fresh pasture (1Ch 4:39-43). Hence the assertion that the omission of Simeon is only conceivable from the circumstances of a later age, is as mistaken as the attempt made in some of the MSS of the Septuagint to interpolate the name of Simeon in the second clause of Deu 33:6.
Verse 7
The blessing upon Judah is introduced with the formula, “And this for Judah, and he said:” “Hear, Jehovah, the voice of Judah, and bring him to his people; with his hands he fights for him; and help against his adversaries wilt Thou be.” Judah, from whom the sceptre was not to depart (Gen 49:10), is mentioned before Levi as the royal tribe. The prayer, May Jehovah bring Judah to his people, can hardly be understood in any other way than it is by Onkelos and Hengstenberg (Christol. i. 80), viz., as founded upon the blessing of Jacob, and expressing the desire, that as Judah was to lead the way as the champion of his brethren in the wars of Israel against the nations, he might have a prosperous return to his people; for the thought, “introduce him to the kingdom of Israel and Judah” (Luther), or “give up to him the people which belongs to him according to Thine appointment” (Schultz), is hardly implied in the words, “bring to his people.” Other explanations are not worth mentioning. What follows points to strife and war: “With his hands (ידיו accusative of the instrument, vid., Ges. §138, 1, note 3; Ewald, §283, a.) is he fighting (רב participle of ריב) for it (the nation); Thou wilt grant him help, deliverance before his foes.”
verses 8-11
Levi. - Deu 33:8, Deu 33:9. “Thy right and Thy light is to Thy godly man, whom Thou didst prove in Massah, and didst strive with him at the water of strife; who says to his father and his mother, I see him not; and does not regard his brethren, and does not know his sons: for they observed Thy word, and kept Thy covenant.” This blessing is also addressed to God as a prayer. The Urim and Thummim - that pledge, which the high priest wore upon his breast-plate, that the Lord would always give His people light to preserve His endangered right (vid., Exo 28:29-30), - are here regarded as a prerogative of the whole of the tribe of Levi. Thummim is placed before Urim, to indicate at the outset that Levi had defended the right of the Lord, and that for that very reason the right of the Urim and Thummim had been given to him by the Lord. “Thy holy one” is not Aaron, but Levi the tribe-father, who represents the whole tribe to which the blessing applies; hence in Deu 33:9 and Deu 33:10 the verb passes into the plural. To define more
