Household Dynamics In Ancient Israel: Genesis 34 As A Case Study

By Elizabeth H. P. Backfish

[Elizabeth H. P. Backfish is associate professor of Hebrew Bible, Jessup University, Rocklin, California.]

Abstract

In many respects ancient Israelite households were quite different from their modern, Western counterparts. This article explores the overall structure and ideology of ancient Israelite households, as well as the roles of its individual members. Genesis 34 provides a case study. Interpreting the story of Dinah’s defilement in light of the cultural conventions of marriage, family protection and honor, and household solidarity helps clarify some of the difficult household dynamics in the narrative so that it can be read, taught, and preached with greater understanding.

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Those who teach and preach biblical texts are bridge-builders. They build two bridges. The first bridge takes congregants and classrooms back to the original historical and cultural contexts of the biblical texts, helping them understand Scripture on its own terms. Of course those who trek are always carrying a backpack full of their own cultural presuppositions and conventions, and they wear sunglasses that color how they see the ancient world. Even so, this first bridge, when built well, can help take people to a greater understanding of the biblical text in its ancient world. The second bridge takes congregants and classrooms back to their own worlds, helping them apply the ancient texts of Scripture to the specific needs of their communities.

This article will focus on that first bridge, with a particular destination in view—ancient Israelite households. The trek will begin by exploring the overall structure and ideology of ancient Israelite households. Next, the particular roles of each household member will be explored. Finally, Genesis 34 will provide a case study to see if the outlined understanding of ancient Israelite households helps clarify the meaning and message of that story.

The Structure And Ideology Of Ancient Israelite Households

The trek back to ancient Israelite households requires readers to unload their packs of the modern, Western conception of a “household” as a nuclear family living within their own home.[1] The ancient Israelite household was generally much larger, including the extended family and any additional workers or sojourners who shared the same residence or domestic activities, and generally comprised two or three houses close together.[2]

For the ancient Israelite the home was the hub of most daily activities, so its very structure sheds light on the daily lives and functions of the household members. Houses excavated from Israel’s Iron Age (ca. 1200–586 BCE) typically have two floors and a flat roof, the second floor and roof being supported by wooden or stone pillars. The first floor had two to four rooms used for food preparation, storage, textiles, housing small livestock, and other needs. Household members typically slept on the second floor, except in hotter summer months when they could sleep on the cooler roof (2 Kgs 4:10). The second floor could also be used for light chores, and the roof could be used for drying flax (Josh 2:6). Some homes shared a wall with the city wall, and some even shared a wall with an adjoining house, much like modern day townhouses.[3]

Ancient Israelite households generally functioned on subsistence economic levels, and this meant every member of the household was an important contributor for the survival of the household. The three most important daily functions were reproduction, protection, and production.[4] Reproduction was primarily the responsibility of the matriarch and included the birthing, raising, and training of children. Protection was primarily the responsibility of the patriarch and involved protecting the household from physical harm, theft, and dishonor. Production, however, involved all members of the household and included such tasks as agriculture, animal husbandry, herding and butchering, and the making of goods such as pottery, tools, fabric, and clothing. Also essential were the tasks of food preparation and distribution, which would include storage and trade.[5]

The household, or as it was often called, the בֵּית־אָב (“house of the father”),[6] was the basic unit of ancient Israel’s overall social structure. Multiple households formed the מִשְׁפָּחָה or the clan, and multiple clans made up a tribe, and the twelve tribes made up the kingdom of Israel. Individuals were rarely seen as independent persons but rather were viewed in light of these extended social kinship structures and especially their role within the household. Matthews and Benjamin put it starkly: “The world of the Bible was dyadic, or group-oriented, which means that only members of a household, a village, and a tribe could survive. An individual without a household, a village, or a tribe was a convict sentenced to death.”[7]

Every member of the household was essential to the survival of the whole, and no member could survive without the whole. This was core to their understanding of communal solidarity, meaning that ancient Israelites thought in terms of the community rather than the individual—and in terms of “we” more than “me.” They were an interdependent social community, and they related to each other, to outsiders, and to their God in community. They were also known by their role and kinship relations within the household. They were someone’s father, someone’s wife, someone’s brother, or someone’s grandmother, and so on.[8]

This communal attitude was not only an artifact of their cultural moorings or an inevitable result of their close living quarters. It was also part of what Rogerson calls a “structure of grace,” or a means of extending God’s grace beyond the individual and beyond the household to care for the vulnerable and needy.[9] These structures of grace are seen most clearly in Israel’s laws pertaining to those outside the household. Perdue explains:

The high point of Israelite social ethics comes in the commandment to love the resident alien (Deut 10:19) as oneself (Lev 19:34), for in so doing, one actualizes God’s own love and care for the stranger, that is, the other, who lives outside the immediate protection and support of his or her own family household.[10]

Structures of grace also safeguarded individuals from falling outside the security and care of the household. For example, the practice of a kinsman redeemer (Lev 25:23–55) and the similar, sometimes overlapping, practice of levirate marriage (Deut 25:5–10) ensured care for widows and the poor and their property and inheritance.

