Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 6:14-15

14 These be the heads of their fathers’ houses: The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel; Hanoch, and Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi: these be the families of Reuben.

15 And the sons of Simeon; Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanitish woman: these are the families of Simeon.

The account in Exodus 6 suddenly pivots to describing the clans that grew out of the twelve tribes of Israel. It begins with the main households of Reuben, the firstborn, and Simeon, the second-born. The ancestry of these two households does not go past the second generation, though, and there were certainly other generations before that of the current narrative.

But, take notice, the record is not actually trying to give us a full genealogy here. As we will see tomorrow, after Reuben and Simeon are briefly mentioned, the record goes into much fuller detail with the descendants of Levi. And after doing that, none of the descendants of the other tribes of Israel will be detailed at all!

Therefore, this is not a standard genealogy sequence in the Bible. Presumably Reuben and Simeon are only mentioned to establish context before diving into the details of the third-born son Levi. These and the following verses are actually just helping us to understand the link from Levi to Aaron and Moses, and the eventual transformation of that tribe into the priest class.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 49:5-7

5 Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.

6 O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.

7 Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.

Simeon and Levi are the next to be blessed by Jacob, but their pronouncement is even more dire than Reuben’s! Both of them are rebuked for their slaughter in the city of Shalem. Indeed, verse six he seems to express a fear that Jacob has held towards them himself ever since he knew such violence existed in their hearts.

Jacob refers to their act of killing, but also how they “digged down a wall,” by which I assume he means how their actions broke down his relationship with all the people in that country. This expression would be very similar to our current one of “burning bridges.”

As recompense, Jacob pronounces a curse rather than a blessing upon the tribes. He says that they will be divided and scattered in Israel. We will learn in Joshua 19 and 1 Chronicles 4 that Simeon was a stunted nation when they came into Canaan, such that it only received various cities within the kingdom of Judah, not becoming a proper state unto itself, and quite probably without all of its habitations connected as one. As for Levi, it would be even more scattered, never possessing any collected stretch of land to call its own, being distributed instead throughout the entire nation of Israel.

Levi’s curse did have a blessing inside of it, though, as their scattering was due to their being the priest caste that oversaw the functions of the temple. This assignment seems to be due at least in part to the fact that Moses and Aaron were of that tribe, and they were the ones entrusted with the priesthood when Israel was led out of Egypt. One other notable figure in Levi’s descendancy is John the Baptist. Of course, John was the cousin of Jesus, who was of the tribe Judah. The two men’s connection was through their mothers, while their fathers were of separate tribes.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 49:3-4

3 Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power: 

4 Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.

Reuben, the firstborn, receives his blessing from Jacob. Jacob acknowledges the strength and dignity and excellency that Reuben began with, but for his crime of adultery he has lost his place. Jacob foretells that Reuben will not excel among his brethren, and this proves to be true. Reuben will never produce a king or a prophet, at least none that are noted in the biblical narrative.

Reuben will be part of the ten tribes that break off from Judah and will be taken captive by the Assyrians with the rest of the kingdom, more than seven hundred years before the birth of Christ. What happened to them after that is a matter of broad speculation, but as with most of the tribes there is no clear answer.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 37:22-24

22 And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again. 

23 And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him; 

24 And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.

Reuben sought to save Joseph, but he had to account for the other brothers’ wrath. Perhaps if he stood entirely on the side of Joseph they would have killed him as well, so instead he suggested that they throw him into a pit in the middle of the wilderness. The idea was that Joseph would still die, there wasn’t even any water for him to drink, but it would spare them from directly staining their hands with his blood.

But as verse 22 reveals, this was all a ruse. Rueben’s actual intention was to come back to the pit after the others had left and get Joseph out of it. Perhaps then he would have urged Joseph to venture out on his own, or maybe he was hoping the others would have calmed down enough to bring the boy back home. In either case, though, this plan of Reuben’s was not to be.

Todays verses again parallel the story of the Savior. Both Joseph and Jesus were betrayed by their brethren and consigned to death. Both of them had a sympathetic ear in Pilate and Reuben, who each tried to save the condemned man but failed. Also, the tearing of Joseph’s cloak seems symbolic to me of when Jesus’s body was torn by the whip before being raised on the cross.

Thus, in many ways Joseph was alone in this suffering, but at the same time he also had a Savior who would endure the same manner of afflictions, and who would therefore know how to speak comfort to his soul. And though that Savior wouldn’t pass through those afflictions until many years later, I believe that in the celestial perspective all of time is laid out as one, and an experience of the future can be called upon to empathize with what has happened in the past.