The 'Blessing' of Simeon & Levi - Genesis 49:5-7
Good morning! I invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Genesis 49. Last time we were together, which was a couple weeks ago, we began looking at this interesting chapter. This portion of Scripture, you may remember, contains Jacob’s last words to his sons. He is about to pass on from this life and he offers his Last will and testament, so to speak. His son’s gather together expecting that he will pass on his blessing to them.
If you were here last time, you know that Reuben didn’t quite get the blessing that he may have been expecting. The firstborn, instead of getting all the fanfare and favor of his father, as was the custom of the day, he got a ear full. His was more of a curse than a blessing. And we saw how that played out in the course of redemptive history.
This morning we are going to read about the next two brothers, Simeon and Levi. These were the second and third sons of Jacob. And, just to set the scene, you can think about what may be going through their minds. They hear all the words that came to Reuben, and they hear every humiliating detail. You kind of wonder what’s going through their mind.
Maybe they are thinking that, “Hey, with Reuben out of the way, maybe we get the blessing! Or maybe they are thinking, “Ut oh. Dad’s in a foul mood.”
Well, what does he say? Let’s turn to Genesis 49:5-7 and find out.
"Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. 6 Let my soul come not into their council; O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen. 7 Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel."
I’m going to guess that these probably were not the words that they were hoping to hear.
Just as Jacob had pulled out Reuben’s dirty laundry, Simeon and Levi have their past sins come back to haunt them.
This passage talks about Simeon & Levi’s anger. Jacob is referring back to the episode found in Genesis 34. The two boys had a sister named Dinah who went out into the city and started hanging around the wrong crowd. She ended up meeting a Canaanite boy by the name of Shechem who took advantage of her. He either seduced her or took her by force and raped her - the text is a little ambiguous on the point. But either way you look at it, he did not do anything lawful.
But what is of concern is that the two brothers, Simeon and Levi, took action. There are a number of details to the story, but the sum and substance of it is that they got angry. And in their anger they not only killed Shechem, but they laid siege to the entire city. They sought to wipe out everyone and everything that had anything to do with Shechem.
Needless to say, that’s not the way things were supposed to go.
And here in this passage Jacob let’s these boys know that this was a sinister thing that they did. Jacob calls them out and let’s them know that their anger was out of line. You may say that Jacob gives some anger management in the truest sense of the term.
And this morning we are going to thus dwell on the topic of anger, once again. And we are going to see how it is denounced, described, deterred, directed, and destroyed.
I. ANGER IS DENOUNCED
We are going to talk a lot about the anger of Levi and Simeon, but I think we need to begin by recognizing the fact that their father does not tolerate their actions in the least. Jacob’s issues a strong condemnation upon these boys and their sinful behavior. And you see how strong it is in a couple of different ways.
The thing that perhaps stands out the most is there in verse 7. He says, “Cursed be their anger.” Then he goes on to pronounce what that curse will consist of. They will be divided and scattered. We’ll talk about that more in a few minutes, but you’ll notice that he doesn’t overlook it or simply write it off by saying, “Boys will be boys.”
Neither does he act like he’s oblivious to it. Jame Boice, in his commentary on Genesis, says that there are a lot of parents in our world - even so called Christian parents - who are overly indulgent with their kids and don’t take the appropriate actions to recognize the wrongs their kids do.
Just think of the TV newscasts where you hear about parents who live in utter denial that their sweet little boy could ever have murdered that person or they will not in any way call the cops of their drug dealing king.
But Jacob doesn’t do that. There’s no silence on Jacob’s part when it comes to what they had done. Jacob takes it to his boys and lets them have.
And we remember here that Jacob is speaking on behalf of God. So Jacob’s denunciation is a reminder to us of God’s attitude towards sinful anger. He does not tolerate it. It is a sin against him and it is condemned by him. Our misdirected anger provokes God’s righteous anger.
Their anger is not just denounced, but it is also described.
II. ANGER IS DESCRIBED –
In this passage we can learn a number of things about anger. It really gives us something of an anatomy of anger. And I want to take a second to talk about this.
