of the Hebrew writers were eminently gifted, amplifying those signs by which their ideas were determined, by an almost mystical process of expression peculiarly their own.

Durell has some very just observations upon this prophecy. "In the two first lines," observes that judicious commentator, "Jacob dwells on the circumstance of Reuben's primogeniture, and by the affectionate manner in which he expresses himself, seems to be concerned, that his eldest son was to reap no advantage from it. In the next, by opposing his great insolence to his great dignity, he insinuates that the one proceeded from the other; and after having touched upon his crime in general in the fourth, he declares that he should in nowise be eminent among his brethren, and that because he had incestuously defiled his father's bed." This is the reason given, and it is, in truth, a very satisfactory one, for Reuben's loss of those privileges, which his birth would otherwise have entitled him to.

The poetical beauties of this passage need hardly be insisted on, as they are obvious to the most superficial scrutiny. They consist rather in picturesque expressions, bold figures and appropriate phrases, than in those artifices of construction for which the authors of the Old Testament are generally distinguished, though in the last couplet there is an imperfect parallelism, which shows that the patriarch was no stranger to those resources of the poetic art, which, after his time, were carried out into a great variety of forms by his successors.

CHAPTER XII.

The benediction on Simeon and Levi.

JACOB'S second benediction is as follows:

Simeon and Levi are brethren :

Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.

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 self-will they digged down a wall.

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.

Nothing can well be further removed from the ordinary structure of prose than the whole of this passage. It is full of inversions and other artifices of poetry, which are managed with consummate propriety and skill. Notwithstanding the obscurity of the first six lines, the felicitous variety of expression and the graceful disposition of the parallelisms can scarcely fail to strike the most indifferent observer. In the concluding quatrain, how perceptibly the subject rises in strength of development,-" their anger for it was fierce, their wrath for it was cruel." 66 Anger" and "wrath," "fierce" and "cruel," advance in force one upon the other,

by a nice but perceptible gradation. Wrath expresses the excess of anger, and cruelty the extreme of fierceness.

I will divide them in Jacob
And scatter them in Israel.

"Scatter" and "divide" are of the same character with the emphatic words of the preceding distich, they gradually rise in strength. I will first divide and then scatter them-that is, I will separate them from each other and scatter them among the tribes. Jacob here declares in his own person that he will do what will at a future time come to pass under the dispensation of Almighty God: but he merely delivers the divine determination, and speaks as one inspired to pronounce it. Jacob and Israel, in the concluding couplet, signify Canaan and those countries which were eventually to be divided among his sons. This prophecy was literally fulfilled in the descendants of the two patriarchs named in it, for the tribe of Levi had no other inheritance than forty-eight cities in different parts of Canaan; and after the tribe of Simeon had entered the promised land, so insignificant was their portion that, finding it too small for their increasing families, they formed settlements in those districts which they had conquered from the Idumeans and Amalekites.*

Herder's version of this benediction is graceful, and it certainly marks the parallelisms more distinctly than our authorized translation:

* 1 Chron. iv. 39.

Simeon and Levi! they are brethren.
Their swords were instruments of murder.
My soul came not into their bloody counsel,
My heart was not joined in their company.
When in anger they slew a hero,
And in revenge destroyed a noble ox.
Cursed be their revengeful anger,
Cursed be their cruel hatred;
I will divide them in Jacob

And scatter them in Israel.

This rendering has a good deal reduced the obscurity of the passage as given in our Bible, especially in the second couplet; but I think the first couplet is there more beautifully expressed. Herder has certainly succeeded in more distinctly tracing the parallels than our translators have done, making it manifest that the original possesses those artifices of construction peculiar to all metrical compositions. The hemistichs are nearly of the same length, and not only so, but with the exception of the two first pair, there is a consonance which could scarcely be the effect of accident. It is hardly possible to read the German version, which is very literally given by the American translator, without believing it to have been translated from a metrical original.

I shall now proceed to take the prophecy in detail.

Simeon and Levi are brethren.

That is, they are brethren in act and disposition, as well as by generation; "fellows in wickedness," as Mr. Lock styles them. They are persons of the same sanguinary tempers, easily

provoked to violence, headstrong and turbulent, fierce and cruel.

Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.

Those weapons which they have in their houses as means of defence and of security, they have converted into instruments of ruthless barbarity. They have used them with ferocious hostility against the peaceable inhabitants of the land; with them they have accomplished the massacre of a princely family and innocent people, the unsuspicious Hamor and his son, together with the too confiding Shechemites.

What can be a more apt and poetical designation for weapons of war than "instruments of cruelty," especially when employed in the destruction of unresisting victims? It is an expression admirably appropriate. Dr. Adam Clarke, however, after the Septuagint and Samaritan versions, adopts a different reading, namely,

They have accomplished their fraudulent purposes.

Although this rendering may be less obscure than that of our authorized text, it is unquestionably much less poetical. It, indeed, better characterizes the cunning of these ferocious brothers in their fictitious treaty with the Shechemites, but it by no means leaves so complete an impression upon the mind, of the sanguinary tempers of those vindictive men. There is a want of elevation and amplification of sense in the Samaritan interpretation of the clause, which