Simeon and Levi brethren: vessels of iniquity, waging war.

“This he says regarding the conspiracy into which they were to enter against the Lord. And that he means this conspiracy, is evident to us. For the blessed David sings, Rulers have taken counsel together against the Lord, and so forth. And of this conspiracy the Spirit prophesied, saying, Let not my soul contend, desiring to draw them off, if possible, so that that future crime might not happen through them. They slew men, and houghed the bull; by the strong bull he means Christ. And they houghed, since, when He was suspended on the tree, they pierced through His sinews. Again, in their anger they houghed a bull. And mark the nicety of the expression: for they slew men, and houghed a bull. For they killed the saints, and they remain dead, awaiting the time of the resurrection. But as a young bull, so to speak, when houghed, sinks down to the ground, such was Christ in submitting voluntarily to the death of the flesh; but He was not overcome of death. But though as man He became one of the dead, He remained alive in the nature of divinity. For Christ is the bull,— an animal, above all, strong and neat and devoted to sacred use. And the Son is Lord of all power, who did no sin, but rather offered Himself for us, a savour of a sweet smell to His God and Father. Therefore let those hear who houghed this august bull: Cursed be their anger, for it was stubborn; and their wrath, for it was hardened. Genesis 49:7 But this people of the Jews dared to boast of houghing the bull: Our hands shed this. For this is nothing different, I think, from the word of folly: His blood (be upon us), and so forth.Matthew 27:25 Moses recalls Deuteronomy 33:8 the curse against Levi, or, rather converts it into a blessing, on account of the subsequent zeal of the tribe, and of Phinehas in particular, in behalf of God. But that against Simeon he did not recall. Wherefore it also was fulfilled in deed. For Simeon did not obtain an inheritance like the other tribes, for he dwelt in the midst of Judah. Yet his tribe was preserved, although it was small in numbers. Since from Simeon sprang the scribes, and from Levi the priests. For the scribes and priests fulfilled iniquity of their own choice, and with one mind they slew the Lord.”

“שמעון ולוי אחים SIMEON AND LEVI WERE BRETHREN in the plot against Shechem and against Joseph. Scripture states, (Genesis 37:19—20) “And they said one to another… (literally, one to his brother) come now therefore and let us slay him” (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 9). Now, who were these? Should you say Reuben or Judah was one of them — but they were not consenting parties to slaying him (cf. Genesis 37:21, Genesis 37:22 and Genesis 37:26). Should you say they were the sons of the handmaids (Dan, Naphtali, Gad or Asher) — their hatred of Joseph was not so perfect a hatred that they would wish to kill him for it is said, (Genesis 37:2) “whilst a lad he used to be with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah etc.” Issachar and Zebulun would certainly not have spoken thus in the presence of their elder brothers. Consequently one must needs say that they were Simeon and Levi whom their father called “brethren” (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 9). כלי חמס INSTRUMENTS OF VIOLENCE (חמס may mean something that has been usurped from another) — This business of murdering is חמס, not rightly theirs; it is part of the blessing conferred upon Esau; it is his business and you have usurped (חמסתם) it from him (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 9). מכרתיהם denotes weapons. In the Greek language the word for a sword is μάχαιρα (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 9). Another interpretation of מכרתיהם is: (taking מכרתיהם as מגרתיהם their sojournings with an interchange of כ and ג) in the land of their sojournings they got into the habit of using weapons of violence, מכרתיהם being of the same root as (Ezekiel 16:3) “Thine habitation (מכרתיך) and thy nativity [is in the land of the Canaanite].” This is how Onkelos renders it.”