It is wrong because it is reckless. Now, again, it is important to understand that Simeon and Levi’s initial response is legit. They had every right to be angry with Shechem. What he did to their sister was wrong. It was terribly wrong. But you’ll notice that our passage here shows us that their righteous anger was expressed in a sinful way.
This is where I think it is wise to think about the word that is used here for ‘wrath.’ Literally it means “to flow” or “to overflow.” And that’s what sinful anger really is, it is an overflow. It is when anger is unchecked and overflows. It pours out beyond the rightful limitations. It runs over the boundaries that God has laid out and runs into sin.
Ephesians 4 - “In your anger, do not sin.” You may not let your anger get the best of you. You must keep your anger under restraint and express it in the proper way.
But not only was their wrath reckless, it was vengeful.
It was wrong because it was vengeful. You all know what revenge is, right? It isn’t just getting justice, it is getting even. It is personal retaliation for wrongs inflicted. Rather than letting the proper authorities deal with it or pursuing the channels that God has set forth, you deal with it like a vigilante.
That’s what these guys had done. They took matters into their own hands and attacked the Shechemites. And Jacob points this out in verse 5 when he says, “Weapons of violence are their swords.”
The device that was supposed to be used for defense was employed to attack. That is raw revenge. It is downright devilish. But we know that revenge is not just wielding a weapon. It can come in many other forms. It can be a silent treatment. It can be a sneer or a cross look. It can be verbal, taking the form of gossip or some kind of slander.
Whatever the particular mode of expression, it is not the patience, control, and willingness to utilize the proper channels of dealing with problems. It is that attitude that I’m not going to submit to God or wait on his ordained means of getting things done. I’m going to do it myself. I am going to play the role of God and take the authority upon myself to settle the score.
And that is anger that is out of order. The good anger turned bad when they took matters into their own hands.
But their wrath was not wrong just because it was reckless, vengeful, it was wrong in that it was brutal.
Their anger is wrong because it is brutal. Jacob points this out when he says, “For in their anger they killed men and hamstrung oxen. Cursed be their anger for it is fierce and their wrath, for it is cruel.”
You see, Simeon and Levi didn’t just attack the guy who violated their sister. They took out the entire family. The whole city of Shechem essentially was essentially laid waste and plundered. They were way out of control and their retribution was in no wise proportionate to the offense.
This is one of the vital characteristics of sinful anger. It never acts within the boundaries that it should. It always overflows and ends up hurting others.
So what happens is that your anger overflows and you get mad at your boss, but you come home and kick the dog. You take it out on your kids. You think that not only does this person have to pay, but so does his family and his friends and anyone who would be in league with them.
But it comes down to the fact that it is vastly different from God’s anger. Don’t get me wrong, God’s displeasure can be pretty hot. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God. But God’s anger is never out of sync with the nature of the crime.
And that’s what really makes sinful anger wrong. It is not in sync with God’s means of dealing with wrong or God’s manner of dealing with it.
Well, I’m sure there’s a lot more we could say about Simeon and Levi’s anger. Certainly, when we consider the whole of what Scripture teaches on this vast subject, we have not even begun to describe it in any kind of full detail. But we’re going to move on to the next point and think about how their anger is deterred.
III. ANGER IS DETERRED
And this is where we come to the last line of our reading. Jacob curses his boys and says that they will be “divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel.”
You know what you do with boys who feed off of one another, don’t you? You separate them. You defuse the harm they can do by putting some space between them. And that’s essentially what Jacob is prophetically saying.
When we look at how Israel’s history moves forward, we see that this is exactly what happens to these two tribes. If you look on a map, you’ll see what I’m talking about. You’ll notice that the tribe of Levi does not have any designated portion of land given to them. The tribe of Levi is actually scattered throughout the whole territory of Israel. They are given different cities all throughout the different tribal provinces. So, if you think about the land as a cake, the Levites are sort of sprinkled all over the other territories.
What happens is that they are all separated. The damage that they can inflict is deterred because God keeps them all apart.