The Roles Of Ancient Israelite Household Members

If this article has succeeded in constructing a bridge back to ancient Israelite households, then readers have hopefully noticed that ancient Israelite households were multi-generational and usually included those related by blood, marriage, and adoption, in addition to unmarried and widowed women, slaves, hired workers, concubines, and guests.

The patriarch and matriarch of the household held the most power and authority, though in different spheres. In fact, scholars today contest whether it is completely accurate to describe ancient Israelite culture as “patriarchal” because the matriarchs had a great deal of authority over their households.[11] In the Sumerian text “Instructions of Šuruppak” from the third millennium, both father and mother were likened to gods, not unlike the deep reverence we see for both parents in the book of Proverbs.[12] Israelite households were, however, patrilineal, meaning that family records and inheritance passed through the father’s line, and patrilocal, meaning that married couples lived with the husband’s family.

The patriarch was responsible for protecting the household, especially the women and the children, not only from physical danger but also from shame and scandal.[13] Matthews and Benjamin explain, “The father was responsible for the virginity or legal eligibility of the women in his household of marriage, and for the chastity or legal compliance of the women with the terms of their marriage covenants.”[14] It was the responsibility of the patriarch to identify the safe spaces for the women in his household and to protect them from dangers, in part by restricting their movements or company or (presumably) by chaperoning them in questionable circumstances.[15]

In most ancient Near Eastern cultures, the patriarch was also the one responsible for adopting or excommunicating children, recruiting workers and warriors, negotiating covenants, hosting strangers, and designating heirs.[16] He was also responsible for adjudicating matters of disobedience and judgment on household members, though often this role was shared with the matriarch.

The matriarch’s reproductive role made it necessary for her to conduct household work closer to home, where she held authority over some of the most important household matters, not least of all food production and consumption. Essentially, the matriarch functioned as the manager of household affairs, even wielding authority over the patriarch in some contexts. Proverbs 31:14–15 praises the matriarch’s ability to obtain food and provide it for all members of her household. The Egyptian poem “The Sufferer and the Soul” describes a man who orders his wife to serve him all his food at noon rather than at the time she had already prescribed for each member of the household. She refuses the man his request, and the poet exposes the husband’s folly with the concluding statement: “Why didn’t he listen?”[17] (A question that has perhaps been echoed since!) In addition to food management, the matriarch held the responsibility of teacher and storyteller, which in a culture where nothing was strictly secular, made her a resident theologian.[18]

If the matriarch and patriarch were the metaphorical pillars of the ancient Israelite household, then marriage was the mortar that held the household together. Most ancient Near Eastern marriages were arranged, negotiated through oral contract. A Sumerian proverb states, “He married for pleasure. When he thought it over he divorced.”[19] Women generally married between the ages of fourteen and twenty, and men between the ages of twenty-six and thirty-two.[20] Second millennium Nuzi records show that in the typical marriage, the father of the bride and the father of groom would negotiate the marriage, and occasionally the mother as well.[21] Only on rare occasions, such as the death of the father, would brothers take part in these negotiations.[22] For example, a Sumerian proverb states, “Girl, do not let your brother choose for you! Whom do you choose?”[23] After the marriage, which could include a multi-day feast or sometimes just the act of consummation, the couple would reside with the husband’s family.[24]

If there was a right way to marry in the ancient Near East, there were also wrong ways to marry. One prohibited means of marrying was “wife kidnapping/abduction,” either by mutual consent, which we might call “elopement,” or without the wife’s consent, which we would call rape.[25] Rape was forbidden in all ancient Near East cultures,[26] just as it is forbidden in modern cultures; but it was also in a sense normalized through its prevalence in myth, not unlike how pornography serves to normalize sexual abuse in our own culture.[27] Such marriage abductions could be avenged in various ways, depending on the marital status of the woman and the specific context, but the punishment was generally limited to the man to avoid an escalation of violence.[28] If the families so chose, negotiations could be made after the abduction for the marriage to be legitimated with subsequent consent and the payment of a bride price to the woman’s father.[29] Deuteronomy 22:28–29, which commands a man who seizes (תָּפַשׂ) and lies with (שָׁכַב) an unbetrothed woman to marry her, might reflect these general practices.

