The Tribes and Us: Levi and Passion for God

[Genesis 49 is the record of Jacob’s prophecies about his sons and Deuteronomy 33 is Moses’ blessings to each of the tribes those sons engendered.  This is an exploration of these passages and others about the tribes of Israel and what we can learn from them for us today.]

We have already seen Jacob’s prediction about Levi, lumped together with Simeon:

Genesis 49:5–7

[5] “Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords.  [6] Let my soul come not into their council; O my glory, be not joined to their company.  For in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen.  [7] Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel!  I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. (ESV)

Levi was a passionate man.  His passion for the honor of his sister led him with Simeon to trick prince Shechem and all the men of his city to circumcise themselves in order to marry Levi’s sister Dinah, then kill every man in that city and plunder it, all to avenge the way Shechem had shamed his sister and their family (Genesis 34).  There is something both noble and disturbing about Levi reflected in action.

Levi’s passion and passionate hatred of his youngest brother Joseph, who is daddy’s favorite because he was born to daddy’s favorite wife, Rachel, moves him with his brothers to, at first desire to kill him outright, then later to sell him into slavery in order to profit from his, as he saw it, worthless hide.  In fact, had it not been for Reuben’s intervention, Levi and brothers would have killed Joseph right then and there.  Reuben suggested they let him die in a pit, a much more gruesome way to die but one that didn’t bloody the hands of the murderers.  Reuben planned to return later and get Joseph out but Levi and the rest sold Joseph to some passing Midianites before Reuben got the chance (Genesis 37).

So far, Levi’s record is a checkered record, but this passion he displays is seen to be play out in some very positive ways through his offspring.  Moses is a Levite.  Moses displays this same passion when, after he has grown up in the house of Pharaoh, he sees one of his fellow Israelites being beaten by an Egyptian and he slays the Egyptian, then the next day seeks to settle a dispute between two fellow Israelites (Exodus 2).  Moses has to flee Egypt and finds himself passionately defending some women who are being mistreated at a well, one of whom becomes his wife.  He has his passion squelched for forty years until God calls him from a burning bush and commissions him to bring Israel out of Egypt back to Canaan.

Moses rekindled passion is seen in how he stands before Pharaoh and eventually is able to lead his people to freedom from slavery in Egypt.  They travel to Mount Sinai where Moses receives from God the covenant requirements God has for them, the law, but when he returns from the mountain top he finds Israel engaged in idolatrous worship and he passionately casts down the stone tablets with the ten commandments on them smashing them on the ground.  The covenant is broken already (Exodus 32).

Moses stands in the entrance to the camp of Israel and asks, “Who is on Yahweh’s side, come to me,” and his fellow Levites gather around him and he instructs them to put to the sword every Israelite who is engaged in this idolatrous worship, and they slay three thousand men.  Moses tells the Levites, “Today you have been ordained for the service of Yahweh,” and from them through the house of Aaron comes the priesthood and the remainder of the Levites becomes the servants of the Tabernacle, the priestly caste within Israel.

Moses, at the end of his life, refers to this as he blesses the tribe of Levi (his own tribe):

Deuteronomy 33:8–11

[8] And of Levi he said,

“Give to Levi your Thummim, and your Urim to your godly one,  whom you tested at Massah,  with whom you quarreled at the waters of Meribah; [9] who said of his father and mother, ‘I regard them not’; he disowned his brothers and ignored his children.  For they observed your word and kept your covenant.  [10] They shall teach Jacob your rules and Israel your law; they shall put incense before you and whole burnt offerings on your altar.  [11] Bless, O LORD, his substance, and accept the work of his hands; crush the loins of his adversaries,  of those who hate him, that they rise not again.” (ESV)

The clan of Aaron within Levi will bear the Urim and Thummim, the sacred stones used by the high priest to discern the will of Yahweh, and they will be the teachers of Yahweh’s way in Israel and care for the altar in the sanctuary of God.  This is because they “disowned” their brothers for the sake of loyalty to Yahweh and His covenant.

Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).  The Levites saw God as more important than their own families.  They exemplified the very call to discipleship Jesus makes to us.  No passion can be more important than passion for him, the one who saves us.  Jesus has earned and demands our passionate loyalty.  That passion for Him will actually make us better fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters, especially since we will see our family and friends as properly subordinate to our Savior, and at our Savior’s bidding, love them more sacrificially and healthily than we would have otherwise.

Do you have Levi’s passion for the Lord?