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Gen_49:5 Simeon and Levi [are] brethren; instruments of cruelty [are in] their habitations.
Ver. 5. Simeon and Levi are brethren.] Nobile par fratrum {a} not more in nature than in iniquity. Here Moses blancheth not over the blemishes of his progenitors, but wrote as he was inspired by the impartial Spirit of truth. If it could be said of Suetonius, {b} that in writing the lives of the twelve Caesars, he took the same liberty to set down their faults that they took to commit them; how much more truly may this be said of the holy penmen, they spared not themselves, much less their friends. See my "True Treasure," page 21.
Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.] Or, Are their swords. {c} Barbarous and brutish peraons they were; skilful to destroy. {Eze_21:31} Such a one was Drusus, the son of Tiberius the Emperor; so set upon bloodshed that the sharpest swords were from him called in Rome, Drusians. {d} The Spaniards are said to try the goodness of their swords upon the bodies of the poor Indians: and they suppose, saith Sir Francis Drake, {e} that they show the wretches great favour, when they do not, for their pleasure, whip them with cords; and day by day drop their naked bodies with burning bacon, which is one of their least cruelties.
{a} Horat. Metaphora et latens Antanaclasis. - Piscat.
{b} Ea libertate scripsit Imperatorum vitas, qua ipsi vixerunt.
{c} Mekerah [ îëøä ] alii reddunt per Graecam vocem, Machoeroe eorum. Non incommode. - Pareus.
{d} ùóôåñ êáé ôá ïîõôáôá ôùí îéöùí Dñïõóéáíá áð áõôïõ êëçèçíáé . - Dio.
{e} The World Encomp., by Sir Fr. Drake, p. 53.