The story may be understood to describe an episode in the early struggles of Israel in Canaan after the Exodus. The attachment of Shechem, son of Hamor, to Dinah, daughter of Jacob, will then represent an alliance between a branch of the Israelite family and the city of Shechem ; and the action of Simeon and Levi may be interpreted either as an attempt to seize by force this important city for themselves, or as a blow struck to free the Israelite element in the city from the danger of being swallowed up by the Canaanite majority. Whatever the motive may have been, the tradition is clear that there was treachery and violence on the Israelite side, and that in consequence Simeon and Levi received a repulse from which they never recovered. Simeon became merged in Judah, with undefined possessions on the 8S. frontier (cf. Jos 191-8 with 155-8: 42), though the tribe does not seem to have been so completely shattered as Levi (Jg 1837); while Levi also found shelter in Judah, but for the most part became a homeless wanderer in the territory of the other tribes.
This is the state of things implied in Gn 4957 ‘I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in
* The above follows the earlier narrative, J. In the other account, by some assigned to E (Wellh., Cornill, Holzinger), by others to P (Dillmann, Driver P possibly based on E, Ball P2), Hamor, on behalf of his son, negotiates a general marriage alliance, vv.8-9; the circumcision of all males is stipulated and accepted as the condition, vv. 1417. 20-24a, and all the sons of Jacob wreak their vengeance with wholesale slaughter vv. 27-29 (cf. the later narratives of the conquest of Canaan). Per- haps the vengeance was ascribed to all Israel because of the later feeling about mixed marriages, cf. Nu 2569 317-11 (P), Ezr 91210, If this narrative belongs to E, an editor of the school of P (vv.15b. 22b. 24) has worked over the whole after the com- bination of J and E. See especially on this ch. Kuenen, Th? xiv. 257=Gesammelte Abhandlungen vi.; Wellhausen, Com
| position 312-319; Cornill, ZA7W, 1891, 1-15.
. τ ΒΘ“ α
LEVI
LEVI 10)
Isrzel' The verses express, in the language of viyurous denunciation, the popular verdict upon the offending tribes. It must have taken shape not long after the deed was done; and as the inci- dent of Gn 34 belongs most probably to the early days of the conquest of Canaan, this will agree very well with the date generally accepted for the Blessing of Jacob, the period of the Judges, Samuel, aud David. Neither Simeon nor Levi is mentioned in the Song of Deborah, Jg 5.
Lev and the Priesthood.— The next important evidence for the early history of Levi is furnished by Jg 17 and 18, a most ancient document. Here, for the first time, the Levite isa priest. The follow- ing facts are to be gleaned from these chapters. (1) The Levite comes from Judah, the headquarters of the tribe, Jg 177. Both in these chs. and in 191. 18 the Levites are connected with Judah ; two of them come from Bethlehem 177-%.* We can detect traces of this connexion in the names of some Levitical families, such as Libni, Hebroni, Korhi.t
(2) But if the Levites had found a home in Judah, their dispersion had already begun; the pressure of circumstances was driving them to seek a maintenance where they could find one, Jg 178: 9,
(3) At this period any one might become a priest. Micah could consecrate one of his sons to the priest- hood, 175. But if a Levite could be found, he was much preferred, as being specially qualified for the otlice, Jg 1718 18! The Levite ministered in any private or local sanctuary where his services were paid for, Jg 17421? 18, His special skill lay in consulting and interpreting the sacred oracle (18%), and in conducting the ritual of the ephod, teraphim, and graven or molten image (17° 1818:
(4) Two points about the family of the Levite {or Levites) in this story call for special notice. In 177 it is said that ‘the young man’ was ‘ of the family of Judah’ ; in 18 that the Levite Jonathan was a grandson of Moses. The former of these statements raises a difliculty: how could a Levite be described as belonging to the family of Judah? It has been suggested ὅν ellhausen, Moore) that ‘Levite’ here denotes the office, not the race; the point of importance in early times being not the pedigree but the art of the priest. If this could
established, the difficulty is disposed of. But it is hard to believe that at this early period, which cannot be far removed from the date to which Gn 34 and 4957 belong, the Levites as a tribe had disappeared, and that their name had been given to a priestly caste which was open to the member of any tribe who might care to enter it (see Wellhausen, Proleg.* 146 cerionmiel AHT 268). No satisfactory explanation has been given of the words ‘of the family of Judah’ as they stand. They seem to be omitted by LXX B, and are treated by Kuenen and Kautzsch (Heil. Schr.) as a gloss ; but a scribe would hardly invent such a statement about a Levite. Budde, Richter 116, suggests (after Studer) that the words have been altered out of respect for Moses,t and that the original reading was ‘of the family of Levi,’ or ‘of the family of Moses.’ For want of any better explana- tion, this correction may be provisionally accepted. At the close of the story (18%) it is stated that