Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #3 of Genesis 34, and we are reading Genesis 34:1-7:

And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto 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 defiled her. And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel. And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife. And 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 out of 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.

I will stop reading there.  Last time we discussed that Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, or daughter of Israel, was a virgin, from everything we can tell in this passage.  So she was a virgin daughter of Israel.  And we went to some Scriptures where God uses that kind of language regarding the physical nation of Israel, or to the spiritual Israel of God that is made up of the elect.  God refers to the daughter of Jerusalem, the daughter of Israel, or the daughter of His people. 

We want to keep that in mind, but we are going to try to find out what else we can discover concerning this passage.  What we find is that this passage has similarities, or links, to two other Bible passages in particular, and we will take a look at that.

First, let me give an overview to remind you of some things that are going on before we go on to other passages.  First, we know that Dinah was a virgin, and that is why she is spoken of as being defiled and made unclean.  We also know she was “forced,” as it says in Genesis 34:2:

And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.

This word “defiled” is Strong’s #6031, and it is translated as “humbled” in some places, or as “forced” in some places.  In the other two passages we will look at, it will be translated as “forced.”  It is the same Hebrew word, and that is what connects it to the other two places. 

We also find this phrase, “folly in Israel,” in Genesis 24:7: “…because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter; which thing ought not to be done.”  That too will be found in these passages.

We also find that Dinah was avenged, and the reason the sons of Jacob give for avenging her is that she had been treated as a harlot.  That will be significant for us to keep in mind.

Also, hatred will come into view, although it is not found in our Genesis 34 passage, but in these other two related passages, hatred will come into view, as well as marriage, and these things will be consistent in all these passages.  (Shechem did want to marry Dinah.)  In one of the other two passages we will go to, an actual marriage will be in view.  In the third passage, there will be a refusal of marriage.  But marriage is in view in all three cases. 

Death will also be in view.  In Genesis 34, we will see that Levi and Simeon will come upon Shechem with the sword, and they will kill all the older men.  And death will come into view in the other two passages. 

So there are these similarities, and that is why we are going to look at these other two passages.  Our hope is that in looking at them, we will learn some things about Genesis 34 because that is the main focus of our Bible study.  That is how we study the Scriptures.  We will go elsewhere, and when we do so, we may find some very interesting things.  In one of the passages we will turn to, we will go a little deeper into the spiritual meaning, but not in the second passage because it is a little bit more complicated, and I do not have as much insight into it.  And that is fine because we are not doing an in-depth study of that other passage.  That is, it is not our central focus as we study Genesis 34, so keep that in mind.  Yes, when we study the Bible, we go “here a little, there a little,” but if we went into the related passages in depth, we would never get through the book of Genesis.  We have taken a lot of time in Genesis so far; we have already been studying this book for several years.  And it appears we will be studying this book for years to come, so if we want to complete the study before 2033, we cannot do that.

But let us now turn to the first passage that has some of these similarities to Genesis 34.  Overall, there are seven similarities.  What I will do is read the passage, and comment a little bit.  Then we will go to the second passage and make some comments on that.  Then after reading both passages, we will look at the seven similarities, although all seven are not found in each passage.  That is, there are seven points of connection, but I think there are six in one passage, and six in the other, but not all seven in both places.

First, let us go to Deuteronomy 22:13-17:

If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: And the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her; And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city.

This is the Law of God, and here God is establishing a Law concerning marriage.  Remember at that time in Israel’s history there was a Law that allowed for a man (not a woman) to put away his wife due to “uncleanness.”  We read about that in Deuteronomy 24:1:

When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.

God gave that Law because He had entered into a spiritual marriage with the nation of Israel, but He divorced her because of her uncleanness.  (We may get into that more later.)  That was the reason this Law was on the books.  God operates according to His own Law, and He submits Himself to His own Law.  He cannot do something that is not according to His Law, so in order to divorce national Israel, there had to be a Law allowing it, and there was a Law. 

In Deuteronomy 22, this man is coming before the elders of the city, and he is charging his wife with “uncleanness” because she had been involved in fornication prior to their marriage.  So he said, “I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid.”  We know this means that  she was not a virgin because of what her father reportedly said verse 13: “Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity…”  That would have been a cloth that they spread before the elders of the city.  Now it probably worked out that the marriage night (the honeymoon) took place in a house near to her parents, or maybe they were in the same home.  So the mother would go in and removed the sheets from the bed, and puts down fresh sheets, but then she would save that sheet because there would be the evidence of blood.  So she does not wash it, but she stores it away.  Why?  It was because of the possibility of something like this happening.  Then the father and mother would produce that sheet, and the father would say, “These are the tokens of my daughter's virginity.”  The man had made an accusation against his daughter, but once the cloth was spread forth in front of the elders, they would see the proof that she had been a virgin.  Then we read in Deuteronomy 22:19:

And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.

