Commentaria in Genesim
Chapter 33 verse 6
THOU WENTEST UP TO THY FATHER’S BED—thou didst defile Bala, thy father’s wife. On this matter, and on Ruben’s marvellous penance, would that it were true, the apocryphal testament of the twelve Patriarchs has an account, which I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter.
WAGING WAR.—These vessels, or instruments, were not idle, but brought unjust war and slaughter upon the Sichemites. The Hebrew is mekherotehem, which Arias, Oleaster and Vatablus render, their machaerae, as if to say: Their machaerae were vessels, that is, arms of iniquity. This is very apt, and the word machaera, like many other Latin and Greek words, seems to descend from the Hebrew, though Eugubinus denies it.
6. LET NOT MY SOUL COME INTO THEIR COUNSEL.
“Into counsel,” in which namely they treacherously plotted the slaughter of the Sichemites, as if to say: I formerly shrank from this their counsel and crime, and even now shrink from it. Secondly, allegorically, Jacob here foresaw the counsel which the Scribes and Pharisees, who descended from Simeon, entered upon against Christ. Allegorically: Ruben, says St. Ambrose, is the Jew, who violated and killed the humanity of Christ, which is as it were the couch of the divinity, and therefore is cursed by God.
And the Pontiffs and priests, who descended from Levi. The counsel, therefore, by which they plotted Christ’s death, and so imitated the crime of their parents Simeon and Levi, Jacob here detests and execrates; for this is a prophecy: so St. Ambrose, Isidore, Rupert and others.
AND IN THEIR ASSEMBLY LET NOT MY GLORY BE, as if to say: Tropologically, in like manner: Ruben are the Eutychians, Nestorians and other heretics, says Rupert; and again, wicked Prelates and princes who, poured out into the pleasures of the flesh, scandalize, violate and profane the Church. Morally: Finally, learn here first that God’s vengeance is slow, but never in vain. Behold, for Ruben’s crime, thirty years after it was committed by him and passed over by Jacob, vengeance and punishment were pronounced.
They gloried in this slaughter, as a proof of their strength: far from me be such honour and glory. The Septuagint translate, in their assembly let not my liver be engaged, as if to say: In their assembly let not my love be, nor my heart, nor my liver: for the liver is the seat of love and desire; and the Hebrew kabod, if you read it with other points, kabed, signifies liver (2).
THEY SLEW A MAN—men, namely the Sichemites, with their prince, and for the sake of a wicked cause, Sichem. It is a synecdoche.
AND IN THEIR OWN WILL—in their lust of raging. Whence the Septuagint translate, in their own desire.
THEY UNDERMINED A WALL—that is, walls, as if to say: They themselves overthrew and laid waste the walled city Sichem.
Secondly, for how paltry a cause men lose the greatest goods. Did not Ruben lose all the goods of the primogeniture for the briefest and basest pay of pleasure? Did not Esau lose the same for a dish of lentils? Thirdly, how great a crime it is to be stubborn and insolent toward parents; of which there are three famous examples in Scripture: one is Cham, son of Noe; the second Ruben, son of Jacob; the third Absalom, son of David (1).