More likely, as Richter persuasively argued, seduction and premarital, consensual sex are in view in Deuteronomy 22:28–29 (cf. Exod 22:16), showing how Israel’s laws provided comparatively more protection for women against rape and abandonment.[30]

Because individuals were seen in relationship to one another, the violation of one member, such as in marriage abduction or rape, cast shame on the entire household and sent a message of political inferiority to the father of the victim’s house. In fact, the father was often considered the victim because the offense was often politically motivated. In other words, a man from one culture would sometimes abduct a woman from another culture in order to test them or to prove the enemy’s inferiority. The offense would challenge them to either submit or fight.[31] These political maneuvers were typically done by monarchs or sons of monarchs who would then retain the victim in their own household until negotiations for a marriage and political alliance could be finalized.[32]

Marriages in the ancient Near East were either exogamous (marrying outside the kinship group) or endogamous (marrying within the social group). Cultures that practice exogamy generally do so in order to gain political and economic advantage, whereas cultures that exercise endogamy are generally more concerned with inheritance. Israel practiced endogamy, as is clear especially in the ancestor narratives and the instance that Abraham’s seed not mix with the people of the land (Gen 24).[33]

Marriages ended either through divorce or death. Sumerian lawsuits show that if a husband found that his wife was not a virgin prior to betrothal, he had grounds for divorce.[34] Mesopotamian law codes permitted divorce for a variety of reasons.[35] The Torah permitted divorce for “indecency,” literally “a matter of nakedness” (Deut 24:1–4).[36]

Since women often married men who were ten to fifteen years their senior, and because women typically live longer than men, there were numerous widows.[37] Widows of child-bearing age could be wed to their deceased husband’s brother through the levirate marriage system, common in the ancient Near East,[38] and older widows often lived in the households of their children. According to several ancient Near East law codes, a widow was free to marry whomever she chose if there was no close kin.[39]

Children were a crucial component of a thriving ancient household. The average couple had two to three children who survived to adulthood.[40] Inheritance was one of the leading concerns for sons. If a couple had only daughters, the father could legally adopt a son-in-law as his official heir.[41] In some cases, daughters were given inheritance rights in the absence of sons, such as in the case with Zelophehad in Numbers 27 or in the Laws of Lipit-Ishtar.[42] For daughters, the emphasis was on their virginity.[43] It was the responsibility of the household patriarch to protect the virginity of his daughters. Indeed, a woman’s virginity was considered a resource of the household just as a man’s strength was considered a resource of the household, and not entirely his own.[44]

If a couple could not produce children, the wife could provide a surrogate, usually a concubine, to produce an heir. Aside from the child designated as the heir, children borne to the concubine would, like her, be of a lower class and thus not affect the economic basis of the household.[45] This was a legal and honorable remedy for producing an heir in the ancient Near East.[46] Another means of procuring an heir was through adoption, a common practice as evinced by the many legal texts on the topic.

In addition to the nuclear and extended family and concubines, ancient households included workers, slaves, and sojourners.[47] There were also those outside the household, so-called liminal individuals, including prostitutes and uncared for orphans and widows. These characters were liminal because they fell outside the solidarity of the typical social structure. They could not be identified as “someone’s wife,” “someone’s daughter,” or “someone’s son.”

Israel’s understanding of the household and the roles of its various members has some major theological payoffs. For example, the language of household relationships is utilized in covenant language because of its solidarity and mutual commitment. Also, when God likens himself to a “father” or a “kinsman redeemer,” one gains a much better understanding of the theological importance of those metaphors.

However, the focus of this article is primarily contextual and exegetical, and the question now pressing is “How does this understanding of ancient Israelite households help readers interpret challenging passages in the Old Testament?” In other words, having built the bridge to the cultural world of an ancient Israelite household, it is time to test it out on an actual Israelite household.

Genesis 34 As A Test Case

Genesis 34 recounts the tragic story of Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, who goes out to “see” the women of Shechem, a Hivite city of Canaanite people. Instead, the prince of the city, also named Shechem, “sees” her and rapes her. He and his father Hamor then attempt to negotiate a marriage between their households. Jacob appears unable to make a decision in the matter, and his sons step in with a deception that is true to the family tradition and, under the guise of marriage negotiations, end up avenging their sister’s honor and their household by killing all the men in Shechem and plundering all the women, children, livestock, and goods.

The cultural context of ancient Near Eastern households sheds light on four aspects of the story summarized by four questions: (1) What exactly happened? (2) Who were the responsible parties involved? (3) How should we understand the revenge of Dinah’s brothers? (4) Where are some of the voices we might expect to hear in this story? Each question will be addressed in turn.

What Happened?