Do you see how this fits with the account of Dinah, the daughter of Israel and a virgin?  There was an evil report brought because the man was incorrect.  The punishment was the hundred shekels of silver, and notice that it says at the end of verse 9: “…and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.”  That was the punishment of a man that sought divorce wrongfully.  The elders chastised him and fined him, and then they proclaimed that he could never divorce her for any reason, even if she later committed adultery, fornication, or any manner of uncleanness.  There was not to be divorce.  This will be a passage we will come back to in order to explain the spiritual meaning, which I think we will be able to do.

But then it goes on to say Deuteronomy 22:20:

But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel:

That is, there was no bedsheet as evidence, for whatever reason.  They did not store it, or it could be that what the man claimed was true, and the lack of the cloth is taken as proof that what the man said was true.  Then it says in Deuteronomy 22:21:

Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.

Here, we see our word “folly.”  It is the same word that was used in Genesis 34 when the sons of Jacob said, “…he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter; which thing ought not to be done.”  In Deuteronomy 22, this is different because it was said of Shechem in Genesis 34, but here it speaks of a woman who entered into a marriage without being a virgin, and it said that she played the whore.

So this passage presents both sides of the situation concerning a man seeking divorce for the matter of uncleanness or fornication, and God says that the man could be incorrect, and the cloth would prove it; or he could be correct because there is no cloth to prove it.  Again, you may want to ponder and study that, and we will try to come back to it at a later time and go through this passage.

But now let us turn to the second passage, and it is in 2Samuel 13, which took place right after King David of Israel had been rebuked and chastened by God.  Actually, that chastening continued for several years in the life of David because he had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and then he caused her husband, Uriah the Hittite, to be slain by the sword of the children of Ammon.  As part of the chastisement, the Lord told him that the sword would not depart from his house.  In the next chapter, we find that the sword is doing damage in David’s house.  Let us start by reading 2Samuel 13:1-5:

And it came to pass after this, that Absalom the son of David had a fair sister, whose name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her. And Amnon was so vexed, that he fell sick for his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin; and Amnon thought it hard for him to do any thing to her. But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah David's brother: and Jonadab was a very subtil man. And he said unto him, Why art thou, being the king's son, lean from day to day? wilt thou not tell me? And Amnon said unto him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister. And Jonadab said unto him, Lay thee down on thy bed, and make thyself sick: and when thy father cometh to see thee, say unto him, I pray thee, let my sister Tamar come, and give me meat, and dress the meat in my sight, that I may see it, and eat it at her hand.

And this is what he did as he took the counsel of Jonadab, and David granted his request and sent Tamar his daughter to his half-brother Amnon to make cakes in his sight.  We read in 2Samuel 13:9-12:

And she took a pan, and poured them out before him; but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, Have out all men from me. And they went out every man from him. And Amnon said unto Tamar, Bring the meat into the chamber, that I may eat of thine hand. And Tamar took the cakes which she had made, and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother. And when she had brought them unto him to eat, he took hold of her, and said unto her, Come lie with me, my sister. And she answered him, Nay, my brother, do not force me…

There is our word that is in Genesis 34.  (It is not used in Deuteronomy 22.  Remember I said that not all seven of these connections will appear in each passage, but each passage will have several of them.)

Again, it says in 2Samuel 13:12:

And she answered him, Nay, my brother, do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly.

Here, we see that statement that was used in Genesis 34:7, as well as in Deuteronomy 22:21.  He forced her, as Shechem forced Dinah, and the sons of Jacob said that he had committed folly in Israel.  So Amnon was forcing his sister, and she said that if he did so, he would be committing folly in Israel.  Then it says in 2Samuel 13:13:

And I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? and as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee.

That is, the king would give her to him in marriage.  Keep in mind that they are half brother and sister, as they had the same father, but different mothers.  We know that in Israel’s history, Abraham was married to Sarah, so this would, therefore, have been no problem, and the king would have given Tamar to her half-brother Amnon if Amnon requested it.  But we will see that he would not. 

Unfortunately, we have come to the end of our time in this study.  Lord willing, we will continue this in out next Bible study.  It is really interesting how God has brought these accounts together.