The Red Tent: a Summary
By: Hannah Billings, Jamie
Bauguess, Tiffany Garland, Rebeccah
Williams, and Ashley Szyjka
Jacob’s Family
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Book 1
Dinah
• Tells us of her mother’s stories
• Was only daughter
• Rachel & Leah
Rachel and Leah’s story
• Head wife
– Zilpah makes a plan
• Miscarriage
• Despair
– Inna
– Bihah
– Becoming a Midwife
Handmaids
• Bilhah was Rachel’s handmaid due to the fact
Rachel wasn’t the one at wedding tent.
• Zilpah was requested by Jacob to add to Leah’s
dowery
Joseph
• Rachel’s only son
• Dinah’s playmate
• Gave Rachel hope
Ruti
• Laban’s last wife
• Treatment
• Miscarriage
Book 2
Chapter 1
•There is a divide between the younger and older
children of Jacob.
•Dinah and Joseph are best friends as children.
•Laban hated Jacob’s success with the flocks
and Jacob hated Laban’s laziness.
•Laban gambles Ruti into slavery.
•Leah goes to Jacob and gets him to help buy
Ruti back.
•Laban and his sons treat Ruti even worse than
before.
Chapter 2
• Jacob begins planning to take his family and leave Laban.
• Jacob’s dreams were calling him back to Canaan. They
showed that his brother, Esau had become successful and
would welcome him.
• The wives all want to go except for Zilpah who does not
want to leave the holy tree, which she believes is the source
of her power.
• Laban’s daughters decide to take his teraphim (sacred
statues) with them to Canaan.
• Jacob negotiates what he will take to Canaan with Laban.
He sways Laban by reminding him that the god of his father
would not look kindly on one who swindled Jacob.
• Dinah finds Ruti dead.
• Rachel and Dinah steal the teraphim from Laban’s tent.
• Laban is gone when they leave. Rachel talks Jacob out of
waiting for him to return.
Chapter 3
• Inna meets Jacob and his family as they are leaving and asks to join
them. Jacob permits it.
• They cross a river, the first one Dinah has ever seen. It mesmerizes her
and Inna tells her she must live by a river someday.
• Laban arrived while the women were in the red tent. He was angry and
was looking for his teraphim.
• After searching everywhere else, Laban goes in to the red tent. Rachel
tells him that she has been sitting on the idols and that they are covered
in her blood and will no longer serve him.
• They come to another river. Everyone crosses but Jacob who is
assualted that night.
• They remained by the river for two months so that Jacob could heal.
• Dinah and Joseph return to the place of their father’s assault and from
then on Joseph begins to have powerful dreams.
Chapter 4
• Eliphaz, Esau’s oldest son comes to tell Jacob that
Esau is coming.
• Esau embraces Jacon and everyone is introduced.
• Dinah becomes best friends with Essau’s daughter,
Tabea.
• Essau and Jacob’s families feast and listen to stories.
• It is realized that Jacob could not return to live near
Essau because he would seem poor in comparison.
• They lived in Succouth for two years.
• Three of Jacob’s sons are married in Succouth. Of the
older sons, only Reuben is not married.
• Rebecca sends a messenger, Werenro, to invite Jacob’s
family to the Barley festival.
Chapter 5
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Dinah’s family arrives at Rebecca’s tent.
Rebecca meets with each of Jacob’s wives.
Tabea arrives with Esau and Adath.
Rebecca banishes Adath and Tabea because
Tabea’s blood was wasted.
• The messenger, Werenro, is murdered.
• Rebecca foresees unhappiness to come in
Dinah’s life.
Chapter 6
• Dinah returns to her family’s camp.
• She continues to wonder about the mystery of men and
women. She watches Judah and Shua make love, spies
on mating dogs, and lets her hands wander upon herself.
• The family moves to a new location and Dinah’s time of
the month finally comes.
• She was brought out to lay in the garden, naked. Rachel
inserted an oiled triangular instrument into Dinah to
break the “lock of the womb.”
• Dinah sees the Egyptian goddess, Taweret, who lives in
the river.
• Jacob learns of the women’s rituals and is infuriated.
