Women of War: Deborah and Jael (Judges 1-5)

Welcome to Judges!

Today, we begin looking at the book of Judges. Other than the story of Rahab, which we covered last time, there were only 2 more places in Joshua, our last book, where women are even mentioned, and both of those stories are also found in other books. One, the story of Zelophehad's daughters, we dealt with already when we were reading the Law. The other is here in Judges, and we'll look at it briefly in this post because it's pretty short and somewhat inscrutable. It's the story of how Othniel, the first judge of Israel found his wife. But the main part of this post will look at the lives of Deborah and Jael, such a treat for our study of women in the Bible! Deborah is always held up as an example of a biblical woman in a non-traditional role, so I am really looking forward to examining her story! Bound up with it is one that's perhaps even more fascinating, the story of Jael of the mighty tent-peg, who you may not have heard of unless you read your Bible quite diligently. 

One opening observation about the book of Judges: I said above that Joshua hardly speaks of women at all. They aren't even listed as existing in towns where wars are taking place, it is only Joshua and his men against the Canaanite men. But Judges is just full of female characters in roles large and small, tragic, and heroic. We are going to enjoy this book. 

What we learn about women

• In the three stories in this post, women are contrasted with men whom they outshine.

• Deborah was a prophet and a judge, but saw Barak's request for her accompanying presence in battle as detracting from his own military glory.

• Jael is honored for her decisive action in luring Sisera into her tent and then killing him.

• Deborah's song provides commentary that honors God for his action in giving victory to his people when they are a weaker military force. It also gives a strongly female perspective on the death of Sisera and the effect it has on his people.

What I'm wondering

• Is Deborah an example for all women to aspire to this kind of leadership? What do we make of her rebuke to Barak?

• What is Jael's back story? The text refers to "The days of Jael." It also says her family was allied with King Jabin, but she acts purposefully to kill Sisera, his commander.

• What was going on in Barak's mind through the story? We know as little about him and his thoughts as we often know about women in the male-dominated stories we've looked at.

Acsah and Othniel and the wedding gift

Let's begin with our first woman in the book of Judges, Acsah. She is the daughter of Caleb, who offers her hand in marriage to the person who captures the town of Kiriath-Sepher. Othniel, Caleb's nephew, is the one to achieve this and they get married. At the marriage, the text gives us this strange detail, all the information we really have about their marriage. "When Acsah married Othniel, she urged him [or he urged her] to ask her father for a field. As she got down off her donkey, Caleb asked her, 'what's the matter?' She said, 'Let me have another gift. You have already given me land in the Negev; now please give me springs of water, too.' So Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs." 

This story is short but intriguing. So many questions: who was urging who to ask Caleb (translators can't tell whether Othniel urged her to ask for this gift or the reverse)? why are we told she was getting off her donkey? did they want a field or springs? I think we can at least guess that it was Acsah who wanted the springs. If Othniel wanted the field, Acsah could have changed the plan and asked for springs. If she wanted the field she probably wouldn't have then asked for springs instead. Right? The other place where this story is recorded word for word is in Joshua in the part where land distributions are recorded. So one guess is that it is there just to point out that those springs do in fact belong to Othniel's family. (Which is also Acsah's family anyway. . . ?) But is it also a foreshadowing of the way women frequently enter the narrative in Judges almost to shame men who are not doing what they ought to do. Here, the story introduces Othniel who will be the first Judge of Israel. If Othniel wanted the field, maybe he should have asked for it himself, and perhaps he would have gotten it instead of the springs? Maybe that's reading too much into it, but it loosely fits a pattern we'll keep seeing.

