Genesis 49:5

Jacob’s words point back to Genesis 34. Shechem, the son of Hamor, defiled Jacob’s daughter Dinah, and her brothers answered with deceit. They told the men of Shechem that the two families could intermarry if every male among them were circumcised. While the men were still recovering and unable to defend themselves, Simeon and Levi came upon the city and killed every male in it (Genesis 34:25). The brothers plundered the city and carried off its women and children. They had made circumcision, the sign of God’s covenant, into a trap.

Jacob rebuked them at the time. He told them they had made him a stench to the people of the land and had put the whole household in danger (Genesis 34:30), in a country where a family’s name and its alliances were what kept it alive. Now, decades later and on his deathbed, he comes back to that day. Among the patriarchs a father’s dying words carried great weight and were received as binding words about the future of his descendants, so this rebuke reaches past the two men to the tribes that would come from them.

These verses belong to Jacob’s last words to his twelve sons (Genesis 49). What he says is prophecy, and it shapes the character, the destiny and the land of each tribe in the nation to come. Just before this, Jacob rebukes Reuben, his firstborn, for defiling his father’s bed (Genesis 49:3–4). Just after it, he gives Judah a long blessing that looks ahead to the kingdom of David and to the Messiah (Genesis 49:8–12). So the three eldest sons each lose standing because of grave sin, and the line of promise goes forward through Judah, the fourth. Set beside the blessings on Judah and Joseph, the words for Simeon and Levi stand out for their severity.

“Simeon and Levi are brethren” speaks of their likeness as well as their birth. The word for brother, ʼâch, is a primitive word used in the widest sense, for blood relation and also for likeness. Jacob is saying that the two are alike in temper and were partners in one deed, and the rest of the verse tells us what that deed was.

“Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations” is the charge itself. The word for instruments, kᵉlîy, means anything prepared for use, an implement, a vessel or a weapon, and here it means the tools of violence. The word for cruelty, châmâç, means violence and wrong, and it can also mean unjust gain. It is a heavy word for oppressive and unrighteous acts, and Jacob uses it to condemn what they did at Shechem. His language joins the men and their weapons, as if their character were itself a weapon ready for use.

The word behind “habitations”, mᵉkêrâh, is a rare one. The KJV takes it as their dwelling places, and the lexicon connects it with stabbing and gives its sense as “a sword”. On that sense Jacob is speaking of their swords as instruments of cruelty. Heard both ways at once, the line says that weapons of violence marked their homes and their lives, and in the end the name of their tribes.

In verse 6 Jacob speaks to himself. “O my soul” uses nephesh, a breathing creature, and so a life, a self or a person. Here it is Jacob’s own inner being. He tells it, “come not thou into their secret”. The word for secret, çôwd, means a company of people in close deliberation, and so their counsel or their private plotting. In the next line he tells his honour to keep apart from their assembly. The word for honour, kâbôwd, means glory, honour and splendour, and here it is Jacob’s good name and his standing before God and before people. The assembly, qâhâl, is their company, and “be not thou united” uses yâchad, to be one or to join.

The two lines say the same thing twice, and Jacob addresses his soul and his honour as if they were persons he could command. Both show how deeply he feels the matter. He wants no share in what his sons planned or in the company that carried it out, even though they are his own sons. The father in Proverbs gives his son the same counsel, warning him to refuse when sinners entice him (Proverbs 1:10), and David, pleading his integrity, speaks of keeping apart from the gatherings of evildoers (Psalm 26:4–5). Paul carries the call into the church: “come out from among them, and be ye separate” (2 Corinthians 6:17).

“Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce” opens verse 7 with ʼârar, a strong word meaning to curse bitterly. The anger here is the same word, ʼaph, that drove the killing in verse 6. Jacob calls it fierce, ʻaz, which means strong, vehement and harsh. The second line adds their wrath, ʻebrâh, which means an outburst of passion, rage that overflows. He calls it cruel, qâshâh, a verb whose root sense is to be dense or tough, and so hard and severe. The English word “cruel” here echoes “cruelty” in verse 5, though the Hebrew words differ. Set side by side, the two lines describe anger that burned hot and acted with a hard, merciless heart.

The sentence that follows is the consequence of their anger. “I will divide them” uses châlaq, to apportion or separate, a word the lexicon links with smooth stones used for casting lots. “Scatter” is pûwts, to dash in pieces, and especially to disperse. Jacob, Yaʻăqôb, and Israel, Yisrâʼêl, are his own two names, and here they stand for the nation that will come from him. Simeon and Levi would have no single, united territory as the other tribes would. Their descendants would be spread out among their brothers, and the scattering would keep them from becoming a power that could threaten the peace of the nation again.

These verses show the ruin that human sin and unchecked violence bring, and so they show our need of a perfect Redeemer. Simeon and Levi took up the sword in their own vengeance. Jesus said that his kingdom is of another world, and he would have no servants fight for him (John 18:36). When he suffered he threatened no one and committed himself to the Father who judges righteously (1 Peter 2:23), and he humbled himself and became obedient to death on the cross (Philippians 2:8). In him is the clean soul and the true honour Jacob longed to keep untouched.

Jacob cursed his sons’ anger, and Christ became a curse for us, redeeming us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13). God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). Levi’s long road from a curse to the priesthood points ahead to Christ’s high priestly work. He is a priest by the power of an indestructible life, who offered himself once for all (Hebrews 7:23–27), our great High Priest who sympathises with our weakness (Hebrews 4:14–16), and by his one offering he has perfected for ever those who are sanctified (Hebrews 10:10–14).

Simeon and Levi were scattered among the tribes. Christ gathers people of every tribe and nation into one new humanity, making peace through his cross (Ephesians 2:14–16), and the redeemed from every kindred and tongue praise him for it (Revelation 5:9–10). Those who belong to him walk by his Spirit, who opposes the self-will of the flesh (Galatians 5:16–17).

This passage gives us a sober picture of what anger and self-will can do. Simeon and Levi acted in one afternoon, and their deed shaped their tribes for generations and brought danger and shame on the family they claimed to defend. Jacob’s refusal to join their counsel, even though they were his sons, shows that a person’s soul and honour are worth guarding from wicked company.

The passage also shows who God is. He takes cruelty seriously and lets its consequences stand. Yet the same sentence that left Simeon to fade turned Levi into a tribe of priests living in every corner of the land. The God who judged their fierce anger could redirect their zeal to his own service, and in Christ he has borne the curse himself, so that a life marked by past failure can still become a life given to him.