and my house.” The testimony of the Word. Now the mercy of God prevented this near tragedy from falling upon the house of Jacob. This crime had been committed several years before the time of the study which we are now considering, but Jacob seemed not to have survived the shocks and now on his deathbed he seeks to assure all that he had never approved of the action of Simeon and Levi. He put the responsi bility for the death of those people where it belonged *— upon the should ers of the two sons Simeon and Levi, thereby vindicating his name and the names of the remaining members of his family. The expression “ is an instrument of cruelty” concerning Simeon who is represented by the stone called the sapphire, refers to the evil planning to trap or to deceive and destroy. Jacob said “O my soul come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united . . .” It is necessary sometimes for a man to be at variance against his father or a fa ther against a son because of the Gos pel of Jesus Christ. A servant of God must never condone sin because he is a member of the family that might have committed it. This is exactly what brought tragedy to Eli the High Priest of Israel. He failed to correct the sins of his own sons. And within the family of Jesus Christ, within the circle of the church is found, at times, the element of deceitful planning which needs to be suppressed and denounced, things in which the true soul can have neith er part nor parcel, and here Jacob is doing that very thing. It is interesting to note the force of words as we gather the Scripture be fore us. The Word of God says con cerning Simeon and Levi, “for in their anger they slew a man and in their self-will they dug down a wall. Cursed be their anger for it was fierce and their wrath because it was very, very cruel.” Now that’s a terrible thing for a father to say about his^son but it’s true. You see anger can be righteous, and indignation can be justifiable, but (continued on next page) 7
the eye) the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard (there you have the ears) their cry . . You have Reuben. You have Simeon! One means seeing, the other means hearing. Now leam that the Lord is always ready to hear us when we talk to Him, and He desires that we should ever be ready to listen when He speaks to your heart and to mine. It is interesting to realize that al though Simeon is being considered in this particular study and Levi in a later study — yet, here the two char acters cannot be separated because they were one; they were stubborn and self- willed and the reproof of their dying father fell from his lips upon them as one. Jacob said they were brethren, not only because of the same parentage, but because they were the same in spir it and in purpose. Concerning Simeon and Levi the Scripture says that they were instru ments of cruelty in their habitations — Genesis 49:5. The incident to which Jacob referred in this statement is re corded in the 34th chapter of Genesis and can be read for details. It will be sufficient to quote two short extracts to see why Jacob raised the matter at that time. The summary is gotten from the 25th and 26th verses of chapter 34—“And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took each man his sword and he came upon the city boldly, and slew all of the males. And they slew Hamor and Sheehem his son with the edge of the sword, and they took Din ah, out of Shechem’s house and they went out.” Then we shall drop down to the 30th verse of the same chapter to find the reaction of Jacob to this cruelty of his sons: “And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me • to make me stink, (or not to be loved) among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gath er themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I
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