CHAPTER 20 Dinah, ʿInnah, and Related Matters

Now as for the carrying off of women, it is the deed, they say, of a rogue; but to make a stir about such as are carried off, argues a man a fool. Men of sense care nothing for such women, since it is plain that with- out their own consent they would never be forced away. The Asiatics, when the Greeks ran off with their women, never troubled themselves about the matter; but the Greeks, for the sake of a single Lacedaemonian girl, collected a vast armament, invaded Asia, and destroyed the kingdom of Priam.1

Much ink has been spilled on the nature of the sexual encounter between Shechem and Dinah, especially in recent years.2 The title of Bechtel’s influential

1 Herodotus, Hist. I.4 (Godley, LCL). 2 See the bibliographies in Yairah Amit, “Implicit Redaction and Latent Polemic in the Story of the Rape of Dinah,” in Texts, Temples. and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran eds. M. Fox, V. Hurowitz, A. Hurvitz, M. Klein, B. Schwartz and N. Shupak (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), *11–28* (Hebrew); E. van Wolde, “Love and Hatred in a Multiracial Society,” in Reading from Right to Left: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honour of David J. A. Clines, eds. J. C. Exum and H. Williamson (London: Sheffield Academic, 2003), 435–449; T. Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of Their Stories (New York: Schocken, 2004), 179–198 and the appended notes; M. Gruber, “The Accusations against Shechem Son of Hamor: A Reconsideration,” Beth Mikra 44 (1998–1999), 119–127; idem, “On a Forgotten Meaning of the root ayin-nun-yod in Biblical Hebrew,” in Iyyune Mikra u-Farshanut, vol. 7: Menahot Yedidut ve-Hoqarah le-Menahem Cohen, eds. S. Vergon J. Ofer, J. Penkower and J. Klein (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2005), 233–244 (Hebrew).  The vocalization Dinah is based on the received Hebrew text, the Aramic Targums, and mirrored in LXX Δείνα and Vulgate Dina. Noth explains the name as “Rechtsstreit” (lawsuit) possibly chosen as a literary device (IPN, 10). A. Ungnad connects the biblical name with the name of a slave girl named da-a-na-a (presumably Dayyānâ) attested in a 7th-century Neo- Assyrian legal transaction from Gozan with a West-Semitic background. Another party to the transaction has a name corresponding to Hebrew Hosea, and the Akkadian of the docu- ment reflects Aramaic syntax. See Inschriften vom Tell Halaf: Keilschrifttexte und aramäische Urkunden aus einer assyrischen Provinzhauptstadt eds., J. Friedrich, G. Meyer, A. Ungnad and E. Weidner (Osnabrück: Biblio-Verlag, 1967), III.3; for a copy of the tablet, see pl. 25. It is likely that the Bible’s consonantal d-y-n-h was misconstrued as “Dina” after the original form “Dayyānâ” had been forgotten.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004340879_021 Dinah, ʿInnah, and Related Matters 261 article, “What if Dinah Is Not Raped? (Genesis 34),”3 articulates the problem. In contrast to the situation in Akkadian, for example,4 Biblical Hebrew, as Bechtel observes, has no single specific verb for “rape.”5 Accordingly, two questions the verb used to describe Shechem’s action ,ענה must be kept separate: (1) Does in Gen 34:2, have a single meaning in sexual contexts? (2) Does Genesis 34

3 L. Bechtel, “What if Dinah Is Not Raped? (Genesis 34)” JSOT 62 (1994), 19–36. 4 Akkadian maza‌ʾu (AHw., 637; CAD M/I, s.v. mazû, 439–440), “squeeze,” in the D-form means “rape.” An Assyrian law (MAL A §55) speaks of a man, kî da‌ʾāne batulta iṣbatma umanzʾiši, “by force seized a nubile woman and raped her.” (See M. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor [2nd ed.; SBLWAW 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997], 174.) Alternatively, there is the circumlocutory phrase in MAL A §12, in which a married woman is walking in the main thoroughfare and a man emūqamma iṣṣabassi ittiakši, “seized her by force and forni- cated with her.” (See Roth, Law Collections, 157; Akkadian nâku is used only of illicit sex; see Deut 22:25) and) החזיק בה וׁשכב עמה CAD N/1, 197.) The Akkadian sequence recalls Hebrew Deut 22:28). Two classic studies on sex offenses and related matters in) ותפׁשה ושכב עמה Mesopotamia are J. Finkelstein, “Sex Offenses in Sumerian Laws,” JAOS 86 (1966), 355–372; and B. Landsberger, “Jungfräulichkeit: Ein Beitrag zum Thema ‘Beilage und Eheschliessung,’ ” in Symbolae Iuridicai et Historicae Martino David Dedicatae, vol. 2: Iura Orientis Antiqui, eds. J. A. Ankum, R. Feenstra, and W. F. Leemans (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 41–105. For an important recent study, see J. Scurlock, “But Was She Raped? A Verdict Through Comparison,” Nin 4 (2006), 61–103. 5 Bechtel, “Dinah,” 20. For this reason, the rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmuds, whose juris- ,אנס prudence was more developed than that of the biblical legislators, adopted the verb also used for other kinds of force and compulsion (See C. Kasovsky, Thesaurus Mishnae [4 vols.; Jerusalem, Massadah, 1956–60] I:229.) Although the verb is a technical term for refers to rape only אנס rape” in the Hebrew of the Mishnah and both Talmuds, Aramaic“ in the Palestinian Talmud. See DJPA, 66; DJBA, 146. In Biblical Hebrew the verb is attested in a late source (Esth 1:8) in the context of drinking: “And the drinking was, by decree, ‘no -of each indi [רצון] for thus had the king established, to fulfill the request ,[אין אנס] ’restraint vidual.” The verb is also attested in Sirach and in The Damascus Document (see DCH I:344). The same verb occurs in Old Aramaic as hns (DNWSI I:290), where it has the sense of “remove אנס by force.” In both Tg. Onq. and Tg. Ps.-J. to Gen 21:25, Lev 19:13, and Deut 28:29, 31, the verb The same is true of Tg. J. to 2Sam 23:21; see further H. Tawil, “The End .גזל translates Hebrew of the Hadad Inscription in the Light of Akkadian,” JNES 32 (1973), 481, n. 51. A slightly differ- ent sense, which may have led to the verb’s adoption as a technical term for “rape,” is attested No secret overpowers you.” F. Rosenthal“ וכל רז לא אנס לך ,in Biblical Aramaic in Dan 4:6 -by “sub אנס A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic [Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1963], 77) translates) due.” This sense was already seen by ibn Ezra to Dan 4:6: “ ‘Shall not overpower you.’ Similar Esth 1:8) in the sense of “overcome,” “compel.” Of particular interest is the) אין אנס to it is in Judg 21:23, where the object of the verb refers to אנס by גזל Tg. Ps.-J. rendition of Hebrew female dancers abducted for the purpose of marriage. In Mishnaic and Talmudic Hebrew, ;free will.” See e.g., m. Yeb 6:1“ רצון compulsion” is regularly contrasted with“ אונס the noun and b. Sanh. 24b, 25a.