanites will be prepared. And Jacob speaks from the eyes of sight here, not the eyes of faith in God’s promises. But there are accurate eyes of sight. It is probable without God’s special intervention that they would be wiped out by the Canaanites for this horrific act that they just did.

Now Levi and Simeon answer him and say, “Should he treat our sister like a harlot?” Children, here’s another example, a bad example of the way not to speak. The parent Jacob speaks words of moderation: “Why do you do this horrible thing?” And they said, “Well, you do nothing.” You see, that’s what people do when you correct somebody for an extreme. They try to paint your moderation as extreme in the other way. It’s deceitful speech. Again, Jacob isn’t saying nothing should have happened. He’s saying they should not have committed genocide. And these children exaggerate their speech in terms of the fault of their father. They say, “Well, you wouldn’t have done nothing about it.”

Children are prone to do that. I mean, we guard our tongues against this kind of speech, okay.

So we’ve seen this structure then: with Dinah’s dalliance and then she goes out and Shechem seduces her, but then he becomes smitten by her love and beauty. There’s this serpent-like deceitful speech that goes on to try to negotiate a settlement to the situation. Shechem because of that great love for Dinah becomes circumcised and convinces the men of his village to be circumcised. The brothers because of his seduction of Dinah then enter into this slaughter of the Shechmites as they’re recovering from their circumcision. And finally, Jacob—as she went out to see the daughters of the land, he’s now concerned about his position of safety in the context of the land. Not just his own personal safety, but Israel, the people of God, whom he represents in his family, represents, and he’s concerned that this foolish sinful act will be judged and they’ll be cut off from the sight of God.

Let’s look at some observations now from the text. First of all, Dinah’s dalliance and Shechem’s seduction: men, women, and the fall.

Now, turn to 2 Samuel 11 verse 1. Many of you already know this, but it’s important to point it out. I think some of you may not. Some of you have probably heard this and forgotten about it. This is the story of David and Bathsheba. And most of it we know, right? We know that he went out to the rooftop, saw Bathsheba, liked her, took her, and all the terrible consequences that came to him.

But the story begins in verse one of 2 Samuel 11. “It came to pass after the year was expired at the time when kings go forth to battle that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah, but David tarried still at Jerusalem.”

You see, the entire story of David and Bathsheba is set up for us by that opening introduction. The opening introduction tells us really one of the main points of the story: David’s first sin was in not going out as kings are supposed to go out into battle at this time of year. But instead, he sends his army and he sits around the house. David is slothful, not having a heart for the task of being king and warfare that God has given him to do. And it’s because of that “too much time on his hands” stuff that he wanders around and sees Bathsheba.

Oh, it’s his fault still. He should have control to engage in sin at that point. But the point is that by way of a literary device, the opening verse sometimes in these Old Testament narratives is quite important for setting up the whole story with the correct perspective. What we should read in verse one and we read—we should immediately say, “What’s going to happen? He’s supposed to go out with battle, but he’s staying home. Something bad’s going to happen here.” It’s like the beginning of a movie and you see something happening. You know, “uh-oh, they’re setting us up for something bad happening.” The violins are starting to play weird. Something bad is going to happen here. The girl stole the bank money. What’s going to happen to her now? She’s going to go to that motel with Norman Bates.

See, it sets you up. Well, that’s what happens, I think, here in Genesis 34 as well. The first verse, I think, is the setup for all the rest. It’s the stone that starts the landslide. It’s the spark that ignites the inferno. Dinah’s dalliance, her going out there foolishly to see the daughters of the land. Why would she want to do that? Why isn’t she staying at home? Why is she out there bringing judgment upon herself and bringing judgment upon her family?

That’s what her name means—Dinah. It means judgment. And she brings that judgment upon herself and the family as she goes out to visit the daughters of the land. It’s interesting that a related word to this, a very old word, an ancient word, related to this word about visiting the daughters of the land describes a housewife who conducts herself improperly outside of her own house. And indeed, some of the interpretations or commentary on Old Testament texts translates the term “cult prostitute” as one who goes out in the countryside. It’s interesting.

A young man emailed me while I was gone to Europe looking for more information on Jewish customs, about wives, etc., and he sent me a long, fairly long commentary about women should be keeping at home and not going out all the time and not going around everywhere. And while that’s probably an overstatement, it is certainly true here that Dinah begins this problem by not being—as Titus tells us—women should be keepers at home.

Now, I don’t mean to say it’s wrong for you to go out away from the house, but I do mean to say that when you go out from the house, you should have your thinking cap on. You should have Genesis 2 and 3 in your mind. You should know that the serpent lies out there, that he always attacks the bride and he attacks the women through usually men using deceitful speech. And you should know that men are born created to have a sexual drive that moves them to marriage. “For this reason, a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife.” The sexual drive is good and given by God.

But since the fall, women, you should know that men are thinking about this a lot. Fallen man thinks about sexuality all the time. Dinah probably was well schooled by Jacob, but did not remember Genesis 2 and 3, man’s innate urge to lustful activities particularly since the fall. And she goes out foolishly. It’s dalliance. She shouldn’t be out there at all.

