Season of the Move of God: Dinah Part 2

This season of the move of God the Lord gave me I’m calling the Dinah Season. The significance behind this season is, Dinah had an inheritance that Moses knew, that she had a portion of something that needed to be unveiled and gave permission for women to be able to inherit land found in the Book of Numbers in the Bible. Yet, the prophecy of when Moses wrote Genesis was before his time, he doesn't show the inheritance of Dinah. He shows that Dinah existed. So, we must ask ourselves, why did we need to know, first, that Jacob had a daughter, that we know her name? Why is the daughter referred to as Leah's daughter biblically? Why isn't she referred to even in the Bible as Jacob's daughter?

When we go into chapter 34 in Genesis, and we find out that Jacob's sons are out in the field, they're out working, Dinah goes to visit the women, the daughters in the local town called Shechem, today known as Nablus. In doing so, the leadership's son of Shechem sees Dinah, sees she's beautiful. He “takes her” which theologians refer to as rape. The Hebrew language doesn’t have a word for rape so they're not sure how to translate it. Basically, he ends up sleeping with her before marriage, and because of that, there's shame brought to the family name.

Shechem falls in love with Dinah, though. It wasn’t right for him to have a relationship with her before marrying her, but he does want to marry her, and he not only wants to marry, but he’ll also do whatever it takes. When Shechem's father confronts Jacob, father to father, he apologizes for the actions of his son, and inquires how they can bring peace together, and forgiveness? The condition of it all is circumcision, not only circumcision for Shechem, but also for his father, and all the men in the entire city community. 

Wow. I mean, what's that all about? What powerful influence father and Shechem have for the entire city? What great love, to put that kind of agreement out there?

But that's what happened. That's what we're being told in chapter 34 in Genesis, keeping in mind, Moses is giving us this information, but Moses didn't live in the time that this information was given. Moses is writing to us and telling us a story that happened 500 years before he was even born in the earth. How did he know about any of this, except by the Holy Spirit? And in knowing the information that he gave us, what information did he not give us? Why only this information? Always keep those questions in your mind, because that's how we go a little bit deeper. That's how we find the true treasures of something that the Lord wants us to know and to unveil, to really go after the deep portions there.

So now we find out that the entire city agrees, the families come into unity, they're married with wedding feast celebrations from both families and city. During the few days after the circumcision, Jacob's second and third sons, Simeon and Levi, are still so angry about Shechem “taking” their sister, even though she is now a married woman. They did not ask Dinah how she felt, or did she want the brothers to do justice or something, but for their own self-glory, against her name and the family they killed all the men including her husband, and looted taking all their wealth, children and wives (Genesis 34). 

It's a very selfish connection that they did not reach out to her. Nobody's asking, even though you had a relationship before marriage and now he's married to you, do you see yourself being able to settle down with this man? I mean, we did agree, but what's the heart of the matter? How are you really feeling, Dinah? Nobody asked her. They just go in and they slaughtered all the men while they were healing from the circumcision, along with her own husband. Then her brothers took her back to her parents after she was a married woman. Keep in mind that marriages then were not just a quick elopement going to Vegas. There was covenant between the two families as well as the bride and groom. Shechem did wrong sleeping with Dinah before marriage, but then he married her with the covenant agreement of both fathers. Her brothers were part of the agreement as a family, but then they broke it. Jesus gives a parable about two sons doing the father’s business on this in Matthew 21.

Here's another question to be asked. Where's the father in the picture? Where's Jacob? This horrific thing that occurred after Jacob agreed, and the sons all agreed in the inner marriage, we find out that Jacob is troubled for his own self. He doesn't ask Dinah, or tell her “I'm here for you,” There's none of that. Where's the fatherly love taking place here?

So, we have a woman, and we know her name, and we know that she's part of this family of an inheritance that God has orchestrated for possession of a land, and yet, her heart isn't unveiled. She's been violated, but was she really violated pointing fingers at Shechem and the Canaanites, or was she also violated by her own family? That her own family was violating her in the essence of just squishing her soul, squishing what was really the heart of the matter? Dinah, how are you doing?