Continuing on in Judges, chapter 3 tells us that the Israelites have fallen completely into idolatry and intermarriage with foreigners. Because of God's anger over this, they have been "turned over" to King Cushan-rishathaim of Aram. They cry out to the Lord who raises Othniel up to bring about military victory over Aram for Israel, which leads to peace in the land for 40 years. Othniel is followed by Ehud, the assassin who kills the obese King Eglon. It's quite a colorful story complete with toilet humor and graphic descriptions of Eglon's large body. Ehud is succeeded by Shamgar, who is described with only one sentence, "He once killed 600 Philistines with an ox goad." What a legacy! But his story is almost skipped over--next, Deborah's story begins by saying that after Ehud's death (which was before Shamgar's time) "the Israelites again did evil in the Lord's sight." Because of this evil, God allowed them to be oppressed by King Jabin, and his fearsome army commander Sisera.

God's victory at the hands of Deborah and Jael

Verse 4 of chapter 4 introduces Deborah as the wife of Lappidoth, and as the prophet who was judging Israel at the time. She would hold court under the "Palm of Deborah" (what a fun visual) and people would come to see her for judgment. But as this story opens, Deborah actually is the one seeking out Barak from Naphtali with a message from the Lord. 

God's message for Barak is a command and a promise. He must call his 10,000 warriors from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun, and confront Sisera's army. God promises to give him victory in the battle. Barak's response to this commission is a little odd, "I will go, but only if you go with me." This army commander seems to want hand-holding from Deborah the prophet. What does he hope she will do? Is he looking for her to commit to her message and put her own life on the line? Deborah agrees to go with him but declares, "you will receive no honor in this venture, for the Lord's victory will be at the hands of a woman." This makes it sound like she will actually be leading the troops, but the text says that Barak calls the troops and leads the attack. Somehow Deborah's presence and moral support is enough to compromise his glory. This is an obvious episode of women in Judges serving to point out the failings of men.

Deborah, though, is fully confident and prophetic as she accompanies Barak and inspires him to lead the troops to victory. In accordance with her message from God, Sisera's army is thrown into complete confusion and panic during the attack, and they all flee. Sisera escapes on foot. The rest of the army is chased and slaughtered by Barak and his troops. Enter our second female heroine, who's story is even more intense than Deborah's and whose confidence is nearly equal.

Jael is related to Moses's father-in-law Jethro. Jethro's family is settled among the Israelites in the promised land, not far from the Kishon river where this battle takes place. After Sisera escapes the battle he runs straight to Jael's tent because her husband is on friendly terms with King Jabin. However, Jael's part in the story throws that detail into doubt. Jael welcomes Sisera into her tent, even telling him, "don't be afraid." She gives him milk and settles him comfortably to rest with a blanket. As I summarize it here, it strikes me as a lot of motherly imagery. But it's leading up to quite a twist. When he is asleep, Jael creeps up to him with a hammer and a tent peg, and hammers the peg right through his temple! This is a more familiar role than Deborah's for a woman, inside the tent, providing food and comfort. But her action is maybe even less what you might expect from a woman. Can you imagine the chutzpah necessary to plan and execute this killing by hammer and tent peg? I feel like even just using a hammer would be less intense. Phew!

Next, Barak arrives at Jael's tent in search of Sisera. Again he has lost his chance for battle glory to a woman. Jael says, "Come, and I will show you the man you are looking for." She has the situation under control, and Barak is a day late and a dollar short. Though I'm sure she was glad to have Sisera removed from her tent! 

Deborah's Song

This military victory is decisive, leading to Israel's eventual destruction of King Jabin's rule. We can find some more hints on how to process the great contributions of women to this conflict in Deborah's song, which runs the length of Chapter 5. Judges is full of long speeches and dialogue, but this is maybe the most spectacular example in the book. 

There are several things about Deborah's song that I want to point out. First of all, it gives us a window into Deborah's thoughts about this battle. She is completely focused on the Lord and his victory. She does point out her role, alongside Barak, as being used by God. She praises Barak for leading the troops, but is proud of her own actions as well. She describes how Israel was languishing under King Jabin and Sisera. "In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, and in the days of Jael, people avoided the main roads, and travelers stayed on winding pathways. There were few people left in the villages of Israel-- until Deborah arose as a mother for Israel." This passage is so interesting for a few reasons. First of all it mentions Shamgar, who as we said above is rather skipped over in the storyline of judges. It also talks in what seems to be a parallel construction about "the days of Jael." What does that mean?? Jael was not a judge. Is this implying she had some military power or prowess even before she killed Sisera? We've got to leave that one there. But what warms my heart is that Deborah sees herself as a mother for Israel. She is clearly in a high position with many roles: judge, prophet, you could even say general. But she sees her overall role as mothering her nation. And she sees mothering as delivering messages for God, serving as moral support in military action, and composing epic poetry. 