“SIMEON AND LEVI ARE BRETHREN. Jacob is saying that they possess the attribute of kinship for their hearts were inflamed concerning their sister., 34:25-26. He is thus stating in their defense that they acted as they did out of their brotherly zeal, thus suggesting [that were it not for this extenuating circumstance], they would have been deserving of great punishment and their sin would have been unforgivable since what they did to the people of Shechem was an act of violence. The correct interpretation appears to me to be that he is saying that Simeon and Levi are real brothers, uniting in fraternity and brotherhood in counsel and deed. Now I have already explained, 34:13. that Jacob was angry with Simeon and Levi for having committed violence when they killed the people of the city of Shechem, for they had not sinned against them at all. They even made a covenant with them and they were circumcised, thus being enabled to return to G-d and become included within the people of the household of Abraham, part of the souls that they had gotten in Haran.” (Rashi, ibid.) Jacob was additionally angry with them lest people say that the matter was done at his suggestion, thus creating a profaning of G-d’s Name, as people will say that the prophet has committed violence and plunder. This is the intent of the verse, Let my soul not come into their council— this is an excuse for he was not in their council when they answered the people of Shechem with subtlety, and he was not united in their assembly when they came upon the people of the city and killed them. It was for this reason that he cursed their anger and wrath. And so did Onkelos translate: “My soul was not in their council when they assembled to strike, etc.” INSTRUMENTS OF VIOLENCE ‘M’CHEIROTHEIHEM.’ According to Onkelos and all commentators, the meaning of the verse is as if it were written: instruments of violence ‘m’garotheihem’ (in their sojournings). This is similar to the verses: Thy sojourning (‘m’chorothayich’) and thy nativity, is as if it were written m’gorothayich. into the land of their sojourn (‘m’churatham’)., 29:14. Thus the commentators said that the meaning of the verse is that they did violence in the land of their sojourn. Now if so, the approximate sense of the verse is as follows: “They had instruments of violence in the land of their sojournings,” it being referred to as “the land of their sojournings” since they lived there afterwards. But in my opinion Jacob is saying that “the instruments of violence are their dwelling places,” i.e., the essence of their lives, even as the expression, the days of my pilgrimage (‘m’gurai’). He is thus saying that the very instruments of violence are their dwelling places for they live and sustain themselves by them. A similar expression is found in the verse: The desert yieldeth them bread for their children. And it is on account of this that their father divided them in Jacob so that they should not unite and scattered them in Israel so that they should not assemble. This was indeed so, for Simeon’s inheritance in the Land was contained in the inheritance of the children of Judah, as it is written, And their inheritance was in the midst of the inheritance of the children of Judah, with the cities of Simeon set apart from one another throughout the entire tribe of Judah. And Levi’s inheritance consisted of the Cities of Refuge, which were scattered through all Israel.”

“These were next in age to Reuben, and they also had been a grief and shame to Jacob, when they treacherously and barbarously destroyed the Shechemites, which he here remembers against them. Children should be afraid of incurring their parents' just displeasure, lest they fare the worse for it long afterwards, and, when they would inherit the blessing, be rejected. Observe, 1. The character of Simeon and Levi: they were brethren in disposition; but, unlike their father, they were passionate and revengeful, fierce and uncontrollable; their swords, which should have been only weapons of defence, were (as the margin reads it, Gen 49:5) weapons of violence, to do wrong to others, not to save themselves from wrong. Note, It is no new thing for the temper of children to differ very much from that of their parents. We need not think this strange: it was so in Jacob's family. It is not in the power of parents, no, not by education, to form the dispositions of their children; Jacob bred his sons to every thing that was mild and quiet, and yet they proved to be thus furious. 2. A proof of this is the murder of the Shechemites, which Jacob deeply resented at the time (Gen 34:30) and still continued to resent. They slew a man, Shechem himself, and many others; and, to effect that, they digged down a wall, broke the houses, to plunder them, and murder the inhabitants. Note, The best governors cannot always restrain those under their charge from committing the worst villanies. And when two in a family are mischievous they commonly make one another so much the worse, and it were wisdom to part them. Simeon and Levi, it is probable, were most active in the wrong done to Joseph, to which some think Jacob has here some reference; for in their anger they would have slain that man. Observe what a mischievous thing self-will is in young people: Simeon and Levi would not be advised by their aged and experienced father; no, they would be governed by their own passion rather than by his prudence. Young people would better consult their own interests if they would less indulge their own will. 3. Jacob's protestation against this barbarous act of theirs: O my soul, come not thou into their secret. Hereby he professes not only his abhorrence of such practices in general, but his innocence particularly in that matter. Perhaps he had been suspected as, under-hand, aiding and abetting; he therefore thus solemnly expresses his detestation of the fact, that he might not die under that suspicion. Note, Our soul is our honour; by its powers and faculties we are distinguished from, and dignified above, the beasts that perish. Note, further, We ought, from our hearts, to detest and abhor all society and confederacy with bloody and mischievous men. We must not be ambitious of coming into their secret, or knowing the depths of Satan. 4. His abhorrence of those brutish lusts that led them to this wickedness: Cursed be their anger. He does not curse their persons, but their lusts. Note, (1.) Anger is the cause and original of a great deal of sin, and exposes us to the curse of God, and his judgment, Mat 5:22. (2.) We ought always, in the expressions of our zeal, carefully to distinguish between the sinner and the sin, so as not to love nor bless the sin for the sake of the person, nor to hate nor curse the person for the sake of the sin. 5. A token of displeasure which he foretels their posterity should lie under for this: I will divide them. The Levites were scattered throughout all the tribes, and Simeon's lot lay not together, and was so strait that many of the tribe were forced to disperse themselves in quest of settlements and subsistence. This curse was afterwards turned into a blessing to the Levites; but the Simeonites, for Zimri's sin (Num 25:14), had it bound on. Note, Shameful dispersions are the just punishment of sinful unions and confederacies.”

