An OUTRAGE — not ordinary wrong but the fixed, heavy term for a disgraceful act that tears the fabric of a people. Shechem's violation of Dinah is 'a nevalah in Israel, a thing that should not be done' (34:7); the same word names the gang-rape that ignites Israel's civil war (Judges 19-20) and Amnon's assault on Tamar ('no such nevalah is done in Israel,' 2 Samuel 13:12), and Achan's sacrilege (Joshua 7:15). It is kin to naval, the 'fool' who says in his heart there is no God (Psalm 14:1) — moral collapse, not mere foolishness. KJV and ASV flatten it to 'folly'; NIV 'disgraceful thing.' The tag 'in Israel' is pointed: the nation, freshly named two chapters back, meets its first atrocity from within its own tents. ⭐ Deuteronomy 22:21 is the one occurrence that breaks the pattern, and the tell is grammatical rather than lexical. Read out of the verses whose consonants it shares with nevelah, a carcass, the noun stands in thirteen verses — and in every one of them but this the outrage is something a man does. Here the verb is asetah, feminine: she did it. The word the Bible uses of Shechem, of the men of Gibeah and of Amnon is turned, once, on a woman. → first discussed at Gen 34:7