First, what exactly was the offense and its implications for Jacob’s household? Some scholars have argued that Dinah was not raped but mutually consented to sexual relations with Shechem. The “offense” was on account of her unmarried status or her romance with an “outsider,” like an ancient Romeo and Juliet story.[48] I find this interpretation highly unlikely.[49] Genesis 34:2 says that Shechem “saw” Dinah, “took her, lay with her, and humiliated her.” The verb ענה does not always refer to forced sex, but it does in other narratives using this or similar language (e.g., Judg 19–20; 2 Sam 13).[50] The claim that Dinah put herself at risk because she “went out to see the daughters of the land” in Genesis 34:1 is not only victim-blaming but also incongruent with other women who safely and honorably go out of their households (e.g, Rebekah, Rachel, Leah, and Jael).[51] Moreover, the cultural context supports the interpretation of Shechem’s actions as rape, specifically marriage by abduction, which we have seen was practiced, especially by the nobility, as a political maneuver.

If the offense was rape against Dinah, then from our own cultural context we would expect the narrator to depict Dinah as the victim in chapter 34. However, we have trekked across the cultural bridge to ancient Israel, and according to Schneider, “In the ANE and Hebrew Bible, the ‘victim’ of a rape is the man whose woman was raped. All the laws from the ANE point to this.”[52] Dinah’s brothers see her assault as an assault on the entire household, and Jacob seems to see it as assault against himself as the patriarch of the household (v. 30). Moreover, as God’s covenant people, the shame cast on Jacob’s family was deeply religious. Three times in this passage, the narrator describes Dinah as being “defiled” or “unclean” (טמא), a term typically associated with ceremonial uncleanness. Shechem has not only committed a civil crime but a crime against the very holiness of God’s covenant family.

Dinah’s rape also made the entire household vulnerable to attack. Steinberg explains, “Anthropological studies suggest that men who are thought to be unable to control the sexual honor of their women are also thought to be unable to defend themselves against attacks from outsiders.”[53] It is difficult to determine whether Shechem’s motivation was political or sexual or both, and the fact that he “loved” her after the assault does not clarify his motive. We can infer from the cultural context of politically-motivated rape and the brothers’ response that Shechem’s act was at least interpreted as a political power play that could not be ignored without admitting submission to Hamor and Shechem.[54] Shechem had not only taken Dinah’s honor but the honor of the men who protected her and the entire household.

Shechem’s attempt to marry Dinah was also wrong within Israel’s practice of endogamous marriage. It is clear that the people of Shechem favored exogamy because Hamor touts the economic and political benefits of such a match both to Jacob (vv. 8–10) and to the men at the gates of Shechem (vv. 21, 23). However, Israel practiced endogamy because inheritance was their highest priority, specifically, the transmission of the covenant promise and the covenant seed, promises that could be threatened if Jacob’s family did not remain holy and set apart from the people around them. This story illustrates the dangers of marrying the “wrong” husband and functions as the counterpart to the story of Esau marrying the “wrong” wife in chapter 26 (cf. Gen 34:2). In both stories the effects of the “wrong marriages” are felt most acutely by the patriarch of the household (cf. Gen 28:8).

Who Were The Responsible Parties?

The second take-away from this cultural bridge-building pertains to the responsible party for marriage negotiations and revenge. In 34:5 it seems strange that upon hearing about Dinah’s rape, Jacob remained silent without the input of his sons, who were in the fields. When Hamor and Shechem came to negotiate a proposed marriage, they initially came to speak with Jacob (v. 6) but ended up speaking to both Jacob and his sons (vv. 8–11). In fact, Jacob did not say or do anything—anything!—until the very end of the narrative when he reprimanded Simeon and Levi for putting him in danger (v. 30). Jacob’s silence and inaction seem strange given that it was primarily the patriarch’s responsibility to negotiate marriage. Perhaps it is this unusual silence that prompted Dinah’s brothers to assume the role of marriage negotiator and patriarch, even referring to Dinah as “our daughter” in verses 16 and 17.[55]

The responsibility for revenge also fell to the patriarch. Middle Assyrian laws even exhibit lex talionis (or “eye for an eye”) to the letter by allowing the victim’s father to rape the rapist’s wife and take her as his own wife,[56] which expands on the widespread practice of forcing rapists to marry their victims.[57] Essentially, both parties would be exchanging women, and both men (by our modern standards) would be rapists. Jacob seems to interpret the burden of revenge to be his own when he reprimanded Simeon and Levi in Genesis 34:30. From a cultural standpoint, Jacob’s passivity in the marriage negotiations and in the revenge seems out of place and may explain why his sons assumed his responsibilities and perhaps even status of patriarch.

How Are Readers To Interpret The Revenge Of Dinah’s Brothers?