“Simeon and Levi are brothers,.... Not because they were so in a natural sense, being brethren both by father and mother's side, for there were others so besides them; but because they were of like tempers, dispositions, and manners (f), bold, wrathful, cruel, revengeful, and deceitful, and joined together in their evil counsels and evil actions, and so are joined together in the evils predicted of them: instruments of cruelty are in their habitations: or vessels, utensils, household goods gotten by violence and rapine, and through the cruel usage of the Shechemites; these were in their dwellings, their houses were full of such mammon of unrighteousness, or spoil; or, as others, "instruments of cruelty" are "their swords" (g); what they should only have used in their own defence, with these they shed the blood of the Shechemites very barbarously, Gen 34:25. Some think the word here used is the Greek word for a sword; and the Jews say (h) that Jacob cursed the swords of Simeon and Levi in the Greek tongue; and others say it is Persic, being used by Xenophon for Persian swords; but neither of them seems probable: rather this word was originally Hebrew, and so passed from thence into other languages; but perhaps the sense of it, which Aben Ezra gives, may be most agreeable, if the first sense is not admitted, that it signifies covenants, compacts, agreements (i), such as these men made with the Shechemites, even nuptial contracts; for the root of the word, in the Chaldee language, signifies to espouse (k); and these they abused to cruelty, bloodshed, and slaughter, in a most deceitful manner: in the Ethiopic language, the word signifies counsels; so De Dieu takes it here. (f) "--------par nobile fratrum Nequitia et nugis pravorum et amore gemellum." Horat. Sermon. l. 2. Satyr. 3. (g) "Machaerae eorum", Montanus, Tigurine version, Schmidt; and so R. Sol. Urbin Ohel Moed, fol. 31. 2. (h) Pirke Eliezer, c. 38. (i) So Castell. Lexic. col. 2058. Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. (k) Chald. & Syr. "despondit", "desponsavit", Schindler. Lex. col. 998.”

“Simeon and Levi are brethren - Not only springing from the same parents, but they have the same kind or disposition, head-strong, deceitful, vindictive, and cruel. They have accomplished, etc. - Our margin has it, Their swords are weapons of violence, i. e., Their swords, which they should have used in defense of their persons or the honorable protection of their families, they have employed in the base and dastardly murder of an innocent people. The Septuagint gives a different turn to this line from our translation, and confirms the translation given above: Συνετελεσαν αδικια εξαιρεσεως αυτων· They have accomplished the iniquity of their purpose; with which the Samaritan Version agrees. In the Samaritan text we read calu, they have accomplished, instead of the Hebrew כלי keley, weapons or instruments, which reading most critics prefer: and as to מכרתיהם mecherotheyhem, translated above their fraudulent purposes, and which our translation on almost no authority renders their habitations, it must either come from the Ethiopic מכר macar, he counselled, devised stratagems, etc., (see Castel), or from the Arabic macara, he deceived, practiced deceit, plotted, etc., which is nearly of the same import. This gives not only a consistent but evidently the true sense.”

