Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #4 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.  In our last study, we started with this passage, and then we saw that there was a related passage in Deuteronomy 22.  That is, it is related  in the sense that there are several similar ideas in Deuteronomy 32:13-21.

Then we also went to 2Samuel 13, and we found another passage where there are several of the same ideas.  That is where we will turn to now.  This is the account of David’s son Amnon who listened to the deceitful counsel of a man named Jonadab, who was a relative, the son of Shimeah, David’s brother.  He was said to be a very subtil man.  Amnon was infatuated with his half-sister Tamar, who was a very beautiful woman.  Although he was “love-sick” for her, he thought it hard for him to do anything to her.  That is, maybe he was “speechless,” not being able to bring himself to speak with her, and let her know how he felt.  So Jonadab’s counsel was to set up a situation where Amnon could be alone with her.  I am not sure how much Jonadab understood of Amnon’s intention, but it was certainly deceitful for him to tell Amnon to feign to be sick, and then to speak to his father, the king, and ask him to send Tamar to him to make him cakes and to act as his nurse for a little while.  David granted his request, and Tamar came to make Amon cakes, and then Amnon told his servants to go out.  And then he told Tamar to bring the cakes into his chamber, which would have been his bedroom.  Then it says in 2Samuel 13:12-14:

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.  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.  Howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her.

We wonder what changed in him, historically?  What caused him to suddenly hate her so much?  We can probably gather that he had built this up in his mind how wonderful and great this thing would be, which was a sinful thing.  And that is the tendency of man: “Oh, if only I can have this particular desire!  It is all I want!”  Of course sin is a lie.  What it promises is a lie.  It promises wonderful and great things, but it delivers misery, so he was disappointed, and sin will always disappoint.  In addition, she had pointed out, “Do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly.  And I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? and as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel.”  So after he had done according to his lust, he felt foolish; he felt convicted.  He felt the impact of her words that he had done something that was “folly in Israel,” and he hated her for it.  He despised her for it, and he wanted her out of his sight.  “Get this woman out, and bolt the door!”  So that is what happened historically, as it goes on to say in 2Samuel 13:15-20:

Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone. And she said unto him, There is no cause: this evil in sending me away is greater than the other that thou didst unto me. But he would not hearken unto her. Then he called his servant that ministered unto him, and said, Put now this woman out from me, and bolt the door after her. And she had a garment of divers colours upon her: for with such robes were the king's daughters that were virgins apparelled. Then his servant brought her out, and bolted the door after her. And Tamar put ashes on her head, and rent her garment of divers colours that was on her, and laid her hand on her head, and went on crying. And Absalom her brother said unto her, Hath Amnon thy brother been with thee? but hold now thy peace, my sister: he is thy brother; regard not this thing. So Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom's house.

By the way, if you go through the whole chapter and look up how many times Tamar is mentioned, you will find she is mentioned 13 times.  Of course that is something we often see in the Bible in passages that identify with the time of the end.  Often it is in regard to God’s judgment on the churches which began the May 1988 after 13,000 years of earth’s history; or it can regard judgment on the world.  So that is a clue that helps us to understand some of the spiritual meaning of what is going on here.  This would be a big study in itself, and we are not going to go verse, by verse, in this account.  Lord willing, later we will go back to Deuteronomy 22 and look at the spiritual meaning there, and then maybe we will come back to 2Samuel 13 for some comments on what may be in view here. 

For the most part, we just want to see the similarities between Genesis 34, Deuteronomy 22, and 2Samuel 13.  One thing we see is that virgins are in view in each passage.  In 2Samuel 13:18 it said, “And she had a garment of divers colours upon her: for with such robes were the king's daughters that were virgins apparelled.”  This clothing of divers colours was an indication she was a virgin.  But after Amnon forced her, it says in 2Samuel 13:19: “And Tamar put ashes on her head, and rent her garment of divers colours that was on her…”

So it is not surprising that her brother Absalom (her full brother) recognized the situation, and he knew she had been called to go to Amnon.  And as soon as she came back from visiting her half-brother Amnon, she had ashes on her head, and her garment was rent, and she “laid her hand on her head, and went on crying.”  The renting of her garment, which represented her virginity, was obvious.  So Absalom knew right away.  She did not even have to answer when he asked, “Hath Amnon thy brother been with thee?”  It was clear what had happened.

So Tamar was a virgin who lost her virginity, and that is consistent with the idea in Genesis 34 regarding Dinah, even though the word “virgin” is not used in that chapter, but we can conclude that Dinah was a virgin due to the fact that she was forced, and that it said she was defiled and made unclean.  She had previously been a virgin.  She had dwelt in the tents of Israel as they sojourned, so Jacob would have close watch over her, and she also had many brothers, which we can see from the Genesis account were very watchful over her, and the idea of anyone defiling her infuriated them.  But when she went out to this town, then Shechem saw her, took her, forced her, and defiled her.  This would have probably been the first time she had been away from the watchful eye of her family, so everything points to Dinah being a virgin who had her virginity taken by force, as we also saw in 2Samuel 13.

