The Mothers and Daughters of the Bible Speak

Lessons on Faith from Nine Biblical Families

Shannon Bream, Fox News Personality #1

• Publisher: Broadside Books
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780063225886
• eBook ISBN: 9780063225909
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: History

God always keeps His promises, but not always in the way we expect….

“Have faith” is a phrase we hear all the time. But what does it actually look like to live it out? In The Mothers and Daughters of the Bible Speak, Shannon Bream examines the lives of biblical women to see how God’s plans can turn our worlds upside down. She tells the story of Jochebed, a mother who took enormous risks to protect her son, Moses, from Pharaoh. Could Jochebed have imagined that God’s actual design for her son involved flight into exile and danger? And yet this was all part of the master plan to deliver Israel from slavery. Another biblical mother, Rebekah, made terrible choices in an attempt to ensure her son’s place in history. And a daughter, Michal, struggled to keep her faithless father, Saul, from sin, while battling pride in herself.

Through these stories, Shannon explains the intimate connection between faith and family—and how God’s unexpected agenda can redefine the way we think about family. Not all of these mothers and daughters in the Bible were paragons of virtue. Like us, they were human beings who faltered and struggled to do their best. While some heard God’s voice, others chose their own paths. Through the lens of their imperfections, we can see how God used their stories to bring about His divine plans. He’s still doing the same work in our lives today.

The Mothers and Daughters of the Bible Speak shows that faith is more often a twisting road than a straight line. Yet, as the stories of biblical families attest, at the end of these journeys lies greater peace and joy than we could ever imagine.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Dinah

(Genesis 34)

DINAH THE DAUGHTER OF ISRAEL

Many stories in Genesis are tough to read. But it’s important to delve into these parts of the Bible, as difficult as they may be. There are ugly sins to confront and hard truths to digest. If we truly want to understand God’s character and His plans, we can’t skip over the stories that don’t have happy endings. What we can do is learn from devastating mistakes and the consequences of purposeful disobedience and sin. The story of Jacob and Leah’s daughter, Dinah, is one of those stories—full of horrible, broken people. One heinous decision piled on top of another until there was almost nothing left but a wasteland of violence and destruction, both emotional and physical.

When the story begins, we learn that Jacob and his family were living just outside the city of Shechem, having purchased land there (Genesis 33:18–20). That would appear to be in conflict with the direction God had just given to Jacob to resettle in his native land.

I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land. (Genesis 31:13)

By living outside Shechem, was Jacob already in a place and among a people God had specifically directed him away from? As we’ll see in this story, he is a passive father at best. Jacob not only failed to protect and defend his own daughter, but he also floundered in his ability to guide and control his sons.

Jacob’s family members were wealthy landowners, something like prosperous Bedouin tribesmen, but they did not live in cities like the highly urbanized inhabitants of Canaan did. We know from archaeological evidence of this period that Canaanite cities were wealthy, well-populated centers of commerce, straddling the Fertile Crescent route between Mesopotamia and Egypt. Canaan was a crossroads of the world, and its various peoples were literate and culturally sophisticated. Their religion was decidedly pagan and polytheistic—a mishmash of gods from the region, including Ishtar and Baal, Chemosh and Bel. The monotheistic outsiders who arrived in their midst, living in camel-skin tents instead of buildings and worshipping an invisible mysterious god, must have appeared awfully strange to the Canaanites. At the same time, Jacob’s children would have been fascinated by this new land in which they found themselves, and this strange new people.

It was against this backdrop that Jacob’s only known daughter set out.

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 raped her. (Genesis 34:1–2)

In this horrific situation, a young woman was victimized by a man who apparently had zero regard for her as a person. Dinah was likely a young teenager when she was brutalized. Jacob and his family were living in a land where they were outsiders, in a culture where young women could be seen as “fair game” by ungodly men. Did Jacob fail in his parental duty to supervise and protect her? It appears she felt no fear in venturing out alone. Did her parents know she had set out by herself?