“"Simeon and Levi are brethren:" emphatically brethren in the full sense of the word; not merely as having the same parents, but in their modes of thought and action. "Weapons of wickedness are their swords." The ἅπαξ lec. מכרת is rendered by Luther, etc., weapons or swords, from כּוּר = כּרה, to dig, dig through, pierce: not connected with μάχαιρα. L. de Dieu and others follow the Arabic and Aethiopic versions: "plans;" but חמס כּלי, utensils, or instruments, of wickedness, does not accord with this. Such wickedness had the two brothers committed upon the inhabitants of Shechem (Gen 34:25.), that Jacob would have no fellowship with it. "Into their counsel come not, my soul; with their assembly let not my honour unite." סוד, a council, or deliberative consensus. תּחד, imperf. of יחד; כּבודי, like Psa 7:6; Psa 16:9, etc., of the soul as the noblest part of man, the centre of his personality as the image of God. "For in their wrath have they slain men, and in their wantonness houghed oxen." The singular nouns אישׁ and שׁור, in the sense of indefinite generality, are to be regarded as general rather than singular, especially as the plural form of both is rarely met with; of אישׁ, only in Psa 141:4; Pro 8:4, and Isa 53:3; of שׁור־שׁור, only in Hos 12:12. רצון: inclination, here in a bad sense, wantonness. עקּר: νευροκοπεῖν, to sever the houghs (tendons of the hind feet), - a process by which animals were not merely lamed, but rendered useless, since the tendon once severed could never be healed again, whilst as a rule the arteries were not cut so as to cause the animal to bleed to death (cf. Jos 11:6, Jos 11:9; Sa2 8:4). In Gen 34:28 it is merely stated that the cattle of the Shechemites were carried off, not that they were lamed. But the one is so far from excluding the other, that it rather includes it in such a case as this, where the sons of Jacob were more concerned about revenge than booty. Jacob mentions the latter only, because it was this which most strikingly displayed their criminal wantonness. On this reckless revenge Jacob pronounces the curse, "Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I shall divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel." They had joined together to commit this crime, and as a punishment they should be divided or scattered in the nation of Israel, should form no independent or compact tribes. This sentence of the patriarch was so fulfilled when Canaan was conquered, that on the second numbering under Moses, Simeon had become the weakest of all the tribes (Num 26:14); in Moses' blessing (Deut 33) it was entirely passed over; and it received no separate assignment of territory as an inheritance, but merely a number of cities within the limits of Judah (Jos 19:1-9). Its possessions, therefore, became an insignificant appendage to those of Judah, into which they were eventually absorbed, as most of the families of Simeon increased but little (Ch1 4:27); and those which increased the most emigrated in two detachments, and sought out settlements for themselves and pasture for their cattle outside the limits of the promised land (Ch1 4:38-43). Levi also received no separate inheritance in the land, but merely a number of cities to dwell in, scattered throughout the possessions of his brethren (Josh 21:1-40). But the scattering of Levi in Israel was changed into a blessing for the other tribes through its election to the priesthood. Of this transformation of the curse into a blessing, there is not the slightest intimation in Jacob's address; and in this we have a strong proof of its genuineness. After this honourable change had taken place under Moses, it would never have occurred to any one to cast such a reproach upon the forefather of the Levites. How different is the blessing pronounced by Moses upon Levi (Deu 33:8.)! But though Jacob withdrew the rights of primogeniture from Reuben, and pronounced a curse upon the crime of Simeon and Levi, he deprived none of them of their share in the promised inheritance. They were merely put into the background because of their sins, but they were not excluded from the fellowship and call of Israel, and did not lose the blessing of Abraham, so that their father's utterances with regard to them might still be regarded as the bestowal of a blessing (Gen 49:28).”