The same thing can be said for Simeon’s tribe. Over the course of history Simeon’s tribe is spread out and diluted. Simeon has a very interesting tribal allotment too. The map kind of shows how his tribe takes up space pretty much within the tribe of Judah. What happens is that he doesn’t really have any specific territory with distinct boundaries. It is kind of nebulous. He just has a general area and a few specific cities that really is within the territory of Judah. And what happens is that the tribe of Simeon seems to disappear. Some of the people of the tribe move over to the land of Edom and they basically are lost into the Edomites’ society. The rest of them are basically swallowed up by the tribe of Judah and become assimilated into that tribe. So they really do get divided and scattered.
I like what Bruce Waltke says in his commentary. He says, “By demoting Reuben Jacob saves Israel from reckless leadership. By cursing the cruelty of Simeon & Levi, he restricts their rashness from dominating.”
What happens is that the Lord ends up protecting the rest of the clans. The Lord preserves Israel by keeping them their anger in check.
So really, this curse has a redemptive aspect to it. By keeping them apart, the Lord preserves His people and allows them to live on.
You can further see that this deterrent that God applies is a grace to them. And it shows us how our anger may be deterred.
The Levites, you may remember, became the tribe of teachers and priests. They were the religious leaders. And Scripture tells us that their portion, instead of being a portion of land, their portion was God. They did not have an allotment of real estate because God was supposed to be their ultimate possession.
In this same way, we find restoration from our anger. When we realize that the Lord is ultimately our greatest possession, and everything we need is found in Him, there is little reason for us to become angry about anything. There's not one thing that can be done to us or taken from us that is of ultimate significance. God is everything we need, and it doesn't matter what anyone else may do.
What happens to Simeon is instructive too. Do you know how to deal with anger? It is by remembering that you have a new identity. Simeon's tribe was absorbed into the tribe of Judah, which was the Messianic tribe. They were, so to speak, in Christ. Their identity was not sinful Simeon, but rather they were clothed in Christ.
That's what we are to do. That's one of the keys to breaking free from the anger that resides in you. It is to see yourself as being "in Christ" and possessing the holiness of Christ. You're identity is with the One who is meek and mild, who will not bruise a broken reed. You've been clothed with the righteousness of Jesus, and your life is now to be conformed to that new identity.
IV. ANGER IS DIRECTED -
Now, I understand that anger is a universal problem. We all have anger issues. We all need to have this monster curtailed by God’s grace. But some of us have a greater disposition towards anger. As I think is expressed here, Simeon and Levi had a particular inclination towards evil. That’s why htey had to be scattered and divided. But we would be remiss if we did not see how their anger was used by God.
Later on in history, Levi’s anger will be redeemed to some degree. It was the Levites who sided with Moses at Mount Sinai. You remember that the levites took up their swords at Moses’ command and went and slew those who were worshipping the golden calf. Their anger was righteous and they expressed their anger in the way God wanted to at that time - in a divinely sanctioned holy war, so to speak.
Phineas is another example, if you know that story. He used his sword in a righteous way.
But it isn’t all good. You remember that it was the religious leaders who would be most culpable in putting Christ to death. The Sadducees were the priestly class; they were the direct descendents of Levi.
But we remember that, even as Dave spoke of last week, Peter recognize God’s hand in this. “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”
God was able to use the anger of these men to accomplish his great purpose. And their evil eventually would bring about God’s greater work in history.
V. ANGER IS DEFEATED
Last time we were together we looked at the map which laid out Ezekiel’s vision of the future kingdom. It is useful again here in regards to these two tribes. In it we see that Simeon once again has a place. Though his tribe was essentially lost, He is given an allotment in the future world. It signifies that all people who are disposed to being angry can find forgiveness with the Lord. It’s a testimony that God’s grace is greater than even the most murderous of people. God holds out to you the promise of forgiveness and life if you would simply turn to him and receive it.
What’s more notable is that the tribe of Levi is right there in the center. Even all through Scripture we hear that the Levites could not have a portion of land because God was their portion. Here we see it in even more vivid portrayal. The very city of God, which is much larger than a city - btw (that’s part of why I’d say that this is more of a vision to be taken symbolically). This city is where God dwells. And this is where the Levites dwell. Right there in perfect communion with God.
