What Was And What Might Be 11/05/21

Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington, Kentucky

Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land. When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and violated her. His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob, and he loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her. And Shechem said to his father Hamor, “Get me this girl as my wife.” ~ Genesis 34:1-4 The entirety of Chapter 34 is the sordid story of what happened that stemmed from that seemingly innocent action of Dinah’s, and according to commentators, some time has passed because when Jacob left Laban, Dinah was 5-6 years old. First of all, there’s her curiosity to see ‘how the other half lives’. This was her first mistake. And most likely, this wasn’t her first foray into town unsupervised, and probably not her first encounter with Shechem. Scripture doesn’t reveal to us Dinah’s part in this rape, but she should’ve known that, at that time, you don’t tempt the prince of the land and expect him to listen to ‘No!’ Be that as it may, Shechem was guilty of this act, as certainly he knew that once he’d violated her, she could – and should – belong to him. And maybe that’s why he did it – to force the acceptance of her as his wife. Still, he seems to have possessed some degree of honor since he didn’t want to steal her. How often do our seemingly innocent forays into the world develop into more than we bargained for? How many of us were told as youngsters ‘I give you and inch and you take a mile!’ And how many times do those forays, whether gently or drastically or deliberately, draw us away from God and His ways?