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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - Genesis 49:4 - 49:4
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Pouring out like the waters - This is an obscure sentence because unfinished. It evidently relates to the defilement of his father’s couch; and the word פחז pachaz, here translated pouring out, and in our Version unstable, has a bad meaning in other places of the Scripture, being applied to dissolute, debauched, and licentious conduct. See Jdg 9:4; Zep 3:4; Jer 23:14, Jer 23:32; Jer 29:23.
Thou shalt not excel - This tribe never rose to any eminence in Israel; was not so numerous by one third as either Judah, Joseph, or Dan, when Moses took the sum of them in the wilderness, Num 1:21; and was among the first that were carried into captivity, 1Ch 5:26.
Then thou didst defile - Another unfinished sentence, similar to the former, and upon the same subject, passing over a transaction covertly, which delicacy forbade Jacob to enlarge on. For the crime of Reuben, see Clarke on Gen 35:22 (note).
5. Simeon and Levi, brethren:
They have accomplished their fraudulent purposes.
6. Into their secret council my soul did not come;
In their confederacy my honor was not united:
For in their anger they slew a man, (איש ish, a noble),
And in their pleasure they murdered a prince.
7. Cursed was their anger, for it was fierce!
And their excessive wrath, for it was inflexible!
I will divide them out in Jacob,
And I will disperse them in Israel.