Dinah

Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, was a victim. She was the victim of sexual abuse. One day she went out to visit the women who lived in the area and she was violated by Shechem, who was the son of Hamor the ruler of the area. Shechem was drawn to Dinah and tried to get his father to get her for his wife. Jacob knew what he had done and that it was dishonorable and not right. Jacob was not about to allow his daughter to be the wife of this man.

Now remember that Dinah had brothers, and half brothers, several brothers actually. These brothers weren’t happy about what had happened to their sister.

Now Jacob’s sons had come in from the fields as soon as they heard what had happened. They were filled with grief and fury, because Schechem had done a disgraceful thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter – a thing that should not be done.   Genesis 34:7

 Like good older brothers they wanted to protect Dinah. They also wanted to make Shechem pay for the dishonorable thing that he had done.

Because their sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob’s sons replied deceitfully as they spoke to Schechem and his father Hamor.  Genesis 34:13

The told Schechem and Hamor that for them to allow Dinah to marry into their family and also intermarry with their people all the males would have to be circumcised, just as they were. Hamor and Schechem agreed with this and thought it sounded good. Little did they know that Dinah’s brothers had a different plan in mind. Three days later, while the men were still recovering from their little operation, Simeon and Levi struck. They killed every male, then looted the city, took all their livestock, women and children, and wealth (Gen. 34:25-29.)

Dinah’s brothers may have gone a bit far in protecting their little sister. Jacob was not happy about what they had done. He knew that what they did could bring trouble upon them. The brothers justified their actions though by saying, “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute” (Gen. 34:31.)   

Killing someone else in the name of vengeance is not ok. Did the brothers take their protecting too far, yes. 

The one thing that we can take from this is that the intent to protect their sister was right. How they went about it was not. I remember when I first started dating Gerrit, my brother, being a good and protective older brother, said that if Gerrit tried to do anything to me he would punch him in his throat. Thankfully it wasn’t ever necessary for him to take that action. He was just looking out for his little sister though, and I appreciated that. Be thankful for your protective older brothers, Dinah probably was.   

An Adventure in Light & Darkness - Book Review

Cloak of the Light by Chuck Black is a gripping story that centers on a young man, by the name of Drew Carter. At first Drew just seems like a kid, then teen, who has had several unfortunate events happen to him during his life. Then one of these unfortunate events changes his life forever in a drastic way. Drew is suddenly forced to live in world where he can see not only the normal world we live in, but what seems to be another world that no one else seems to see. This change to Drew’s world forces him to change his life as well. Along the way there are also other characters that are an essential part of the story, Sydney and Ben. They are Drew’s two closest friends who are there with him through the journey that he is forced to travel between light and darkness.

ChuckBlack has done a great job putting a fresh spin on the topic of spiritual battle. In a note at the end of the book, he himself says that creative liberties have been taken in approaching this topic. He also does note that there are many things that are unclear to us about spiritual battle simple because the Bible doesn’t give us every little detail about it. He does however take the truths that we know of the subject from the Bible and stay within those guidelines. There is also a great Readers Guide at the back of the book. This would be particularly helpful for someone who does not the Bible well or is a younger reader.

The down side to this book is that the start is a bit slow. If you stick with it though, until about a fourth of the way through the book, the pace picks up really quickly. From there the story moves along quickly, then it gets a bit bogged down and can start to seem a little redundant. Keep reading though, the story finishes strong and leave you hanging a little. Just enough unanswered questions to make you want to continue on with the War of the Realm series. Cloak of the Light is the first book in the series, by the way. 

I would think that this book would appeal to both adolescent boy and girls. There is a little bit of suspense, sci-fi, love story, intriguing story, and Biblical truth for everyone. As an adult I enjoyed it as well, and will probably read the other books in the series.

I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review.