I thought of this text when we were in Europe. I thought, “I hope I’m not committing the sin of Dinah here and going forward in a dalliance into the countryside to see how these other cultures live and what sort of beauty they have in their temples and places.” We saw wonderful, beautiful cathedrals. One that made me first weep—not quite weep, but nearly weep—from its beauty. You go into this cathedral, this Christian church. It is incredibly ornate. It is huge. The stained glass windows are amazing. The detailed scroll work everywhere. It’s just it blows you away. I’ve never seen anything like that. And it is just overwhelming—the sense of commitment and dedication and consecration that the men who built this structure must have had for generations to put together such a beautiful edifice to worship God and to understand symbolism so well as they build these things into it—awe that nearly brings one to tears.

But then as you take a closer look at the altar and some of the stained glass windows and the beautiful paintings and mosaics that adorn the place, you realize that this is a temple really not to the worship of Jesus. It’s really a temple for the worship of Mary. Mary is the center of all the murals. Mary is the one who was raised up. She’s the great focus of the entire place, and then you want to weep because of all this effort and consecration misdirected off the mark.

Well, the point here is that we must be very careful in appreciating the beauty, the skill, the talent of the world in which we live. When we go out or when we bring the world in via movies or entertainment, we should be very careful.

Obvious application here is to young women: do not put yourself in a position where you are giving any indication to a man that he may approach you. Or if he does, understand right away that you’ve got to get out of there because you are ignorant in some ways. I don’t mean ignorant, stupid, but you really cannot understand the way men think in terms of sexuality. You just can’t do it because you’re not wired that way. It’s a good thing. I mean, it’s good that men are like that. God made them that way. But in the fall, you have to know it. So when I say here that women are ignorant, what I mean is they can be very foolish, as Dinah was, in putting herself in a position of great risk.

And as she does that, she also puts her whole family in a position of great risk. She knows her brothers Simeon and Levi. She knows they’re hottheads. She knows that they would probably do something really bad and bring destruction upon themselves. And so it is here that it’s very important to see her dalliance and Shechem’s seduction in relationship to the fall of men and women.

Calvin says, “If a vain curiosity on Dinah’s part was so heavily punished in the daughter of holy Jacob, not less danger hangs over weak virgins at this day, if they go too boldly and eagerly into public assemblies, and excite the passions of youth toward themselves. For it is not to be doubted that Moses in part cast the blame of the offense upon Dinah herself when he says she went out to see the daughters of the land whereas she ought to have remained under her mother’s eyes in the tent.”

Horrific results from this dalliance of Dinah. Matthew Henry says, “It’s a very good thing for children to love home. It is parents’ wisdom to make it easy to them and children’s duty then to be easy in the home.” And again he says, “The pride and vanity of young people betray them into many snares.” And this is what it did to Dinah—ignorance of men and the essence of women and the evilness of men in terms of sexuality.

Men will do whatever it takes. I heard a young man—a good man, friend of mine—tell me that, and he used to go to a Christian Bible school: the women, the Christian women in these Bible colleges, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. They are so easy to fool into thinking you love them. Now, it’s sad, but that’s the way it is. You’ve got to know it. You young women growing up have to understand this. Don’t be stupid. Be wise. Remember the fall. Remember the effects of the fall. And young men, remember that the effects of the fall in you is that you’re going to be like Shechem. He ends up loving this girl, but he’s messed the whole thing up already.

Now, there’s forgiveness at the foot of the cross, and there was forgiveness for Shechem should he come to true repentance. But understand what a terrible mess you make of your life, the life of your families, and the life of the church. Should you fail to understand the effects of the fall on you—that you are given over to a lack of control in sexual matters. Pray to God. Flee temptation as Joseph did with Potiphar’s wife, and understand the nature of your speech.

You will either image the first Adam or the second Adam. The first Adam images the serpent with deceptive speech. The second Adam images Christ with true speech. When it comes to sexual affairs and women, men enter into deceit all the time. That’s what they do. They are snared and a slave to their own lust. And this is why at the end of this, I say we have the necessity of cleaving to Christ the way.

John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except to me.” Dinah walked out of the way when she went to see the daughters of the land. She went out of the way of piety. She exposed her chastity and moved away from it, put herself in a position of being unprotected or unguarded. And she did it because she wanted to see the daughters of the land. I don’t know. Matthew Henry says perhaps some ball, some grand event. Who knows what was alluring Dinah? But it appears the text wants to think of her as being allured into going out and visiting the daughters of the land and then falling into this sin. She moved out of the way of the Lord Jesus Christ.

From Psalm 119, we recited responsibly and prayed and sang that God would keep us and lead us in his way, that the chastisements of God are good. And the chastisements that God brought upon Jacob and his family for Dinah moving out of the way and walking into observing and appreciating pagan cultures—the end result was chastisement that warns us to cleave to Jesus Christ the way.

Proverbs 3:5-6. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him. He shall direct your paths.” There’s no trifling for us Christians. It doesn’t say “in most of your ways.” It doesn’t say “except when you’re going into recreation.” Acknowledge him in everything. It says “in all your ways acknowledge him.” Dinah went out for a light piece of recreation apparently and ended up with a horrific situation.

You know, she was held in Shechem’s house until Simeon and Levi came and rescued her from it. They bargained from a position of strength, holding Dinah in their house—a 15 or 16 year old girl. Imagine the terror she must have entered into when things got rolling. Why? Because she departed from the way.

We must in all of our ways acknowledge Christ. Isaiah 35:8: “And a highway shall be there and a road and it shall be called the highway of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over but it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool shall not go astray. You want wisdom? Walk the road of the scriptures. Acknowledge Christ in all your way. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it. It shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk therein.”

Are you walking in the way of the Lord Jesus Christ? Not just on Sundays.