As her song continues, she praises bravery of those who volunteered and went out to war, marching as "the few" against "the mighty." Again and again she emphasizes that God is the one who delivered Israel in this battle. She even uses cosmic imagery, the stars were fighting against Sisera and the river swept his army away. She also casts blame on the people of Israel who did not come to help. 

The last eight verses of her 31-verse song are about the killing of Sisera by Jael. Deborah has high praise for her sister in arms. "Most blessed among women is Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. May she be blessed above all women who live in tents." If you have any kind of Catholic background, you'll notice that the first part of that blessing is remarkably close to a line from the Hail Mary prayer, which comes from the angel's visitation to Mary, "Blessed are you among women." This is clearly not referring to that, being long before it in time. And I doubt the angel had this on his mind when he was greeting Mary. But it makes for quite a contrast in our minds!

The next part of the song is a poetic retelling of the events in Jael's tent. It ends with the somewhat lost in translation verse, "He sank, he fell, he lay still at her feet. And where he sank, there he died." I've always thought it was kind of redundant to the point of being silly. But if you think of him first sinking in exhaustion, falling asleep, and then laying still, and while laying still, then dying, it makes more sense.

The last part of Deborah's song is so interesting. It gives a brilliantly female perspective that is rare in the Bible. Deborah paints a picture of Sisera's mother looking out the window waiting for her son to come home from battle, wondering why he hasn't arrived. Boy is this waiting for men to come home common in the world of women! She speaks with her wise women about her concerns and they reassure her that he must be dividing the plunder. They hope for "a woman or two for every man"--yikes!, and also, completely understandably "colorful robes for Sisera and embroidered robes for me." "Yes," she muses, "the plunder will include colorful robes embroidered on both sides." 

These details are so illustrative to me about the way the world of the Bible was so different and so similar to our own, especially for women. How can we possibly understand hoping for two captive women for each man in our community? How can we deny our full understanding of waiting for a son to come home from danger and trying to distract ourselves from worry by thinking about awesome clothes (ahem, retail therapy)? And the way we turn over a problem with our wise women and repeat their words of encouragement back to ourselves? Is this Deborah's genuine female take on the world coming through over thousands of years? Or a historically based song put in her mouth by an inspired author? Whoever wrote it was at least making a reasonable attempt to think from a woman's perspective. If you are thinking I have been hugely stereotyping what the female perspective is in this paragraph, that's true. But the point is that something this stereotypically female has rarely made its way into the Bible at all in our reading up to this point, even as a stereotype. The author of judges really saw women having a place in the action.

There is no resolution to the vivid dramatic irony in which Sisera's mother waits. In the next verse, the song finishes beautifully, "Lord, may all your enemies die like Sisera, but may all those who live you rise like the sun in all its power!" Then the story of Deborah, Barak, Jael and Sisera ends. "Then there was peace in the land for 40 years." Just like after Othniel's life.

So, does Deborah prove anything about women's roles and identity?

What can we file away for our main project of hunting for God's thoughts about women in the Bible from this often referenced important story of Deborah the Judge (and Jael the Warrior!)? In case you somehow missed my interpretive assumptions for all of this, I do think God has different callings for men and women based on our biology that lead to real outworkings in our vocations. You probably didn't miss that. ; ) So what I say here will reflect that. 

