Genesis 49:5-6 KJV
Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.
O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.
Jacob's prophecies over his sons include Simeon and Levi being bound together as the ones who had attacked Shechem in retaliation for its defiling their sister Dinah. Jacob pronounces that no honor will go to them and that they will be scattered in Israel. My interest is in Levi who, despite this prophecy, was separated by God as the priestly tribe, rather than requiring the first born of every family God took the tribe of Levi as a whole.
On the one hand I see the grace of God that one who had received such a pronouncement of doom and one who had practiced such cruelty would be set aside as God's in this way. But then, even in the blessing of being set aside, there is a fulfillment of Jacob's prophecy. They indeed were scattered throughout Israel, possessing no piece of the Promised Land as their own.
And their cruel nature is evidenced all the way through to the cross where it was Levi, the tribe of priests, who led in the mob's insistence that Christ be crucified.
Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.
O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.
Jacob's prophecies over his sons include Simeon and Levi being bound together as the ones who had attacked Shechem in retaliation for its defiling their sister Dinah. Jacob pronounces that no honor will go to them and that they will be scattered in Israel. My interest is in Levi who, despite this prophecy, was separated by God as the priestly tribe, rather than requiring the first born of every family God took the tribe of Levi as a whole.
On the one hand I see the grace of God that one who had received such a pronouncement of doom and one who had practiced such cruelty would be set aside as God's in this way. But then, even in the blessing of being set aside, there is a fulfillment of Jacob's prophecy. They indeed were scattered throughout Israel, possessing no piece of the Promised Land as their own.
And their cruel nature is evidenced all the way through to the cross where it was Levi, the tribe of priests, who led in the mob's insistence that Christ be crucified.
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