The third part of this story that this culture bridge elucidates is the revenge of Dinah’s brothers. Should the reader see their revenge as an honorable act in its cultural context? From a modern, Western standpoint, the most dubious aspects of their revenge are the use of deception and the severity of the revenge. Both will be addressed in turn. First, deception was—perhaps surprisingly—viewed positively in some circumstances as one of the few weapons of the weaker side. Matthews and Benjamin explain, “Hebrew villagers lived on the margins of their social world. Like all marginalized people, they admired the clever who improved themselves at the expense of the establishment. Cleverness was the wisdom of the powerless.”[58] Williams has convincingly shown that, within the book of Genesis, the narrator views deception positively when the deceiver is righting a deception against him or herself.[59]

While the deception employed in the revenge may have been culturally acceptable, the severity or extent of the revenge was not. The punishment far outstripped the crime, even escalating the original crime of Shechem. However, some scholars argue that the narrator viewed the brothers’ revenge positively. In an intense debate with Fewell and Gunn in the early 1990s, Sternberg argued that Simeon and Levi are the heroes of the story, representing justice.[60] According to Longman, the brother’s question at the conclusion of the narrative (Gen 34:31) implies a negative answer, that no, Shechem should not make their sister like a prostitute and, therefore, their escalated revenge was justified.[61] The book of Judith also condones the brothers’ extent of revenge, identifying God as the one who “gave a sword” to Simeon to avenge the defilement of Dinah (Jdt 9:2).

However, at least five things suggest that the extent of their revenge should not be viewed positively. First, ancient Near East law prohibited the escalation of retribution, most notably through the widespread practice of lex talionis. With regard to rape, Hittite Law prohibited punishment beyond the perpetrator, stating: “If anyone elopes with a woman, and a group of supporters goes after them, if three or two men are killed, there shall be no compensation: ‘You (singular) have become a wolf.’ ”[62] Second, the escalation of their revenge results in exponentially more rapes than the initial one, not unlike the escalation from one rape in Judges 19 of the Levite’s concubine to the rape of six hundred women by the end of that similar narrative. Third, Jacob may not answer his sons in Genesis 34 (after all, he is pretty tongue-tied throughout the entire episode), but he does finally call them out at the end of his life in 49:5–7. Fourth, according to Alter, the brothers’ unanswered question in 34:31 might better be explained as a narrative means of emphasizing Jacob’s impotence, a critique of Jacob but not necessarily a commendation of their actions.[63] Fifth, and finally, Richter argues that Mesopotamian law was much more focused on revenge, whereas biblical law, particularly Deuteronomic law, was more concerned with purging evil from Israel’s midst.[64] The motives of Dinah’s brothers seem much more aligned with Mesopotamian law, even exceeding it.

Where Are The Missing Voices?

As for the fourth question, the cultural context of ancient households also sheds light on three missing voices in the text. First, the voice of Leah. Since the patriarch of the household was the one primarily responsible for the marriage negotiations of his daughters and for avenging anyone who would harm them, it is not entirely surprising that Leah is silent in this story. Still, there are some indications that the matriarch had more say in such dealings than the legal codes explicated. For example, in Sumerian Love Songs, it is the mother of the bride-to-be who negotiates marriage terms with a messenger from the groom’s household.[65] Hittite Law also shows that mothers shared in these matters of responsibility.[66] In fact, according to Haase, a mother may have had more influence and responsibility than the father when marrying off a daughter in Hittite and other Levant cultures.[67] Leah’s silence in Genesis 34 is therefore curious.

Dinah’s voice is also silent throughout the entire narrative. She does not give consent to Shechem, and she is not consulted or even present when marriage negotiations or plans for vengeance are being made. Again, from a cultural perspective we might expect her to possibly have some input in the matter. One thinks of Rebekah when both of her parents and her brother ask her if she will go with Abraham’s servant in order to be Isaac’s wife (24:58) or when the servant in that same story recognized the possibility that Rebekah might chose not to marry Isaac (v. 39). Sumerian love poetry also shows that women had some choice, some voice in the matter.[68] In chapter 34 Dinah has no voice.

Readers are left wondering not only, “Where is Dinah’s voice?” but also, “Where is her role within the household?” In this passage alone, Dinah is referred to as someone’s daughter seven times by the narrator, by Dinah’s brother, and by Hamor. However, Shechem never once referred to Dinah as a daughter of anyone. He called her “this girl” (v. 4) and “this young maiden” (v. 12). By the end of the narrative, no one referred to Dinah as anyone’s daughter, not even the narrator. In verse 26 when her brothers kill all of the men of the city, the narrator simply said that “they took Dinah from the house of Shechem and they went out.” Once again she has been “taken,” once again there is a “going out,” but now Dinah seems to be a liminal character, no one’s daughter and no one’s wife. As the text is clear to emphasize, she has been defiled (vv. 5, 13, 27).[69]

The third voice that is completely silent in this narrative is the voice of God, which is typical in rape narratives.[70] This lacunae seems quite intentional, especially since God is mentioned immediately before and immediately after this story (33:20; 35:1). However, in chapter 34 God is neither mentioned nor consulted.

