Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/620

 The dispersion of these two tribes must have taken place at a very early period of the national history. As regards Simeon, it is doubtful if it ever existed as a separate geographical unit. P is only able to assign to it an inheritance scooped out of the territory of Judah (cf. Jos. 19$1-9$ with 15$26-32. 42$: see also 1 Ch. 4$28-33$); and so-called Simeonite cities are assigned to Judah as early as the time of David (1 Sa. 27$6$ 30$30$, 2 Sa. 24$7$; cf. 1 Ki. 19$3$). In the Blessing of Moses it is passed over in silence. Traces of its dispersion may be found in such Simeonite names as Shime'i, Shāûl, Yāmîn in other tribes (Rob. Sm. J Ph. ix. 96); and we may assume that the tribe had disappeared before the establishment of the monarchy (see Steuer. 70 ff.; Meyer, INS, 75 ff.).—Very different was the fate of Levi. Like Simeon, it lost its independence and, as a secular tribe, ceased to exist. But its scattered members had a spiritual bond of unity in the possession of the Mosaic tradition and the sacred lot (Dt. 33$8ff.$), in virtue of which it secured a privileged position in the Israelite sanctuaries (Ju. 17 f.), and was eventually reconstituted on a sacerdotal basis. The contrast between this passage, where Levi is the subject of a curse, and Dt. 33, where its prerogatives are celebrated with enthusiasm, depends on the distinction just indicated: here Levi is the secular tribe, destroyed by its own ferocity, whose religious importance has not yet emerged; there, it is the Priestly tribe, which, although scattered, yet holds the sacra and the Tôrāh of the Yahwe-religion (We. Comp.$6$ 136 ff.).—The Metre is regular, except that in the last two lines the trimeters are replaced by a binary couplet. That is no sufficient reason for deleting them as an interpolation (Siev.).

8-12. Judah.

$8$ Judah! Thee shall thy brethren praise— Thy hand on the neck of thy foes— Bow down to thee shall thy father's sons.

$9$ A lion's whelp is Judah, From the prey, my son, thou'rt gone up! He crouched, he couched like a lion, And an old lion—who shall arouse him?

$10$ Departs not the sceptre from Judah, Nor staff from between his feet, Until come  (?), And to him the peoples obey.

$11$ Binding his ass to the vine, And his foal to the choicest vine! He washes his raiment in wine, And his clothes in the blood of the grape! $12$ With eyes made dull by wine, And teeth whitened with milk!