This vision is a reminder that the Lord will one day cleanse his people from all anger. He will do away with those sinful passions and purge us from that overflow of evil that now possesses us. We will live the Lord and there will be nothing but perfect harmony for the rest of eternity.
Thanks be to God, that His grace and mercy will have the victory!
If you were here last time, you know that Reuben didn’t quite get the blessing that he may have been expecting. The firstborn, instead of getting all the fanfare and favor of his father, as was the custom of the day, he got a ear full. His was more of a curse than a blessing. And we saw how that played out in the course of redemptive history.
This morning we are going to read about the next two brothers, Simeon and Levi. These were the second and third sons of Jacob. And, just to set the scene, you can think about what may be going through their minds. They hear all the words that came to Reuben, and they hear every humiliating detail. You kind of wonder what’s going through their mind.
Maybe they are thinking that, “Hey, with Reuben out of the way, maybe we get the blessing! Or maybe they are thinking, “Ut oh. Dad’s in a foul mood.”
Well, what does he say? Let’s turn to Genesis 49:5-7 and find out.
"Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. 6 Let my soul come not into their council; O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen. 7 Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel."
I’m going to guess that these probably were not the words that they were hoping to hear.
Just as Jacob had pulled out Reuben’s dirty laundry, Simeon and Levi have their past sins come back to haunt them.
This passage talks about Simeon & Levi’s anger. Jacob is referring back to the episode found in Genesis 34. The two boys had a sister named Dinah who went out into the city and started hanging around the wrong crowd. She ended up meeting a Canaanite boy by the name of Shechem who took advantage of her. He either seduced her or took her by force and raped her - the text is a little ambiguous on the point. But either way you look at it, he did not do anything lawful.
But what is of concern is that the two brothers, Simeon and Levi, took action. There are a number of details to the story, but the sum and substance of it is that they got angry. And in their anger they not only killed Shechem, but they laid siege to the entire city. They sought to wipe out everyone and everything that had anything to do with Shechem.
Needless to say, that’s not the way things were supposed to go.
And here in this passage Jacob let’s these boys know that this was a sinister thing that they did. Jacob calls them out and let’s them know that their anger was out of line. You may say that Jacob gives some anger management in the truest sense of the term.
And this morning we are going to thus dwell on the topic of anger, once again. And we are going to see how it is denounced, described, deterred, directed, and destroyed.
I. ANGER IS DENOUNCED
We are going to talk a lot about the anger of Levi and Simeon, but I think we need to begin by recognizing the fact that their father does not tolerate their actions in the least. Jacob’s issues a strong condemnation upon these boys and their sinful behavior. And you see how strong it is in a couple of different ways.
The thing that perhaps stands out the most is there in verse 7. He says, “Cursed be their anger.” Then he goes on to pronounce what that curse will consist of. They will be divided and scattered. We’ll talk about that more in a few minutes, but you’ll notice that he doesn’t overlook it or simply write it off by saying, “Boys will be boys.”
Neither does he act like he’s oblivious to it. Jame Boice, in his commentary on Genesis, says that there are a lot of parents in our world - even so called Christian parents - who are overly indulgent with their kids and don’t take the appropriate actions to recognize the wrongs their kids do.
Just think of the TV newscasts where you hear about parents who live in utter denial that their sweet little boy could ever have murdered that person or they will not in any way call the cops of their drug dealing king.
But Jacob doesn’t do that. There’s no silence on Jacob’s part when it comes to what they had done. Jacob takes it to his boys and lets them have.
And we remember here that Jacob is speaking on behalf of God. So Jacob’s denunciation is a reminder to us of God’s attitude towards sinful anger. He does not tolerate it. It is a sin against him and it is condemned by him. Our misdirected anger provokes God’s righteous anger.
Their anger is not just denounced, but it is also described.
II. ANGER IS DESCRIBED –
In this passage we can learn a number of things about anger. It really gives us something of an anatomy of anger. And I want to take a second to talk about this.
It is wrong because it is reckless. Now, again, it is important to understand that Simeon and Levi’s initial response is legit. They had every right to be angry with Shechem. What he did to their sister was wrong. It was terribly wrong. But you’ll notice that our passage here shows us that their righteous anger was expressed in a sinful way.