Conclusion

Preaching or teaching this text is always going to be hard. It should be. Building a bridge to the biblical world can help pastors and educators to understand the text in its own terms before applying it to their own terms and their own lives. Understanding the cultural context of ancient Near Eastern households helps to elucidate some of the troubling dynamics in the story—the political power plays at work, the solidarity that the entire household felt when one person was shamed or defiled, and the deafening silences of some of the main characters.

From a pastoral perspective, the cultural context of Genesis 34 also leaves the reader wondering, “Where is God’s grace in this chapter?” There was no grace in the rapist, no grace in the community that enabled him, no grace in the father that should have protected his daughter and instead did nothing, no grace in the mother who was silenced, and no grace in the brothers, whose revenge resulted in further rape and suffering. How does one teach or preach a passage that seems so devoid of God’s grace? It seems that this passage compels the reader to search for grace and long for grace outside of this chapter—the grace that comes before this passage in God’s promises to Abraham; the grace that comes after this passage in his continued faithfulness and redemption of his people, Israel; and especially, the grace made manifest in Jesus Christ, who bridged a chasm far greater than anyone else could ever traverse and who enables his people to read passages like Genesis 34 with hope.

Notes

1. Much of the information in this section is from a chapter in a book by Elizabeth H. P. Backfish and Cynthia Shafer-Elliott (Baker Academic, forthcoming).
2. John Goldingay, Israel’s Gospel, vol. 1 of Old Testament Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2003), 438.
3. Carol Meyers, “The Family in Early Israel,” in Families in Ancient Israel, ed. Leo G. Perdue, et al., Family, Religion, and Culture Series (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 14–15. See also J. David Schloen’s extensive monograph detailing the physical and social structures of various peoples of the ancient Levant, The House of the Father as Fact and Symbol: Patrimonialism in Ugarit and the Ancient Near East, Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant 2 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2001).
4. Carol Meyers, “Procreation, Production, and Protection: Male-Female Balance in Early Israel,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 51.4 (1983): 569–93.
5. Religious ritual was another household function in the ancient world that would have been integrated with every aspect of life. This included special occasion feasts, sacrifices, and, in many cases, household idolatry.
6. The household was also occasionally called theבֵּית־אֵם or “house of the mother” (Gen 24:28).
7. Victor H. Matthews and Don D. Benjamin, Social World of Ancient Israel: 1250–587 BCE (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1993), xviii.
8. Meyers, “The Family in Early Israel,” 22.
9. John Rogerson, “The Family and Structures of Grace in the Old Testament,” in The Family in Theological Perspective, ed. Stephen C. Barton (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 36.
10. Leo G. Perdue, “The Household, Old Testament Theology, and Contemporary Hermeneutics,” in Families inAncient Israel, 234; cf. Deuteronomy 24:17–22.
11. Carol Meyers, Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 42–45; cf. the updated and expanded version titled Rediscovering Eve (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), which maintains the same point. Richard S. Hess agrees, saying, “It seems unlikely that Israelite society and its families are accurately described as consistently patriarchal.” “The Family in the Old Testament as a Theological Model for Covenant Community,” in Interpreting the Old Testament Theologically: Essays in Honor of Willem A. VanGemeren, ed. Andrew T. Abernethy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018), 272. See also Matthews and Benjamin, Social World, 23. Richard Haase says that Hittite law reflects the same kind of (near) equality, at least within the household: “On the one hand, in the realm of private law the position of women is close to equality with men. On the other hand, the husband may kill his adulterous wife on the spot without a trial (HL 197).” “Anatolia and the Levant: The Hittite Kingdom,” in AHistory of Ancient Near Eastern Law, Handbuch der Orientalistik 72 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 1:636. Also, in Ugarit women seem to have enjoyed the same basic rights as men, including participating in the court system, owning land, and having inheritance rights, with the exception of holding public office (Ignacio Márquez Rowe, “Anatolia and the Levant: Ugarit,” in AHistory of Ancient Near Eastern Law, 1:723).
12. Marten Stol, Women in the Ancient Near East, trans. Helen and Mervyn Richardson (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 155.
