The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 460

CH.APTER XXXIV. -who were gathered at a festive entertain• ment (Josephus, 'Ant.,' i. 21, 1), a not Ver. 1.-And Dinah the daughter of Leah, improbable supposition (Kurtz), though the which she bare unto J'acob,-if Dinah was language rather indicates the payinf of a horn before Joseph (eh. xxx. 21) sho was friendly visit (Lange), or the habitua prac- probably in her seventh year when Jacob tice of associating with the Shechcmite reached Succoth (eh. xx::ri.ii. I 7) ; but it does womeu (Bush), in. their social entertain• not follow that she was only six or seven ments, if uot iu their religious festival.a. yea.re of age when the incident about to be Ver. 2.-And when Sheohem the 10n of described occUJTed (Tuch, Bohlen). If Jacob Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the ooun- stayed two years at Succoth and eight in try, saw her (literally, and Shechem . . . Shcchem (Petavius), and if, II.'! is probable, 8aw her, and) he took her, "Dinah paid his residenr.e in Shechem terminated with the full penalty of her carelessness. She his daughter's dishonour (Lango), and if, suffered the fate which Snrah nnd Rebekah moreover, Joseph's sale into Egypt happened encountered in the )anti of Ph11raoh and soon after (Hengstenberg), Dinah may at Abimelech; she w11s seen ond taken by the this time have been in her sixteenth or son of the prince" (Kalisch) ; forcibly, i. e. seventeenth year (Kurtz). Yet there is no against her will in the first instance, though reason why she should not have beenJounger, not, it is apparent, without the blandish- say between thirteen and fifteen (Ke· , Lange, ments of a lover. And lay with her, and Kalisch, Murphy, et alii), since in the East defiled her-literally, oppressed her, offered females attain to puberty at the age of twelve, violence to her, whence humbled her-fra,ui- antl sometimes earlier (Delitzsch)-went out .,.,,,,., (LXX.), vi opprimens (Vulgate). -it is not implied that this was the first Vera. 3, 4.-And his soul clave (videinf1·a ocrasion on which Dinah left her mother's on ver. 8) unto Dinah the daughter of J'acob, 1ent to mingle with the city maidens in -it woe in some degree au exte1l1lotion of ~l,echem, the expression is cquinlent to the wickeduess of l'lhechem that he did not "once uron a time she went out" (llengs- cast off the victim of his yjo)cnce nnd lust, t;;IJ ber~j-to see the daughters of the land Lilt co11ti11nc,I to rc•gnrcl her with n!fectiou- CR. XXXIV. 1-jJ.J THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 405