Any woman who has ever suffered sexual violence can understand the kind of suffering that Dinah went through. For many women, the psychological toll can be even more destructive than the physical one. To undergo the violation of our bodies at the most intimate level tears at the fabric of our being. There can be enormous healing in turning to qualified, compassionate professionals to walk a victim through the trauma. A support network of trusted loved ones can also help a woman weather the flood of emotions, from anger to despair. God Himself promises to bind up our wounds, to be close to the brokenhearted and save those “who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). The process of recovery and forgiveness can be long and agonizing, but it is possible. Survivors themselves are often the most empathetic advocates, able to turn their tragedy into a path that guides others to wholeness.

Dinah had only known the protection of her family’s tents and the respect accorded women in a culture in which all members of the family worked side by side. Any woman’s shock at being treated like an object, like a commodity to be abused and then thrown aside, is severe. Dinah’s would have been especially so as a country girl, an outsider—perhaps dangerously naive. She had gone from being her mother’s treasured youngest child to being treated like a possession by a cruel, entitled man. Oddly enough, in victimizing Dinah, Shechem may actually have taken her specifically because she would be of value to him. Jacob was a wealthy man, and marriage to his daughter would have been beneficial. Shechem well knew that after he raped Dinah, it would likely be impossible for her family to arrange another honorable marriage for her.

There are many unpleasant things to try to digest in this story, including the passage that follows Dinah’s rape.

His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob; he loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. And Shechem said to his father Hamor, “Get me this girl as my wife.” (Genesis 34:3–4)

It seems the better description of Shechem’s feelings toward Dinah is that they were fueled by lust, not love. Love does not forcibly violate a young woman. And what are we to make of the revelation that he “spoke tenderly” to her (Genesis 34:3)? Some abusers and rapists will attempt to sweet-talk their victims, whether to cover their own misdeeds or to convince the victim that they in some way consented or provoked the attack. We’re told nothing about how Dinah felt or responded, only her rapist’s selfish demand that she be made to marry him.

Then her father, Jacob, found out.

When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with his livestock; so he did nothing about it until they came home. (Genesis 34:5)

What?! Your daughter has been raped, and you’re just going to stand idly by until your sons get home? As we’ll see a bit later, Jacob often appeared (as his mother Rebekah did) to be more concerned about the potential impact of events on him, rather than on others. What’s also missing in this story is any interaction between Jacob and Dinah. She was the daughter of his less-favored wife, Leah, after a long line of sons. What was their relationship like? Was he disconnected from her life and activities? At the moment he learned his daughter had been violated, this verse tells us Jacob “did nothing.” Every daughter wants to feel her father is the protector and defender she can count on. Sadly, that’s not always the case, and the Bible doesn’t hide the flaws of the men and women God is otherwise able to use in His plans—like Jacob.

Shechem’s father, Hamor, approached Jacob to talk about what had happened. Hamor was a leader over the region, with authority and power. In those days, sexual conduct was less about consent than it was cultural norms and appearances. It looks like the father of Dinah’s rapist thought the best way to handle the crime was to clean it up by negotiating a marriage for his entitled son . . . and then her brothers found out.

Meanwhile, Jacob’s sons had come in from the fields as soon as they heard what had happened. They were shocked and furious, because Shechem had done an outrageous thing in Israel by sleeping with Jacob’s daughter—a thing that should not be done. (Genesis 34:7)

The narrator of Genesis made it clear, more than once, what happened was abominable: “outrageous,” “should not be done.” Take notice of the phrase “in Israel.” For the very first time in the Bible, “Israel” refers not to a man, Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebekah, but to a people. And when a crime had been committed, it had been committed “in Israel,” as though this little band of God-fearing outsiders was a mighty and unified people. Dinah’s rape created for the first time this sense that they were not just Jacob’s family, but also the people of Israel. It was in response to injustice that Abraham’s descendants truly became Israel. The danger came when a quest for justice veered into vengeance, as we’ll soon see.

Not once does the text record Jacob or any of his sons questioning whether this rape had actually happened, or—more significantly—questioning whether Dinah had consented or not. Dinah had no reason to doubt that she would be avenged, and that the community of her family would have her back 100 percent. Survivors of sexual violence frequently express that one of the most important things that helped them get through their trauma was someone believing their story. Dinah’s family did not even need to have the conversation; their belief in her, and in Shechem’s guilt, was absolute. They did not sit down to have a debate about whether Dinah should or should not have been going out visiting that day anyway. The Bible does not comment on her behavior in any way at all. That was irrelevant to what happened to her; Shechem raped her. The Bible examines his sin, and he is the one held accountable—ferociously so, by her infuriated brothers.