Chapter 7
• Dinah travels with Rachel to Shechem to aid with
the birth of one of the king’s concubines.
• Dinah meets Shalem, the firstborn son of the king.
• Not long after they return to camp, the king sends
for Dinah to comfort the woman who had given
birth.
• Dinah goes to the market one with a maid to get
figs for Shalem.
• Shalem appears in the market and takes Dinah
back to the palace. It is revealed that Re-nefer had
it all planned out.
Chapter 7 (cont.)
• They made love for many days, which according
to Shalem, sealed their marriage.
• Jacob didn’t want to agree to the marriage, but
settled on the agreement that if all of the men in
the city get circumcised then he would allow it.
• The night after the men were circumcised, Dinah
woke up, screaming and covered in the blood of
Shalem.
• Dinah’s brothers, Simon and Levi, carried her out
of the palace and killed every man they found
alive in the city.
Chapter 8
• Dinah confronts Jacob about the actions that Simon and
Levi took.
• She curses Jacob and all of his sons, and goes to the city.
• Dinah recounts what happened to her family in the later
years.
• Jacob changes his name to Isra’El, Rachel died giving
birth to Jacob’s last son, Bilhah and Rueben were
disinherited for loving each other, Zilpah died of fever
when Jacob smashed her household gods, and Leah
woke up one day to find herself paralyzed.
Book 3
Chapter 1
• Dinah awakes after the confrontation and is taken to Renefer, who takes Dinah to Egypt.
• Re-nefer’s brother, Nakht-re, takes the two women in
and Dinah gives birth to Re-mose, who is now
considered Re-nefer’s son.
• Re-mose is not circumcised on the eighth day of his
birth and it is decided that he shall be a scribe in the
future.
• Re-mose grows as Dinah is separated from him more
and more—she is little more than his wet nurse.
• At age 9, Re-mose is sent to school and Dinah is left
alone once more.
Chapter 2
• Dinah befriends Meryt the midwife, who gives her a purpose in
Egypt—Dinah takes up midwifery again.
• After accumulating a large amount of trinkets in payment, Dinah and
Meryt venture into the marketplace, where they meet a carpenter
named Benia, whom Dinah develops a mutual attraction for. He
indirectly offers her to be his wife.
• Re-mose returns home after being away for 5 years—circumcised.
• A feast is given in Re-mose’s honor to celebrate his coming of
manhood, complete with musicians.
• Werenro is discovered to be alive—she was left for dead after being
raped and was nursed back to health.
• Dinah tells Werenro of all that had happened and returns to Dinah a
sense of her homeland.
• Re-mose leaves to go to Kush, the same place where Benia lives.
Chapter 3
• Benia arrived while Re-mose was visiting; however, Dinah never
responds to him, thereby gently rejecting his offer of marriage.
• A man turns on Dinah for not saving his wife and child and she is
branded as a foreign sorceress—no one calls upon her and Meryt
anymore to midwife their births, leaving them without a purpose.
• Re-nefer dies, leaving Dinah with no one to take care of her. Meryt, at
the same time, accepts an offer to live with Menna, her oldest son.
• Dinah goes to live with Meryt and her family, the same city where
Benia lives.
• Dinah and Meryt quickly return to midwifery in the city.
• Benia also shows up at the house, asking Dinah to marry him once
again. She accepts and moves in with him. Dinah’s life is complete.
Chapter 4
• Re-mose goes to Dinah
• Dinah helps deliver Zafenat Paneh-ah’s baby
• She finds out Zafenat Paneh-ah is really her
brother Joeseph
• Joeseph find out that the midwife who delivered
his baby is his sister Dinah
• Re-mose figures out that Joseph killed his father
and threatens to kill him
• Dinah pleads for Joseph to release her son
• Re-mose is freed
Chapter 5
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Dinah returns home
Meryt dies
Dinah dreams of all her mothers
Joseph comes to Dinah
Dinah and Benia go with Joseph
Jacob dies
Judah gives Dinah Rachel’s lapis ring
Joseph and Dinah say goodbye
Dinah stops attending births
Dinah dies