This is where I think it is wise to think about the word that is used here for ‘wrath.’ Literally it means “to flow” or “to overflow.” And that’s what sinful anger really is, it is an overflow. It is when anger is unchecked and overflows. It pours out beyond the rightful limitations. It runs over the boundaries that God has laid out and runs into sin.
Ephesians 4 - “In your anger, do not sin.” You may not let your anger get the best of you. You must keep your anger under restraint and express it in the proper way.
But not only was their wrath reckless, it was vengeful.
It was wrong because it was vengeful. You all know what revenge is, right? It isn’t just getting justice, it is getting even. It is personal retaliation for wrongs inflicted. Rather than letting the proper authorities deal with it or pursuing the channels that God has set forth, you deal with it like a vigilante.
That’s what these guys had done. They took matters into their own hands and attacked the Shechemites. And Jacob points this out in verse 5 when he says, “Weapons of violence are their swords.”
The device that was supposed to be used for defense was employed to attack. That is raw revenge. It is downright devilish. But we know that revenge is not just wielding a weapon. It can come in many other forms. It can be a silent treatment. It can be a sneer or a cross look. It can be verbal, taking the form of gossip or some kind of slander.
Whatever the particular mode of expression, it is not the patience, control, and willingness to utilize the proper channels of dealing with problems. It is that attitude that I’m not going to submit to God or wait on his ordained means of getting things done. I’m going to do it myself. I am going to play the role of God and take the authority upon myself to settle the score.
And that is anger that is out of order. The good anger turned bad when they took matters into their own hands.
But their wrath was not wrong just because it was reckless, vengeful, it was wrong in that it was brutal.
Their anger is wrong because it is brutal. Jacob points this out when he says, “For in their anger they killed men and hamstrung oxen. Cursed be their anger for it is fierce and their wrath, for it is cruel.”
You see, Simeon and Levi didn’t just attack the guy who violated their sister. They took out the entire family. The whole city of Shechem essentially was essentially laid waste and plundered. They were way out of control and their retribution was in no wise proportionate to the offense.
This is one of the vital characteristics of sinful anger. It never acts within the boundaries that it should. It always overflows and ends up hurting others.
So what happens is that your anger overflows and you get mad at your boss, but you come home and kick the dog. You take it out on your kids. You think that not only does this person have to pay, but so does his family and his friends and anyone who would be in league with them.
But it comes down to the fact that it is vastly different from God’s anger. Don’t get me wrong, God’s displeasure can be pretty hot. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God. But God’s anger is never out of sync with the nature of the crime.
And that’s what really makes sinful anger wrong. It is not in sync with God’s means of dealing with wrong or God’s manner of dealing with it.
Well, I’m sure there’s a lot more we could say about Simeon and Levi’s anger. Certainly, when we consider the whole of what Scripture teaches on this vast subject, we have not even begun to describe it in any kind of full detail. But we’re going to move on to the next point and think about how their anger is deterred.
III. ANGER IS DETERRED
And this is where we come to the last line of our reading. Jacob curses his boys and says that they will be “divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel.”
You know what you do with boys who feed off of one another, don’t you? You separate them. You defuse the harm they can do by putting some space between them. And that’s essentially what Jacob is prophetically saying.
When we look at how Israel’s history moves forward, we see that this is exactly what happens to these two tribes. If you look on a map, you’ll see what I’m talking about. You’ll notice that the tribe of Levi does not have any designated portion of land given to them. The tribe of Levi is actually scattered throughout the whole territory of Israel. They are given different cities all throughout the different tribal provinces. So, if you think about the land as a cake, the Levites are sort of sprinkled all over the other territories.
What happens is that they are all separated. The damage that they can inflict is deterred because God keeps them all apart.
The same thing can be said for Simeon’s tribe. Over the course of history Simeon’s tribe is spread out and diluted. Simeon has a very interesting tribal allotment too. The map kind of shows how his tribe takes up space pretty much within the tribe of Judah. What happens is that he doesn’t really have any specific territory with distinct boundaries. It is kind of nebulous. He just has a general area and a few specific cities that really is within the territory of Judah. And what happens is that the tribe of Simeon seems to disappear. Some of the people of the tribe move over to the land of Edom and they basically are lost into the Edomites’ society. The rest of them are basically swallowed up by the tribe of Judah and become assimilated into that tribe. So they really do get divided and scattered.
