Genesis 49:5

5 Symeon and Levi, brethren, accomplished the injustice of their cutting off.

Genesis 49:5 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 49:5

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 ^F6, 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" ^F7; what they should only have used in their own defence, with these they shed the blood of the Shechemites very barbarously, ( Genesis 34:25 ) . Some think the word here used is the Greek word for a sword; and the Jews say ^F8 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 ^F9, such as these men made with the Shechemites, even nuptial contracts; for the root of the word, in the Chaldee language, signifies to espouse ^F11; 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

F6 "--------par nobile fratrum Nequitia et nugis pravorum et amore gemellum." Horat. Sermon. l. 2. Satyr. 3.
F7 (Mhytrkm) "Machaerae eorum", Montanus, Tigurine version, Schmidt; and so R. Sol. Urbin Ohel Moed, fol. 31. 2.
F8 Pirke Eliezer, c. 38.
F9 So Castell. Lexic. col. 2058. Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
F11 (rkm) Chald. & Syr. "despondit", "desponsavit", Schindler. Lex. col. 998.

Genesis 49:5 In-Context

3 Ruben, thou my first-born, thou my strength, and the first of my children, hard to be endured, self-willed.

4 Thou wast insolent like water, burst not forth with violence, for thou wentest up to the bed of thy father; then thou defiledst the couch, whereupon thou wentest up.

5 Symeon and Levi, brethren, accomplished the injustice of their cutting off.

6 Let not my soul come into their counsel, and let not mine inward parts contend in their conspiracy, for in their wrath they slew men, and in their passion they houghed a bull.

7 Cursed be their wrath, for it was willful, and their anger, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.