DINAH, the daughter of Jacob and Genes. xxx. 21.Leah. Dinah was born after Zebulun, about the Year of the World 2250, before Jesus Christ 1750, before the Vulgar Æra 1754. When her father Jacob returned into the land of Canaan, Dinah, who was then about the age of fifteen or sixteen, had the curiosity to go to some festival of the Shechemites, and see the women of the Genes. xxxiv. 1, 2.country. But Schechem, the Son of Hamor the Hivite, who was Prince of the City, having seen her, conceived a great affection for her, carried her away by force and ravished her; and observing her to be melancholy, he endeavoured to ingage her by his caresses. Afterwards he went to his father Hamor, and desired him to procure this young woman for his wife. Hamor and his son therefore made a visit to Jacob, and discoursed with him about it. At the same time Dinah’s brothers returned out of the fields, and having understood what had passed, they were strangely exasperated at it.
When Hamor therefore and Schechem spoke to Dinah’s father and brothers, and demanded her in marriage; the Sons of Jacob answered them deceitfully, and said, we cannot give our daughter to one uncircumcised; nor can we give her to you upon any other condition, than that of receiving circumcision, as we have done. Hamor and Schechem agreed to this proposition, and persuaded the inhabitants of the city to be satisfied with it too. Whereupon all the men of Schechem were circumcised; and three days after, when the pain of their wounds was most violent, Simeon and Levi, the sons of Jacob, and Dinah’s brothers, came into the City, and killed all the males in it. They dispatched Hamor and Schechem, and carried their sister Dinah with them to their father’s house: they plundered the town, took away all the cattle, and made all the women and children their captives. Thus they revenged the affront offered to their sister, without the knowledge or consent of their father Jacob.
Ezra iv. 9.What became of Dinah after this affair, we cannot tell. The Hebrews assert, that she was married to the Holy man Job; whereof there is not the least proof. And certainly if Job and Jobab, the fourth son of Esau, Jacob’s brother, be the same person, there is no probability that Dinah could live so long as to become the wife of this religious man.