Dinah and Shechem

Josephus

Preparation for the Gospel 9.22

Early 4th Century

Now Theodotus says in his work Concerning the Jews that Sikima took its name from Sikimius son of Emmor, for this man also founded the city.¹ And in his work Concerning the Jews, he describes its situation as follows:

Rich was the land, well-watered, browsed by goats,

and the road was not far from country to city.

No leafy thicket did the weary wanderer find,

yet from it two strong mountains close by arise,

lush with grass and forest trees.

Midway a narrow path runs up the vale,

beneath whose farther slope the sacred town

of Sikima appears amid sparkling streams,

deep down the mountain’s side, around whose base

even from the summit runs the well-built wall.

Afterward, he says, it was subdued by the Hebrews, when Emmor was in power, for Emmor sired a son, Sychem. And he says the following:

Thereafter, Jacob, from the wandering shepherd life,

sought Shechem’s spacious streets, where over his kinsmen Emmor was ruler,

along with Sychem, an exceedingly stubborn pair.

Then concerning Jacob and his arrival in Mesopotamia, the marriage of his two wives, the birth of his children, and his coming from Mesopotamia to Shechem, he says the following:

Jacob, rich in cattle, came to Syria

having left the wide-flowing Euphrates’ resounding stream,

for he came there to avoid his twin brother’s bitter wrath.

Him Laban gladly welcomed to his home,

Laban his mother’s brother, who alone

ruled over Syria, his sons as yet just born.

He then promised his youngest daughter to Jacob

for a wife, but was unwilling to give her away.

But contriving a crafty trick, he sent

Leah, the older, to the marriage bed.

Such fraud could not escape the husband’s eye,

yet for the other daughter seven more years

he served, and both his cousins took to wife.

Eleven sons he sired, both wise and brave,

and one fair daughter, Dinah, whose bright face

and faultless form a noble soul expressed.

It is said that Jacob came from the Euphrates to Shechem and went to Emmor, and he welcomed him and gave him a portion of his country. So Jacob himself was a landholder, but his sons, eleven in number, were shepherds, and his daughter Dinah and his wives worked with wool. And Dinah, still a virgin, came to Shechem when there was a festival, wishing to see the city. Sychem, the son of Emmor, saw her and longed passionately for her, so he seized her and carried her off to his own home and ravished her.

Afterward, he came with his father to Jacob to request her hand in marriage, but he said he would not give her until all the inhabitants of Shechem were circumcised and followed the customs of the Jews. So Emmor said he would persuade them.

Concerning their requirement to be circumcised, Jacob said the following:

It is forbidden by our Hebrew laws

to bring a bridegroom to our daughters’ home,

save one who proclaims to be of a kindred race.

Then a bit further down concerning circumcision:

The God who called Abraham forth from his home

enjoined him from heaven to set the blood-stained seal

on the flesh of every male, and it was done.

And the law that God decreed is unchangeable.

When Emmor, therefore, had gone into the city and was encouraging his subjects to be circumcised, one of Jacob’s sons, whose name was Simeon, being unwilling to bear the violation of his sister in a civil manner, decided to slay Emmor and Sychem. He communicated this decision to his brother Levi, took him as an accomplice, and set forth to do the deed, producing an oracle saying that God had said that He would give ten nations to Abraham’s descendants to destroy.

Simeon said the following to Levi:

I remember well God’s word,

for He said that He would give ten nations over to the children of Abraham.

God, it is said, had impressed this on their minds because the inhabitants of Shechem were ungodly men.

He says the following:

God smote the inhabitants of Shechem,

who honored no guest who came, regarding neither good nor evil.

No law or justice in their state was found,

but all their thoughts were set on deeds of death.

So Levi and Simeon came fully armed into their city. They first killed those who met them along their way and then murdered both Emmor and Sychem. Concerning their slaying, he says the following:

Simeon rushed Emmor violently

and struck his head, and with his left hand seized

his throat, but quickly left him gasping still,

for he had started upon another task. Levi meanwhile

seized Sychem by the hair with unbridled rage

and dashed him forcefully, resistless to the earth:

vainly he clasped the victor’s knees, who drove

his sharp sword deep between the neck and shoulder blade,

and swiftly from his breast the spirit fled.

When the other brothers learned of their deed, they came to their aid and sacked the city. Rescuing their sister, they carried her back with the captives to their father’s home.

Notes

[While in the Bible both the city and the character are named Shechem, this text differentiates between the two. In the introductory passage, the name of the city is Sikima and its founder Sikimius, while in the poem and the remainder of the interpolated text the character is Sychem and the city is (usually) Shechem. It is unclear whether the difference between the introduction and the remainder of the text is deliberate (perhaps to differentiate the eponymous founder of the city from the character in the story) or an error that occurred in the course of the text’s transmission.—Ed.]

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.

Dinah and Shechem

Notes

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