Then the scriptures just end. They don't tell us anything else about Dinah. What happened to her, or anything? The whole family, just for the sake of disgrace that they caused, end up leaving, but it's not a disgrace of concern for her. It's a disgrace over what other communities are going to think of Jacob and his sons. That's why we've got to re-look at things and say, God, what are you trying to say? Wasn't she valued? Wasn't she important? What did she do to deserve all this stuff of just being tossed from one side to another? Doesn't she have a voice? Is not her spirit grieving?

There's your key. She's part of the tribe. She's part of the family. Are we not part of the family of God as believers in Christ Jesus? So, when we don't have a voice, when we are feeling a sense of oppressiveness, especially if it's coming from other members of our family, if we're feeling that sense of devaluation, no one really cares? Alone? What spirit? Yes, it's Dinah's spirit, but it's the Holy Spirit. Because as believers, we have the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit in us is being oppressed, it's grieving.

That's part of why we've got to rethink it as a church. How much grieving have we been doing with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Christ in us? How often do we take His word, His name and His nature pointing fingers at somebody else, never stopping and saying to the “daughters- the body of Christ, - how are you doing? What's going on with you?

It's not put in our scriptures, but when you read other literature, Hebrew literature, other writings, we find out that there's more to the story about Dinah. And one of them is that she had a daughter. Yeah, there was a pregnancy involved. Why don't we talk about it? Why is our Bible not talking about it? Because it's for such a time as now. And that time is an unveiling of glory that connects Joseph, it connects Manasseh, it connects Ephraim, and it connects the inheritance of the daughters of the lineage of Manasseh's sons, all connected to Shechem.

It connects John 4, of why Jesus had to go through Samaria to a well called Jacob's well and meet a woman that was shunned from the city. And yet that woman was a bearer of light. Her name was Phoebe, and she was the first evangelist to go and change a city, by the testimony of saying, look what the Lord's done. She had five husbands, living with a sixth man, but she met number seven, the fullness of the glory, named Jesus Christ…all before the cross! What was that all about?

That's who the spirit of Dinah is, the church, being unveiled right now in the glory of God within her. That's what Pentecost is all about. The glory of the church being unveiled for the fullness of the body to come forth, in His glory, on the earth.

Season of Dinah 2

Today, we are in the season of Dinah, the next move of God. In the Bible, the Book of Numbers chapters 26 and 27, we see where Moses talked about the laws of inheritance and who's inheriting what. It also talks all about who all the family members are.

The person I want to bring to attention would be a man name Manasseh who was the first-born son of Joseph. He was the son consummated from love between his father Jacob and mother Rachel. Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. In Numbers 26, there is a listing of Manasseh’s sons. In verse 31, it refers to this one-word Shechem and the family of the Shechemites. That's the key. Put a little Astra there. We're going to go a little bit more and read all these other family names. 

Then we come to chapter 27 verse one. And we find that “the daughters of 

Zelophehad had the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of 

the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph came near.”

Now we're back to Manasseh, again, of the families of Manasseh, the son of Joseph came near, and these are the names of his daughters, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, and Milcah. And Tirzah. Then when we go to verse three there in chapter 27, “they go before Moses and the priest, and they say our father died in the wilderness yet. He was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord, in the company of Korah, but he died in his own sin and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be withdrawn from among his family? Because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father's brothers. And Moses brought their case before the Lord.” See, this is the first time Moses had to deal with this issue of women owning land. How many of us are dealing with first time incidents? We've been dealing with, doing church as usual, same format, same hymnals, same thing, passing the offering plate around, paying for our overhead and expenses and outreaches. Most of us are “doing” church the same way that has been done for years getting the same results. We pray. we do communion. We pass the offering plate. We meet and greet on the outside, yet our hearts are distant and cold to intimacy with God and His body.

There had been a lot of change opportunities after passing over the red sea, yet the children of God still brought their years of bondage into their new beginnings doing things with the same heart, the same thought process of how things were to be done… and the men get the inheritance. 

