Genesis 34:1-31
"Dinah Defiled"
Here, we have a lesson in anger, anger management, and making decisions while angered. Dinah, the daughter of Leah, was raped by a young man from a nearby town. The young man became infatuatedly obsessed (or perhaps, obsessively infatuated) and offered, no, forced his father to offer for him to marry Dinah.
Needless to say, this did not go down well with her brothers, who made a deal they did not intend to keep. They agreed on the condition that the young man, his father, and the townsfolk become circumcised. They agreed and, after a few days, when the entirety of the town was laid out from pain, Simeon and Levi massacred the town.
So, were the brothers right to be angry? Of course. If I found out someone had raped my sister, I'd be scrounging up money for the first flight home just so I could deal with the blighter.
Were the brothers right in how they dealt with the issue? No. That being said, I have no clue what the correct course of action would have been. I can guess at prayer and refusal of the marriage being two key components of the correct response, but I cannot say for sure. What we do have, though, is Abraham giving his sons a verbal lashing afterwards, after all, Simeon and Levi did bring trouble on him, making him a less attractive prospect to the surrounding, more numerous peoples.
Where does this leave us? something we can glean from this passage is advice against angered decision-making. The brothers were rash in their decision-making because they were angry. They did not pray not did they sit and think wisely about plans and repercussions. They acted impulsively out of anger, which led them to murdering a whole town - not exactly righteous behaviour. So, if you are in an Irate state, take time to calm down and pray before making decisions. Otherwise, you might just find yourself with a massacre on your hands.
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