Dimon, dimonah (Hastings' Dictionary)

See Dibon. DINAH (n;-'!)- The daughter of Jacob by Leah (Gn 30-'). The composite and verj- obscure narra- tive of Gn 34 relates how, when Jacob was en- camped at Shechem, after his return from Meso- potamia, she was seduced by Shechem the son of Hamor, a Hivite prince. This outrage was bitterly resented by her lull brothers, Simeon and Levi. Shechem was ready to prove his attachment by marrying the maiden, and offered to pay any marriage price or dowry that might be fixed by hcV family.

I'o this her brothers consented, but only on condition that all the men of Shechem should be circumcised. This being conceded, her brotlicis made it the means of inflicting a barbarous reveii;;c for their sister's dishonour, by killing all the nuti of the place on the third day, when the efiects of the circvimcision made them incapable of self- defence. Both at the time and on his death-bed, their father Jacob (according to J) spoke of this act with indignation and abhorrence (Gn 34'° 49*"').

It was, however, approved by later Jewish fanatics (Jth O''). (l'"or the tribal significance of Dinah and the historical incidents which may underlie the above narrative, see Simeon). R. M. Boyd. DINAITES (N:n. LXX Aeiratoi, Ezr 4»), a people settled in Samaria by Osnappar (i.e. prob- ably Assurbanipal). They joined with the other Samaritans in denouncing the Jews to Artaxerxes.

The Dinaites have been variously identified with the Da-ja-6ni, a tribe of western Armenia, mentioned in inscriptions of Tiglath- pileser I. (Schrader) ; and with the inhabitants of Deinaver, a Median city (Ewald), or of Din-Sharru near Susa (Fried. Delitzsch). On account of the other peoples named in the same verse, the last view seems the most probable. See further Meyer, Judenthum, 39 f. H. A. White.