The immediate reaction from Dinah’s brothers was rage, which was a marked contrast to Jacob’s seemingly blasé acknowledgment of what had happened. Here’s where this story gets so far afield from how our current culture operates that it’s hard to fathom. The father of Dinah’s rapist began negotiations with Jacob.

But Hamor said to them, “My son Shechem has his heart set on your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. Intermarry with us; give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves. You can settle among us; the land is open to you. Live in it, trade in it, and acquire property in it.” (Genesis 34:8–10)

One red flag after another. Not only did Shechem’s father want Dinah to marry his son, but the request was also made in a way that suggested there was some love affair going on. Then Jacob was presented with a much broader point of compromise: let’s just start intermarrying! Jacob, whose twelve sons were the foundations of the tribes of Israel, was presented with the suggestion that he play fast and loose with the covenant God had made directly with his family.

As the conversation continued, Shechem himself spoke up:

Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and I will give you whatever you ask. Make the price for the bride and the gift I am to bring as great as you like, and I’ll pay whatever you ask me. Only give me the young woman as my wife.” (Genesis 34:11–12)

Jacob is described here as “Dinah’s father.” That’s notable because one of the key duties of a father in the Ancient Near East was to negotiate marriages for their daughters. But try to imagine the man who had violated your daughter or sister saying, “Let me find favor in your eyes.” Was Dinah’s value as a young woman so inconsequential to Shechem and his family that they believed the crime against her could simply be bartered away? Shechem essentially put a price on her head. Just name your cost, and let me have her. Shechem becomes an even more repellent figure when you remember that during all this negotiation, while Shechem is smiling and making nice with her family, Dinah is still being held prisoner.

THE FAMILY’S RESPONSE

Whatever Jacob was thinking at this point doesn’t seem to matter. His sons had already decided that they didn’t owe any shred of honor or integrity to Shechem or his father, Hamor. So Simeon and Levi conned the people of Shechem, and the deal they made would end in death and destruction.

They said to them, “We can’t do such a thing; we can’t give our sister to a man who is not circumcised. That would be a disgrace to us. We will enter into an agreement with you on one condition only: that you become like us by circumcising all your males. Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves. We’ll settle among you and become one people with you. But if you will not agree to be circumcised, we’ll take our sister and go.” (Genesis 34:14–17)

Jacob himself was the original trickster, the wily negotiator and crafty plotter—a man who betrayed his own twin brother, Esau, and father, Isaac. It would make sense that the revenge his sons cooked up was as devious and as clever as their father’s. He had taught them well. Note that the brothers, in what I’m sure they believed was justified deception, offered up circumcision as a part of their scheme. Circumcision was the mark of Abraham’s covenant with God, a symbol of the commitment to live as His people. It was a continual physical reminder that God had created a nation out of His unblemished promises. Here Jacob’s sons were using something meant to be holy as a negotiating ploy, a means of vengeance—and Shechem and Hamor bought it.

Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem. The young man, who was the most honored of all his father’s family, lost no time in doing what they said, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter. So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city to speak to the men of their city. “These men are friendly toward us,” they said. “Let them live in our land and trade in it; the land has plenty of room for them. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours. But the men will agree to live with us as one people only on the condition that our males be circumcised, as they themselves are. Won’t their livestock, their property and all their other animals become ours? So let us agree to their terms, and they will settle among us.”

All the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male in the city was circumcised. (Genesis 34:18–24)

What a great deal for the family of the man who’d violated Dinah. It’s hard to miss the continued references to Shechem’s position as “honored” or “favored.” He was basically the equivalent of a prince, and I’d guess princes were used to getting what they wanted. Shechem would not only get to keep Dinah, but his people stood to benefit financiall...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Introduction
• Mothers and Daughters
• Mothers and Sons
• Daughters and Fathers
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• About the Author
• Also by Shannon Bream
• Copyright
• About the Publisher