“And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob’s daughter; which thing ought not to be done.”
Now Jacob's sons had come in from the fields as soon as they heard what had happened. They were shocked and furious, because Shechem had done an outrageous thing in Israel by sleeping with Jacob's daughter — a thing that should not be done. The sons' anger is righteous — the Hebrew phrase a thing that should not be done is the strongest negative moral assessment in the Old Testament (Judges 19:30 uses the same phrase for the Gibeah atrocity). The application: the anger of Jacob's sons at the violation of Dinah is morally appropriate. The problem is not the anger but the method of its expression.
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