Instead, God assigned cities to the Levites that they were to live in to carry out their priestly duties. These cities were spread throughout the land of Canaan and surrounded every tribe and every region. A full list of the cities designated by God for the Levites to live in can be found in Joshua A bit later, we learn of a birth that would change history.
The birth of Moses. Both his father, Amram and his mother were Levites making him pure Levitical blood. Scripture mentions one daughter of Jacob, named Dinah. While she is not a prominent figure, she does play a short, but pivotal role in biblical history. In Genesis 34, we read that she was out visiting some Canaanite women and was raped by Shechem, the son of the chief in the area, Hamor.
Shechem claims to have fallen in love with Dinah and her beauty and asks his father to approach Jacob with the hopes of marrying her. Hamor tells Jacob to set any bride price he wished and for there to be peace between them. Neither Shechem nor Hamor seem to have no repentance for his crime! Jacob, clearly distraught, as any father would be, said nothing until his sons returned from the fields. He was probably in shock! So what did they conspire to do?
They deceived Shechem and his father by agreeing to allow Dinah to marry Shechem if all of the men in the city of Shechem are circumcised.
Shockingly, the men of Shechem agree to this, and all of the men in the city were circumcised. Now, this is where it really gets interesting. They took the flocks, the cattle, the donkeys, and everything else in the city and in the fields. They took everything of value, captured all the women and children, and carried off everything in the houses. Jacob was beside himself about this situation and said to Simeon and Levi:.
I do not have many men; if they all band together against me and attack me, our whole family will be destroyed. God instructed Jacob to move the family further south, to Bethel. In addition, Levi was not mentioned by name in the Though not mentioned by name in the conspiracy to kill Joseph, he did readily go along with the plan of his brothers. Ultimately, it was Reuben who swayed their minds from murder making Levi guilty of harming his own family member.
Through the descendants of his son Kohath, the various levels of religious service were allocated. In the Jewish Apocryphal text the Levi Document; Levi is ordained to the priesthood by angelic beings. In another apocryphal document, The Book of Jubilees, Jacob, on his deathbed, passes on to Levi special secrets known to the ancients.
In the book of Numbers, chapter 18 the Levites are given responsibility for serving the priests. All priests are Levites as Aaron was, but not all Levites were priests. Before the Exodus the eldest son of each family would play the priestly role, but after the Exodus priests were only made from the descendants of Aaron. The duties of the Levites included singing during Temple services, carrying out any construction and maintenance needed for the Temple. They also served as guards around the tabernacle and Levites also worked as both teachers and judges.
The prophet Ezra reported that the Levites were in charge of building work on the Second Temple. They also would both translate and explain the Torah when it was read in public. Both Jeremiah and Malachi speak of a special covenant God had with the Levites. Jesus came to initiate a new priesthood not limited to a specific tribe. Public Domain. Levi is one of the 12 sons of Israel, and members of his tribe became the served in the Temple as priests and assistants.
He avenged the humiliation of his sister, Dinah, by slaughtering an entire tribe. This did not sit well with his father, Jacob, who rebuked him for such violence. Read more: Moses urged his people to find peace in the present moment. Or, our sins we struggled with during different points of our lives may lead our children to be tempted by the same struggles. Maybe we had too much of a taste for alcohol, and now our kids are wanting to have one drink too many, for instance.
In the case of Levi, although he rightly wanted justice for the actions against his sister, takes the avenging too far. He forgets that vengeance belongs to the Lord Deuteronomy Because of this, his future descendants, though many, would end up scattered. He came from a messed-up family, and many of his actions lead to deaths and years of hardship in Egypt for his brother Joseph.
Through Levi, we can learn the importance and repercussions of our actions. He can still purify the sons of Levi Malachi —and he can still purify us. Hope Bolinger is an editor at Salem, a multi-published novelist, and a graduate of Taylor University's professional writing program. More than 1, of her works have been featured in various publications ranging from Writer's Digest to Keys for Kids.
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