Respond with Moderation
In one of the Bible’s more horrific stories, Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, is taken by force and raped by the outsider, Shechem. When Jacob hears of this he does nothing.
Perhaps he fears for his life should he complain or maybe it’s because all his boys are in the fields tending their livestock and he is alone.
Then, despite his barbaric act, Shechem decides he loves Dinah and wants to marry her. He demands his father bring this about. The two dads talk about a wedding.
Dinah’s brothers are furious when they hear what Shechem did to their sister. They pretend to go along with the marriage talks but insist the men in Shechem’s village all be circumcised first.
As the men recover from this painful procedure, Simeon and Levi, two of Dinah’s brothers, massacre the city, killing every man there to avenge their sister’s mistreatment.
Though they are right in responding to Dinah’s defilement, they overreact. While the rape of one girl is terrible, wiping out an entire town is a disproportionate punishment. It is excessive.
Moses Tells Us to Take an Eye for an Eye
This is the type of thing Moses seeks to stop when he says an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth (Leviticus 24:19-20). In this Moses does not give permission to seek unrestringed revenge.
Instead he seeks to curtail excessive retaliation, taking a response unequal to the crime. An eye for an eye is a command of moderation not the authorization to pursue vengeance.
Jesus later takes this principle one step further. He says “do not resist an evil person” and then “go the extra mile” (Matthew 5:38-42). This is even more countercultural than Moses’s original eye-for-eye command to make the punishment fit the crime.
May we learn from Moses’s words and follow Jesus’s.
What do you think of Moses’s eye-for-an-eye command? What about Jesus’s instruction to go the extra mile?
[Read through the Bible with us this year. Today’s reading is Genesis 33-35, and today’s post is on Genesis 34.]
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.
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