God certainly gave evidence of using Deborah to deliver his messages of prophecy and judgement. This is not such a new thing for biblical women--we have already learned that Miriam was called "the prophet" and held a leadership role alongside Moses and Aaron until her harsh rebuke from God. But Judges is so often frank about what is happening in Israel, recording even really evil deeds with no moral commentary other than, "In those days Israel had no king and everyone did as they saw fit." So we can't automatically say everything the main characters do should set an example. But that sentence doesn't appear in this story, where the main point is God's deliverance of Israel, using even women to accomplish this. The tone feels less like, "should women be allowed to lead?" and more like "wow, God can even work through women when he wants to!" It's unexpected and amazing. But the expectation for Barak was that he should have done this without so much help from Deborah, and later from Jael. A pattern is being broken, and it doesn't look good on Barak.

Specifically because of Deborah's message to Barak, delivered in the same tone of voice as her other messages from God for him, that he is missing out on glory intended for him when she joins him in battle, I don't think we'd be justified in saying, "See? God doesn't care if men or women are the leaders." But, I think we would be right to focus on God's action and the importance of joining his plan without focusing on particularly who must practically lead in specific circumstances. Deborah is happy to jump in in an unexpected role, that ultimately does support Barak as the military leader, and she is proud of what God has done through her. But she is really the most proud of God, not herself as an empowered female. Does Deborah's story serve as an example for women to try to level the playing field or get authority over men in leadership? No. This was not Deborah's goal--it would be more self-serving than God-serving for any of his followers to be primarily concerned with their own status. Does it give us encouragement to follow God wherever he leads when our leaders are failing us? Yes. But instead of focusing on which people get to be leaders, with Deborah and Barak we should be rejoicing over what our true overarching Leader has accomplished. 

 

Injustice for Dinah and Tamar (Gen 34, 38)

Mixed in with the stories of the patriarchs and their wives in Genesis, there are two interludes where the main characters are women with injustice done to them by men. Dinah's story involves rape, romance, and murder. Tamar's story features a series of bad marriages, prostitution, and a death sentence. They are vivid stories, and their main female characters present a contrast in ways of approaching life as a woman that is much more stark than the pretty/plain contrast we saw between Rachel and Leah. I think this contrast is an interesting way to look at their stories, so I'm going to write about them together.

So far, Genesis has featured many stories where women are fairly bold: speaking, acting, influencing their husbands and the action. They talk to God, and he often talks to them. Tamar fits this mold, except that she does not interact with God. But Dinah is different in every way. Dinah is Leah's last child, the only daughter born to Jacob. The meaning of her name is not given in the text, but it means "judged," which turns out to be a bit prophetic, as we will see.

Dinah
Dinah, being a girl, would not grow up to found one of the tribes of Israel, like her brothers. But you can imagine that as the baby sister, she might have been doted on. That her brothers love her fiercely and feel possessive of her becomes evident as the story unfolds.

Almost all we know about Dinah's life takes place in one tragic episode. In her story, Dinah takes only one mild action, visiting some young women who lived nearby. The rest of the developments happen to her. On her visit, a local prince, Shechem, sees her and "seized and raped her." This is described as a violent crime, not a romantic interlude. But in the next sentence Shechem "fell in love with her, and he tried to win her affection with tender words." He is completely serious and tells his father to get involved so that he can marry Dinah. How must Dinah have experienced this? I think it is extremely hard to read. Shechem's affection (*after the RAPE*) seems genuine and strong. Dinah must have initially been terrified and violated, but did she change in her feelings? We cannot know. Dinah does not contribute to the movement of the story here, she is just raped, and then pursued for marriage.

Shechem approaches Jacob and Dinah's brothers (Leah's other sons) to ask for her hand. But the wedding negotiations appear to be between Dinah's brothers, and Shechem's father rather than between Jacob and Shechem's father. Shechem begs to marry Dinah, offering anything they will ask of him. Jacob's brothers respond, "deceitfully, "says verse 13. They pretend they will allow Shechem to marry Dinah, if he and all of his clan will be circumcised. Shechem, the text says here, is a highly respected member of his family. He presents the proposal to the leaders at the town gate and they accept in basically good faith, though they do have a motive of completely mixing with Jacob's family so that "all their livestock and possessions will be ours." Maybe this was just a motivation for accepting the terms and joining with the wealthy Israelites. But either way they are as good as their word, and all the men are circumcised in preparation for the marriage.