Moses didn't have a clue on how to answer them. So he goes before the Lord, the Lord, didn't just suddenly come up with this and say, “Hmm, gosh, never had that problem before.” Wonder what the Lord would do here. The Lord just hadn't revealed it yet. “And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, the daughters of Zelophehad are right in their statements. You shall surely give them, hereditary possession among their father’s brothers. And you shall transfer the inheritance of their father to them further. You shall speak to the sons of Israel saying, remember, Israel is Jacob, the sons of Jacob saying, if a man dies and has no son, then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter. And if he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers.” (Numbers 27:7-10).

So, basically the entire line and the thought process of how to do inheritance suddenly changed because these five women. Five women go before Moses and say, where's our inheritance. Five's the number of Grace. So, whenever I see something like that, it's like, wow, there's a grace issue here, Moses. It wasn't just saying, gosh, you know, I think I'll be kind to these women and softhearted. No, this is what the Lord was telling him. And why was this happening through the tribe of Manasseh? Why not one of the other tribes, maybe the tribe of Ruben. What about the tribe of Simeon? Or Asher? There's a specific of what God was bringing through that scarlet thread. God enjoys working with that. He now has established land rights on the earth in the book of Numbers, that was established in Genesis before Moses was born.

If we go to Genesis where I had mentioned before about Dinah, we read where Leah gave birth to the first daughter of Jacob in chapter 30. Leah had sons. Then Leah’s handmaid gave a couple sons to Jacob. We see where Rachel's hand maiden is given to Jacob, and she has sons. There's an intensity, “If I can only have a son, then I have worthiness within my husband's eyes.” Leah gave names to these children out of the heart of what's going on within herself. Every time she had a child, she named the child according to her heart’s challenges. She names her first-born Ruben. She says, “Because God has seen her affliction.” She has a second son. She names him Simeon because she's felt unloved. She names her third one Levi, because now she feels an attachment. Each son of Jacob was named with an identity of what the emotional situation was of the mother. This has a significance. Then as we read down a few verses to Leah had her six-son born through her handmaiden, she names him Issachar meaning God is giving her wages. Leah then bears a sixth son on her own and she names him Zebulun as a gift from God. Afterwards she’s pregnant with a daughter. So, in her seventh pregnancy and seven is a number for completion, she now has a daughter called Dinah recognized as Leah’s daughter, not Jacob's daughter. That's a key factor too. What are we really trying to say, and is that scripturally correct? Is that the way it was originally written or was it brought through historically with variations because of the diminished and oppressive position of women that was common during that era. 

God never orchestrated for the voice of women to be silenced. To come before God as the fullness of the church, that fullness is made up equally, male, and female in His image Genesis 1:27). It's not a gender issue. It's a heart matter of a relationship that God was having in the many facets of His image. So, we now have a situation here where the first daughter was born, and her name is Dinah. What's interesting is that when Jacob is confronted by his brother Esau after many years, he had a lot of fear (Genesis chapter 32). He struggled with a heart matter. In Genesis 32 verse 22, it says, “Now he arose that same night. And he took his two wives. He took his two maids and his 11 children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.” Jabbok is a river.

The river itself means you're emptying your gut. You're just emptying everything. Continuing it says, “He took them, and he sent them across the stream, and he sent across whatever else he had.” Basically, he's just emptying everything. And then he has the wrestling with God experience, with the angel of the Lord, and his name gets changed, but there's a key here. Scripture tells us in this verse there are 11 children. Joseph was born just before Rachel. Benjamin's not born yet. So, when we see the, the word 11 children it's assumed, oh, his 11 sons which is incorrect because he had 12 children. He had a daughter, where's the daughter here. Why isn't she acknowledged? He acknowledged his concubines’ children. He acknowledged them.

He's acknowledging the maids before his own daughter. See, something's wrong with that picture because if you're a father and you have a little girl, there should be a bonding relationship of love because it's that little girl that needs to know what kind of a husband based on her relationship she has with her father and with her siblings, her brothers, in order to know the right man and the right relationship of unity and love. So, something's missing here. Where's the relationship that Jacob should have had with Dinah?  

I believe there was none which is why when Shechem saw her, it was the first time that she saw love.