But as far as being a virgin, that was the whole question in Deuteronomy 22:13-14:

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:

The rest of the passage indicates that to “find her not a maid” means she was not a virgin.  But there is a difference here because this man is married to the woman, and it was after the marriage that he found out she was not a maid.  This is a Law that God had laid down.  But there is the possibility that the charge is made, but the woman was a maid.  Again, we will get back to that.  But virgins are in view in all three accounts.  In Genesis 34, Dinah was forced.  And in 2Samuel 13, Tamar was forced.  She was also shamed and humbled.  The word translated as “defiled” in Genesis 34:2 is also translated as “humbled” elsewhere.

One other thing that is consistent in all three passages is “folly in Israel.”  The statement was made in Genesis 34:7:

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.

We read in Deuteronomy 22:21-22:

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

It also 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.

So through the use of this word “folly,” as well as being forced and a virgin, God is directing us.  It is as if He is saying, “Take a look over here, and take a look over there,” and that is what we are doing.

In Genesis 34, in the last verse of the chapter in the context of Jacob saying to Simeon and Levi that they have troubled him because the people of the land would now come against him and destroy him and his house, they responded in Genesis 34:31:

And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?

That is the same word used in Deuteronomy 22:22:

… because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house…

This word is not found in 2Samuel 13, but it is found in these two other passages.

Now let us look at the idea of being “hated.”  Being hated is not found Genesis 34.  Actually, we read that Shechem loved Dinah, as it says in Genesis 34:3:

And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel.

That is different than 2Samuel 13:15:

Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone.

He did lover her at first, but then it turned to hatred.  Of course it was not really love, but it was a worldly kind of love.  The people of the world talk much about love, but they have no real understanding of it, and that is why they can love someone for three months, or three years, or thirty years, and then all of sudden they stop loving that person.  That is not true love.  Anyway, that is beside the point.  But Amnon hated Tamar after first loving her.

In Deuteronomy22, we find it says in Deuteronomy 22:13:

If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her,

Then it said in Deuteronomy 22:16:

And the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her;

In this case, since the man had married her to begin with, it would seem to imply that there was an initial love.   You would typically not marry someone unless you had love for that person.  But the love turned to hatred here as well, so this is similar to 2Samuel 13.  But we do not find that Shechem hated Dinah.  I suppose we could say there was hatred involved because the sons of Israel came upon the city and killed the male inhabitants of the city.  They hated them in that sense, but that is different.

Another thing that is in view in these passages is marriage.  We read in Genesis 34:4:

And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife.

Shechem wanted to marry Dinah.

In Deuteronomy 22, the man is married, but he is bringing occasion to speak against his wife, saying that she was not found a maid, or a virgin, in order to end the marriage.  If it were true, and she had committed fornication, then she would be killed, and the marriage would end in that way.  There would not be divorce.  On the other hand, if what he was saying was not true, then the Law stipulated that he must remain married to her for the rest of his life – he could not separate from her for any reason. 

In 2Samuel 13, it is Tamar who refers to marriage 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 can only mean marriage.  The king would give her to her half-brother in marriage.

There may be more similarities, but there is a seventh similarity in these passages, and that is “death.”  In Genesis 34, Levi and Simeon come upon Shechem, as we read in Genesis 34:25-26:

And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males. And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went out.

There was much death in view in Genesis 34. 

In 2Samuel 13, we find that Absalom patiently plotted to kill his brother, and we read in 2Samuel 13:28-29:

Now Absalom had commanded his servants, saying, Mark ye now when Amnon's heart is merry with wine, and when I say unto you, Smite Amnon; then kill him, fear not: have not I commanded you? be courageous, and be valiant. And the servants of Absalom did unto Amnon as Absalom had commanded. Then all the king's sons arose, and every man gat him up upon his mule, and fled.

Amnon was slain like Shechem.  Shechem forced Dinah, and he was killed.  Amnon forced Tamar, and he was killed. 

In Deuteronomy 22 it is the woman who would be killed if what the husband had claimed was true, as it says in Deuteronomy 22:20-21:

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

That is the consistent theme: Shechem had committed folly in Israel, and he is killed.  Tamar said to Amnon, “Do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly,” and he is killed.  And the woman who has engaged in fornication prior to marriage is also killed, and the reason is because she had wrought folly in Israel to play the whore.  So we can see these three things.

Unfortunately, we have come to the end of our time.  Lord willing, we will get together in our next Bible study, and continue looking at these things.