I like what Bruce Waltke says in his commentary. He says, “By demoting Reuben Jacob saves Israel from reckless leadership. By cursing the cruelty of Simeon & Levi, he restricts their rashness from dominating.”
What happens is that the Lord ends up protecting the rest of the clans. The Lord preserves Israel by keeping them their anger in check.
So really, this curse has a redemptive aspect to it. By keeping them apart, the Lord preserves His people and allows them to live on.
You can further see that this deterrent that God applies is a grace to them. And it shows us how our anger may be deterred.
The Levites, you may remember, became the tribe of teachers and priests. They were the religious leaders. And Scripture tells us that their portion, instead of being a portion of land, their portion was God. They did not have an allotment of real estate because God was supposed to be their ultimate possession.
In this same way, we find restoration from our anger. When we realize that the Lord is ultimately our greatest possession, and everything we need is found in Him, there is little reason for us to become angry about anything. There's not one thing that can be done to us or taken from us that is of ultimate significance. God is everything we need, and it doesn't matter what anyone else may do.
What happens to Simeon is instructive too. Do you know how to deal with anger? It is by remembering that you have a new identity. Simeon's tribe was absorbed into the tribe of Judah, which was the Messianic tribe. They were, so to speak, in Christ. Their identity was not sinful Simeon, but rather they were clothed in Christ.
That's what we are to do. That's one of the keys to breaking free from the anger that resides in you. It is to see yourself as being "in Christ" and possessing the holiness of Christ. You're identity is with the One who is meek and mild, who will not bruise a broken reed. You've been clothed with the righteousness of Jesus, and your life is now to be conformed to that new identity.
IV. ANGER IS DIRECTED -
Now, I understand that anger is a universal problem. We all have anger issues. We all need to have this monster curtailed by God’s grace. But some of us have a greater disposition towards anger. As I think is expressed here, Simeon and Levi had a particular inclination towards evil. That’s why htey had to be scattered and divided. But we would be remiss if we did not see how their anger was used by God.
Later on in history, Levi’s anger will be redeemed to some degree. It was the Levites who sided with Moses at Mount Sinai. You remember that the levites took up their swords at Moses’ command and went and slew those who were worshipping the golden calf. Their anger was righteous and they expressed their anger in the way God wanted to at that time - in a divinely sanctioned holy war, so to speak.
Phineas is another example, if you know that story. He used his sword in a righteous way.
But it isn’t all good. You remember that it was the religious leaders who would be most culpable in putting Christ to death. The Sadducees were the priestly class; they were the direct descendents of Levi.
But we remember that, even as Dave spoke of last week, Peter recognize God’s hand in this. “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”
God was able to use the anger of these men to accomplish his great purpose. And their evil eventually would bring about God’s greater work in history.
V. ANGER IS DEFEATED
Last time we were together we looked at the map which laid out Ezekiel’s vision of the future kingdom. It is useful again here in regards to these two tribes. In it we see that Simeon once again has a place. Though his tribe was essentially lost, He is given an allotment in the future world. It signifies that all people who are disposed to being angry can find forgiveness with the Lord. It’s a testimony that God’s grace is greater than even the most murderous of people. God holds out to you the promise of forgiveness and life if you would simply turn to him and receive it.
What’s more notable is that the tribe of Levi is right there in the center. Even all through Scripture we hear that the Levites could not have a portion of land because God was their portion. Here we see it in even more vivid portrayal. The very city of God, which is much larger than a city - btw (that’s part of why I’d say that this is more of a vision to be taken symbolically). This city is where God dwells. And this is where the Levites dwell. Right there in perfect communion with God.
This vision is a reminder that the Lord will one day cleanse his people from all anger. He will do away with those sinful passions and purge us from that overflow of evil that now possesses us. We will live the Lord and there will be nothing but perfect harmony for the rest of eternity.
Thanks be to God, that His grace and mercy will have the victory!