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

Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. Simeon and Levi are brethren - i:e., united by similar dispositions as by blood relationship. Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.

Simeon and Levi are brethren; not only by nature, but in iniquity; of like cruel and bloody disposition, confederate in the same wicked design, . So the word brother is elsewhere used, for him that agrees much with another in his temper, or employment, or designs, as , &c. Their bloody swords are yet in their dwellings, to bear witness against them for their barbarous cruelty. But these words may be, and are by some both ancient and later interpreters, rendered otherwise. For the Hebrew word mecheroth, here rendered habitations, is never so used, nor indeed is found elsewhere in Scripture. Nor doth that signification agree with the Hebrew root from whence this comes, which is machar, and signifies to bargain, or sell, or exchange. And accordingly this word is by the Samaritan translator, and by other learned interpreters, rendered, their conventions, or compacts, or civil contracts, or agreements. And, which is more, the Chaldee verb mechar, from whence this word may very well be deduced, signifies to espouse; and the noun mechirah, derived from it, signifies a spouse. And so the words may be rendered thus, their contracts, or agreements, were instruments of cruelty. Which translation seems better than the other, 1. Because it keeps closest to the words of the text, and leaves out that particle in, which is not in the Hebrew text, but was added by our translators to complete the sense. 2. Because this best agrees with the history recorded, , where we read that they did cover their bloody design with a pretence of an agreement and nuptial contract with the Shechemites, which was a great aggravation of their villany, that those things which to others are bonds of love and peace, were made by them instruments of cruelty.

Genesis 49:5 Simeon and Levi [are] brethren; instruments of cruelty [are in] their habitations.Ver. 5. Simeon and Levi are brethren.] Nobile par fratrum not more in nature than in iniquity. Here Moses blancheth not over the blemishes of his progenitors, but wrote as he was inspired by the impartial Spirit of truth. If it could be said of Suetonius, that in writing the lives of the twelve Caesars, he took the same liberty to set down their faults that they took to commit them; how much more truly may this be said of the holy penmen, they spared not themselves, much less their friends. See my "True Treasure," page 21. Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.] Or, Are their swords. Barbarous and brutish peraons they were; skilful to destroy. Such a one was Drusus, the son of Tiberius the Emperor; so set upon bloodshed that the sharpest swords were from him called in Rome, Drusians. The Spaniards are said to try the goodness of their swords upon the bodies of the poor Indians: and they suppose, saith Sir Francis Drake, that they show the wretches great favour, when they do not, for their pleasure, whip them with cords; and day by day drop their naked bodies with burning bacon, which is one of their least cruelties. Horat. Metaphora et latens Antanaclasis. - Piscat. Ea libertate scripsit Imperatorum vitas, qua ipsi vixerunt. Mekerah [ ξλψδ] alii reddunt per Graecam vocem, Machoeroe eorum. Non incommode. - Pareus. ωστερκαιταοξυτατατωνξιφων Dρουσιανααπαυτουκληθηναι. - Dio. The World Encomp., by Sir Fr. Drake, p. 53.

(5) Simeon and Levi are brethren.—That is, they are alike in character and disposition. Despising the feeble Reuben, they seem to have been close friends and allies, and probably tried to exercise a tyrannical authority over their younger brethren, Judah being the only one near them in age. Their habitations.—This translation is universally abandoned, but there is much difference of opinion as to the real meaning of the word. The most probable explanation is that given by Jerome and Rashi, who render it swords. Apparently it is the Greek word machaera, a knife; and as neither the Hebrews nor the Canaanites were metallurgists, such articles·were imported by merchants from Ionia. Long before the days of Jacob, caravans of traders traversed the whole country, and the goods which they brought would carry with them their own foreign names. The sentence, therefore, should be translated, “weapons of violence are their knives.” The other meaning given by some competent critics, namely, compacts, if the word could be formed at all from the supposed root, would mean marriage contracts, and this gives no intelligible sense.

5. Simeon and Levi, brethren: They have accomplished their fraudulent purposes. 6. Into their secret council my soul did not come; In their confederacy my honour was not united: For in their anger they slew a man, (איש ish, a noble,) And in their pleasure they murdered a prince. 7. Cursed was their anger, for it was fierce! And their excessive wrath, for it was inflexible! I will divide them out in Jacob, And I will disperse them in Israel. Verse 5. 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, c.] Our margin has it, Their swords are weapons of violence, i. e., Their swords, which they should have used in defence of their persons or the honourable 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: Συνετελεσαναδικιαεξαιρεσεωςαυτων· They have accomplished the iniquity of their purpose with which the Samaritan Version agrees. In the Samaritan text we read [Samaritan] 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 AEthiopic מכר macar, he counselled, devised stratagems, &c., (see Castel,) or from the Arabic [Arabic] macara, he deceived, practised deceit, plotted, &c., which is nearly of the same import. This gives not only a consistent but evidently the true sense.

5. Simeon and Levi] These two brothers were associated in the massacre of the Shechemites, to which reference is possibly here made in language of indignation. (See ch. Genesis 34:25; Genesis 34:30.) swords] The Hebrew word (m’khκrβh) occurs only here. Its similarity in sound to the Greek μάχαιρα, “a sword,” has suggested the English rendering. If it be rightly derived from a root meaning “to dig,” possibly the traditional rendering denoting “a weapon” is correct. The R.V. marg., compacts, gives another conjecture. Driver (Add. xl.) says the word “must come from karar, prob. to turn round; hence Dillm. suggests a curved knife, or sabre.” The obscurity accounts for the following variant renderings: LXX συνετέλεσανἀδικίανἐξαἱρέσεωςαὐτῶν; Lat. vasa iniquitatis bellantia; Targ. Onkelos, “mighty men in the land they dwelled in, they did a mighty deed”; Spurrell, “weapons of violence are their shepherds’ staves”; Gunkel, “deceit and violence are their pitfalls.”

5. Simeon and Levi are named together, because they were brothers in the twofold sense of being sons of the same mother, and so much alike in disposition and character.