At this vulnerable moment for the men of Shechem's town,  Simeon and Levi fall upon them and murder every man in the town. They take Dinah from Shechem's house, and return to their camp. Then the rest of Jacob's sons arrive and plunder the the town, taking all the riches and even "their little children and wives . . . as captives." Ugh.

Jacob is furious with Levi and Simeon when he finds out, mostly because of his fear of repercussions for himself and his family. He is worried that the other nearby people will join together to crush them after such horrendous behavior, which seems reasonable. They prepare to leave town, and God tells them to go to Bethel to meet with him. From his reaction, it looks like Jacob was not in on the planned massacre. He was part of the meeting where the terms were agreed on, though he did not set them. Was he in approval of the match?

We never hear Dinah's reaction to all of this. But however she felt about the marriage, the murders were probably devastating to her. If she really hated Shechem, she may have been glad to be free of him. But two considerations make me think she might not have been. First of all, he seems to really treasure her approaching the marriage. If it was genuine and not obsessive, a human response to that kind of love just might be forgiveness and acceptance? The second is that however she felt toward Shechem, after having been publicly acknowledged as a rape victim, any more marriage prospects for her must have been difficult to come by in that society. With no husband and no children, Dinah's ability to achieve honor and advancement would have been really limited. I'm sure she was taken care of within Jacob's wealthy household. But when his descendants are listed as they depart for Egypt at the end of Genesis, where her brothers are listed along with their wives, children, and in some cases grandchildren, Dinah is just Dinah.

Tamar
Tamar's injustice is different. It develops much more slowly, and though it does also involve headline-worthy sexual scandal in the end, she is the one who commits it, in order to take care of herself, where Dinah is on the receiving end, and suffers for what happens to her.

Tamar's story starts out with an honorable arranged marriage to Judah's son Er. This marriage must have been hard for Tamar considering that her husband was "wicked in the Lord's sight," so much so that "the Lord took his life." This direct judgment is pretty rare in the Bible, but it happens twice to Judah's sons, who are Tamar's husbands, in this story. When Er dies, Tamar has not yet accomplished the important work of bearing a child to be Er's heir. Therefore, his brother Onan has a legal duty to marry Tamar, so she can have a son for Er. Onan does marry Tamar, and even sleeps with her, but he wickedly "spills his seed on the ground" so she can't actually have a child. God "considered it evil for Onan to deny a child to his dead brother. So the Lord took Onan's life too." Tamar has really had a poor lot of husbands to deal with at this point.

With his two sons dead, rather than take her in to provide for her as part of his family, Judah sends Tamar back to her parents house to wait until his third son Shelah is old enough to marry her. At this point, Tamar is not doing well in life. She hasn't yet been able to have a son, because two of her husbands were too wicked to live, from God's perspective. She is now back at home and her only hope of a family to be with her for the rest of her life is in Judah's last son. She must have been apprehensive after her marriages to Judah's other sons. Would Shelah be any different? But when he reaches marriageable age, nothing happens. Judah does not look like he plans to even do his legal duty to Tamar by letting her marry him. This is when Tamar springs into action.

When she understands her circumstances, that she will likely be neglected by the father-in-law who has a duty to care for her, she takes her future into her own hands. The text gives us cinematic detail of her changing out of her widow's clothes and putting on a veil to disguise herself. Then Tamar brazenly sits by the road where she knows Judah will be, to present herself to him as a prostitute. She must know Judah, and be fairly sure that this plan will work, to be bold enough to put it into action.

It goes like clockwork. Or as if it were divinely orchestrated? Judah does not recognize Tamar, but does want to have sex with her. She gets his identification markers, apparently as a deposit for the goat he promises as payment. But really of course, she wants these rather than a goat! Judah, embarrassingly, cannot find her later to get them back. She is holding onto them until the key moment when she is found to be pregnant.

