case of Rebekah, it belonged to the brother to conduct the negotiations for the marriage. We are left to con- jecture why Reuben, as the first-born, was not foremost in the work, but the sin of which he was afterwards guilty makes it possible that his zeal for his sister's purity was not so sensitive as theirs. The same ex- planation may perhaps apply to the non-appearance of Judah in the history. Simeon and Levi, as the next in succession to the first-born, take the task upon them- selves. Though not named in the Hebrew text of the O. T. till xxxiv, 25, there can be little doubt that they were "the sons of Jacob" who heard from their father the wrong over which he had brooded in silence, and who planned tlieir revenge accordingly. The Sept. does introduce their names in ver. 14. The history tliat fol- lows is that of a cowardly and repulsive crime. The two brothers exhibit, in its broadest contrasts, that union of the noble and the base, of characteristics above and be- low the level of the heathen tribes around them, ;vhich marks much of the history of Israel. They have learned to loathe and sconi the impurity in the midst of which they lived, to regartl themselves as a peculiar people, to glory in the sign of the covenant. They have learned only too well from Jacob an<l from Laban the lessons of treachery and falsehood. Tliey lie to the men of She- chem as the Druses and the Maronites lie to each other in the prosecution of their blood-feuds. For the offence of one man they destroj^ and plunder a whole city. They cover their murderous schemes with fair words and professions of friendship. They make the very token of their religion the instrument of their perfidy and revenge. (Josephus [A7it. 1. c] characteristically glosses over all that connects the attack with the cir- cumcision of the Shechemitcs. and rejjresents it as made in a time of feasting and rejoicing.) Their father, timid and anxious as ever, utters a feeble lamentation (Blunt, Script. Coincidences, pt. i, § 8), " Ye have made me a stench among the inhabitants of the land ... I being few in number, they shall gather themselves against me." With a zeal that, though mixed with baser ele- ments, foreshadows the zeal of Phinehas, they glory in their deed, and meet all remonstrance with the question, •' Should he deal with our sister as with a harlot?" Of other facts in the life of Levi, there are none in which he takes, as in this, a prominent and distinct part. He shares in the hatred which bis brothers bear to Joseph, and joins in the plots against him (Gen. xxxvii, 4). Reuben and Judah interfere severally to prevent the consummation of the crime (Gen. xxxvii, 21, 26). Sim- eon appears, as being made afterwards the subject of a sharper discipline than the others, to have been fore- most— as his position among the sons of Leah made it likely that he woidd 1« — in this attack on the favored son of Rachel ; and it is at least probable that in this, as in their former guilt, Simeon and Levi were brethren. The rivalry of the mothers was perpetuated in the jeal- ousies of their children ; and the two who had shown themselves so keenly sensitive when their sister had been wronged, make themselves the instruments and accomplices of tlie hatred which originated, we are told, with the baser-born sons of the concubines (Gen. xxxvii, 2). Then comes for him, as for the others, the disci- pline of suffering and danger, tlie special education by which the brother whom they had wronged leads them back to fiiithfulness and natural affection. The deten- tion of Simeon in Egypt may have been designed at once to be the punishment for the large share which he had taken in the common crime, and to separate the two brothers who had hitherto been such close compan- ions in evil. The discipline did its work. Those who had been relentless to Joseph became self-sacrificing for Benjamin.
After this we trace Levi as joining in the migration of the tribe that owned Jacob as its patriarcli. He, with his three sons, Gershon, Kohath, IMerari, went dowi into Egypt (Gen. xlvi, 11). As one of the four eldest sons we may think of him as among the five (Gen. xlvii, 2)
LEVIATHAN"
388
LEVIATHAN
that were specially presented before Pharaoh. (The 1 Jewish tradition [^Tarrj. Psmdojvn.'] states the five to | liave been Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali. (iad, and Asher.) \ Then comes the last scene in -wliich his name appears. When his father's death draws near, and the sons are gathered round him, he hears the old crime brought up again to receive its sentence from the lips that are no longer feeble and hesitating. They, no less than the incestuous first-born, had fori'eited the privileges of their birthright. ''In tlieir anger they slew men, and in their wantonness they maimed oxen" (marg. reading of the A. Y. ; Sept. ii'tupoKoTTj/ffav rafipoi'). Therefore the sen- tence on those who had been united for evil was, that they were to be "divided in Jacob and scattered in Is- rael." How that condemnation was at once fidfilled and turned into a benediction, how the zeal of the patriarch reappeared purified and strengthened in his descend- ants, how the very name came to have a new signifi- cance, will be foiuid elsewhere. See Levite.