Dinah
Categories: Hebrew Bible/Tanakh-related stubs | Torah people
Dinah (דִּינָה "Judged; vindicated", Standard Hebrew Dina, Tiberian Hebrew Dînāh), mentioned in the Book of Genesis, is the daughter of Jacob and Leah and the sister of Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin.
She is alluded to only briefly in the Bible in a story known as The Rape of Dinah. The prince of Shechem has sex with her by force and then sends to Jacob with the bride-price and news of the marriage between the Hebrew patriarch's daughter and the prince. After deliberation with his sons, Jacob concedes to the marriage on the condition that the prince and all the men of Shechem agree to be circumcised.
On the day when all the men of the city were recovering from the circumcisions, Simeon and Levi went into the city and slew every man they found. When Jacob asked them about their behaviour, his consent having been given, they only complained that their sister had been treated as a harlot. It is later alluded to that Simeon and Levi's punishment was for them to have very little land, Simeon entirely within Judah's territory, and Levi's a few scattered cities in the land of the other tribes. The tale thus presents a negative attitude towards intermarriage, but it also attacks honour killing.
In critical scholarship, the story of the rape of Dinah is believed to exist to establish a claim to Shechem, but also to explain why Simeon and Levi have very little territory of their own. Thus, in such a view, the tribeless Dinah is an invention, designed only to fit the politically motivated story of her rape. Another story of how Shechem is obtained occurs in the bible, but in that tale, it is simply purchased. In the documentary hypothesis, this tale belongs to the Jahwist source, and it fits the pre-occupation of that source with tales concerning the southern tribes.
Non-biblical uses of the name Dinah
A famous secular example of the name Dinah is as Alice's cat in Alice in Wonderland.
She is also the main character in the novel The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and in the manga Bizenghast by M. Alice LeGrow
he:דינה