At that moment, Judah's great hypocrisy, callousness, and lack of love for his daughter in law is revealed. It's interesting that before he understands what's going on, he has a clue that could have jogged his memory and made him wonder about the timing of everything. Judah was told (it doesn't say who told him), "Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has acted like a prostitute. And now, because of this, she's pregnant!" Did the message bearer know what had happened I wonder? The details in the accusation are perfectly correct, and it's hard to know how anyone else would know about this unless Tamar wanted them to.

Judah, horribly, says "Bring her out and let her be burned!" Apparently this is his public stance on prostitution. But he changes his tune when she sends a message to him  "as they were taking her out to kill her." She has tied the knot in her plan well. She shows Judah his id markers she has been holding onto, and she escapes her sentence when Judah has to acknowledge the truth of his behavior. All the talk of burning is forgotten, and Judah, convicted, now declares, "She is more righteous than I am because I did not arrange for her to marry my son Shelah." In a righteousness contest, most likely neither of these two would be near the top if their particular relationship with each other were considered. However, I do think he's right that Tamar would be ahead.

Judah gives Tamar twin sons, who in true biblical fashion, at their births switch their birth order: one baby's hand comes out first, then the other baby is actually born first. Their names are Perez and Zerah, and they follow Judah immediately in future geneologies, skipping the generation of Er, Onan, and Shelah. I'm not sure what the official geneology protocols are in this kind of situation. Technically of course the boys are Judah's sons, even though Tamar's sons were supposed to count as Er's sons if they had been fathered by one of his brothers. I think it is really interesting that Tamar is one of the only females mentioned in Jesus's geneology in Matthew, perhaps it is because of the tricky nature of the line here. I wouldn't say that that alone counts as an endorsement of Tamar's scheme. But there is another place where we have some interesting commentary on what happens to both Dinah and Tamar.

The final commentary in Jacob's blessings
At the end of Jacob's life, he calls together all his sons to bless them before he dies. We have thought a little about a father's blessing and it's effect before, wondering whether it is meant to actually influence the future, or to rather predict it. In this case Jacob gives us a clear answer for what he means to do. "I will tell you what will happen to each of you in the days to come." He intends these blessings as prophecies, and when he says things like "I will scatter them among the descendants of Jacob," it sounds to me like he is really speaking for God, since this is not something an old man at the end of his life will be able to do. He has a message for each of his sons, but I think what he says to his first four are particularly thought-provoking for us.

Reuben is chided " you are as unruly as a flood, and you will be my first no longer. For you went to bed with my wife; you defiled my marriage couch." A sexual sin which is mentioned in one sentence earlier in the text now keeps Reuben from the blessing of his firstborn status. Jacob does seem mainly concerned in this instance with how he has been dishonored in the affair, rather than with the personal sin of Reuben or Bilhah. But still, this is evidence of the importance of sexual and marriage purity in the evaluation of a life. In the Me Too era, this is noteworthy. How many men with illustrious careers have been found in sexual sin, which they try to say doesn't matter when you consider their great contributions to the world? This defense does not hold water for Reuben when Jacob judges him.

Simeon and Levi are lumped together and indicted for the violence they inflicted on Shechem and his town. Jacob says he does not want to join in their meetings or be party to their plans, because of their fierce anger and cruel wrath. (Speaking for God here?) Their murderous action is judged harshly here, even though it was retaliatory. In the hindsight of history given in Jacob's blessing, Shechem is remembered as a victim, not a perpetrator. And if Shechem is a victim, Dinah is an ultimate victim, suffering both in her rape, and then in the loss of the hope of a family for herself. Though it is so hard to know what her perspective on it all was, her story ends badly. Dinah was really treated as a pawn by Shechem and then her own brothers. They are cursed for their actions, but Dinah herself bears a lot of the burden of everything that happens. Remember her name means "judged." Two meanings for that could apply to the people who hurt her: Shechem judged by Dinah's angry brothers, and the brothers judged by Jacob.