13. Matthews and Benjamin, Social World, 12.
14. Matthews and Benjamin, 13.
15. Matthews and Benjamin, 13.
16. Matthews and Benjamin, 8–10. In some cultures, even a biological child was not considered viable until the father officially adopted it. If he did not, then the midwife would leave the child in an open field, making it available for adoption by another family. Such a scenario seems inconceivable to modern ears, but the imagery of Ezekiel 16:3–5 of Israel being a child left in a field for Yahweh to adopt seems to reflect this practice.
17. Matthews and Benjamin, 25.
18. Matthews and Benjamin, 29.
19. Stol, Women, 64.
20. Stol, 66.
21. Stol, 68. The laws of Ešnunna also claim that the father must grant permission for a marriage to be deemed valid. Stol, 75.
22. Laws of Lipit-Ishtar (LL) B xvii 19–20, M ii 5–9 (§23) in Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed., Society of Biblical Literature Writings from the Ancient World Series (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 30.
23. Stol, Women, 72; Haase, “Anatolia and the Levant,” 637; Hittite Laws (HL) §28 and §37 in Roth, Law Collections, 221–22.
24. According to John Goldingay, although it was the woman who would physically leave her home, probably Genesis 2:24 says the man will leave his mother and cleave to his wife because the man would need the charge to emotionally leave his mother. Israel’s Life, vol. 3 of Old Testament Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 353.
25. Stol, Women, 259; Alice Ogden Bellis, Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes, 2nd ed (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 76; Laws of Eshnunna (LE), A ii 29–37, B ii 102 (§26–28), in Roth, Law Collections, 63.
26. Deuteronomy 22:25–29; Laws of Hammurabi (LH), xxviii 54–67 (§130); Middle Assyrian Laws (MAL) ii 14–24 (§12); HL §197, in Roth, Law Collections, 106, 157, 237. However, a double-standard generally existed wherein women would be punished for consensual sex with seducing men, whereas men would not be punished for consensual sex with seducing women. MAL ii 58–66 (§16), in Roth, 158–59.
27. In three separate Sumerian myths, a goddess is raped, either by a god or by a human: “Enki and Ninhursaĝa” and “Inana and Šukaletuda” and “Inlil and Ninlil,” Stol, Women, 264; Alhena Gadotti, “Why It Was Rape: The Conceptualization of Rape in Sumerian Literature,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.1 (2009): 73–78.
28. “If anyone elopes with a woman, and a group of supporters goes after them, if three or two men are killed, there shall be no compensation: ‘You (singular) have become a wolf.’ ” HL §37, in Roth, Law Collections, 222.
29. Haase, “Anatolia and the Levant,” 637.
30. Sandra L. Richter, “Rape in Israel’s World . . . And Ours: A Study of Deuteronomy 22:23–29, ” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 64.1 (2021): 69; see also Gordon P. Hugenberger, who argues that Tamar’s desperate plea to marry Amnon in 2 Samuel 13:16 shows that it was within a woman’s prerogative to marry her rapist, but it was not mandated by law. Marriage as a Covenant: Biblical Law and Ethics as Developed from Malachi, Biblical Studies Library (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1994), 257.
31. Matthews and Benjamin explain that “the challenge itself was an acknowledgement that the household being pressed was honorable, and therefore worthy of the challenge.” Social World, 180.
32. Matthews and Benjamin, 181.
33. Naomi A. Steinberg, Kinship and Marriage in Genesis: A Household Economics Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 12.
34. Stol, Women, 105.
35. Márquez Rowe, “Anatolia and the Levant: Ugarit,” 726. In Nuzi a man could divorce his primary wife even if she bore him children (Stol, Women, 68). In the Laws of Hammurabi a man could divorce a secondary wife who had borne him children or a first-ranking wife who had not borne him children, but he would need to compensate either one, typically with the return of her dowry (LH xxix 74–xxx24 [§137–138], in Roth, Law Collections, 107). In some cases, such as in the Middle Assyrian Laws, men were not obligated to offer compensation (MAL, v 15–19 [§37], in Roth, 107, 166–67).
36. Richter, “Rape in Israel’s World,” 67, 69. Divorce was not permitted in cases where men seduced unbetrothed women (Deut 22:19, 29).
37. Stol, Women, 66.
38. HL §193, in Roth, Law Collections, 236.
39. Victor H. Matthews, The Cultural World of the Bible, 4th ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 76.
40. Stol, Women, 154. Old Babylonian records show an average of three children whereas middle Assyrian records show an average of 2.22 children. According to Matthews and Benjamin, the average number of birthed children was four, whereas the average number of children surviving to adulthood was two. Social World, 74.
41. Stol, Women, 160.
42. The Laws of Lipit-Ishtar (LL) date to 1930 BCE, from Isin. §b. Roth, Law Collections, 24.