Having taken in the first three blessings, Judah's comes as a surprise to me. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi are held accountable for their sins, but Judah's treatment of and relationship with Tamar is not mentioned at all. Is this because of the "happy" ending? Judah gets the best, or second best blessing, tied with righteous and faithful Joseph. As the brother's stories play out, we do see Judah taking responsibility as an oldest son in their dealings with Joseph in his high position in Egypt. But Reuben does as well, and it seems, in the balance, that his sexual sin trumps his later good behavior.

If we follow the geneology in Matthew, when Judah blessed his sons at the end of his life, he would have been blessing Perez and Zerah, the sons of Tamar. How should we understand the ethics of what happened between them?? Judah's sin was in leaving Tamar, and his son Er, without any children. When Tamar set up an outside of marriage tryst, which Judah would have had to acknowledge was a sexual sin for him as he committed it, was she coercing him into doing what he should have done? The text says that his wife had already died when he set off on the trip where Tamar met him, but I don't think their family relationship would have allowed them to marry. And after their one meeting, he never has sex with her again. This is a real-world complicated story with real-world complicated characters and motives.

Dinah and Tamar in contrast
A final judgment on Judah and Tamar is difficult, but, let's look at the arcs of Dinah's and Tamar's stories in contrast, because I think that is really interesting.

• Dinah: Injustice is done to her, she does not act, the people who wrong her are judged, she suffers.

• Tamar: Injustice is done to her, she takes action in a questionable/sinful way, the person who wronged her is not judged, she escapes her suffering.

The major caveat to the above sketches is that God's justice is not fully administered until then end of each of our lives. We can trust that he provided full perfect justice for Dinah, Simeon and Levi, Shechem, Tamar, and Judah, ultimately. But I think Jacob's prophetic commentary should pique our curiosity about God's mercy for Judah and Tamar. The true answer, by which to set your compass, is that no matter your circumstances, you are not justified in using sinful means to try to make things better for yourself. But I think we see God having mercy on Tamar (and Judah!) in their sin here. I won't go so far as to say he finds no fault with what Tamar did. But her action brings conviction to Judah, children for herself, and no final judgment from Jacob. I will just leave it as a question mark, it would be way off to conclude that God doesn't care about sexual sin. But I do think you see the story showing that Judah's sin of neglecting Tamar is a bigger infraction than hers of ensnaring him for sex.

We've been learning that after the fall, the relationship between men and women is troubled by a power dynamic, where women want to control men, but men are destined to rule over them. The curse leads us to expect to see men exploiting their power over women; and the physical nature of femininity, with women doing the vulnerable work of childbearing, reinforces that. In these two stories, women suffering from lack of power choose two different responses. I'm sure of God's ultimate justice for Dinah, who simply suffered. But we can also see here God's patience with, and activity in, the life of a woman who did not lay by the wayside, but acted to try to bring about justice and regain power for herself.

Also, I don't think we can end our discussion of all this without noticing that none of the characters in these stories invite God into the action. No prayers are even mentioned. God is over all of this as a witness and judge, but he does not intervene, and he is not asked to. How might things have been different??

Takeaways:

• Tamar and Dinah both suffer injustice from men who should have provided for them. Dinah does not act and does not escape her suffering. Tamar does act, in a morally questionable way, and does escape hers, at least in some measure.
• Continue to notice the centrality of the feminine domains of marriage, sex, and childbearing to the plot of the Bible here.

Questions:

• Do you think Dinah forgave and loved Shechem, or would have been happy to be "rescued" and brought back to her father's house?
• How do we rate the morality of Tamar's scheme with Judah? Do you think Tamar gets completely off the hook? 
• If women experience injustice from powerful men in our own lives, how should we figure out how far to go to get justice for ourselves? As far as Tamar did? Further than Dinah? Is it different in for different people in different circumstances?