43. Stol, Women, 105; Matthews and Benjamin, Social World, 14.
44. Richter, “Rape in Israel’s World,” 73.
45. Steinberg, Kinship and Marriage, 15.
46. Matthews and Benjamin, Social World, 32.
47. Matthews and Benjamin, 134; Susan Niditch, “Genesis,” in Women’s Bible Commentary, ed. Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2012), 41.
48. David Noel Freedman, “Dinah and Shechem, Tamar and Amnon,” Austin Seminary Bulletin 105.2 (1990): 54; Tikva Simone Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible (New York: Schocken Books, 2002), 182.
49. It is also recognized that “rape” is not necessarily the most accurate term to use in this circumstance, since it probably would have been considered “theft” of a household asset. Alison Joseph explains, “Women in ancient Israel did not have legal or sexual autonomy—the power to give or refuse consent. Their sexual consent belonged to their fathers and brothers and later husbands.” “ ‘Is Dinah Raped?’ Isn’t the Right Question: Genesis 34 and Feminist Historiography,” in Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 19 (2019): 29. The terminology of “rape” is maintained because that is what nonconsensual sex is called in Western culture, even if it is a cultural “translation.”
50. Ellen Van Wolde, “Does ‘innâ Denote Rape? A Semantic Analysis of a Controversial Word,” Vetus Testamentum 52.4 (2002): 536. Like many words, ענה has a wide range of meaning, used often in a general sense of “humbling” or “lowering in status.” However, in collocations with words denoting taking and lying with, wherein the woman is not culpable in the aftermath, forced sex seems to be clear. Genesis 34:2 is included among examples (including the above-referenced Judg 29:24; 20:5; 2 Sam 13:12, 14, 22, 32) where ענה means “to rape a woman” (Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, and Johann Jakob Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, trans. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson [Leiden: Brill, 1995], 2:853).
51. Leah Rediger Schulte, The Absence of God in Biblical Rape Narratives (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017).
52. Tammi J. Schneider, “Human Trafficking and Women in the Ancient Near East,” Conversations with the Biblical World 36 (2016): 190–91; cf. Richter, “Rape in Israel’s World,” 73.
53. Steinberg, Kinship and Marriage, 110–11.
54. Matthews and Benjamin explain, “Rape in the world of the Bible was not simply an act of sexual violence, but a political challenge to the father of a household.” Social World, 178.
55. While there is much more evidence in ancient law codes supporting the father’s responsibility in marriage negotiations, and occasionally the mother’s as well, there is also evidence for grown sons on occasion to share the patriarch’s responsibility, which seems to at least be the perspective of Jacob’s sons in this passage. Stol, Women, 73.
56. MAL viii 6–41 (§55), in Roth, Law Collections, 174–175.
57. E.g., A Sumerian Laws Exercise Tablet v 3–35 (§7–8), in Roth, 44.
58. Matthews and Benjamin, Social World, 17.
59. Michael James Williams, Deception in Genesis: Investigation into the Morality of a Unique Biblical Phenomenon, Studies in Biblical Literature 32 (New York: Lang, 2001). Modern missionaries serving amidst oppressed people groups also attest to this perspective, which is difficult to see from the position of privilege most of us enjoy.
60. Danna Nolan Fewell and David M. Gunn, “Tipping the Balance: Sternberg’s Reader and the Rape of Dinah,” Journal of Biblical Literature 110.2 (1991): 193–211; Meir Sternberg, “Biblical Poetics and Sexual Politics: From Reading to Counterreading,” Journal of Biblical Literature 111.3 (1992): 463–88.
61. Tremper Longman III, Genesis, The Story of God Bible Commentary, ed. Tremper Longman III and Scot McKnight (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2016), 431. Likewise, Alison Joseph argues, “The absence of the narrator’s judgment in Gen 34 should be seen as a silent endorsement of their actions.” “ ‘Is Dinah Raped?’ Isn’t the Right Question,” 34.
62. HL §37, in Roth, Law Collections, 222.
63. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, rev. ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2011), 200.
64. Richter, “Rape in Ancient Israel,” 71–72.
65. Stol, Women, 73.
66. “If a daughter has been promised to a man, but another man turns off with her, he who runs off with her shall give to the first man whatever he paid and shall compensate him. The father and mother (of the woman) shall not make compensation. If her father and mother give her to another man, the father and mother shall make compensation (to the first man). If the father and mother refuse to do so, they shall separate her from him.” HL §28 in Roth, Law Collections, 221.
67. Haase, “Anatolia and the Levant,” 635.
68. Stol, Women, 73.
69. Niditch claims, “Like a prostitute, she has become a person of outsider status, unfit to be a bride.” Women’s Bible Commentary, 41.
70. Schulte, Absence of God.